Damascus-SANA
The Director of the Technical Department of the Internet Service Provider Company at the Syrian Scientific Informatics Society, Eng. Samer Al-Masry, confirmed that the “distance learning” platform launched by the Society last year is considered a gateway to a new era of digital education in Syria, as it has high flexibility and gives quick positive results.
In an interview with (SANA), Al-Masry explained that launching the distance learning platform was the ideal solution to continue the educational process in light of the circumstances imposed by the measures to address the Corona virus, as it simulates real education in terms of the content of the material and to make a general note that is watched by all students, in addition to instant communication between The student and the teacher indicated that this platform was developed with national efforts based on open source software, as it works according to servers hosted in the association's data center, allowing all the data of the educational process to be stored within the Syrian servers.
Al-Masry believed that investing technology in the educational field through the distance learning platform is an advanced system that goes in line with the era of speed and measures the level of students accurately and develops their self-education and communication skills. It is a wonderful opportunity to create an advanced educational system in line with the rapid progress in the world and creates a new generation that deals with Digital technology is positive and easy, while at the same time taking into account that it is a virtual platform as an aid and complement to real education and not a substitute for it.
Al-Masry indicated that the platform allowed the delivery of information to the students through adequate explanation and appropriate explanatory means, and presenting an integrated lesson remotely as if it was in a classroom through the annotation tools, reviewing files to clarify ideas and sharing videos and images appropriate to the topic of the lesson at hand.
And about the platform’s mechanism of action, Al-Masry explained that special accounts are created for each of the lecturer, student or school through the platform supervisor, and each user has certain powers, different according to the level. Users are provided with an interface to host sessions, where entry is made through a user name and password with ease through a computer or phone mobile.
Al-Masry stated that 1,500 students are served to enter at the same moment according to the capabilities that were employed in order to improve this service, in addition to the fact that the platform provides the ability to give 10 online lessons at the same hour.
Al-Masry pointed out that the association provides servers and connectivity as an infrastructure for the educational process, so that it puts in the hands of students and their teachers a platform that accommodates a large number of participants.
Al-Masry talked about the services provided by the platform, including the service of remote lectures and virtual conferences, which have proven their success through many conferences and lectures that were broadcast on the platform, including the Unipharma Conference for Pharmaceutical Industries (online) and the Expatriates Conference, which took place in cooperation with the Supreme Authority for Scientific Research In addition to the association's meetings, he pointed out that the lectures are broadcast on the YouTube channel, recorded and referenced when needed or for archiving.
Al-Masry revealed that there is a promising project with Damascus University to sign memoranda of understanding with the Faculty of Informatics and Civil Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine, after signing the first agreement to invest the (distance learning) platform between the association and Sawa (Montessori) School in Damascus.
Nour Youssef and Bilal Khazem
