18th April 2020 09:24
Recently, students in Hanoi in specific and the whole of Vietnam in general mainly study online or via TV to avoid gathering in schools and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
In reality, this first mass implementation has revealed many challenges such as inconsistent technology infrastructure, slow and unstable connection along with insufficient technology capability of teachers, parents and students.
Education specialists figure that there are different strengths and weaknesses in both online studying and TV studying. TV studying is mass and convenient but lacks interactions between teachers and students. Meanwhile, online studying via the Internet allows multiple students in a same room and interaction with the teacher, but most studying applications are based on foreign servers with low information security, personal information of teachers and students is easily exposed and stolen via access passwords. In some applications, classes were disrupted by offensive images and content from bad people.
A teacher in Nam Trung Yen Elementary school (Cau Giay district, Hanoi) reported that some students with bad attitude wanted to disrupt the online classes so they shared their account online for people with ill intentions to access and share contents of different purposes. Moreover, for online teaching and studying, teachers must use many other applications to assist the class, exchange test papers and mark, which leads to confusion in many steps. Meanwhile, popular applications only allows 40 minutes of teaching for each account, if one is not skilful enough or the connection is jammed, the class is rendered inefficient and short in time. To get more hours, schools will have to pay while the budget for such activities is tight.
A few Principals and teachers in Long Bien district (Hanoi) shared that initially, it took lots of time to get used to Zoom Cloud Meetings app (Zoom in short) because they need to use multiple apps to teach, mark and return their test papers so it was inconvenient. Many parents didn't know how to use the app so they had to use Grab Bikes to deliver the works home for students. Moreover, most classes were disrupted due to the Internet connection and unskilled users, if one wanted to extend the class they would have to pay while there was no budget.
It is reported that in many provinces, cities and big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city, teachers mostly found Zoom app quite convenient. However, this app also requires Zalo app to exchange information, mark and return test papers. Recently when schools are only starting to get used to the app, there were alerts from the authorities and press news against the app due to privacy issues...
On the other hand, aside from the most common Zoom app, many provinces and cities also use apps such as F1 School, Shub Classroom etc... The current issue is about ensuring personal privacy and information security. In order to overcome this challenge, The Ministry of Education and Training has allowed the testing of "AIC - Online Studying" software developed by the local Advanced International Joint Stock Company (AIC) in many schools among 5 cities and provinces including Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ninh, Bac Ninh, Thai Binh and Yen Bai. This is considered as a solution for the current teaching and studying challenges, as well as an encouragement for innovation and collaboration of domestic technology companies under two priorities - high security and Vietnamese interface.
According to reports, the reality during early implementing days of "AIC - Online Studying" app has revealed many difficulties due to the insufficient infrastructure of provinces and cities and inconsistent technology ability of teachers and students. There were a few technical issues... However, the production company has gathered many experiences and fixed these issues with a view of mass implementation across the country. A representative of AIC Group shared: "AIC - Online studying" app is convenient to use. All features are included in one place, teachers and students only need to access one app to carry out all the functions of a class without disrupting contents.
According to their technology specialists, this app is an optimised by incorporating many other apps for ease of usage. For example, a teacher can directly discuss with students, choose a student who raises their hand to speak, mark test papers, return the marked paper, turn the microphone on or off, etc.... Everything is included in this "AIC - Online Studying" app for both Android and iOS platform, which users can access via tablets, smartphones or desktops. The outstanding features of this app are a 9 layers of security as well as localised managing servers in all working provinces and cities. Furthermore, all online studying activities are free with unlimited studying time, similar to many other apps.
At the moment, this app has been appraised by a group of specialists from the Ministry of Information and Communication and the Ministry of Education and Training to ensure the technical aspects, professional contents as well as security level for teachers and students all across the country to rest assured when using. It is noteworthy to point out that the implementation of "AIC - Online Studying" app in a few areas has shown satisfactory results, it is a positive sign that a local application has got a relevant real-life application.
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