On August 14, the 1st National Smart Classroom Pioneer Forum co-hosted by CVTE educational technology brand seewo and the informatization teaching improvement project team of Faculty of Education of Beijing Normal University was held in Guangzhou. Informatization experts, school principals and teachers around China took part in the forum to discuss the directions of smart classroom construction and teaching reform in the context of Education Informatization 2.0.

“Centering on students” has become the important concept of the deepening education and teaching reform in the new era. Framework documents including The 13th Five-Year Plan for Education Informatization propose to accelerate the development of learner-centered teaching and learning methods by depending on educational informatization. In response to relevant policies, the forum shared the frontier theories about the smart classroom with excellent education professionals and displayed national model and demonstration schools’ application achievements to achieve the stable application of a smart classroom.   

seewo on education: to help people with tools and empower them with services

At the beginning of the forum, Huang Minghan, President of CVTE Future Education Group, delivered a speech, in which he elaborated on the smart classroom from the perspective of the features of the informatization era. According to him, the goal of education is to foster confidence and good habits in children.

“However, fostering a good habit is time-consuming and thus offers a delay in gratification. The smart classroom functions to bring forward the delay of gratification to give the feedback about children’s progress in time and cultivate good habits in children,” said Huang Minghan.

(Huang Minghan)

Afterward, Qiu Che, General Manager of the Learning Affairs Department of CVTE Future Education Group, shared seewo’s brand philosophy and the product concept of its EasiClassroom. According to him, “Helping people with tools and empowering them with services” are seewo’s goals in its pursuit of education. “The ‘Easi’ in EasiClassroom means being easy for teachers and students to use. It is also inspired by I Ching, which means changes, to bring true changes to classroom teaching and support future teaching reform.”

(Qiu Che)

Since 2018, seewo and the Beijing Normal University project team have been carrying out comprehensive industry-university-research cooperation in such aspects as informatization education product research and development, teacher training class development and typical teaching case development. President Dong Shifeng of the Nanhu School affiliated to Beijing Normal University, Principal Wang Ying of the Future Science Park Branch of Experimental Primary School of Beijing Normal University, Vice Principal Shi Jian of Guangzhou Experimental School affiliated to Beijing Normal University, and Dr. Zhu Jingxi, head of Beijing Normal University general project team participated in the forum and addressed the participants.

Voice of experts: interpretation of the trend of classroom teaching revolution

“In the saying ‘a workman must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well’, does the ‘tool’ precede the ‘work’ or is it the other way around?” This is an open question raised by Dr. Zhu Jingxi of Beijing Normal University general project team in the expert lecture entitled “Information Technology and Classroom Teaching Reform” and it invited heated debate.

(Dr. Zhu Jingxi)

Dr. Zhu Jingxi ended his lecture by saying, “To build the classroom of life using information technologies to and demonstrate the vigor of the era with our classroom is the educators’ mission,” which is an expectation on future and educators and a subject worthwhile for every pioneer to contemplate.

The song of pioneers: preliminary achievement in smart classroom applications

In the practice of the smart classroom, many areas and schools were faster in gaining application achievements. At the Miyun District, Beijing and the affiliated schools of Beijing Normal University, the smart classroom achieved initial successes. Director Zhang Xuehu from Beijing Miyun District Education Information Center shared the smart education deployment of Miyun District. Principal Wang Ying of the Future Science Park Branch of Experimental Primary School of Beijing Normal University  and Wang Hui from Nanhu School affiliated to Beijing Normal University shared their precious experience with the smart classroom at the levels of school management and teaching practice.

(Director Zhang Xuehu)

The event ended with the sharing and exchange among leaders, principals and teachers. Deeply impressed, Vice Principal Shi Jian of Guangzhou Experimental School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University said, “In my mind, the sequence of the ‘tool’ and the ‘work is not important anymore. The more important thing is that I saw the perfect combination between ‘tool’ and ‘work from the pioneers’ exchange of views.”

The forum is over while the smart classroom sets out on a new journey

In the exploration of education informatization, seewo makes unremitting effort and combines theories with practices to deliver teaching research service solutions for schools’ normalization of the smart classroom.

As seewo’s normalized application scenario, the seewo EasiClassroom is developed for a better smart classroom. Its smart teaching terminal for teachers, smart learning terminals for students and the seewo EasiClassroom system can help achieve easy and practical classroom real-time interactive teaching and feedback, support the diverse and flexible online learning function of a flipped classroom, involve the learning scenarios before, during and after the class, and combine with a complete student information data analysis to build a normalized smart classroom that “involves everyone and features interaction” and gives  predominance to students in the classroom.

By now, the seewo EasiClassroom has been adopted by more than 700 schools across China to serve more than 20,000 teachers and 100,000 students.

When the forum came to an end, the smart classroom set out on a new journey. The brief discussion and informative exchange further affirmed the pioneers’ confidence in the future. Without doubt, the normalized smart classroom, education informatization, and even the Chinese educational modernization will march into a brilliant future.