Press Release: The ideal comodal room by Kalyzée adopted by the "Connected Guyane: Bridging the Gaps" project, winner of the "Innovation in School Form" call for expression of interest.
Kalyzée, Marseille, France - How can students from isolated villages in Guyane be kept engaged in their socio-cultural environment? This is the ambition of the "Connected Guyane: Bridging the Gaps" project led by the Guyane Regional Education Authority, winner of the "Innovation in School Form" call for expression of interest. Kalyzée offers an innovative techno-pedagogical solution with the ideal comodal room.
Students from villages travel to school by canoe along the Upper Maroni River, and many of them stay at the boarding school. This separation from their families is difficult for many.
The challenge for students from isolated villages in Guyane is the geographical distance between their villages and the school. This forces some middle school students to spend up to three hours a day traveling by canoe to get to school. This dangerous, expensive, and sometimes very long journey leads to serious issues such as dropping out, absenteeism, family separation, and even suicide.
The Connected Guyane project aims to establish 6th and 5th grade classes directly in isolated villages using a particularly innovative techno-pedagogical approach. This will enable a smooth transition between schooling in these remote areas and the arrival of young middle school students in the towns and coastal areas of Guyane.
In practice, students will attend the same classes in the same classrooms, despite being in distant locations. They will be able to exchange in real-time and remotely with different teachers and all the groups that make up the class. This approach will allow students to better understand the expectations of middle school while remaining closely connected to their family, cultural, and social environment.
Kalyzée, a partner in this ambitious project, is implementing its concept of the ideal comodal room to enhance education accessibility in remote Guyane villages. A custom innovative technology has been developed for this project.
The technological innovation is based on the developments made by the Innovative Young Company Kalyzée, which, using a geostationary satellite, will interconnect the rooms. The first classes will open in Taluen, Antecum-pata, Kayodé, and Maripasoula at the start of the 2023 school year.
Kalyzée is fully committed to this project. Indeed, the context, challenges, and operational conditions make it exceptional. Moreover, environmental constraints (electricity, networks, humidity) pose a motivating technological challenge.
"The entire Kalyzée team is excited about taking on this challenge. It's an incredible opportunity for the startup to demonstrate its ability to provide sovereign and resilient communication solutions. If we succeed in Guyane, we will succeed everywhere. In France, of course, but also in the rest of the world where access to electricity and the internet is limited!" says CEO Stéphane Barbati.
After 6 months of research and development, Kalyzée has just validated the proof of concept: connecting 4 distant classrooms via low-bandwidth satellite connection. A teacher can teach simultaneously in 4 distant classrooms while maintaining interactions between teachers and learners. To achieve this, the startup has created a new low-consumption communication architecture, both in terms of energy and bandwidth, with its own cameras. The innovation in the Connected Guyane project involves both pedagogical usage and technology.
These classrooms, which combine in-person and remote learning, change the role and position of teachers. Consequently, models of course sequencing and multisite animation need to be established. This task has been entrusted to a research team from the INSPE of Aix-Marseille University.
The ideal comodal room is a concept born from observations and expertise gathered over 10 years of work with clients and partners. This room addresses the needs of synchronous and asynchronous hybridization for in-person and remote learning.
The ideal comodal room has been meticulously designed and arranged to offer the best current experience on the market. It stands out for its ease of use (1 hour of training) and its extremely controlled cost (less than 40 thousand euros).
We are providing the model plan (synoptic) here under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0). Everyone is free to use and modify it.
Kalyzée's unique feature is its mastery of both technology and pedagogy, two fields that typically have little interaction. The ideal comodal room perfectly meets the requirements of technicians and educators:
This room integrates with existing ecosystems: Moodle, BBB, ESUP-POD, Canal-U.
This room simultaneously manages video conferencing, streaming, and broadcasting.
Its setup and usage are fully automated and supervised to free teachers from technical constraints.
In the term "ideal comodal room," "ideal" signifies room customization for each individual. Based on the standard room model, it's possible to create variations according to one's needs. This is precisely the case with the Connected Guyane project, where satellite network connections have been taken into account.
Lastly, "ideal" also means considering CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policies. Kalyzée reintroduces cameras other than its own KAST brand (Aver or Polycom) to incorporate them into the ideal comodal room.
Connected Guyane POCProof of concept and deployment of an ideal comodal room in Maripasoula, Guyane.
The ideal comodal room could potentially set the new standard for hybrid learning. Any room can be transformed to be interconnected with another, regardless of the chosen communication protocols.
Thanks to the deployment of low-altitude satellites and 5G, many possibilities are emerging. It's possible to create and connect third spaces located in areas with poor network coverage. Remote, isolated learners, whether individually or collectively, can now communicate with the teacher/trainer, as well as with other remote students, enabling interaction on the shared board.
Providing a similar hybrid remote experience to in-person instruction, with classrooms designed and configured for full immersion of remote students into the course with an unparalleled experience, is the essence of the ideal comodal room.
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