Technopark Mail.Ru. First two years
In a previous post, I explained why and how Mail.Ru Technopark was created and how the educational process is built in it. In this talk about what path we managed to go and what is happening today in Technopark.
Technopark recently celebrated its biennium. During this time in the history of the project a lot of important events happened - we:
Against the background of other events, two stand out. We finally got our own permanent home, which has already become dear to us MGTU them. Bauman. Moreover, on March 14 we proudly released our very first set. The students who came to us in December 2011 completed the training and went to free flight - to apply the skills obtained in the Technopark, working in large IT companies or on their own projects.
And now about everything in more detail.
')
Bright and spacious audiences, projectors and screens, a couple of dozen servers — not so much is needed to train web developers and system architects. However, for a long time Technopark did not have its own “registration”. Finally, in March 2014, after two years of traveling around the classrooms of MSTU. Bauman, we “took root” in the GUK and received at our full disposal more than 300 square meters. meters of classrooms and openspaces for work and study of our students. We invited to the opening of the friends of our project (read about how it was, here and here ).
When the first students came to the Technopark in December 2011, we had only two teachers; classes were conducted in two disciplines - web-technologies and algorithms and data structures. In April, our students took part in the first master class and even looked into the holy of holies - the Mail.Ru Group data center.
With each new semester, the number of students and teachers increased. At the beginning of this year, more than 200 people studied with us, 40 teachers taught classes in 20 disciplines, and almost 700 people went to master classes (which can be attended by all Baumen). The competition for the place reached a record mark for us - 7 people (by the way, at the beginning we didn’t even expect that the competition would be so high - no more than three people were expected per place).
The Technopark is mainly taught by Mail.Ru Group employees, practicing specialists in the field of programming, mobile technologies and project management. For two years not a single employee left us, so it turned out to assemble a really strong and friendly team of teachers. For example, one of the first two lecturers, Dmitry Smal, recently gave lectures on web-technologies for the fifth set of students. By the way, the article about his course is published here .
Technopark students in the main program for four semesters study 15 disciplines; this is about 900 hours of classroom work and about 600 more hours of independent work.
During the first year, teachers talk about development technologies, methods for analyzing the quality of algorithms and software: the first semester is spent on studying web technologies, algorithms and data structures, the subtleties of C / C ++ programming, the second is on Java programming (where the guys write the game server ), DBMS, front-end development, interface design.
The second year is devoted to special disciplines aimed at developing professional skills: designing high-load systems, basics of Internet application security, QA in software development, mobile development, designing high-load systems, product management, web services development management, soft skills training, business and systems analysis for architects, etc.
All courses are unique: they are designed specifically for Technopark. Moreover, we maintain the relevance of the material, review the content of the disciplines every semester and bring the courses to perfection. By the two-year anniversary of Technopark, we even released our own “training manual”: a 100-page document on the project method of teaching and describing the main techniques of practice-oriented training in IT.
About some disciplines can be read in more detail on Habré. Here you will find a detailed article on how the Java course was developed. You can learn about the course “Business and Systems Analysis for Architects” from the post of Dmitry Bezuglogo, which came to us last summer. You can read about the course on the DBMS of Pasha Scherbinin here .
In addition to the subjects of the main program, we have created open courses on IT project management, information retrieval and Unity 3D. Not only guys from Technopark can visit them, but also students of the MSTU who have been selected. There is also a fourth course - preparatory: during the semester, we help students prepare for the next selection for the main program of the Technopark, giving them the necessary knowledge of C / C ++.
There are courses about which we did not even suspect the creation of a Technopark. This happened with social skills training - soft skills. It appeared after we noticed that students working in small groups earn less points than when they work on projects alone. The reason is obvious: the guys do not have enough experience and knowledge in the field of effective business interaction. So in the program of the fourth semester (and we have the most “humanitarian” one), there appeared soft skills trainings in which students master business communications, learn to speak in public and defend their projects, and acquire negotiation skills. In addition, we give a very interesting small course on creative thinking.
We are actively conducting events for students of Technopark and MSTU. Several times in the semester, they take part in Mail.Ru Group workshops. Technopark students also go on excursions to the Mail.Ru Group office and data centers. We hold various competitions, for example, a competition of articles (some of them, by the way, you could see on Habré - for example, jQuery Events from the inside and after reading burn it ). In two years, we held about 70 events, which were attended by approximately 2,200 people.
