On the morning of June 29, 2018, Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education at Beijing Normal University (AICFE at BNU) hosted higher education delegation from African countries. Forty-five delegates are faculty and staff from national universities and colleges, and officials from Ministry of Education from South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Namibia and other African countries. They visited laboratories of AICFE and made in-depth exchanges with AICFE.
Jiachen Song from Artificial Intelligence Laboratory showed the delegation around, briefly introduced Learning Science Laboratory, Smart Platform Laboratory, Subject Education Laboratory, Integrated Application Laboratory and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. And then demonstrated the smart piano, which attracted great interest of the delegation.
Jiachen Song from AI Lab introducing AICFE
Jiachen Song demonstrating the smart piano
Professor Shengquan Yu, the Executive Director of the Center, first delivered welcome speech and introduced the long history and splendid culture of Beijing to the delegation, as well as the general situation of Beijing Normal University and the motto of “Learn, so as to instruct others; act, to serve as example to all”. Then, Professor Yu gave a presentation on Regional Education Quality Analysis and Improvement Based on Big Data from three aspects, including the core features of educational big data, intelligent teaching and learning platform based on big data, and education reform in digital era. He graphically demonstrated that the educational big data can discover individualized student and give insights into students’ performances, and introduced four functions of the Smart Learning Partner Platform, namely: collecting big data during learning processes, modeling of knowledge and capability structure, diagnosing and solving learning problems, and finding and strengthening subject advantages. Taking Tongzhou District of Beijing as an example, Professor Yu introduced the practice of big data improving regional education. Professor Yu believes that data will become the most important asset of schools. The establishment of an education system that facilitated personalized development based on educational big data is one trend for future schools.
Professor Shengquan Yu, Executive Director of the Center, delivering his speech
In the end, Jiachen Song, Linghong Du, Xiaole Xie, and Jieqiong Li respectively introduced and demonstrated the Smart Learning Partner Platform, Online and Offline Teaching Service Platform, and Intelligent Platform for Classroom Observation, and answered questions raised by the delegation.
Higher education delegation from African countries made in-depth communication with AICFE
The visit is a module of Learning Analytics Based on Educational Big Data of Seminar on ICT in Higher Education for African Countries 2018. This seminar provides a platform for researchers, practitioners, and decision makers of ICT in African universities and colleges to share experiences and engage in academic dialogue, which is conducive to promoting the exchange of experiences in the field of education technology in both China and Africa, to disseminating Chinese culture, and to contributing to the China-Africa education cooperation and development.
