Ilia strives to create memorable, compelling learning experiences for students through interaction and various forms of communication.

After transitioning from a business career to education, he's been teaching at one of the top schools in Bangkok for seven years, starting with a homeroom teacher position, then becoming head of Digital Technology department. He currently lives in Phuket, teaching Astronomy, Design and Technology, Robotics and Science at an international school.

A source of motivation for Ilia is witnessing young students choosing to pursue "hard" technical and science disciplines and achieving success in these subjects, as well as seeing his students competing in and winning coding and robotics contests.

Ilia's research interests include AI and Technology in Education, and he considers it is his mission to make our society more technologically advanced.

A culture that encourages young people to harness the power of technology starts in the classroom with flexible, accessible products that are designed to make learning productive and inspiring. Tools that tech giants, such as Apple and Google, offer to educators have revolutionized learning in many ways recently, but is bringing technology to school a miracle solution?

Ilia was one of the architects of the iPad program for students at two different schools; implementing the iPad program included liaising with schools' upper management and developing policies, setting up the tech such as mobile device management server and configuration devices, training IT staff, teachers and students. He is Google Workspace administrator who specializes in Google's educational products. From his experience, the answer to the question is yes, indeed, technology can make a huge difference that may seem almost miraculous, but really only if technology is applied strategically.

Every piece of tech in the classroom, be it a custom-created assessment software product or a student's iPad, should be managed, not only to ensure the school values and curriculum aims are applied, but to allow differentiation and to increase student engagement. Schools have been increasing their adaptation of technology for years, but very often after investing in a new technology, school admins find out that they and their IT department "speak different languages", and as a result the tools are not used fully which causes the potential of tech investment not to be realized, or the adaptation of the new tech requires teachers and admins to change their practice.

Ilia strongly believes that it is technology that should be adapting to the teaching models of the school, and not the other way around; for instance, schools that are serious about assessing their values implementation and wishing their philosophy to be reflected in daily practice or International Baccalaureate student-driven learning will require more flexibility from tech solutions. Being both an academic and techie, Ilia, in cooperation with admins, teachers and IT could implement digital technology solutions that were strategic, tailored to the needs of students, parents, teachers and admins; solutions that increased student engagement, facilitated assessment and improved parent-teacher communication.

The other important part of a tech implementation success at school is the onboarding process support. It is not enough to bring a tech solution to school; even with edtech companies investing millions into making their products interfaces user-friendly and intuitive, and users receiving products with appearance that gives the product a deceivingly simplified feel, it is important to conduct ongoing trainings to ensure the technology is put to a good use. Ilia conducted various training sessions for his colleagues, ran special lessons to engage students and to get them to use tech more, and provided support to students' parents. Continuous communication with students and their parents, teachers and admins allowed Ilia to adjust the policies, framework, and software accordingly and make the implemented solutions effective, flexible and ultimately make them a success story for the school.

The trends of 2024 suggest that the education sector will continue to innovate further, particularly in the areas of immersive learning and the use of AI. It is likely that AI is going to help make learning highly individualized; individualized curriculum can be used very well with students that need personalized learning especially ESL students and students with special needs. An exciting development in edtech that will create more opportunities for tech-savvy teachers and will bring schools that invest in innovation a competitive advantage!

Ilia strives to create memorable compelling learning experiences for students through interaction and various forms of communication.

After transitioning from a business career to education, he's been teaching at one of the top schools in Bangkok for seven years, starting with a homeroom teacher position, then becoming the head of Digital Technology department. He currengly lives in Phuket, teaching Astronomy, Design and Technology, Robotics and Science at an international school.

A source of motivation for Ilia is witnessing young students choosing to pursue "hard" technical and science disciplines and achieving success in these subjects, as well as seeing his students competing in and winning coding and robotics contests.

Ilia's research interests include AI and Technology in Education, and he considers it his mission to make our society more technologically advanced.

• Marketing
• Print
• Digital Design
• Social Media
• Time Management
• Communication
• Problem-Solving
• Social Networking
• Flexibility