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УДК 37.01
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY - GREAT ASSISTANT TO RENOVATE HIGHER EDUCATION
Hoang Hoa Binh
Hanoi University of Culture e- mail: hoabinhh@huc.edu.vn
From my time as a graduate student, until the present moment as a young lecturer, I have found myself lucky to understand the thoughts and feelings of new age students. Therefore, I have a desire to reform teaching methods and lessons of a new lecturer. This is the reason why I am interested in the changes in higher education, especially with regard to the application of digital technology.]
The traditional lecture model using an oral teaching style, where students passively write down whatever the teacher is saying, is gradually becoming a noose for higher education in modern times.
Keywords: university, education reformation, students, lectures, digital technology, traditional education, flipped classrooms, telepresence, virtual reality, google art project, industry 4.0.
Social history went through four industrial revolutions, each revolution brought about profound changes in human life. The first industrial revolution took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the mechanized revolution marked the replacement of human workers by machines. Then, by the end of the 19th century came the second revolution with electric motors. The dynamics of the Industrial Revolution are internal combustion engines and electrical machines. In 1914 (the year that World War I began), this second phase ended. The Third Industrial Revolution began around 1969, when there were advances in electronic infrastructures, computer and digitalization as it was catalyzed by the development of semiconductors and supercomputers (1960s), Personal computers (1970s and 1980s) and the Internet (1990s). By the end of the 20th century, this process was basically completed thanks to high-tech scientific achievements. In 1997, the breaking out of Asian financial crisis marked the ending of the third revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution began in the early 21st century, following the great achievements of the third, which was formed on the basis of the digital revolution, with new technologies such as 3D printing, Robots, artificial intelligence, IoT, SMAC, nanotechnology, biology, new materials, etc. Now the whole world is in the early stages of this revolution and a hinged strategy for developing countries to keep up with the world trend and open a new turning point for human development.
In short, the fourth technology revolution brings together the real world, the virtual world, and the world of living things. These new technologies will greatly affect every single rule, every economy, every industry, and also challenge our notion of the true role of human. Many experts say that the 4th revolution is currently in the process of sublimation. This is both an opportunity but also a challenge for every country. This revolution can affect all aspects of economic and social life. The gadgets we use today can become backward in just 10 years. With the rapid development of the fourth revolution, the strongest manifestation would be that everything that could not be connected to the phone or the internet would be eliminated. Another estimate of the experts said that by 2020 there would be about 50 billion gadgets connected with internet. Professor Klaus Schwab - founder and
president of the World Economic Forum released the book "Fourth Industrial Revolution" and has the following statement:
"These changes will be so deep that never before in history people have as many opportunities as risks at the same time. My concern is that political and business leaders will probably hold on to their old-fashion or too obsessed ideas of how technological breakthroughs will change humanity's future. "
Integrating and following global development trends is inevitable, if a society stays out of the trend or even in opposition to it, then surely that society will not be able to develop. Based on such a situation, it is possible to say that the trend of applying digital technology to higher education is essential. With the rapid development of the 4th Industrial Revolution, digital technology applications have increasingly contributed to many prominent achievements in all areas. In education, digital technology is giving a completely new look to university education.
First of all, we must admit that we cannot deny the success of the traditional education model. But the truth is that it is no longer consistent with the technological society where digital technology has become a great assistance for those who want achieve success. The focus of education is the students, and students are fans of technology. They like to use technology and are always interested in the incorporation of the latest technology with their everyday lives. This results in the students becoming increasingly bored with having to sit through traditional lectures of 4-8 hours / day, 5-7 days / week. Students understand the benefits of learning "proactively", rather than learning "passively". They also want to spend less time in class, which will enable them to participate in other activities in society. Above all, they want to know how to bring knowledge learned from university into life in the most scientific way. The traditional teaching with bare theory (without practical examples) often makes students not only bored, but also results in students not knowing how to apply the theoretical knowledge in the real world.
