NetOp School earns tops marks at Russian university

NetOp School is teaching educators at the Seversky State Technology University the advantages of computer-based teaching.

The Seversky State Technology University in Siberia offers a wide range of educational services and tertiary courses. Considerable focus is placed on optimizing the learning process, and new technology is constantly being evaluated by the Information Technologies Laboratory to gauge how much real value it can contribute to the institution’s efficiency. According to Galina Gracheva, computer training department director, the increasing challenge when teaching computer technology, is to make the material compact and vivid, to keep the students’ attention focused on the subject material, and to present it in an interesting way to make it easier to remember. This not only improves students’ understanding and recall of the material, it also allows more time for the practical “hands-on” exercises afterwards.

Today, the Seversky State Technology University has a new tool for solving this problem. Following a successful evaluation period, NetOp School from Danware is now being used in the qualification upgrade faculty and computer-training department. And judging by the response, the innovative application is set to become the new teacher’s pet.

“Students are young and full of energy,” explains Galina. “So often they don’t pay attention when things are being explained to them. This means they frequently make mistakes during the practical exercises, and the teachers end up having to repeat themselves. Ultimately this reduces the overall efficiency of the educational process, and that’s bad for the University.” With NetOp School, however, it’s different. The teacher can, with one mouse click, take control over all the students’ PCs, which means students can’t use their computers to work on other tasks, they can only follow what the teacher is teaching them. This improves how effectively the time is spent, plus it strengthens the logical links between the different parts of the course because they are learnt in the correct order.

Another group of students now using NetOp School are graduates doing short courses to upgrade their qualifications. While often older and more responsible, they frequently used to over-estimate their capabilities and often started assignments or tasks prematurely. The negative impact of their impatience was especially noticeable in the speed this group was able to acquire new knowledge in. “Using NetOp School has changed that,” says Galina Gracheva. “When the teacher locks the students’ PCs, they have no option but to concentrate on what the teacher is telling them. This makes it faster and easier to ensure they all understand the theory and the logic in the material before they start working on the computers themselves.”

Another benefit of using NetOp School is that it makes it easy for teachers to review each student’s work, and to display their efforts as examples to the rest of the class. “This feature improves the speed with which a class can discuss any individual’s work. It also helps motivate students to try harder if they think there’s a chance their efforts might suddenly be shown to everyone else,” explains Galina.

“But the most unexpected advantage we have experienced, was the improved learning environment we can now offer to students with, for example, poor eyesight,” explains Galina. “Before we purchased NetOp School, the classes were set up around a 42” LCD screen, and students with poor eyesight or those not sitting close enough to the big screen to see all the details clearly, lost vital information that they needed for the exercises later. This effectively slowed down the whole class. Often students are reluctant to admit they can’t see the teaching material properly, and this inevitably impacts their results. With NetOp School, the content on the main screen is reproduced on their own screen. This makes it much easier for everyone to see everything that is going on” explains Galina Gracheva.

Alex Absalamov of Axis Projects, who helped facilitate the deal with Seversky State Technology University, believes there is a lot of potential for NetOp School in Russia. “Very few companies and educational institutions in Russia are aware of the benefits that a computer-based teaching application like NetOp School can provide,” he explains. “But Russia has a long tradition for high academic standards and for embracing new technology. With NetOp School, those two factors go hand-in-hand.”

For more information about Seversky State Technology University, please visit www.ssti.ru