SEI - The It-Based Educational System | SIVECO Romania
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SEI - The It-Based Educational System

PREMISES

SEI, the IT-Based Educational System is a complex program initiated by the Ministry of National Education in Romania and its main objective is to support the teaching and learning process in pre-university education with cutting-edge technology.

In 2001, an in-depth research indicated an average of 3 computers for every 100 pupils in gymnasium education, and 5 computers for every 100 Romanian high school students. On average, for every 100 pupils there were 3.5 computers connected to the Internet.

In order to raise the IT level of education to European standards, increasing each pupil and teacher's access to computers was a priority. For such an endeavour to be successful, the massive endowment, at national level, of all the schools was undertaken.

OBJECTIVES

SEI project had the following main goals:

  • endow all the Romanian schools with a complete IT solution package tailored to the teaching/learning process allowing at the same time an efficient management of the schools' activities
  • introduce interactive resources in education, through specific projects, designed for certain didactical and administrative purposes
  • computerize of both internal and public communication
  • elaborate the National Education Database, which allows effective use of in-depth analysis to function as a decision support tool
  • ensure that all participants in the educational system have equal access to IT&C resources
  • create a critical mass of knowledge intended to encourage teachers and graduates to make efficient use of computers.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Ministry of National Education chose for implementing the SEI program a consortium of companies including SIVECO Romania - for educational software, multimedia educational content and services such as software installation and configuration, training and technical support, Microsoft - for applications, IBM and HP - for hardware.

The project was carried out throughout 6 stages, during 2001 – 2009, at national level and following its implementation, each school in Romania benefits from latest technologies:

  • over 7 million people involved in project directly or indirectly - pupils, teachers, instructors, administrative personnel, parents
  • more than 15,000 IT laboratories, with 192,000 desktops and laptops
  • 3,700 AeL multimedia lessons, dictionaries and encyclopedias, for over 21,000 individual learning objects, for 21 subjects
  • more than 2,000 schools throughout the country which are connected to Internet
  • managing SEI educational portal, http://portal.edu.ro, the most important educational information source, with 228,323 registered users and which reached in July 2013 more than 4,23 million unique visitors.

At the same time, several IT systems were developed within the project, aimed at supporting the organization of national exams for students from secondary and high-schools, as well as for teachers:

  • high schools and vocational schools’ admission exams (ADLIC - approximately 2,489,194 students, 2001-2013)
  • baccalaureate (over 2,637,766 students, 2003-2013)
  • teachers' nomination upon vacant positions (565,378 teachers, 2003-2013).

THE CHARATERISTIC OF THE eLEARNING SOLUTION

The SEI project is based on the teaching, learning and content management system, AeL, developed by SIVECO Romania, enabling access to all stakeholders within the educational process: teachers, pupils, students, administrative and management personnel.

AeL system offers support for teaching and learning, evaluation and grading, administration, design and monitoring of multimedia content use. In addition, it ensures the means necessary for the communication and synchronization between local and regional centers within the SEI Program.

General features:

  • user-friendly interface, easily adaptable to allow differentiation by roles, groups, access rights
  • easy administration of roles, groups, users and access privileges associated with them
  • based on recognized high standards: AeL is compatible with Math Ml, SCORM and IMS
  • easy to install and administer
  • regional support offered by multilingual professionals.

SEI BENEFITS

One of the major forecasted benefits of this program is the ensurance of an optimum level of IT knowledge for each student in pre-universitary education. SEI aims at encouraging innovative learning and increasing creativity on both teachers and students.

SEI is one of the most important European Programs for Introducing IT into pre-university education. It is the most awarded Romanian project and an example of best practices, as it was nominated by Jan Figel, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth.

The research on the implementation of the SEI Program reveals that:

  • 82% of teachers from urban gymnasia and high schools use the SEI laboratories
  • 95% of the students declare they would want to use more the computer and the Internet for lessons on various disciplines
  • 70,2% of teachers reveal the positive impact that IT&C tools has on the learning performance at their discipline
  • 90% of pupils consider that young people who do not have access to a computer would be later on disadvantaged
  • 83% of the teachers who participated in a specialized course noticed a positive impact on students regarding the use of IT&C tools.

The results were based on the study conducted by the University of Bucharest in collaboration with the Institute for Education Sciences, Centre for Innovation and Development in Education (TEHNE) and the Association for Education Sciences (ASTED), 2008.

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