They started talking about the new service back in the spring. It is known that it will work within the framework of the state information system “My School”, the working title is “My Success”. They want to enter data into it almost from the kindergarten: grades, certificates and diplomas from competitions, Olympiads, successes in circles, letters of thanks. At the recent International Moscow Education Fair, experts discussed the innovation, assessed its pros and cons.
On the one hand, it is convenient, for example, when transferring a child to another school or entering a university: you do not need to collect documents, make copies, carry a pile of papers somewhere – everything is already in the common database. Nothing will be lost, not spoiled, there is always access to documents. But there are also disadvantages. For example, there is a danger of personal data leakage, which is the main problem for any virtual database. They want to make profiles mandatory, which also alarms many. Another point: for guys who are not very active, who do not shine in their studies, such a digital dossier can become something like a bad credit history, a stigma of an outsider. But there are, and quite a few, children who drove a bald at an early age. And closer to the senior classes, they matured, took up their minds, and the mountains are ready to move. But the profile, it turns out, will work for them in the negative. You had to be far-sighted from the beginning.
The project is still under approval. But it turned out that some schools have already tried to launch something similar. Five years ago, a private Moscow school conceived a platform – beautiful, gamified, modern, in which students could control their studies themselves and build the very individual trajectory that many parents dream of. I studied the topic – check yourself, if you want – deepen your knowledge, think about how to apply it now, what will come in handy when choosing a university, profession … Of course, the platform helps the child in every possible way, but they made a bet on the development of independence. Launched. However, it did not work. The teachers said that it is more convenient for them to control the process in the classroom, focusing on the level of understanding of the children, their mood: they say, creativity and improvisation are important. Children are more comfortable if they are led by teachers and parents.
“The main problem of such platforms is the lack of users,” said Dmitry Zelivansky, director of commercial projects at the New School, where the experiment was conducted, at the Moscow International Education Fair. – It seems to us: let's take a profile from a computer game, and the children will be engaged in their education with the same enthusiasm. But gamification is not effective enough and cannot yet overcome the schoolchildren's habit of being passive. And to grow platform users who will really be interested in an individual trajectory, high academic results – this is a fundamental problem of education.
As a result, the school abandoned all the bells and whistles and left the usual electronic diary with grades in subjects and marks of attendance.
– I myself faced this when I worked at school. When a complex system appears, which, it is declared, will help clarify the individual educational path of a child, it turns out to be unclaimed due to its complexity, – added Mikhail Kushnir, a member of the Board of the League of Education. – Both parents and children have enough traditional marks, according to which it is immediately clear whether a child is good or bad with his studies.
There is, among other things, a successful experience of introducing innovations. True, it is associated with platforms that focus on the extracurricular achievements of children. Those who study in circles, quantoriums, technoparks, participate in competitions, fight for grants and even try themselves in real adult projects. For example, the Talent platform is non-commercial. Anyone can record their successes in the field of scientific and technical creativity on it. At the same time, the achievements are confirmed by practitioners, that is, it turns out not just a portfolio with a list of certificates, but a professional portfolio of competencies. You can apply for an internship at an IT company or to participate in a professional project, find partners. And at the same time earn additional points for admission.
– When I conduct an interview, the resume does not tell me anything. Skills are important. And on the digital trail I immediately see the timeline from the fifth grade: how the person developed, what he was interested in, worked in a team or an individualist, – said Alexey Fedoseev, president of the association of circles. – The advantage of such a portfolio is that it can be assembled for a specific purpose – for a university, for work. Each of us manages his portfolio himself, the transfer of information to third parties – only with the consent of the owner.
On the platform “My track”, which was launched in Tomsk, real projects are placed, under each there is a list of necessary competencies, which are prescribed by specialists. Those who wish to apply for participation, then receive points and increase their rating. The projects, by the way, are interesting: a levitating tooth for pediatric dentistry, a walker game for a nature reserve … Schoolchildren are happy to take on this, bring emotion into business, and at the same time improve their non-childish skills in industrial design, electronics, software engineering, digital journalism.
“Children do not like to study for the sake of study, they want to do real things, to be a part of the business environment, social projects,” says Igor Dmitriev, director of the project office of the project “Territory of Intellect” at ANO DPO “Open Youth University”. – In the profile, children interact with professionals from different directions, and the child's digital footprint turns into a line of activities. It is not an option to give this function to school teachers, because mistrust will arise, because the teacher is not an expert in electronics, design and other professional fields.
DICTIONARY “KP”
Portfolio, profile or footprint?
What terminology the Ministry of Education will use is still unknown. But our interlocutors are inclined to believe that the terms digital portfolio, digital profile and digital footprint mean close, but not the same thing. Here's an example to understand the differences. The man learned the Python programming language. The way he wrote his code, answered the test questions, will become part of the digital footprint. Profile – when the level of proficiency in Python is confirmed by the expert community (victory in the Olympiad, participation in the project, etc.). According to it, the university evaluates the applicant, and the employer – the applicant. In the portfolio, a person communicates about himself what he considers significant, how he sees himself: I am a pythonist, I want to be a scientist using python in laboratory research, here are my projects made in python.
