In October 2019, the ISOC team installed 9 (nine) ilimBox devices in the Chui region. 3 (three) devices were installed in Tokmok, another 6 (six) devices in schools in the Moskva and Panfilov districts.
Chui region is considered the most prosperous and developed region of Kyrgyzstan. According to data for 2018, the largest share of industrial production – 45% falls on this particular region. It would seem that schools in the Chuy valley should be better equipped technically, provided with Internet and textbooks in comparison with other regions. However, in reality the situation is completely different. In our visit to the region the first thing that struck was the old school buildings, poor furniture and outdated computers. In one of the schools, students said that they have to photograph the necessary pages of books on smartphones to do their homework. The problem would be solven by Internet , but students don’t have an internet access in schools, even if Chui region borders with Kazakhstan wich supplies 90% of Internet traffic to Kyrgyzstan. One of the reasons is the lack of funding for monthly Internet payments. The other is poor internet connection, our team got lost on the road several times trying to use Google Maps, because of low internet speed the application worked intermittently.
We randomly selected schools to install the ilimBox. When high school students from the village of Keper-Aryk found out about this, we were very happy that they were so lucky. They told that Ch. Aitmatov was incorporated in the school curriculum, but neither the textbooks nor the library contain his works. Now they can download and read at home the works by Ch. Aitmatov in electronic form.
Ilimbox-digital source of knowledge-a product implemented on the basis of Orange Pi in order to provide access to students and teachers of remote secondary schools of the Kyrgyz Republic to textbooks in digital format, Wikipedia and resources of Khan Academy in offline mode.
The Ilimbox project is funded by the Beyond The Net program created by the Internet Society Foundation and AIEF2018. The project is implemented by the Kyrgyz Chapter of the Internet Society ISOC.
About ilimBox and other projects ISOC.KG, you can follow the links:
17 Sep 2019 team ISOC went to Talas to install ilimBox devices in schools. The first 5 (five) secondary schools were selected in Talas district: school of Tuitunova (Taldy-Bulak), school of R. Aydaraliev (Kopuro Bazar), school of A. Borubaev (Kara-Oh), school of Zhumagul Alymkul (Sasyk-Bulak), school of G. Orozalieva (Kenesh).
Talas district is an administrative unit that occupies the East of Talas region, the administrative center is the village of Manas. This district was the largest in length in comparison with other districts of Talas region.
According to the reports of the Ministry of education and science, schools in Talas region are 100% covered by the global Internet, but on the ground, we saw a different picture. Despite the fact that there live active users who quickly respond to the new technical capabilities of mobile Internet, however, in all five schools of Talas district, it was revealed that children do not have access to the General Internet of the school. Moreover, in two schools of this area, in an office of administration use the mobile Internet, respectively, teachers are also compelled to prepare for occupations on books in library which as they admitted, catastrophically isn’t enough to children that are compelled to give one book on two and all academic year children divide it “in half”. Thus, there are three main reasons for choosing these schools: students do not have access to the Internet, there is a shortage of books and the number of students exceeds the permissible maximum.
The above situation motivated us to go there to present an interesting alternative to the Internet as a device – ilimBox. The project aims to address problems such as the lack of books and the lack of Internet in General education institutions. In these schools, it was conducted presentation of the project “ilimBox” and testing the device with students and teachers.
We explained that the digital library contains a Wikipedia in Kyrgyz, Russian and English, Khan Academy in English, thousands of video and audio lessons and e-books. The guys were surprised that the device allows you to access all educational resources without an Internet connection. The school administration gladly and gratefully accepted our gift, and left video reviews that are uploaded to the youtube channel ISOC.
In recent years, the Internet has become increasingly accessible to Kyrgyz people. If about 5 years ago only residents of the capital could afford access to the world wide web, now it is quite a familiar thing for residents of the regions.
The Internet plays an important role in modern education. Problems such as the shortage of school textbooks could be addressed through quality Internet access. Given this fact, the Ministry of education of Kyrgyzstan has carried out a lot of work in this direction and for 2 years connected almost 2 thousand state and municipal schools to the Internet, which is almost 90% of all schools in the country. However, the analysis showed that schoolchildren still do not have access to the world wide web. Fearing that students will be distracted from lessons and use the Internet for other purposes, school authorities do not provide students with access.
