The TUMO Center, or more properly the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, is one of the most innovative educational hubs in all of Armenia. It is a creative, and above all free, learning center for children aged 12 to 18, located inside Tumanyan Park. The main peculiarity? There are no fixed classrooms or even teachers in the traditional sense of the term: in their place we find Learning Coaches (who guide students in their independent path) and Workshop Leaders (sector professionals who conduct intensive practical workshops).
Learning without teachers in the Tumo Center in Armenia
The TUMO Center for Creative Technologies is an entirely innovative learning center, built in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and with additional locations in major Armenian cities. It is a structure whose objective is to teach various disciplines to young children aged 12 to 18 in a completely innovative way. Here, in fact, there are no teachers in the most traditional sense of the term. But how is this possible?
TUMO provides a platform that allows children to create their own learning path independently. The platform provides educational material and, obviously, also exercise material, to test the knowledge learned. A total of 14 disciplines are available, including programming, robotics, animation, game design, film production, music, writing and 3D graphics. To guarantee a correct training path, they are accompanied by Learning Coaches and Workshop Leaders, i.e. professionals who will manage practical workshops.
The project of the head office in Yerevan
The main headquarters built for the TUMO represents a true example of modern and very interesting architecture. The building, which bears the architect’s signature Bernard Khouryis characterized by a space of 7,000 m2 characterized by the absence of fixed classrooms. This particular system in fact includes a series of mobile workstations, connected to a system of cables connected to a ceiling grid, so as to avoid the presence of cables on the floor (which can also be dangerous). From this ceiling network, retractable power and data cables descend which connect to the mobile stations wherever they are located.
The project has been enormously successful: consider that to date the project has also been exported to other cities such as Paris, Berlin, Tirana, Lyon And Beirut.
The “TUMO Path”: gaming software for learning
Another very interesting aspect is learning based on the use of software. In fact, if on the one hand we have a lack of teachers in the traditional sense of the term, on the other we have the use of a learning software called TUMO Path. The software is able to evaluate the student’s progress in 14 areas, and analyzes the results, balancing the cognitive load and tests based on the subjects in which the student presents greater difficulties. It all works through the use of a dashboard that focuses learning on the gamification of the same: in practice you learn as if you were playing a video game.
