“The digital transformation conference in Albania”, which has recently been held with the participation of the Minister  for Innovation and Public Administration, Milena Harito, the Minister of Social Welfare and Youth, Blendi Klosi, and representatives of Microsoft Albania and CEE, has highlighted the continuation of the digital transformation process in Albania.  

On that occassion, Bit Media- the company which provides the digital platforms for preuniversity education system in Albania, announced the finalization of EMIS and E- education projects stressing that “those platforms are going live now and all stakeholders are able to use the facilities they are offering.”

Asked by Albanian Daily News on how those projects firstly started and their implementation, heads of the Bit Media said that EMIS project started in December 2014 and, they were developed up to now under the huge work of Bit Albania (the branch of Bit Media, responsible for those projects in Albania), in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Sport.

“The main target were all the schools of preuniversity education system in Republic of Albania. There were invited and involved in development of the projects 38 Regional Educational Directories (RED) and Educational Offices (EO). The company did 157 trainings all over the country - training nearly 3100 people (representatives from REDs, EOs, school directors, school secretary, ICT teacher and other teachers). The trainings involved teachers from 1426 schools- because those schools were able to provide the necessary infranstructure- tablets and interactive IT labs,” the projects' implementers said.

Those platforms-Sokrates (EMIS) and Sitos (E-education) are already live, the authorized teachers are using them in order to make their daily work easier, to make the ‘old’ tasks automatically, just on one click. They would be widely used if each school of preuniversity education system could provide the necessary infrastructure- computers and internet connection in optimal conditions. It would be an advantage if some extra IT trainings were offered for teachers, in order to give them the basic skills in using computers and softwares as well.

When asked if difficulties were met during the process of putting things in practice, they confessed that there were obstacles, but they did not weaken the good will, the curiosity and the interest of the teachers to work on those platforms, to understand and make them familiar. “They have already accepted the change of their daily work and they are aware of it,” Albanian Daily News was told.

In addition they explained that all systems were connected with National Register of Albania. During the first phase- the data entry, school adminstration worked on Sokrates for their schools and now there are 326,661 pupils and 28,000 teachers recorded. They entered other additional datas- teachers contracts and profiles, curriculas and classes for pupils. They will manage those datas during the school year, producing reports and certificates for pupils.

As it is defined by the Albanian Law, the national databases should be hosted at the environment of the authorized institution- NAIS (The National Agency of Information Society), all Sokrates school datas are already hosted at NAIS, which provide a high level of data protection as well.

When asked about the attitude of the teachers at the beginning of the projects the implementers of the projecs said that teaching staff had expressed enthusiasm about Sitos, as well. They will interact with pupils, give online tasks, communicate and discuss different issues of lessons. They are allowed to create their own learning path for their subject, which include a digital content, ways of communication- blog and forum, ways of controlling pupil’s knowledge- tasks and exams and, many other activities- documents, webpage, video, which provide an extended information for pupils.

Teachers are allowed to create the digital contents for their subjects, as an interactive content- allowing pupils to choose which lesson to explore first, exploring the content in different ways and testing themselves in a test in the end of the content. Teachers will work in group with other colleges in order to provide an accurate content for their subject. Teachers will create those contents in a platform called WBT+, which is an integrated tool inside the Sitos. They create in WBT+ and, they show the digital contents in Sitos. All pupils are able to access those interactive contents through Sitos- according to their school level.

“Those two projects are transforming the way of managing school datas and making the lessons in different, interactive way which involve and invite pupils to be an active participants of the lessons hour. The collaboration between Bit Albania- which is the responsible branch of Bit Media for those projects in Albania, with all schools were really close and it seems to be continuing through the other phases of the project,” Albanian Daily News was told.