Today, the rapid development of technology is enabling lecturers to create innovative methods of transferring knowledge to students, providing more choices for teaching and more fun for students in the learning process. An example of an effective use of technology in the learning process will nowhere listed: There is no longer the usual school hours with textbooks, notebooks, pens, along with boring word reading. Instead, power point is used to create dynamic lectures that integrate a series of vivid and colorful visual aids, audios and videos. With the help of the Internet and social development, the interaction between the teacher and students has become easier. Furthermore, in today's world, people prefer using emails and Facebook to face-to-face meetings and discussions. However, the use of power point is just a presentation tool that may enable lectures to become more interesting. Likewise, email and Facebook just shorten the distance, helping the exchange of information. These means do not really create leverage in renewing higher education and do not really improve the quality of studying. Some of the digital achievements mentioned in this essay can be used as a future solution to the problem of higher education that had previously been mentioned. Up until now, we have been more or less successful in a number of areas, and it is expected to bring a complete change to higher education.
1. Flipped Classrooms
With traditional lectures, particularly in the case of students learning a language which is not their mother tongue, not being able to catch up all the content of the lecture often causes major obstacles for students. About 10 years ago when the concept of Flipped Classrooms had not been used, the tendency for students to concentrate on both understanding the content and taking notes was quite popular. The concept of Flipped
Classrooms is the reverse of this, where students instead watching video lectures at home prior to attending the class. Students can watch them over and over, performing the tests and participating in the online discussion, while the lecturer examines their understanding of the lecture content. Lecturers are also able to answer some questions relating to the lecture, immediately. After this prior learning, students go to class where the aim of the lecture is to focus on creating discussion for a deeper and broader understanding. The lecturer can also facilitate group exercises, group discussions and make special requests for students to do another task (for example, a real job). This model has completely changed the concept of a traditional classroom. It is appropriate and can be applied to all professions, all knowledge and skills. For example, in the video of the production class at Algonquin College (Canada) where the traditional lecture style had been used, it is difficult to grasp all the theoretical knowledge of video editing software as the details provided by teachers are relatively complex. Whereas, when students have an opportunity to watch the lecture video in advance, watching it as many times as they want, then going to class to practice and do group exercises, this saves the students a lot of time, while increasing the possibility to achieve learning outcomes.
Flipped Classrooms can be compared to online learning 1and we will see similarities between the two. However, online learning cannot fully replace the actual classroom time. Face - to - face meetings between students and lecturers - where solving questions and a debate amongst students is always persuasive. Especially for subjects containing complex theories and practical application, the new digital technology, however, brings about only detailed simulations. The integration of online learning and lectures in class is the advantage of Flipped Classrooms - a revolutionary liberation for both lecturers and students in higher education. This facility is a cost-saving solution for training schools and also opens up opportunities to reach hundreds of lectures for students. But the act of preparing a video lecture, selecting topics for in-class-discussions and designing practical exercises is a fairly complex task. This work requires teachers to prepare thoroughly. Perhaps it is for this reason that the advanced teaching model has not yet been used worldwide.
2. Telepresence2
Internet is said to be miracle of the modern world as it shortens any geographical distance, the combination of Internet with advanced technologies like Telepresence creates immersive experience for students as if they are in class when they actually are alone at home. It sounds almost "impossible" with the 8x students. Telepresence use high definition cameras feeding to life-size HD displays with high fidelity acoustics that, in many cases, localize sound to image, simulating the effect of each voice coming from the video display for each participant. The technologies are integrated into a high bandwidth system to support real-time, seamless presentation in a dedicated telepresence space. Advantage of this new model is that the students or participants do not have to worry about moving, overcome differences in both time zones. It means teacher can teach one class from a remote location but both students and teacher can easily imagine that they are in a same room together. Or a student from a remote location can fully participate in a session with his teacher and other students. He can talk to and discuss with them as if he is in a real class. Assuming an acting class normally takes place with a teacher, now the teacher is out of
1 Online education (also known as e-learning) is a virtual learning method using a computer, smart phone to connect with a server which is storing available electronic lectures and software necessary for lecturer to give assignment, task to students. Students can choose online the course with the guidance of lecturer's or self-interactive course (Interactive Self-pace Course).
