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ИНФОРМАЦИОННО-КОММУНИКАЦИОННАЯ ЛИНГВОДИДАКТИКА
УДК 81-139
И. К. Ахэрн, А. И. Горожанов
И. К. Ахэрн, доцент кафедры методики обучения иностранным языкам и литературе (английский, французский и испанский) Педагогического колледжа Центра подготовки преподавателей Университета Комплутенсе г. Мадрид; e-maiL: akahern@ucm.es
А. И. Горожанов, кандидат филологических наук, доцент, доцент кафедры грамматики и истории немецкого языка факультета немецкого языка, директор Центра дистанционного обучения;
e-mail: gorozhanov@linguanet.ru
ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫЕ И КОММУНИКАЦИОННЫЕ ТЕХНОЛОГИИ В ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОЙ ПРАКТИКЕ (на опыте педагогического факультета университета Комплутенсе и центра дистанционного обучения МГЛУ)
С 2003 г. Университет Комплутенсе (Мадрид) располагает виртуальным образовательным пространством (Виртуальным кампусом), одним из компонентов которого является LMS Moodle. Преподаватели высоко оценивают возможности Виртуального кампуса, однако нельзя утверждать, что большинство пользователей LMS Moodle единодушны в исключительно положительной оценке системы. В Московском государственном лингвистическом университете дистанционное обучение иностранным языкам началось в 2016 г. на базе Центра дистанционного обучения. Деятельность этого подразделения направлена на развитие краткосрочных дистанционных курсов иностранных языков различного типа. В качестве технологической платформы используется LMS Moodle 3.0+. Опыт Центра дистанционного обучения МГЛУ и опыт Университета Комплутенсе по использованию LMS MoodLe для реализации дистанционных и очных образовательных программ показывает, что пристального внимания заслуживают следующие вопросы: дальнейшее формирование ИКТ-компетенции преподавателей и студентов; разработка специальных методов использования систем управления обучением в высшем образовании; углубление обмена опытом между МГЛУ и Университетом Комплутенсе в области использования систем управления обучением для реализации широкого спектра образовательных программ.
Ключевые слова: LMS MoodLe; Московский государственный лингвистический университет; Университет Комплутенсе (Мадрид); дистанционное обучение; иностранные языки.
A. K. Ahern
Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Literature Didactics (EngLish, French and Spanish), SchooL of Education of the Centre for Teacher Training, Complutense University of Madrid; e-mail: akahern@ucm.es
A. I. Gorozhanov
Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of German Language Grammar and History at the Faculty for German Language, Director of the E-Learning Centre; e-mail: gorozhanov@linguanet.ru
INFORMATION AND COMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE (based on the experience of the school of education at the UCM and the e-learning centre at the MSLU)
Since 2003, the UCM avails of an online educational space, caUed the Virtual Campus, through which, among other potential uses, teaching staff develop a set of resources for their students using the LMS Moodle. Instructors highly appreciate the usefulness and value of the Virtual Campus for their teaching. They are in dear agreement that it helps them to be efficient in their course delivery. In examining the specifics of the kinds of advantages using Moodle offers, there is no dear, unanimous opinion, although opinions on potential disadvantages are also divided. Teaching foreign languages online began at the MSLU 2016 with the establishment of the E-Learning Centre. The activity of this department was aimed at rapid development of online, short-term foreign language courses of different kinds. As a learning platform, the LMS Moodle 3.0+ is being used. The experience of the E-Learning Center at the Moscow State Linguistic University and the FacuLty for Education at the UCM in using the LMS MoodLe for the impLementation of distance and fuLL-time educationaL programs shows that the foLLowing questions deserve cLose attention, answers to which wíLL improve the quality of the learning process: further development of ICT-competence of teachers and students; development of special methods for using Learning management systems in higher education; deepening experience exchange between the MSLU and the UCM in the field of using LMSs for the realization of a wide range of educational programs.
Key words: LMS Moodle; Moscow State Linguistic University; Complutense University of Madrid; e-learning; foreign languages.
ICT at the Faculty of Education, Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University School of Education offers a range of courses, of which the most popular, in terms of the number of students
enrolled, is the Bachelor's Degree in Primary School Education1 (in Spanish, Grado en Magisterio en Educación Primaria). The teachers of the different under- and post-graduate degree courses at this School of Education are specialists in diverse scientific disciplines, who provide instruction that combines its focus on the disciplines themselves and on relevant pedagogical approaches, while other instructors offer courses on general pedagogy, developmental psychology, history of education, and related fields, to students who are interested in becoming professionals in the field of education. Thus, both the teaching staff and the students can be expected to hold an interest in the use of new technologies in the teaching-learning process, given their growing importance and the obvious fact that they will have an increasing impact on education in the future. Such interests can be considered universal to today's teacher education and development programmes, as reflected in work based on the framework known as Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, and its widespread discussion and application [Tpack ...].
