Chemnitz_zieht_an_Magazin_2024_englisch

THE PIONEERS OF
E-LEARNING
Let’s turn back time three
years: it’s the end of 2020
and the world is in the
middle of a pandemic. We
are standing in line at the
supermarket, waiting for an
employee to disinfect and
allocate us the next shopping
trolley. We spend our
free time going for walks
because Christmas markets,
concerts and other gatherings
of people no longer
exist. And we are learning
to appreciate the advantages
of the digital age.
Fotos: Bildungsportal Sachsen GmbH
We meet via video link, spend more of
our working days in the home office or
use online learning platforms. During
this time, BPS Bildungsportal Sachsen
GmbH was booming, as the company
has spent 20 years working on the very
e-learning tools that were invaluable
during the pandemic. Even before the
first year of Covid-19, around 30,000 students
and teachers across Saxony were
already using BPS’s learning platform
OPAL, short for Online Platform for Academic
Teaching and Learning, on a daily
basis. “During the pandemic, the number
of users rose to up to 60,000 a day
– a level that has almost been maintained
to this day,” says managing director
Sven Morgner, who has been with the
company since 2001. The idea behind
OPAL: a comprehensive integration of
e-learning and new media in everyday
university life in Saxony. BPS Bildungsportal
Sachsen GmbH was founded at
the end of 2004 by a total of eleven
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