2 A telepresence system requires at least two locations with dedicated server hardware and software, bandwidth to support the HD throughput, and equipment that can deliver high-quality audio and HD video. People appear life-size, frequently seated, with torso and hands visible—an arrangement especially effective with smaller groups.
town, and cannot be present in the class, the teacher, through telepresence technology still be able to instruct his students in a vivid way. Fast transmission, HD video screen and a modern sound system will make the classroom run smoothly almost as normal. The application of this technology into teaching brings many benefits not only to the education institute; it also minimizes difficulties of teachers, and brings better education opportunities to students. The university saves time and money spent on inviting foreign lecturers. Telepresence is also an excellent solution for teachers when they are traveling or in a business trip therefore they can be available at school for classes. The biggest drawback of Telepresence is probably only a matter of cost, that is, the cost of multi-camera systems, multi sounds is expensive. However in the past few years, Telepresence brought great success not only in business but also in education. Many universities in developed countries have adopted this advanced technology. The California Community Colleges (CCC) Confer project, for example, headquartered at Palomar College in San Marcos, California, allows those within the CCC system to meet and collaborate remotely. The University of Melbourne recently announced the installation of a telepresence system for research with a demonstration and lecture on epilepsy. It was presented simultaneously to an audience at the University of California, San Diego via a one-gigabit-per-second Internet linkup. In a program called the Cisco Telepresence University Connection, Cisco has provided its telepresence suite to a number of research institutions, including Cornell University, MIT, and several University of California campuses.
3. Virtual Reality
Now we calculate how much the cost for actual students' site-visiting will be saved by bringing Virtual Reality technology into higher education. We are referring to the specialized training on culture, artistic area or tourism. Not only talking about the cost of travel, accommodation or insurance ... arranging for a class to go to history places, or visit beauty spots in a distant country is not simple. There are many festivals or special festivals take place in just a short given time, not everyone can arrange their time and work in order to participate in. Virtual Reality technology brings an environment simulated by computer. Most virtual reality environments are mainly visual display on a computer screen or three-dimension-vision goggles through which users will see three-dimensional images. Especially, with virtual reality technology, we can minimize the risks, which are unable to foresee in a study-travel at site. Guidance of lecturers or even photographs cannot provide 360-degree images as vivid and real as what the virtual reality provides. Some virtual reality models include all kinds of senses such as audio or tactile. More specifically, the improved technology has allowed users to interact and handle circumstances in the environment created by Virtual Reality, rather than merely tracking the virtual images. One American high school has made this kind of immersion a priority for its students. At Washington Leadership Academy (WLA), an open enrollment charter school in the nation's capital, students in grades 9-12 are engaging with virtual reality in ways that seem to be decades out - even for many U.S. college students. At WLA, the virtual reality lab buzzes with activity. Students gather to use HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality systems. They create 3D art in midair using a Tilt brush, and explore historic sites and war-torn countries in simulations. They examine planetary orbits and atomic particles in a way that makes ordinary computers seem analog. In fact, virtual reality technology has been very successful in areas such as art, entertainment, and virtual tour, real estate, etc. In the military field, virtual reality is highly popular in developed countries. If we continue to develop this technology, not only students use it to acquire knowledge but also lecturers can use it to supervise students' activities as they participate in off-class assignments or track their event's implementation process... The investment in expansion of data resources, establishing a library of information technology
virtual reality will probably take longer than creating Flipped Classrooms. However this technology will be the great assistant welcomed by a large number of lecturers and students.