Since 2003, the UCM avails of an online educational space, called the Virtual Campus (in Spanish, Campus Virtual), through which, among other potential uses, teaching staff develop a set of resources for their students using the LMS Moodle. Currently (early 2018) the version of the LMS in use is 2.9, although a move to version 3.2 of Moodle is to take place very soon, and will probably be an easy transition thanks to the lack of modifications to the programming core version in use. In Moodle 3.2, users at the UCM will be able to use a plug-in connecting cloud services provided thanks to a contract with Google, and thereby have a simple means for including content in Moodle spaces directly from Google Drive. On the other hand, a single, central web server is used at the UCM, which also provides advantages in terms of efficiency.
All of the UCM professors and students can gain access to the platform using the institutional e-mail and password that they are provided with from the beginning of their studies or work at the University. Teachers then have the capacity to open a Moodle space for each course that they teach, or alternatively, a "Research Seminar" space for developing other projects related to their teaching and / or research.
1 Information about this course can be consulted at the following link:
educacion.ucm.es/data/cont/docs/titulaciones/57_en.pdf
Each course instructor at the UCM, thanks to this arrangement, can use the Moodle as part of their teaching activity in the ways that they prefer or consider necessary. The use of the online teaching platform is optional, but due to the interest that is shared among teaching staff and students in providing up-to-date teaching methods, it is taken advantage of for a substantial proportion of the University courses that are currently on offer. However, as the choice of whether to use the online teaching space and the capabilities that it provides is up to each teaching staff member, the particular options of exactly how it is most frequently used are a factor that can be seen as a reflection of the pedagogical traditions and tendencies of the Complutense teachers. Thus, in the next section, some information on what kind of preferences characterise the UCM School of Education's course instructors will be offered, as a window onto this group's teaching practices, and of their perceptions on the value of this kind of new technology.
Instructors' practices and perceptions related to Moodle at the UCM School of Education
In order to obtain information about how the School of Education professors and other teaching staff (we will refer to these staff members in general as "instructors"1 henceforth) use the resources that are available to them within the LMS Moodle, and their perceptions on these resources and on their students' usage of them, a brief questionnaire was completed in November 2017, by 21 participants belonging to the collective of instructors of courses at this School. In this section of the article, we offer data obtained from the questionnaire, beginning with information on the uses that instructors and students make of the LMS Moodle resources available to them, followed by information on the instructors' perceptions of the advantages and challenges these practices bring about.
Firstly, it is of interest to identify the age group of the participants. The majority (61.9 %) of the instructors that participated were between 40 and 50 years of age; 23.8 % were between 50 and 60 years old, and the remaining 14.3 % were between 30 and 40 years old.
1 These include lecturers and professors of various professional levels, details of which are not provided since they are not considered relevant to the purpose of the present article.
Instructor practices
Regarding the use that instructors make of the range of Moodle capabilities, the most popular way to use it is to provide students with the required readings for the course, by means of having the texts are compulsory available or linked into the course space. All of the participants confirmed that they use Moodle in this way. It is also very common practice to provide access through Moodle to complementary readings (confirmed by 86% of participants), to PowerPoint presentations shown during face-to-face class sessions (81 % of participants do so), to online videos related to the course content (76 % of participants) or other online learning resources (71 %). Finally, 5 instructors (23.8 %) confirmed that they use Moodle tests or quizzes.
There are, however, a range of potential uses of Moodle applications that were specifically asked about in the questionnaire but shown to be less prevalent in instructors' practices: only one instructor confirmed using wikis or glossaries. On the other hand, so as to complete the option of participants adding any resources that they use, in addition to those included in the questionnaire, the following resources were also mentioned, although only once for each: uploading of tasks (assignments) done by students, forums, submission of - and sharing ideas about - assignments.
As to the instructors' view on the frequency with which their students connect to their course Moodle space, the majority (71.4 %)affirm that their students enter it once a week; but 19 % of the instructors' students are said to open it almost every day. Finally, only 2 of the participating instructors claim to have students that use their course Moodle spaces less than once each week.
On the other hand, regarding the possible impact of students' usage of Moodle resources on their grades in each course, the majority of the instructors surveyed (57 %) do not acknowledge that there is such a direct impact. However, almost half (47 %) confirm that their students' participation or activity in a course Moodle space does impact the grades that they obtain. In particular, instructors mention that participation in forums is taken into account, or that performance in the final exam is strongly affected by students having taken advantage of the learning resources provided through Moodle.
