KHACHATUR ABOVYAN ARMENIAN STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Through the Erasmus+ eCampus international program, the delegation of the Armenian State Pedagogical University (ASPU) led by Vice-Rector for HR Management and International Cooperation Marianna Harutyunyan paid a working and cognitive visit to the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal and the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain.

Five Armenian universities, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Armenia and the National Centre for Professional Education Quality Assurance are engaged in the program.

The primary officers for staff training, technical rearmament and methodological consulting for the Armenian universities are four European universities in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The first university for the instructive-cognitive visit was the Technical University of Lisbon (https://tecnico.ulisboa.pt/en/).

According to the agenda that was already specified from the perspective of substance, the series of workshops and visits recommended by the University featured meetings with the University’s officers in the digitalization sector, representatives of innovative laboratories, as well as the officers for online partnership with digitalization and electronic education platforms and the university-wide community. Besides, there were meetings devoted to presentations for reporting and exchange of experience, as well as to get the necessary professional adjustments through a question-and-answer session.

The experts helped the students explore a wide scope of issues related to personal knowledge, skills and experience required for the formation of online educational platforms, as well as for working efficiently on the online platform of the university-wide community.

The Armenian delegation also attended the two-day forum organized by the Pedagogical Faculty at the Autonomous University of Madrid (https://www.uam.es/uam/inicio). The main topics were related to digitalization of content for instruction, electronic educational platforms and the creation of a favorable environment for those platforms. During the meetings with full agendas, what was also considered were the preparations required for the educational institutions in the specified domain, the training courses for various circuits of staffs, as well as the technical and methodological adjustments. The processes were discussed in all the stages required for potential implementation, starting from planning and ending with assessment and review.

Among the speakers from the host university were the heads of units in charge of pedagogical and professional education and methodology, technical and methodological support to electronic education (e-learning), as well as support to the University’s innovative initiatives. The Armenian party was given an opportunity to visit intra-university classrooms, booths and units designed for implementing innovative solutions in the education sector in order to get acquainted with the technical adjustments, solutions and ideas that are already being applied.

Let us mention that after the visit, the possible generalizations of the issues discussed and the tested solutions recommended by the Portuguese and Spanish universities for those issues imply the implementation of internal reforms that are required for the electronic format of education within the scope of the program co-funded by the European Union, for the purpose of online presence of universities and betterment of operation, their effectiveness and productivity.