4. Google Art Project
Another application of digital technology will also give students studying in art and culture sector (especially fine arts, fashion, sculpture or photography ...) great experience,
3 4
that's the idea of Amit Sood . On the TED stage, in 2011, Amit has shared the story of creating an online museum (Google Art Project). In this case, the digital technology provides users a clear view and enjoys the beauty of artworks. Imagine that we are sitting in a university in Vietnam exploring every corner of the museum MoMA in New York, admiring the beautiful painting Starry Night5. The pictures are extremely sharp that you can see their every details clearly, each tiny paintbrush line or smudge formed by the time, because the resolution of those photos could be up to 10 megapixels. They gave us the feeling that we are watching the real painting at close range. Normally, normal pictures' resolutions are from 1-7 megapixels). By this technology, you can see not only the map of the museum, the location where you are or see the smallest details of the picture, we can create a virtual museum including a collection of ours favorite paintings, write comments and share your thoughts and feelings about this masterpiece with friends. There are different types of museum not only painting museum but also historical museum, the museum of costumes, museum of culture of nations, etc. The museums are not just a place to display historical artifacts but they are culture - architecture spaces themselves. The design of each museum often shows characteristics of each region and country. With just a few clicks, students can have lifelike experience in an art and culture space of many museums around the world. Imagine, for students majoring in culture, history, anthropology, etc. it will be very much convenient and useful if they can view 3D images with high resolution of historical artifacts in an online museum.
5. Automation
Automation can and should be used in education to improve management efficiency and to enhance teaching and learning." We have had robotic journalists in circulation for a couple of years now, and expecting it will not be long before they make another leap into more practical types of articles. In a 2016 study of automation of library systems in schools, Indian researchers Ipsita Panda, Jhasketa Hota and Karan Singh said that education is undergoing, and will continue to be impacted from the trend of automation.
The educational sphere is a broad one, encompassing teachers, students, and academic administrators. Automation technologies, such as robots, robotic process automation (RPA) and AI, can bring challenges and benefits to teachers, students, and science administrators.
For academic administration: Academic managers responsible for many duties to keep the school operates in order, such works including school scheduling, attendance time, score processing, orientation for new students. Often, many of these activities are paper-based-work, repetitive and time-consuming, making them suitable for RPA. The automation
3 As the director of Google's Cultural Institute and Art Project, Amit Sood leads the effort to bring cultural artifacts from museums, archives and foundations onto the web in extraordinary detail.
4 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a non-profit media organization which posts talks online for free distribution, under the slogan "ideas worth sharing". TED was founded in February 1984 as a conference, which has been held annually since 1990. TED's early emphasis was technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins, but it has since broadened its focus to include talks on many scientific, cultural, and academic topics.
5 The Starry Night is oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Remy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village.
journey will not be without challenges for administrators: the school board must approve the implementation of RPA, and in many cases it is still a big time and financial investment.
For teachers: Teachers will be able to use automation, especially RPA, to reduce workload. Potential tasks for automation include ones that are burdensome for many teachers: scheduling, keeping track of attendance, and even assignment grading. Automating these tasks will change teachers' responsibilities in the long run, allow them to reduce their time for routine work and more time with their students or for scientific research.
6. Learning machine:
Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can change when exposed to new data.
The process of machine learning is similar to that of data mining. Both systems search through data to look for patterns. However, instead of extracting data for human comprehension - as is the case of data mining applications - machine learning uses that data to detect patterns in data and adjust program actions accordingly. Machine learning algorithms are often categorized as being supervised or unsupervised. Supervised algorithms can apply what has been learned in the past to new data. Unsupervised algorithms can draw inferences from datasets.
Facebook's News Feed uses machine learning to personalize each member's feed. If a member often stops scrolling in order to read or "like" a particular friend's posts, the News Feed will start to show more of that friend's activity earlier in the feed. Behind the scenes, the software is simply using statistical analysis and predictive analytics to identify the patterns in the user's data and use the patterns to populate the News Feed. Should the member no longer stop to read, like or comment on the friend's posts, that new data will be included in the data set and the News Feed will adjust accordingly. Facebook is also developing an AI that can detect violent and pornographic content to protect the clean information environment for its users. Likewise, for education and training, we can develop Machine learning to support learning for art students. Intelligent AI can filter out world news stories related to the specific specialization, synthesize and provide them to students every day. When students need to do essays, theses by topic, AI saves them time by helping them to find relevant (verified) material on the Internet and Google. Individual studies entering the AI system will also be able to grow and develop on the basis of scientific knowledge and logical sequencing.
