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Website teaches Tajiks new skills
Online lessons will help youth, specialists say.
By Nadin Bahrom
2013-08-27
DUSHANBE – A new website, uroki.tj, is helping Tajiks discover new skills and recreational talents.
Visitors surf the web at a Dushanbe internet café August 15. Youth can acquire new skills through sites like uroki.tj, officials say. [Nadin Bahrom]
Visitors surf the web at a Dushanbe internet café August 15. Youth can acquire new skills through sites like uroki.tj, officials say. [Nadin Bahrom]
The website features free video lessons in sports, dancing, music, foreign languages, computer literacy, computer graphics, photography and other subjects.
Ozod Siddikov, the man behind the website, got the idea after reading The Education of Millionaires, a book about alternative education.
"I wanted the Tajik people to have the opportunity to put together their own curriculum based on their needs, curiosity, and desire to learn something new," he said, adding that the site would soon be offered in both Tajik and Russian.
"After our business takes off, we will flood the website with original video lessons," he said, adding that the website has about 3,000 unique users a day. "We also plan on having free or trial workshops where you can receive certificates upon completion."
While the website is open to everyone, youth can benefit the most.
"Young people can spend hours in internet cafés," Kiromiddin Nazarov, the director of the Republican Centre for Information Technology and Communications at the Education Ministry, said. "It would be better if they spent that time on educational websites rather than on something useless."
Nazarov's centre has developed numerous online materials for school-age children.
"We have put together online curricula for grades 1 through 11," he said. "We think and hope, for that matter, that they have a positive influence on a child."
Support for such sites
Educators and politicians praised the concept.
"The idea itself is very good, but in order for this to develop, you would need to create websites for a specific audience, test them out and, based on the results, make video-lesson websites," Azim Bayozov, an independent educational consultant at the Plus Centre for Supporting Educational Reform and a proponent of the programme, said.
"What's most important is to take into account the limited internet traffic in Tajikistan," he added. "It would be better to combine video lessons with audio lessons or with learning material."
Adkham Mirsaidov, chief of the youth wing of the ruling People's Democratic Party, backs the initiative. Having similar websites would force them to compete and improve their quality of work, he said.
"Video lessons should be intended to fill in the gaps [of conventional education]," Bayozov said. "Namely, it would be good if websites had additional information that a secondary school or university isn't able to provide us with in any given topic."
Such websites are great for providing further educational options, Akrom Sodriddinov, a student from Dushanbe, said.
"I use a lot of similar Russian-language websites for my university studies and would like to have something similar in Tajikistan," he added.
Competing with the rest of the internet
Uroki is competing against the rest of the internet for traffic.
Advanced internet users are already taking advantage of similar, non-Tajik sites, Akhmadaly Tojiddinov, creator of a number of Tajik cultural websites, said. "There are thousands of them, many of which are more useful," he said.
Uroki will be popular in Tajikistan only as a source for subjects that aren't on western websites, he said. Those could be anything, from "how to play the nai" to "how to cook plov," but not something more universal like "how to play the guitar."
"Even in rural areas, if someone wants to learn how to do something outside school, then information that comes in handy in his or her everyday life will be useful," Tojiddinov said.
These websites need to be more original than their competitors, journalist Abdullo Ashurov said.
"Take, for example, a video course called 'How to make kurutob' [a Tajik dish]. No other websites have it," he said. "You could also tape lectures by famous Tajik scientists, such as mathematicians and physicists. I, for one, would love to watch this."
That original content is exactly what his website is aiming for, Siddikov said.
1. Education is very much changing. In the past people were reliant on direct contact with an educator (teacher/professor/lecturer) who was a repository of knowledge and transmitted information. Now a lot of that can be done through videos.
2. Teachers will never become obselete but there will be less reliance upon them as knowledge becomes more and more widespread and accessible.
3. In the next few decades nearly everyone will have some sort of device bigger than the Iphone, smaller than the Ipad which they will use for many things including studies.
