CC BY
36Литература:
1. Гузуева, Э.Р. Роль дистанционного обучения в современном образовании / Э.Р. Гузуева, С.М. Зияудинова, А.А. Жамборов // Мир науки, культуры, образования. - 2020. - № 3 (82). - С. 242-244.
2. Петренко, Н.А. Особенности цифровизации российской системы образования / Н.А. Петренко, Е.А. Волошина // Формирование профессиональной компетентности филолога в поликультурной образовательной среде: сб. материалов IV Международной научно-практической конференции, 07-08 октября 2021 г., г. Евпатория / ред. кол. Ю.К. Картавая, И.Б. Каменская, М.А. Шалина, А.Н. Шевченко; под общ. ред. И.Б. Каменской. - Симферополь: ИП Корниенко А. А., 2021. -С. 183-189.
3. Степанов, С.Ю. Перспективы кольцевой детерминации школьного образования в будущем / С.Ю. Степанов // Психолого-педагогические и соматические переменные в деятельности современной школы: эффекты кольцевой детерминации / авт. колл.: С.Ю. Степанов, И.В. Рябова [и др.]; под ред. С.Ю. Степанова. - Москва: МГПУ, 2017. -С. 195-216.
4. Федеральный закон «Об образовании в Российской Федерации» от 29.12.2012 № 273-Ф3 (последняя редакция) // http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_140174/ (дата обращения: 19.02.2022).
5. Цыгалов, Ю.М. Эффекты и риски дистанционного образования в высшей школе / Ю.М. Цыгалов // Управленческое консультирование. - 2020. - № 10. - С. 61-73.
Pedagogy
UDC 378.005
candidate of pedagogical sciences, associate professor Pikalova Elena Anatolievna
Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University (Magnitogorsk);
candidate of philological sciences, associate professor Lomakina Yekaterina Alexandrovna
Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University (Magnitogorsk)
MOODLE AS A BASE FOR UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF E-LEARNING AND FORMATION OF ELECTRONIC
INFORMATION EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
Аннотация. В глобальной образовательной действительности формирование электронной образовательной среды выступает основой любой современной образовательной системы. Особенностью современного этапа развития электронной информационно-образовательной среды и ближайшего будущего является мощное воздействие мировых информационных образовательных ресурсов на образовательную среду образовательного учреждения. Изменения в экономической и социальной жизни общества, бурное развитие информационных технологий, изменения на рынке труда по общим вопросам трудоустройства все эти процессы существенно влияют на формирование современной информационной образовательной среды образовательного учреждения. Ключевыми особенностями нового подхода являются интеграция образовательных ресурсов с другими участниками образовательного пространства, открытость, переход на новые инновационные технологии, изменение роли преподавателя. В статье рассматривается проблема оптимизации учебного процесса и организации самостоятельной работы студентов средствами электронной среды. Представлен опыт использования электронной среды Moodle в смешанном обучении профессиональному иностранному языку студентов второго курса Института вычислительной техники и информатики Магнитогорского государственного технического университета им. Носова. Рассмотрены элементы этой среды и выявлены ее основные преимущества и некоторые недостатки, определена роль преподавателя и студента при работе с электронной средой. Был проведен анкетный опрос и выявлены некоторые особенности использования электронного курса в учебном процессе.
Ключевые слова: электронное обучение, высшее образование, учебное заведение, электронная среда Moodle, профессиональный иностранный язык, самостоятельная работа, смешанное обучение.
Annotation. In global educational reality the formation of electronic educational environment stands out to be the foundation of any modern educational system. A feature of a current stage of the electronic information and educational environment development and the near future is the powerful impact of the world's information educational resources on the educational environment of an educational institution. Changes in the economic and social life of society, the rapid development of information technologies, changes in the labor market regarding general issues of employment all these processes significantly affect the formation of the modern information educational environment of an educational institution and its role in the education system. All these processes are aimed at developing new approaches to the formation of an educational institution's electronic information and educational environment. The key features of the new approach are the integration of educational resources with other participants in the educational space, openness, transition to new innovative technologies, and a change in the teacher's role. The article deals with the problem of optimizing the learning process and organizing students' independent work by means of electronic environment. The experience of using Moodle electronic environment in blended learning of professional foreign language of the second year students of Computer Engineering at Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University is presented. The elements of this environment were considered and its main advantages and some disadvantages were identified, the role of teacher and student when working with electronic environment was defined. A questionnaire survey was conducted and some peculiarities of using e-course in the learning process were identified.
Key words: e-learning, high education, educational institution, Moodle e-environment; professional foreign language, independent work, blended learning.
Introduction. The global education system is a significant part of the entire organism of modern human society, so the worldwide and educational processes and changes are strongly connected; furthermore, they affect each other greatly on many levels. One of the most powerful levels is the digital or virtual one as far as it shapes the structure of the future world life whereas the education level is the one which stands for a basis of the whole construction.
