Premium
Almost one third (30 percent) of the teachers using technology have by 30 percent more time for classes and Romania should carry on this path, Head of Communication and Corporate Affairs Lead of Microsoft Romania Adela Bradu stated on Tuesday at the Microsoft Business Summit 2018.
"Everybody tries hard, nobody found the recipe and this can be to Romania's advantage. There are countries that are a bit more advanced, such as Estonia, Finland, but currently, there is a balance between this tendency to introduce technology with which children are used to, with the human factor, that remains the basis of education. We cannot ignore the trends, we cannot not use technology. Technology is a facilitator and it must be taken into account as such. There are studies showing that teachers using technology have 30 percent more time for classes. Education must place the child at its core, as always, this will not change. If teachers could have by 30 percent more time to deal with each and every individual, then probably this is the direction we must follow. Romania has no choice and it has to go this direction if it wants to be 10-15 years from now, at least where it is now. As mathematics was one of the strongest subject matters in schools in the past, we currently have all these companies, including Microsoft, that employ thousands of IT specialists, who return to the economy with their own companies. We look at UiPath, where the founder worked for years on data technology in a large IT company. If we want this phenomenon to continue and grow, we must do something," Bradu said.
The Microsoft Romania representative brought to mind a series of education projects developed by the company in Romania, with one of them addressing to a number of over 3,000 gymnasium teachers.
"Our company is developing an education project through which we are trying to increase the children's digital abilities. We are trying to get to the less-favored areas and we are not doing this by ourselves, but with the help of four NGOs and on several levels. It is very important that tutors continue to play a role, because they are the ones who inspire children, who guide children. The human factor remains foremost beyond technology. So the first ones we thought of were the teachers and, taking into account that we introduced last year the Informatics subject as obligatory, we teach them to program, to create technology, not only to use it. We have an ample project that prepares over 3,000 gymnasium teachers, more than half of gymnasium teachers across the country, so they are able to teach the new subject in an attractive way. For example, Microsoft has developed on the Minecraft platform the possibility for youngsters to encode with Java Script and with code blocks. They are very attracted to this thing, when seeing that the characters they played with are moving and they are programming them, giving them those instructions that they might have wanted to be included in the game and weren't," the Microsoft Romania representative mentioned.
At the same time, through the CoderDojo project, IT specialists become mentors in programming and encoding for children.
Experts and business leaders discussed on Tuesday, at the Microsoft Business Summit 2018, about the transformations and challenges of this sector through the influence of technology.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the world leader in software, services, devices and solutions that help people and businesses reach their full potential.