Innovative solutions to two pressing problems such as the lack of books and the lack of Internet can be seen in the project digital library for schools and public libraries “Ilim Box”, which contains Wikipedia in Kyrgyz, Russian and English, Khan Academy in English, thousands of video lessons, audio and e-books. All these digital learning materials are available offline, in other words does not need Internet access. Access to Digital libraries will be carried out through smartphones, tablets, computers and any other personal devices with Wi-Fi technology.
“As you know, the Internet has a huge number of educational resources that would help our children to access the most advanced knowledge online. Unfortunately, now a lot of students can not watch educational videos, read online books and use all educational resources. In order to solve this problem, we launched a project Ilimbox”, – said the representative of the Internet community in Kyrgyzstan (ISOC) Talant Sultanov.
The device allows you to access all educational resources without an Internet connection, in other words offline.
“The content that is online, we downloaded to the hard drive, attached a small computer that also acts as a Wi-Fi router. Any user will be able to download the necessary information to your computer or smartphone. What is most important-the user gets access only to educational resources, he will not have access to social networks and other entertainment content”, – explained Talant Sultanov.
It is worth noting that all data is stored in the device itself, and only the power supply and the box itself are needed for connection. The uniqueness of the innovative project is that students can access educational resources at school without an Internet connection.
“This is a very useful device, because on the one hand it provides access to an extensive database of educational materials, and on the other – it does not have entertainment content that would interfere with students during lessons. We are very happy that we had the opportunity to IlimBox and use it for educational purposes”, – shared his impressions the Director of one of schools of Karakol Gulzat Soukouna.
It should be noted that the IlimBox device was installed in 66 schools of Issyk-Kul, Talas and Chui regions. In these schools was held a presentation of the project “Ilim box” then testing the device with students and teachers and handing the device. During the conversation, the importance of education and self-education were touched upon. The choice of schools was due to several factors: no access to the Internet for students, lack of books, as well as the number of students exceeded the permissible maximum, thereby increasing the likelihood of poor performance in schools without a network connection, as well as the choice of educational institutions influenced the list of proposed schools by the Ministry of education and science of the Kyrgyz REPUBLIC.
The project is planned to cover all regions of Kyrgyzstan and install IlimBox in a total of 100 devices in schools experiencing problems with Internet access. Every educational institution reggenie gets IlimBox free.
The project is funded by Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund 2018 (AEIF) as part of innovative solutions to global challenges and the Beyond the Net ISOC program.
In Talas region the student considers it necessary to implement the project “ilimBox”.
ilimBox-digital source of knowledge-product, created based on Orange Pi. The aim of the project is to provide teachers and students of remote secondary schools of the Kyrgyz Republic with digital textbooks, Wikipedia and Khan Academy resources. The project” IlimBox “funded by the Internet Society Foundation and the program” Beyond The Net”, created AIEF2018.
The project is implemented by the Kyrgyz branch of the Internet society ISO.
The final trip was school of D. Turabekova (Boz-Bulun v.). There are 214 students enrolled.
In this school the device “Ilim Box” was earlier established, however, it was the outdated version which as it became clear, unfortunately, wasn’t used on purpose, and gathered dust in one of offices as the head teacher lost the password from the old device.
The updated version without a password system pleased the school administration.
During the presentation, we showed the improved nuances of the device and instructed on the use of high school children.
The penultimate visit was to the school Esimbekova (Tegizchil v.).
It is a compact school with 238 children. It is located on the outskirts of the village Tegizchil, however, despite this, at school we met a volunteer from the United States who came on a Peace Corps knowledge-sharing project.
He teaches children English for the second academic year and speaks Kyrgyz perfectly.
Teachers and children admitted, in school except an office of administration there is no Internet access anywhere.
Of course such a gift to the school was very useful and also solved the problem of acute shortage of books.
The guys offered to install the device in the office of the school government, as it is usually open around the clock.
This is one of the largest educational institutions of Issyk-Kul region, in which we have established ilimBox, it has 2600 students, children study in double shifts school.
Despite the fact that the school is a gymnasium and is located in Karakol, it still has difficulties accessing the global network.
As high school students admitted, they liked the project with free access to educational information and the opportunity to learn English through the educational resource “Khan Academy”.
The device was installed in the office of computer science and attached instructions for use in Russian.
In the fifth school it was possible to meet not only teachers, but also pupils whom in school will count 268.
The presentation ilimBox called about ten active high school students and several teachers.
In this school, we noticed posters prohibiting the use of a mobile device at school, as in the classroom, children often use it for entertainment purposes.
We, in turn, have shown that with the advent of “IlimBox” smartphone can be used exclusively for educational purposes, and all this can be fun through video lessons.