If you combine Automation and Learning Machine into higher education, it will reduce a lot of work of professors. The questions posed by students during online learning will be identified, analyzed and answered immediately. For complex questions AI can also refer to a professor who specializes in the field.
Conclusion.
Digital technology is the ally of higher education. At high school level students need dedicated and direct guidance from teachers because the school is a sample of a small society in which students learn how to interact and to be familiar with. Meanwhile, college students and higher education promote self-independence of each individual. A student has to choose his subjects, class time, teachers and even classmates. Digital technology provides thousands of libraries, offers hundreds of solutions through distance education as well as provides many learning opportunities in various subjects to the learners, satisfying all their different needs and capabilities. Digital technology provides solutions for renovating education and supports teachers doing educational analytic works through its ability to remember, analyze the learning process (compare learning time, acquired knowledge, students' level of understanding), from which it will provide solutions and more appropriate
school schedule, even give suggestions on future career orientation. To ensure the output quality of education and training output, we should not only assess the capacity based on the score of the final exam. Lecturer can trust digital technology to help them supervise and give students in time advice. Looking back to history, people do not need a computer or Internet to obtain the understanding of the world and create the great inventions. People have created computers and the Internet for wide spreading their knowledge and intellectuality of his invention. In modern society, the rise of smartphone requires people to get smarter. Which means we need to make digital technology our assistant instead of relying heavily on them. Back to the issue of higher education innovations using digital technology, lecturer still play extremely important role in teaching. Online lectures are rooted in the knowledge of teachers, they will design, operate, update, modify and deliver them to the students the most effectively. Digital technology will be constantly improved and more outstanding achievements will be constituted, this requires lecturers to continuously stay updated, continuously design new and efficient teaching methods. Looking at rapid development of digital technologies we can be confident that the cost of installing equipment will fall, creating favorable conditions for universities to upgrade facilities and widen student's access to digital technology.
With Industry 4.06, education reform is inevitable. Applying achievements of modern technology into higher education is a solution for this innovation. Higher education in the future is an open training environment with thousands of attractive choices. It is widely open to all who are passionate in gaining knowledge and the key to success in this new age is the digital technology.
References
1. Educause (2009), 7 things you should know about telepresence, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7053.pdf
2. Elizabeth Reede & Larissa Bailiff (2016). When Virtual Reality Meets Education, https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/23/when-virtual-reality-meets-education/
3. Kristi DePau (2016). Seeing is Believing: Virtual Reality in Education, https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/11/seeing-is-believing-virtual-reality-in-education
4. Ryan Fontaine (2013). How technology is changing traditional learning methods. http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2013/03/how-technology-changing-traditional-learning-methods
5. Mary McAleese (Chair), Christian Bode, Agneta Bladh, Jan Muehlfeit, Vincent Berger, Tea Petrin, Alessandro Schiesaro (2014). High level group on the modernisation of higher education, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/repository/education/library/reports/modernisation-universities_en.pdf
6 Industry 4.0 (the fourth industrial revolution) started in the early 21st century, followed by the great achievements from the 3rd one, on the basis of improvement of the digital revolution, with new technologies such as 3D printing , robotics, artificial intelligence, IoT, SMAC, nanotechnology, biology, new materials, etc.
ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫЕ ТЕХНОЛОГИИ КАК СПОСОБ ИННОВАЦИОННОГО ПРЕОБРАЗОВАНИЯ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЙ
СРЕДЫ ВУЗА
Хоанг Хоа Бин
Ханойский университет культуры, Вьетнам e-mail: hoabinhh@huc.edu.vn
Статья посвящена теоретическим и практическим аспектам разработки и применения современных информационных технологий в образовательном пространстве Вьетнамских вузов. Анализируется использование таких информационных технологий как: флипп-классы, телемосты, Гугл арт-проекты, возможности погружения в виртуальную реальность, при подготовке студентов сферы искусств и культуры. Автором указываются как плюсы, так и минусы неизбежного массового введения информационных технологий в образовательный процесс в ходе четвертой промышленной революции («Индустрия 4.0»).
Ключевые слова: информационные технологии, вуз, традиционное обучение, революция 4.0.