In the last year we have two innovations.
The system of intermediate verification work, "boundary controls". In the usual training format, the load in the academic semester is unevenly distributed. To make it more even, we, instead of one, always “suddenly advancing” session, do four or five small exams during the semester - the so-called mid-term controls. For the assignments at each turn, the student receives points, which are then converted into a final grade for the course. Such a system motivates students to study regularly, and not from session to session.
Point-rating system. Based on interim assessments, students' ratings are constructed that change during the semester. We do not insist on attendance in the classroom, but still included attendance in the overall student rating. Soon the student’s place in the general rating table will also depend on his participation in competitions, events and other project activities.
Separately, I want to talk about our official portal, developed in August 2013 along with the corporate style of Technopark. Students actively participated in the development of the site: they created an automated schedule, attendance recording system, modules for blogs and invitations to events, etc.
The site has two access levels - for guests and for “friends” (students and teachers of Technopark). In the public version, you can find out everything about entering and studying at the Technopark, as well as watch videos of some courses. So our potential applicants can see what they are taught in Technopark.
Students and teachers, having come on a site, get access to a variety of opportunities.
Communication and blogs. For communication are blogs, among the most popular - in the disciplines. Here, teachers talk about current tasks, homework and preparation for mid-term controls, share best practices and communicate with students. There are also blogs on events, on a schedule, on articles that students write on internships. There is a separate blog where surveys are conducted, and student personal blogs. For updates, you can follow the tape.
Schedule, attendance and estimates. The site has a schedule module that allows each student to submit their own schedule, load by semesters, and send notifications of lectures. Schedule related attendance system and a rating log.
Performance and personal accounts. For information about their disciplines, attendance, workload, the student can follow in your account. Information on the points scored in each subject and on the final ranking helps to control the progress.
When the teacher sets grades for the next midterm control, the students' ratings are automatically recalculated. In a private office, the student immediately sees that his rating has risen or fallen, and, accordingly, rests on his laurels or decides what to do with his studies.
Attendance and check-ins. The site is automatically monitored attendance - 15 minutes before the start of classes, students receive a notification and can confirm that they have arrived.
The module invitations to events. Students can sign up for master classes and open courses by invited experts. A few hours before the event, the participant will receive a reminder by email, and after the event can leave a review or question.
Video. To help students, we remove all the lectures and post them on the site. At the moment we have shot thousands of hours of free educational video content - one person will need about two months without sleep and lunch breaks to watch it. Students actively watch the video, including in order to refresh the information in memory before the boundary controls.
Practical work is the main feature of Technopark. Many of the work done by our students can serve as a prototype for real-life software. As an example, I can give the scheduling system for MSTU. It was created on the basis of our own timetable, which was developed by one of the Technopark students. In the near future, we are launching a summer competition for students of a functional prototyping project on the web.
Once a year, the Technopark hosts Career Days, where our students meet with the leaders of Mail.Ru Group, communicate, talk about themselves and choose a place for future internships. Today, Mail.Ru Group employs more than 50 of our students.
Our first graduation is 17 students who completed the first set of studies, 14 of them work in the staff of the Mail.Ru Group. Practically all of them from the second to third semester of study were trained in our company, one of the graduates is already involved in teaching a course on DBMS in Technopark.
The first graduation we celebrated in Sochi. Of course, besides graduates, some of the teachers also went with us. On the first day we took a trip to Rosa Khutor, and climbed the cable car to the top of the ski resort. And the second day was spent in the Agursky gorge: first there was a trekking along the Agursky waterfalls using mounted crossings, and then we climbed the sheer rock wall along the Via Ferrata route.
In two years we have come a long way - you can learn more about this from the presentation . I am sure that an interesting and rich academic life, bright projects and new talented students are waiting for us ahead.
