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Satbayev University student helped his native school switch to distance learning
Coronavirus epidemic and quarantine are not just creating challenges for our society but also the talents of our country have a chance to prove themselves. In this critical situation for the country, the student of Satbayev University Sanzhar Kurmangaliuly tried his best to help his childhood school to move to distance learning.
Sanzhar grew up in “Zhanga Zhol” village of Zhambyl region, Shu district; he studied at the secondary school named after Bauyrzhan Momyshuly where his mother and aunt work as teachers. After the quarantine was introduced and transition to distance education, teachers and pupils began to experience difficulties. For teachers, distance learning was new and unfamiliar. Few people knew how to use the Internet systems, create courses and where to upload training materials.
To help the school, Sanzhar acquired a domain, paid for hosting and created http://do-school.kz/ learning portal for schoolchildren. For site development, he used Moodle platform and recorded a training video for teachers on the ways of working with the site.
Not all schoolteachers are ready to work with IT tools so they have continued to use WhatsApp and social networks. Now 672 users are registered on do-school.kz website. Out of this number, 150 people are using the site, and the amount of users is gradually growing.
It took Sanzhar about a week to develop the site, the knowledge that he received in the 3rd year of Satbayev University studying in the specialty "Information Systems" helped him a lot.
“I have been engaged in web development for a long time, and creating a website was not difficult for me. When it was time to choose a profession, I decided to do what I like, that is, programming. Moreover, since Satbayev University is the leading technical university in Kazakhstan, I made up my mind to choose exactly this higher educational institution. From the first days of training, I drew attention to teachers’ professionalism. The students with whom I study turned out to be mighty in IT knowledge and erudite. Training was a challenge so I do a lot of work on my own. I want to be a good developer, a professional in my field.”
Currently Sanzhar is studying remotely as well. In addition to university studies, he works as an operator in his alma mater creating videos for Satbayev University online courses. Therefore, he can evaluate the university's distance education both as a creator and as a user:
“The transition to distance learning has not become a problem for the university,” says Sanzhar. “We have not even felt the difference. We are constantly in touch with the group, teachers and adviser. They are monitoring our performance and supporting us. Teachers conduct classes based on the schedule, first a lecture, then discussions. In the group at polytechonline.kz portal, we put questions that we are interested in, exchange opinions, and sometimes we joke. We apply GitLab, Telegram and Discord as well.
During the quarantine, all universities and schools of the Republic switched to distance education. Sanzhar’s initiative helped the school a lot; the children started their lessons from the first day of the new term.
Satbayev University teaching staff are proud of the initiative taken by their student, who was able to apply both the knowledge and skills obtained at the university.