Thus, based on these data, it can be highlighted that in this context, instructors' main uses of the Virtual Campus consist in posting fundamental texts, complementary readings, slides from presentations made in class and
sometimes other resources like videos, in order to complement the class sessions and provide easy access to - mainly independent - study materials. Not much use is made of the tools for collaborative work that Moodle can provide, such as forums, wikis, glossaries, nor of other kinds of activities that probably require more preparation and administration work, such as quizzes. The fact that the Virtual Campus is complementary to face-to-face class sessions most likely influences these choices, since it may be understood that these sessions offer instructors the simplest and most straightforward option for certain task types, particularly those involving group collaboration.
Instructor perceptions and views
In general terms, instructors highly appreciate the usefulness and value of the Virtual Campus for their teaching: 90 % of the survey participants agreed (28 %) or completely agreed (62 %) that it constitutes "a very useful teaching tool". There is a very similar level of agreement with the statement that the Virtual Campus helps instructors to be more efficient and makes their teaching work easier.
Regarding the details of exactly what aspects instructors appreciate most, or the concerns that they have related to the Virtual Campus and its uses, there is, of course, a diversity of points of view, which are reflected in the following observations and assessments.
A majority of the participants are in agreement that the Virtual Campus helps the instructor to act more as a learning facilitator than as an information transmitter (11 % agree, and 52 % totally agree); an idea based on the assumption that the use of online resources favours students' active participation in learning [Laurillard 2002; Richards 2005]. However, a few disagree slightly with this statement.
Regarding the idea that the use of the Virtual Campus contributes to the development of interpersonal competencies and teamwork in the students, opinions among the instructors are divided, although in total, 57 % disagree with this idea (34 % slightly disagree and 24 % disagree). Yet quite a few do agree with it (28 % agree or completely agree; 14 % slightly agree). The exact same proportion of the participating instructors disagree that the use of the Virtual Campus promotes peer collaboration among the students.
As to some issues which might be expected to present challenges to instructors in relation to the use of the Virtual Campus, three were brought up in the questionnaire: that of lacking or needing to acquire technical
knowledge or skills in order to use these resources adequately; a need for a large amount of time to be able to use them; that of a possible neglect of valuable learning resources, such as library or textbooks, due to the increasing use of the Virtual Campus; and the possibility that this technology might increase students' stress and the pressure that they experience.
Instructors were of diverse opinions related to the statement that they might "need training in order to be able to use the Virtual Campus efficiently"; none totally agreed with this statement, whilst about 45 % slightly agreed or agreed, and the remaining 55 % disagreed, (slightly disagreement (20 %), disagreed (20 %), or totally disagreed 15 %). In other words, a slim majority of the participants felt that they did not require (further) training to use these technological resources adequately.
Regarding the potential view that using the Virtual Campus implies spending large amounts of time on technical tasks, the participants mainly (67 %) disagreed, although only 2 participants (9.5 %) totally disagreed. This suggests that there is a general perception that time is required, but not necessarily perceived as excessive amounts of it, to deal with the technical side of teaching with these resources. And about a third of the participants do agree that it requires a lot of time to spend on technical issues.
The possible perceptions of how the Virtual Campus might be considered to have certain negative effects on students included the question of it being a potential source of additional pressure and stress felt by the students, an idea which was mainly (81 %) disagreed with. One third of the participants totally disagreed, and half of the participants disagreed or slightly disagreed. Only 4 participants agreed, (3 slightly agreed; 1 agreed). On the other hand, the participants agreed, to a greater measure, with the potentially negative effect of the use of the Virtual Campus as a reason for students to neglect other useful study and learning resources like library materials and books. Two thirds of the participants agreed with this idea, although only 20 % totally agreed. Some disagreed, in fact 14 % completely disagreed with it, however.
All in all, it is clear that the UCM instructors who participated value the convenience and capabilities that Moodle offers. Overall, they are in clear agreement that it helps them to be efficient in their course delivery. In examining the specifics of the kinds of advantages using Moodle offers, there is no clear, unanimous opinion, although opinions on potential disadvantages are also divided.
Having described the online teaching resources used in education studies at the UCM, and some data related to instructor practices and opinions of these, in the next sections we provide similar kinds of information related to the MSLU context.
Teaching online at the E-Learning Centre of the MSLU
Teaching foreign languages online began at the MSLU 2016 with the establishment of the E-Learning Centre (russ. Центр дистанционного o6y4eHra).The activity of this department was aimed at rapid development of online, short-term foreign language courses of different kinds. On 20 September of the same year, a German language course for beginners was launched, and now, after about a year and a half, over 15 courses of different type - for English, German, French and Spanish are being provided. Among them there are general courses (foreign language from beginning to intermediate levels), "aspect courses" (communicative grammar) and foreign languages for specific purposes (written translation from a foreign language into the Russian language).
