The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed shortcomings in the Kyrgyz education system and many problems have arisen. All schoolchildren and students had to study at home in the form of distance learning. With distance learning, the following problems arose:
- Lack of training materials required for online learning, lack of available mobile phone materials and large file sizes;
- Difficulty using online learning tools;
- In some places, Internet access was poor and not available;
- Lack of materials in Kyrgyz (60% of Kyrgyz-taught schools in Kyrgyzstan)
- There are no materials that encourage students to study online and there is no platform for feedback between teacher and student;
There were problems with the lack of structuring of the teaching materials available (such as online video tutorials, tests, etc.).
The process of teaching by tele-lessons. Photo: Ministry of Education of Kyrgyzstan.
Even before the pandemic, the Internet Society Kyrgyzstan Chapter had done a lot of important work in the field of education. At the moment, the ilimbox project, a digital source of knowledge, has been successfully implemented, the digital device has been placed in areas where there is no Internet connection.
The Kyrgyz Internet Society is working to address these issues, to develop an accessible educational platform that would regulate distance learning, increase the volume and consolidation of Kyrgyz language materials, provide feedback between teachers and students, and monitor student learning.
Currently, the ilimbox educational platform has been developed.
The ilimbox team has developed a system taking into account all the problems that arise during online training, and has the following advantages:
- All video tutorials and educational materials are adapted for mobile phones, tablets and computers.
- Calendar integration, reminders, return to recent reading, and more.
- Interesting tests and fun interactive tasks.
- For students not attending a temporary school, this is an opportunity to continue their studies without going beyond the curriculum.
- Providing teachers with digital multimedia materials on subjects.
- A training tool available during a pandemic and all training materials in one place.
The ilimbox team took into account all the news and developed an open educational platform.
Registration and use of the platform has been simplified. Users can register using their mobile phone number and email.
Books and teaching materials were adapted to computers, tablets and mobile phones; divided into classes, quarters and lessons within the framework of the calendar-thematic plan
The file size and quality of video tutorials have been reduced without loss of quality, which in turn allows you to use a low-speed Internet connection and save bandwidth. For example, if the file size of the book was originally 600 MB, on our platform it is 20 MB.
If the video tutorials are 300 MB on the YouTube platform, the ilimbox educational platform is only 30 MB and without any loss of quality.
This, in turn, gives great advantages to our schoolchildren, you can open at a low Internet speed and save Internet traffic.
Schoolchildren can easily watch video lessons and learn on the ilimbox platform without worrying about the speed and traffic of the Internet, because in our system all materials are compressed tens and even hundreds of times.
Why was it important to us?
Firstly, in our country there are places where the speed of the Internet connection is very weak, the file size is very important for such regions. Educational material (video tutorials, books, etc.) of small size and without loss of quality – this makes it comfortable to use the platform.
Secondly, schoolchildren can save Internet traffic, for example, if they watch one video lesson on YouTube, they can spend an average of 300 MB, and on the ilimbox platform they can watch video lessons, solve interactive problems and tests for 30 MB, and for the remaining Internet traffic can be spent on viewing other educational materials. You can read about this in detail here.
Interactive tasks and informative tests test students’ knowledge and encourage them to learn.
The ilimbox team does not want to be satisfied with what has already been achieved, the future plans of the team are to fill it with interesting educational materials, prepare and post short videos of experiments in physics, chemistry and natural science for high school students in the Kyrgyz language. Filling the ilimbox.kg platform with ORT and subject tests.
The Ilimbox Distance Learning Educational Platform for Schoolchildren project is funded by the Democratic Commission’s Small Grants Program of the US Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic 2020-2021.The Ilimbox project is funded by the Democratic Commission Small Grants Program of the US Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic.
