Welcome to the Virtual Cabinet
Students from Gjakova create an online Cabinet with material for students to learn about electricity
Gjakova, January 2023 – Simply select the "on" switch on the Virtual Cabinet website, set up by the high school students in Gjakova, to dive into an adventure involving electricity and electrical installations. It’s a one of a kind learning resource for Albanian students of electrical engineering in Kosovo.
Hysen Bibaj is one of five students from Nexhmedin Nixh technical high school, who created the Virtual Cabinet, He says it is a legacy that he and his peers want to leave for future students once they begin their university studies.
"When I was in my first year of electrical engineering at high school, we didn't have enough books in the Albanian language, nor cabinets to practice what we learned in theory," the 17-year-old says, explaining the problem they addressed at their school.
"Electrical installations are very real-world, so just knowing about them in theory is not enough. In our first year at high school, we had to borrow books from teachers, pay to make copies, and often rely on someone who knew English to translate materials from the internet,” he says.
He says the Virtual Cabinet, which in essence is a web site with practical lessons, diagrams, and models, has made a huge difference for students.
Hyseni’s school benefited from the support of a project implemented by UNICEF, with the support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, that has empowered young people to be part of the digital transition in education, by putting them in the driving seat for creating and designing learning material and solutions for digital learning through UPSHIFT workshops. Students were empowered to co-create the digital learning experience and to make online learning more attractive, interesting and relevant for themselves and fellow students.
UPSHIFT is a skills-building programme through which young people identify problems, generate solutions, and put their ideas into action.
Hyseni, along with Elvis Rasaj, Leonard Hoti, and Bernard Hajdaraj, proposed the idea of the Virtual Cabinet last in the UPSHIFT programme which was run at their school. They won support for implementing their Virtual Cabinet project.
"At first, with the help of the teacher Ramize Kryeziu, we identified the lessons we wanted to include in the Cabinet, gathered the information and translated it into Albanian. We then hired a programmer and a designer to make the Cabinet or the website," he says.
He adds that the Cabinet serves not only students but also their teachers.
"We have received very positive feedback. Students find it easier to learn online when they can see all of the practical examples of what they learn about in theory. Teachers are also finding it much easier to teach using these examples", he says.
Hyseni says that the fact that the project had also helped the school have a stable internet connection made it possible for all students to use the Virtual Cabinet, rather than only those who had internet at home.
The director of the Nexhmedin Nixha School, Florentina Gjergjaj expresses her gratitude for the project’s support to the students.
“As technology is developing rapidly, it is necessary to equip young people with skills and provide them with opportunities to create products that will enhance their learning experience. I’d like to thank the project for providing opportunities to our teachers and students so that they were able to enhance their digital literacy and skills in innovative ways and share their projects with other students who can also benefit from them”.
The Virtual Cabinet of Nexhmedin Nixha school’s students can be accessed online at the following link: Kabineti Virtual (virtual-cabinet.netlify.app)
UNICEF Kosovo and the Kingdom of the Netherlands joined forces for this strategic partnership that has enabled the support to selected schools for them to harness the power of innovation and technology and to be able to transition to meaningful online and digital education and to embrace digital skills, during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
