New Technologies in Handicraft: Jewelry

Anahit Melkonyan

A constant search for new content of education should be carried on.  John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey was against the idea that  school programmes should remain unchanged.  He was of the opinion that in the social cultural fields  movements should be the source and stimulus for constant choice and alteration of the content of education.

Jewelry is on one of the professions taught at “Mkhitar Sebastatsi” Vocational High School. The use of new digital means and high technology programs brought changes in the traditional ways of teaching this profession. Everything began when our group of future jewelers visited the exhibition sale organized at Yerevan sport and concert complex. Jewelers from world famous jewelry companies of more than twenty countries participated in the Yerevan Show 2013.  The works by the best Armenian jewelers in the world were on display at the exhibition. We were interested in Norair Ray Babikyan’s pavilion. Mr. Babikyan is from Reseda, U.S.A. His works were done with the program 3D CAD. They were beautiful, and we were interested in the program which was introduced by Mr. Babikyan. We talked to him and invited him to our Educomplex. Mr. Babikyan willingly agreed to collaborate with our jeweler learners providing them with a modern computer program for jewelers. Then he conducted a master class lesson at our Vocational High School teaching the leaners how to use digital means while acquiring jeweler’s profession. This process requires that the teachers also should have a new approach to the organization of their lessons. This was the beginning of a new collaboration and a change in the organization of the content of education.       

Firestorm 3D CAD is an important tool for all the jewelers as it is simple and has pretty quick editing tools. The program will make the learners efforts easier. Two learners were given an opportunity to learn the program for free (Mr. Babikyan paid the tuition fee). I myself do coordinating work. We began to study the new program with the learners. We began translating the teaching materials into Armenian. The knowledge in English was given much importance to, and this work stimulated the learners to study English harder.          

The distant learning method application is directly connected with the development of high technology, the Internet and media education. The Internet has become a wonderful means to create a virtual educational environment. It was the distant learning method that gave us an opportunity to get in touch with the famous American Armenian jeweler. We use the Skype to organize our distant learning lessons and get clarifications. We hold online lesson-discussions during which we settle down the problems occurred at work. The learners are given tasks to do. The completed tasks are sent back to Mr. Babikyan. The learners can already make rings by using this program.            

We have presented the Firestorm 3D CAD program to the public educational Digitech 2014 in the nomination “Assimilation of new media education tools, means and their application.”  

Our collaboration is going on.