Electronic contact book: Many untapped features

After Nghe An Newspaper and Radio and Television published the article “Electronic contact book: "Expensive" but not "worth the price", many parents and teachers sent feedback, stating their concerns about using this application.

Electronic contact book: Expensive but not worth it

A representative of VNPT - the provider of the vnEdu system, said that in fact, the provider has built a comprehensive digital education ecosystem with many utilities, but due to limited exploitation, many features have not yet been effectively utilized.

Many useful features

According to VNPT representative, in more than 10 years of implementation, vnEdu 4.0 platform has been completed with the ability to connect data between systems such as electronic records, electronic transcripts, online learning platform (LMS), primary school admission system... All of which form a unified digital education solution from management to teaching and learning. However, most schools only use the Electronic Contact Book at the basic level of sending messages about scores and notifications, while many other useful features have not been exploited.

Utilities on the Electronic Contact Book. Photo: VNPT

In fact, in the “electronic notebook” provided by VNPT, there are a series of features that support the connection between schools, teachers and parents. The application allows direct communication between parents and homeroom teachers and subject teachers right on the platform without using intermediary channels such as Zalo or Messenger - which are prone to information leakage. Parents can track their children's daily schedules, learning results, attendance, and even check attendance using facial recognition to update class numbers in real time.

Electronic contact books are widely deployed by many schools to all parents. Photo: MH

In addition, for preschool students, the system allows teachers to update medication schedules, health status, and personal medical records - very useful during the epidemic period. Parents can also quickly look up information when necessary without having to contact teachers directly.

For boarding schools, the Electronic Contact Book helps parents view daily menus, register for online transportation and monitor their children's learning, eating and resting right on the application. Teachers can share photos, videos, and moments from extracurricular activities and school events, helping parents grasp their children's activities more vividly and permanently, without worrying about losing data like when saving on Zalo or Facebook.

Many utilities from vnEdu have not been exploited. Photo: VNPT

In addition, in the vnEdu ecosystem, VNPT has supported the Nghe An Department of Education and Training to deploy the VNPT E-Learning online learning and testing software to 100% of primary, secondary and high schools in the province during the Covid-19 period. On this platform, 9th graders can review for the 10th grade entrance exam, 12th graders can take the high school graduation mock exam, and other grades can use it for periodic testing and online learning.

From the 2021-2022 school year, Nghe An Department of Education and Training will coordinate with VNPT to build an LMS system to organize courses, exams, and competitions more frequently without spending much on facilities. In addition, management agencies can share learning materials, courses, statistics and visual monitoring, helping to more closely manage teaching and learning in educational institutions.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang Ha - Head of Business Operations Department of VNPT Nghe An said: "In fact, the Electronic Contact Book is just a small part of the digital education ecosystem that VNPT has deployed. If fully exploited, this system will help parents receive many benefits in monitoring their children throughout the learning process."

According to Ms. Ha, the reduction of costs for the user unit has also been taken into account, but the unit is currently still building a roadmap. However, when building this price (100,000 VND/student/year), it has also been approved by intermediary units and has been approved in Resolution 31/2020/NQ-HDND of Nghe An province, regulating the maximum collection of service fees to serve and support the school's educational activities for public educational institutions and enrollment services.

Ms. Ha also said that, according to the fee of 100,000 VND/student/year approved by the Provincial People's Council, if all the utility features are exploited and applied to urban areas, it is not too high. "If we consider that a text message during a storm or flood to thousands of students to ensure their safety, when the entire 4G system and power grid are lost, it is not too expensive anymore," Ms. Ha said.

Why not exploited?

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nga - Principal of Hung Dung Secondary School, the school has used the vnEdu platform to store student records and data, allowing parents to access them at any time, even after their children have graduated. In mock exams, the system also helps ensure confidentiality, publicity and transparency when grading and evaluating students.

Students of Hung Dung Secondary School during extracurricular class. Photo: NTCC

However, many parents have not yet realized the full value of the application. According to Ms. Nga, the reason is that the habit of using social networking platforms such as Zalo and Facebook has become ingrained. Although the school sends messages in parallel on the Electronic Contact Book and Zalo, most parents only pay attention to messages on social networks. Meanwhile, messages on the Electronic Contact Book are sent quickly, do not fade away and are much more secure and accurate.

Ms. Nga added that in the coming time, the school will integrate more student data, such as timetables, health check-up schedules, periodic examination results, etc. so that parents can monitor centrally in one place, instead of through many separate channels.

On the teachers’ side, many also admit that the two-way messaging feature of the Electronic Contact Book has not been fully exploited. Partly due to the habit of using familiar tools, partly because there is no unified regulation requiring all teachers to use this system instead of Zalo. However, schools are moving towards standardizing electronic communication to ensure synchronization and long-term storage of communication data between schools and parents.

A class at Hung Dung Secondary School. Photo: My Ha

Mr. Le Van Bang - Principal of Dien Chau 4 High School said that, in addition to sending text messages when 4G signal and power grid are lost, in cases like the recent storm No. 10 and storing electronic transcripts, the biggest benefit that the school receives is transparency in score management. All score corrections must be approved by the management level and have clear traces in the system, ending the manual editing situation as before. This is an important difference that helps improve the accuracy and fairness in student assessment.

However, in many schools in remote and mountainous areas, the implementation still faces difficulties in terms of equipment and usage habits. A teacher working in a mountainous area who asked to remain anonymous shared: "VNPT's digital ecosystem is really useful for teaching and learning, but if teachers and parents have not been trained and given specific instructions on how to use it, it will be difficult to exploit its full potential." This teacher also said that the school is currently training on additional features and requiring teachers to update new information to promote applications in the Electronic Contact Book.

According to education experts, the Electronic Contact Book should not only be seen as a fee collection tool or a messaging tool, but should become a synchronous learning management system, contributing to the modernization of education management. To do so, the parties need to build a clear mechanism on evaluation criteria, service prices, data update responsibilities and user rights.

In terms of price, experts also said that suppliers should consider reducing prices according to the roadmap and have a discount mechanism for schools in remote areas where economic and social conditions are still difficult.

In the context of the education sector promoting digital transformation, promoting the effectiveness of the Electronic Contact Book is an inevitable requirement. However, effectiveness only comes when the product is truly friendly, convenient and suitable for the actual needs of teachers, parents and students. At that time, the "4.0 notebook" will truly become a smart bridge between schools - parents - students, instead of just a mandatory service.

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Source: https://baonghean.vn/so-lien-lac-dien-tu-nhieu-tinh-nang-chua-duoc-khai-thac-10308703.html