Dmitry Voloshin,
Head of Technopark Mail.Ru
Technopark recently celebrated its biennium. During this time in the history of the project a lot of important events happened - we:
- developed and tested new training programs
- gave our Mail.Ru Group colleagues the opportunity to share experiences and realize their teaching potential
- recruited talented students, many of whom are interning or are already working in the Mail.Ru Group
- held 70 events for our students and students of MSTU
- launched your portal
- filmed thousands of hours of study material
- have prepared distance courses that will be launched soon
- received the first recognition: after a year of work, we were named the best social project in Russia, in May 2013 entered the list of the best educational projects of RAEC, in November 2013 received the Runet award in the Science and Education nomination, and our website and corporate style won the title “Best corporate branding according to Sostav.ru »
Against the background of other events, two stand out. We finally got our own permanent home, which has already become dear to us MGTU them. Bauman. Moreover, on March 14 we proudly released our very first set. The students who came to us in December 2011 completed the training and went to free flight - to apply the skills obtained in the Technopark, working in large IT companies or on their own projects.
And now about everything in more detail.
')
About the new house
Bright and spacious audiences, projectors and screens, a couple of dozen servers — not so much is needed to train web developers and system architects. However, for a long time Technopark did not have its own “registration”. Finally, in March 2014, after two years of traveling around the classrooms of MSTU. Bauman, we “took root” in the GUK and received at our full disposal more than 300 square meters. meters of classrooms and openspaces for work and study of our students. We invited to the opening of the friends of our project (read about how it was, here and here ).
About students and teachers: as we become more and more
When the first students came to the Technopark in December 2011, we had only two teachers; classes were conducted in two disciplines - web-technologies and algorithms and data structures. In April, our students took part in the first master class and even looked into the holy of holies - the Mail.Ru Group data center.
With each new semester, the number of students and teachers increased. At the beginning of this year, more than 200 people studied with us, 40 teachers taught classes in 20 disciplines, and almost 700 people went to master classes (which can be attended by all Baumen). The competition for the place reached a record mark for us - 7 people (by the way, at the beginning we didn’t even expect that the competition would be so high - no more than three people were expected per place).
The Technopark is mainly taught by Mail.Ru Group employees, practicing specialists in the field of programming, mobile technologies and project management. For two years not a single employee left us, so it turned out to assemble a really strong and friendly team of teachers. For example, one of the first two lecturers, Dmitry Smal, recently gave lectures on web-technologies for the fifth set of students. By the way, the article about his course is published here .
About items
Technopark students in the main program for four semesters study 15 disciplines; this is about 900 hours of classroom work and about 600 more hours of independent work.
During the first year, teachers talk about development technologies, methods for analyzing the quality of algorithms and software: the first semester is spent on studying web technologies, algorithms and data structures, the subtleties of C / C ++ programming, the second is on Java programming (where the guys write the game server ), DBMS, front-end development, interface design.
The second year is devoted to special disciplines aimed at developing professional skills: designing high-load systems, basics of Internet application security, QA in software development, mobile development, designing high-load systems, product management, web services development management, soft skills training, business and systems analysis for architects, etc.
All courses are unique: they are designed specifically for Technopark. Moreover, we maintain the relevance of the material, review the content of the disciplines every semester and bring the courses to perfection. By the two-year anniversary of Technopark, we even released our own “training manual”: a 100-page document on the project method of teaching and describing the main techniques of practice-oriented training in IT.
About some disciplines can be read in more detail on Habré. Here you will find a detailed article on how the Java course was developed. You can learn about the course “Business and Systems Analysis for Architects” from the post of Dmitry Bezuglogo, which came to us last summer. You can read about the course on the DBMS of Pasha Scherbinin here .
In addition to the subjects of the main program, we have created open courses on IT project management, information retrieval and Unity 3D. Not only guys from Technopark can visit them, but also students of the MSTU who have been selected. There is also a fourth course - preparatory: during the semester, we help students prepare for the next selection for the main program of the Technopark, giving them the necessary knowledge of C / C ++.
About how it's time for amazing discoveries
There are courses about which we did not even suspect the creation of a Technopark. This happened with social skills training - soft skills. It appeared after we noticed that students working in small groups earn less points than when they work on projects alone. The reason is obvious: the guys do not have enough experience and knowledge in the field of effective business interaction. So in the program of the fourth semester (and we have the most “humanitarian” one), there appeared soft skills trainings in which students master business communications, learn to speak in public and defend their projects, and acquire negotiation skills. In addition, we give a very interesting small course on creative thinking.