All courses are being provided on a commercial basis, and the statistics indicate that the most popular among the students are: by foreign language -English; by course type - Written translation. In detail, the percentage by foreign languages is the following: English - 63 %, French - 21 %, German -15 %, Spanish - 1 %. The distribution by courses is the following: Written translation - 49 %, General courses - 47 %, Aspect courses - 4 %.
As a learning platform, the learning management system Moodle 3.0+ (LMS Moodle 3.0+) is being used. By adding "+" to the version number we mean that the standard core of the LMS Moodle 3.0 installation has been modified to be a more effective tool for teaching foreign languages.
After having used the LMS for about a year and a half, some conclusions about the convenience and disadvantages of the system can be drawn.
In conversations, the students and tutors spoke positively about the LMS, despite some minor challenges. Basically, the difficulties arose with the students with low level of general IT-literacy. So, several times cases of using obsolete software (web browsers mostly) were recorded, which prevented some GUI (graphical user interface) widgets from being displayed. Despite the fact that the requirements for software and connection speed are prescribed in the contract and in the course's curriculum and manual, there were some incidents of software incompatibility, which had to be corrected during the learning process.
As to the students positive appraisals, they noted the convenience of step-by-step algorithm (linear program by B. F. Skinner [Skinner 1968, p. 49]) and the fact that all the learning material is situated within the course, without the need to address to any other sources of information. Also, the availability of the tablet and mobile interface was assessed positively.
Some criticism toward the system was mistakenly expressed, because some students could not navigate through the course freely. As it turned out later, such students understood the study of the language as a simple sum of one-time execution of tasks, and with the possibility to skip as many of them as possible. Of course these cases can in no way be related to the quality of the LMS or the selected pedagogical approach.
Tutors' comments about the system were extremely positive. Highly appreciated were the monitoring subsystem and the user-friendly interface of the assignment module, which allows commenting on the student's response, also by highlighting the background color of the text.
It is interesting to note, anecdotic ally, that some students refused to take part in online lessons with the personal tutor, neglecting the most valuable type of learning activity provided in the distance courses. In our opinion, such a refusal can be explained either by the student's unwillingness to communicate, or by a banal laziness. Only in one case, working on a aspect course, a student did not want to use online lessons, but nonetheless, passed the examination successfully, which can be regarded more as an exception than a rule.
From the point of view of the system administrator, the LMS can also be evaluated positively. The administrator is responsible, in general, for the following actions (in chronological order, for one student):
- create a user account;
- enroll student and tutor to the course;
- control the first access of the student to the system;
- monitor the student's work in the first lesson;
- protocol the work of students and tutors for the preparation of financial documents (monthly);
- upload the examination assignment to the course just before the exam;
- prepare the final protocol and delete the student from the course after the examination.
Though there are plenty of foreign language courses for Russian language speakers on the educational market, our courses tend to be a
unique offer for several reasons. First, they are individual; that means that every student is being taught not in a group but by a personal tutor, who can focus on her or his needs and be as flexible as possible in finding the best way to optimize the learning process. Second, students can start learning immediately after the conclusion of the contract, in independence from the current date. Third, students need not buy any additional learning materials (including dictionaries), because they have all they need inside the course.
Conclusion
In general, we can conclude that the LMS Moodle 3 is a modern and effective learning management system that is able to perform various learning tasks, both in blended and distance learning, including teaching foreign languages.
The fact that the installation pack of the system is distributed free facilitates optimizing the costs of the learning process, and the possibility of modifying the programming core opens the prospect of implementing various methods.
At the same time, practice says that the success of learning through the LMS Moodle is directly related to the level of development of ICT-Competence of students and teachers, which, however, is now a must for any student and professional.
The experience of the E-Learning Center at the Moscow State Linguistic University and the Faculty for Education at the Complutense University of Madrid in using the LMS Moodle for the implementation of distance and full-time educational programs shows that the following questions deserve close attention, answers to which will improve the quality of the learning process:
Further development of ICT-competence of teachers and students.
Development of special methods for using learning management systems in higher education.
Deepening experience exchange between the MSLU and the Complutense University ofMadrid in the field ofusing learning management systems for the realization of a wide range of educational programs.
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Richards, C. The design of effective ICT-supported learning activities: exemplary models, changing requirements, and new possibilities // Language Learning & Technology. 2005. Vol. 9-1. P. 6079. Skinner, B. F. The Technology of Teaching. Des Moines : Meredith Corp., 1968. 271 p.
TPACK Framework Official Website. URL: tpack.org (06.01.2018).
