Bucharest (RO), March 2009 - (by Elena Lita) The Theoretical High School Grigore Moisil in Bucharest has recently hosted the official launch of the first Learning Gateway portal in Romania, an easy-to-use educational resource for students, teachers, and parents. Over 95 percent of the school's 770 students; the majority of parents and teachers; local community representatives; and authorities from the municipal and district school inspectorates and the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation have been involved with the project since its beginning.
The project was designed as an innovative way to involve the local community representatives in the learning process, and the portal represents an important resource of online data, offering real-time updated and accurate information. One of the major aims is to make the educational process more efficient by underlining the importance of collaborative learning.
"The Learning Gateway portal represents an information dissemination and communication environment, as well as a storage space for the learning resources needed to support the educational process. All of the high school's students have at least one project published in the My Site section and also use the portal for collaborative projects. Seventy-five percent of the teachers use the AeL lessons, as well as the other facilities of the portal, which enable them to upload lessons and projects or share learning resources. The attendance at the parents meetings has also consistently improved due to the announcements published directly on the portal", says Ioana Neacsu, the manager of Grigore Moisil High School.
The portal integrates the Microsoft Learning Gateway application, a powerful, extensible suite of features designed to help schools meet their priorities and to give students personalized learning portals that bring together everything they need to support their classes. Password-protected access can be extended to parents, providing up-to-the-minute information on students' attendance, grades, assignments, timetables, and upcoming events.
"It's a pleasure for us to develop the public-private partnership with Grigore Moisil High School. By adopting the portal in the academic activity, the high school proved that it is the promoter of the educational ecosystem in Romania. The community of teachers, students, parents, and high school managers has created an outstanding cooperation and communication framework for 21st century education", said Sanda Foamete, SNR Education Program Manager, Microsoft Romania.
The educational process is improved by the AeL solution developed by SIVECO Romania, which smoothly integrates with the Microsoft Learning Gateway portal and its resources. The AeL platform allows teachers to be involved in the development of the educational content by creating interactive lessons in concordance with their didactic activities. The AeL solution also includes the "Virtual Catalog" application, which allows the posting of grades online through the portal, enabling parents to view their children's results in real time.
The development of the educational communities is an essential component of educational reform in Romania and also represents a necessary step towards developing an authentic knowledge-based society that is competitive at the European level. The "Moisil Portal" project represents a successful example of the way in which a public-private partnership can prove its utility and viability for Romanian society.