About events
We are actively conducting events for students of Technopark and MSTU. Several times in the semester, they take part in Mail.Ru Group workshops. Technopark students also go on excursions to the Mail.Ru Group office and data centers. We hold various competitions, for example, a competition of articles (some of them, by the way, you could see on Habré - for example, jQuery Events from the inside and after reading burn it ). In two years, we held about 70 events, which were attended by approximately 2,200 people.
Pro news: how do we motivate students to study more often than twice a year
In the last year we have two innovations.
The system of intermediate verification work, "boundary controls". In the usual training format, the load in the academic semester is unevenly distributed. To make it more even, we, instead of one, always “suddenly advancing” session, do four or five small exams during the semester - the so-called mid-term controls. For the assignments at each turn, the student receives points, which are then converted into a final grade for the course. Such a system motivates students to study regularly, and not from session to session.
Point-rating system. Based on interim assessments, students' ratings are constructed that change during the semester. We do not insist on attendance in the classroom, but still included attendance in the overall student rating. Soon the student’s place in the general rating table will also depend on his participation in competitions, events and other project activities.
About the site and internal platform
Separately, I want to talk about our official portal, developed in August 2013 along with the corporate style of Technopark. Students actively participated in the development of the site: they created an automated schedule, attendance recording system, modules for blogs and invitations to events, etc.
The site has two access levels - for guests and for “friends” (students and teachers of Technopark). In the public version, you can find out everything about entering and studying at the Technopark, as well as watch videos of some courses. So our potential applicants can see what they are taught in Technopark.
Students and teachers, having come on a site, get access to a variety of opportunities.
Communication and blogs. For communication are blogs, among the most popular - in the disciplines. Here, teachers talk about current tasks, homework and preparation for mid-term controls, share best practices and communicate with students. There are also blogs on events, on a schedule, on articles that students write on internships. There is a separate blog where surveys are conducted, and student personal blogs. For updates, you can follow the tape.
Schedule, attendance and estimates. The site has a schedule module that allows each student to submit their own schedule, load by semesters, and send notifications of lectures. Schedule related attendance system and a rating log.
Performance and personal accounts. For information about their disciplines, attendance, workload, the student can follow in your account. Information on the points scored in each subject and on the final ranking helps to control the progress.
When the teacher sets grades for the next midterm control, the students' ratings are automatically recalculated. In a private office, the student immediately sees that his rating has risen or fallen, and, accordingly, rests on his laurels or decides what to do with his studies.
Attendance and check-ins. The site is automatically monitored attendance - 15 minutes before the start of classes, students receive a notification and can confirm that they have arrived.
The module invitations to events. Students can sign up for master classes and open courses by invited experts. A few hours before the event, the participant will receive a reminder by email, and after the event can leave a review or question.
Video. To help students, we remove all the lectures and post them on the site. At the moment we have shot thousands of hours of free educational video content - one person will need about two months without sleep and lunch breaks to watch it. Students actively watch the video, including in order to refresh the information in memory before the boundary controls.
About students
Practical work is the main feature of Technopark. Many of the work done by our students can serve as a prototype for real-life software. As an example, I can give the scheduling system for MSTU. It was created on the basis of our own timetable, which was developed by one of the Technopark students. In the near future, we are launching a summer competition for students of a functional prototyping project on the web.
About internship
Once a year, the Technopark hosts Career Days, where our students meet with the leaders of Mail.Ru Group, communicate, talk about themselves and choose a place for future internships. Today, Mail.Ru Group employs more than 50 of our students.
About the first issue and graduation
Our first graduation is 17 students who completed the first set of studies, 14 of them work in the staff of the Mail.Ru Group. Practically all of them from the second to third semester of study were trained in our company, one of the graduates is already involved in teaching a course on DBMS in Technopark.
The first graduation we celebrated in Sochi. Of course, besides graduates, some of the teachers also went with us. On the first day we took a trip to Rosa Khutor, and climbed the cable car to the top of the ski resort. And the second day was spent in the Agursky gorge: first there was a trekking along the Agursky waterfalls using mounted crossings, and then we climbed the sheer rock wall along the Via Ferrata route.
In two years we have come a long way - you can learn more about this from the presentation . I am sure that an interesting and rich academic life, bright projects and new talented students are waiting for us ahead.
Dmitry Voloshin,
Head of Technopark Mail.Ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/220253/
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