Telecom Industry Faces Online School Opening... SKT Launches Virtual Classroom Pilot Service

Teachers and students of Sinpung Elementary School, which has started online classes, are demonstrating the 'Seoro' virtual classroom.

[Asia Economy Reporter Joesulgina] SK Telecom is launching a pilot service of the 'Seoro' virtual classroom in response to online school openings due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

According to SK Telecom on the 9th, this pilot service will be operated until the end of the first semester of 2020 for about 80 children in three classes: two sixth-grade classes and one fifth-grade class at Sinpung Elementary School located in Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do.

The ‘Seoro’ virtual classroom pilot service consists of SK Telecom’s ▲group video call service ‘Seoro’ ▲remote learning devices ▲kids safety app ‘ZEM’, designed to allow students to easily attend classes remotely.

The group video call ‘Seoro’ used in this pilot service is based on SK Telecom’s video call feature ‘Callar’ and the multi-party call app ‘T Group Call’. ‘Seoro’ supports up to QHD resolution, and SK Telecom added that it provides stable video call quality without delay even with many participants simultaneously connected, thanks to video/audio transmission delay reduction technology and proprietary rendering.

Originally, SK Telecom planned to release ‘Seoro’ for general users in the second half of the year, but due to delays in school openings for elementary, middle, and high schools caused by COVID-19 and concerns about students’ learning gaps from online schooling, they decided to introduce it first for remote education.

SK Telecom will provide devices to all pilot class students and their teachers during the pilot period and install the child safety protection application ‘ZEM’ to block access to harmful content other than designated educational content. They plan to proceed to commercialization based on data collected from actual educational settings in the future.

Lee Hyun-ah, head of SK Telecom’s AI Service Division, said, “With the prolonged COVID-19 situation, we judged that support to minimize students’ learning gaps is necessary, so we prepared this pilot service,” adding, “Based on the pilot service, we will commercialize the ‘Seoro’ virtual classroom service that anyone can easily and conveniently use as soon as possible.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.