MOSCOW – April 29, 2011 – Cisco today announced that it has delivered a video communication solution to Secondary School No. 1 to enable distance learning for schoolchildren and connect the school with leading professors from Russia's best technical universities. Secondary School No. 1 is located in the city of Gagarin within the Smolensk Region of Russia.  Yuri Gagarin, whose first flight to space 50 years ago is being commemorated across the globe, was a pupil of the school.

Key Facts / Highlights

• Today, the school participates in lessons delivered via video by professors of the Moscow Aviation Institute and the Russian State Technological University (Tsiolkovsky University) directly from the university premises.
• The lessons are supported by a multimedia classroom with PCs, an interactive whiteboard, and a video conferencing system featuring Cisco TelePresence^TM 990 ??? video codecs with multipoint conferencing and presentation functions.
• Video conferencing at Gagarin Secondary School not only supports interactive classes but will also help attract schoolchildren to participate in various creative competitions. In addition, it enables remote consultations and support for students involved in research projects.
• To help teachers update their professional skills, the school plans to use video sessions and distance learning webinars, in cooperation with the Academy of Skills Upgrade and Professional Retraining, as well as to use video conferencing for remote tours, conferences, seminars, master classes and forms of knowledge transfer.