On November 2-3, the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technologies, SSU, has held the All-Russian Research-to-Practice Conference (with international participation) entitled the ITO-Saratov-2023 15th Information Technologies in Education.

At the plenary session on November 2, Head of Priority Projects and Programmes, SSU, Elena Yelina welcomed the participants.

‘The conference has been bringing together the people who are interested in information technologies in education on its platforms for many years. For two years, the university has been working under the Priority 2030 federal programme. One of the central directions of the programme is the digital transformation of the university and the Digital Department, where more than 1,000 SSU students are participating. We are proud that all courses for the Digital Department have been developed by the teaching and other staff of our university led by Elena Kudrina. All SSU strategic projects as part of the Priority 2030 are somehow connected with digital technologies, and some of them are developed by SSU scientists,’ Elena Yelina said.

She noted that SSU is the only one of the Russian classical universities where the Teachers in the Educational Paradigm pedagogical stratproject is implemented. The initiatives include the development of a system of continuing education for teachers, the work of the Virtual Pedagogical Classroom and the CONSILIUM Support Centre for Young Teachers, conducting career guidance events for student taking teaching courses.

The moderator of the plenary session, Director of the Higher School of Education and Psychology, IKBFU, Marina Khramova, commented that at the very first meeting of the conference in 2011, modern textbooks, new educational standards, and teaching competencies had been discussed. Years later, artificial intelligence had been added to the main topics of discussion, and, this year, about 340 applicants have registered for the conference and taken part off-site, namely guests from Kaliningrad, Moscow, Astrakhan, and other cities.

Acting Chair of the Education Committee of the regional mayor’s office Larisa Zhivtsova noted that the conference had become very popular for 15 years, and thanked Saratov State University for its great contribution to the development of the teaching profession and the training of future teachers. ‘Computer science teachers are not keeping up with the times, they are ahead of time. Today, teachers use technologies in the classroom that allow them to present the educational materials more efficiently,’ Larisa Zhivtsova said.

Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technologies Sergei Mironov pointed out that, over the years, digitalisation had spread to all areas of school education. ‘In the early years, the scientific meeting was positioned as a conference for computer science teachers about teaching this subject at school. However, the number of issues increases every year. Today, there are many interesting proposals about the use of artificial intelligence in teaching, some talk about the limitation of artificial intelligence. We will discuss the most up-to-date issues at the conference site.’

Head of the Office of Digital and Information Technologies, SSU, Leonid Bessonov spoke about artificial Intelligence and machine learning, their past, present, and challenges.

Professor of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Teaching Mathematics and Computer Science, Moscow Pedagogical State University, Nadezhda Samylkina commented on the system of assessing the achievements of the subject results of basic general education at computer sciences lessons.

Director of the Higher School of Education and Psychology, IKBFU, Marina Khramova shared her experience of introducing new models of educational standards in higher education institutions in the courses in education and pedagogical sciences at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Teaching Mathematics and Computer Science, Moscow Pedagogical State University, Alena Salakhova drew the attention of the audience to the study of artificial intelligence in the computer science course of basic general education.

Head of the Centre for Digital Transformation of Education, the Saratov Regional Institute of Education Development, Galina Sumina discussed the integration of the regional education system with state information systems.

The conference was held in different ways. Thus, its participants attended a plenary session and ten sections, as well as master classes and seminars. The event was carried out in five main areas, including information technologies in education, digital educational environment, the methods of teaching computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive technologies, as well as innovative educational technologies.

The conference was organised by the regional Ministry of Education, Saratov State University, the Saratov Regional Institute of Education Development, ANPO Education. Quality. Industry Research Centre with the support of the Presidential Grants Fund.