Online lessons will help youth, specialists say.
By Nadin Bahrom
2013-08-27
DUSHANBE – A new website, uroki.tj, is helping Tajiks discover new skills and recreational talents.
Visitors surf the web at a Dushanbe internet café August 15. Youth can acquire new skills through sites like uroki.tj, officials say. [Nadin Bahrom]
Visitors surf the web at a Dushanbe internet café August 15. Youth can acquire new skills through sites like uroki.tj, officials say. [Nadin Bahrom]
The website features free video lessons in sports, dancing, music, foreign languages, computer literacy, computer graphics, photography and other subjects.
Ozod Siddikov, the man behind the website, got the idea after reading The Education of Millionaires, a book about alternative education.
"I wanted the Tajik people to have the opportunity to put together their own curriculum based on their needs, curiosity, and desire to learn something new," he said, adding that the site would soon be offered in both Tajik and Russian.
"After our business takes off, we will flood the website with original video lessons," he said, adding that the website has about 3,000 unique users a day. "We also plan on having free or trial workshops where you can receive certificates upon completion."
While the website is open to everyone, youth can benefit the most.
"Young people can spend hours in internet cafés," Kiromiddin Nazarov, the director of the Republican Centre for Information Technology and Communications at the Education Ministry, said. "It would be better if they spent that time on educational websites rather than on something useless."
Nazarov's centre has developed numerous online materials for school-age children.
"We have put together online curricula for grades 1 through 11," he said. "We think and hope, for that matter, that they have a positive influence on a child."
Support for such sites
Educators and politicians praised the concept.
"The idea itself is very good, but in order for this to develop, you would need to create websites for a specific audience, test them out and, based on the results, make video-lesson websites," Azim Bayozov, an independent educational consultant at the Plus Centre for Supporting Educational Reform and a proponent of the programme, said.
"What's most important is to take into account the limited internet traffic in Tajikistan," he added. "It would be better to combine video lessons with audio lessons or with learning material."
Adkham Mirsaidov, chief of the youth wing of the ruling People's Democratic Party, backs the initiative. Having similar websites would force them to compete and improve their quality of work, he said.
"Video lessons should be intended to fill in the gaps [of conventional education]," Bayozov said. "Namely, it would be good if websites had additional information that a secondary school or university isn't able to provide us with in any given topic."
Such websites are great for providing further educational options, Akrom Sodriddinov, a student from Dushanbe, said.
"I use a lot of similar Russian-language websites for my university studies and would like to have something similar in Tajikistan," he added.
Competing with the rest of the internet
Uroki is competing against the rest of the internet for traffic.
Advanced internet users are already taking advantage of similar, non-Tajik sites, Akhmadaly Tojiddinov, creator of a number of Tajik cultural websites, said. "There are thousands of them, many of which are more useful," he said.
Uroki will be popular in Tajikistan only as a source for subjects that aren't on western websites, he said. Those could be anything, from "how to play the nai" to "how to cook plov," but not something more universal like "how to play the guitar."
"Even in rural areas, if someone wants to learn how to do something outside school, then information that comes in handy in his or her everyday life will be useful," Tojiddinov said.
These websites need to be more original than their competitors, journalist Abdullo Ashurov said.
"Take, for example, a video course called 'How to make kurutob' [a Tajik dish]. No other websites have it," he said. "You could also tape lectures by famous Tajik scientists, such as mathematicians and physicists. I, for one, would love to watch this."
That original content is exactly what his website is aiming for, Siddikov said.
1. Education is very much changing. In the past people were reliant on direct contact with an educator (teacher/professor/lecturer) who was a repository of knowledge and transmitted information. Now a lot of that can be done through videos.
2. Teachers will never become obselete but there will be less reliance upon them as knowledge becomes more and more widespread and accessible.
3. In the next few decades nearly everyone will have some sort of device bigger than the Iphone, smaller than the Ipad which they will use for many things including studies.