One of the most significant events in the field of world pedagogical education is approaching. Virtual IFTE-2020, which plans to bring together more than 800 of the best researchers in the field of teacher training from 196 Russian universities and about 79 foreign universities and research organizations at the Kazan University site, starts on May 27 this year.
The rector of KFU Ilshat Gafurov has visited the Institute of Psychology and Education, which is the responsibility center for organizing this forum, and has checked the site’s readiness for such an uneasy event this year. The difficulties are connected with the fact that for the first time an international conference due to the coronavirus pandemic will be held in a virtual format, where it is necessary to take into account the time difference, as well as many technical aspects, and to bring the speakers and scientific research groups together.
“This is a big challenge for us, because we are testing all the technologies that exist in the world today,” said Ilshat Gafurov. - Today I have seen how the preparation for the forum is going on at the institute, and how complicated the system of such an event is. This is a unique online format where the number of participants exceeds 500 people, and the number of listeners is close to 10,000 by today's estimates. Of course, a great responsibility falls on the team and the information technology center. ” The rector of KFU also added that many online events have already been successfully held, so we can safely hope for the success of Virtual IFTE-2020
Ilshat Gafurov has also reminded that Kazan University has become one of the largest teacher training centers in the country.
“Having gone through a difficult stage of formation, we have been able to create a very good system that has its own individual face. KFU is the most equipped and prepared university. We have managed to provide the infrastructure and bring together a qualified progressive and proactive teaching staff working to direct teacher education and the entire university for tomorrow, ”concluded Gafurov.
Then he talked with technical experts and experts in the field of digitalization to see how the mechanism of the forum will be built, and also took part in testing online presentations with some foreign speakers.
In his turn, the director of the Institute of Psychology and Education, Aydar Kalimullin, noted that such a large-scale scientific conference required great efforts to organize it under the difficult conditions of spread of coronavirus infection. According to him, the IFTE 2020 organizing committee literally in 2 months did a great job of reformatting the event from a traditional format to a virtual one.