Ana tele 2.0: online mother tongue learning school to be relaunched in Tatarstan
The project will start running on a new Russian platform in the next six months and will become a general educational resource
Public activists who asking to help to save Ana tele online Tatar language learning school that closed this July were heard in Tatarstan. The project foiled because the foreign company EF Education whose platform was used decided to leave the Russian market. However, classes are due to resume soon. A test version of Ana tele on a new Russian platform will launch in a few months. Realnoe Vremya’s correspondent found out the difference of the new portal from the old one and when the first users can sign up here.
“The first testing is approximately in six months”
Ana tele online school whose closure was announced in late June this year will start admitting students again in 4-6 months. Head of the National Education Department of the Tatarstan Ministry of Education and Science Ilgiz Khalikov told Realnoe Vremya about this.
It was announced in mid-August that the educational content is completely switching from the foreign to the Russian platform. The online Tatar language school will be revived by one of the biggest EdTech companies in Russia Denis’ School that deals with English teaching.
The main condition was a mobile version of the project. Such an agreement has already been reached. “The mobile app will certainly run,” the head of department assured us.
“We wondered what a new platform will be like. What advantages it has and what new opportunities it will open. Our key condition was to create a mobile version of Ana tele online school because the only desk version like before seriously limited the users. The mobile app means that the programme will always be at hand. Also, this will allow increasing the number of people willing to sign up.”
“The content won’t change at the first stage”
The most intense and longest process is now underway — the handover of the content that used to be on the old platform. Now the material is sent to the new company that will post it on the import replacing platform. This will take around 4-6 months.
“This is an intense technological process because the platform contains a lot of different files, including videos and audios, text documents, tables, graphs. The material that needs to be installed on the new platform is very big. The domain of Ana tele — ana-tele.ru — has already been registered. At the same time the company is working on its design,” said Ilgiz Khalikov.
According to the organisers, the task is to transfer the existing content from the old website to the new platform: “We will start with what has already been created during the existence of the online school. Then, when we launch the new portal in test mode and learn experts and first users’ opinions, we will think of how it can be updated, what new forms and methods to use — all this will be seen in process. In any case, we want the platform to be more interesting, creative. We would like to see everything new that exists in the modern world in online language learning.”
“Ana tele will become a powerful portal”
Coordinators and the developers plan to not only create an online Tatar school but a popular portal where a lot of interesting things related to the Tatars, their culture and traditions could be found.
“As a bonus we are provided with another proposal of the developer. All the resources that have to do with Tatar learning or are related to the Tatars’ history, culture, traditions can be found on this website. In other words, it is about integration. For instance, it will have interesting videos, cartoons or links to themed radio programmes, video transmission, everything will be concentrated in one place. In the future we will have to agree with authors and copyright holders for some content. We will create a registry of those who can provide us such products and who will give their consent for publication,” explained Ilgiz Khalikov.
He says that it is yet unknown what teachers will give practical classes in the online school. Teachers from Kazan Federal University used to do it. “We plan to continue the cooperation with KFU and its teachers, but this issue will be discussed later. Today technical issues are on the agenda, we go step by step. But the main university of the republic, of course, will remain our partner,” the Ministry of Education and Science of Tatarstan assured us.
The online Tatar learning school will remain free. The project is funded by the government of Tatarstan. Functionaries don’t name the exact amount of money designed for it.
Ana tele was created in 2013 according to Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov’s initiative. Its goal was to popularise the learning of the Tatar language. Education First company was its provider, but this summer it announced its exit from the Russian market. School students learned the classes would stop soon via email. By that moment, the number of programme users reached 6,000 people. Around 100,000 people have studied on the platform in general.