Electronic education is already quite adequately integrated into the global educational space. There have been gained rather sufficient experience and achievement, and so the e-learning is no longer perceived as something exotic or out of the ordinary. In addition, information technologies are becoming a daily reality and the level of their penetration into the lives of people all over the world is already enough to fully use of modern teaching methods. Nowadays the modern methods mean to apply special didactic platforms forming unique electronic educational environmental.
The current stage of the electronic information and educational environment development (EIEE) is characterized by the fact that it has become a necessary and mandatory element of the educational system [7]. The federal law on Education and the latest
educational standards of the bachelor's degree contain instructions which define the main elements of the electronic information and educational environment, the tasks that are to be solved by EIEE and the criteria for its evaluating.
The main criterion for assessing the quality of EIEE is to meet the information needs of all users interacting within this environment. There are some categories of its users.
1. The students ' main media queries are informational materials distributed via the website of the educational institution, as well as electronic information resources of the University electronic library and other external electronic library systems (ELS) [4, P. 162]. Another new element of the electronic information and educational environment is the ability to create and maintain an interactive portfolio basing on students' learning, scientific or social activities in the sphere of the electronic information and educational environment.
2. The teacher, on the one hand, prepares electronic materials, develops programs (being a participant in the EIEE creation), on the other hand, he uses this environment for conducting educational activities. Most important teaching criteria are the availability of conditions for working with students in the EIEE, the availability of access and working in modern electronic information and educational environment, the possibility for developing electronic resources.
3. To employees of the university departments, a significant element of EIEE is the presence in its structure of an electronic document management system that automates all the basic operations ranging from the application board to a graduation of students.
4. The category of external users of the EIEE has some subgroups that differ in the type of information needs. Various special user groups have different reference points when evaluating their work within the EIEE [1, P. 92].
When using the learning content management system one can plan development processes, allocate resources, control the working and learning process.
A tool for organizing on-line collaboration and training helps to organize webinars, web-conferences, reports, lectures, educational seminars and trainings, hold on-line meetings and presentations, negotiations, discussions with minimal time expenditures for all categories of the platform participants. This is the simplest and most straightforward of the e-learning options.
Survey and analysis of the electronic information and educational environment components in order to form its optimal configuration are necessary because each educational institution, despite the general characteristics, has its own specifics and needs: the students' territorial remoteness or location, the training costs, the educational standards and unique knowledge that must be preserved and transferred, finally, training is a subject of non-commercial educational activity [3, P. 382]. Depending on the specifics of the educational organization, solutions may differ significantly.
Description of educational processes taking place in the EIEE framework provides their clear administration, clarity and full control over the learning process, making it easy to expand or adapt activities depending on the circumstances (for example taking into account the global epidemic lockdown 2020) [6, P. 42].
Development of technology for a gradual transition to e-learning or blended learning supposes that if the educational process in the institution has been basically established for a long time before, and e-learning is a continuation and expansion of off-line educational activity, then it is necessary to introduce the EIEE so, as not to destroy the original structure and practice of the institution educational course of actions.
The streamlined teaching process and new software would not work properly without training all categories of users working within the EIEE.
So, the principles listed above are quite essential and are to be taken into consideration when creating electronic information education environment within the space of the educational institution; each of them bearing its own specifics adds up to the efficient functioning of the EIEE.
Results. In the context of informatisation of society in general and higher education in particular, e-learning and information and communication technologies contribute to optimising the learning process and organising students' independent work. The use of electronic educational environment in teaching professional foreign language to future engineers is of particular relevance. When teaching future bachelor engineers in a foreign language in accordance with the requirements of European educational standards, there are some problems:
1) low level of foreign language communicative competence formation;
2) weak motivation of students to master a foreign language;
3) limited amount of class time allocated for learning a professional foreign language;
4) insufficient provision with educational and methodological literature on professional foreign language.
The professional foreign language at Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University is studied by the second-year students with the average and high level of knowledge of a foreign language, tested at the end of the first year of study [8, P. 154]. At the Department of Foreign Languages in technical areas, the so-called specialization of teachers is practiced. A foreign language teacher actively cooperates with the subject department and develops educational and methodological support for professional foreign language together with the teachers of this department.
The professional foreign language is a variable discipline with 2 hours of teaching per week. Undoubtedly, this number of classroom hours is not sufficient to train a modern engineer at the European level in a professional foreign language, so the use of new technologies and electronic educational environment helps to optimise the learning process, and most importantly, to solve the problem of providing students with teaching materials through electronic environment.
At present, the e-learning system on the basis of Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is widely used at the university. It is focused on collaborative learning technologies and allows the organisation of learning in the process of joint solution of learning tasks, to carry out mutual exchange of knowledge. Extensive possibilities for communication are one of the greatest strengths of Moodle [7]. The system supports file exchange of any format - both between teacher and student as well as between students themselves. There are various services for communication ("Messaging", "Comments", "Forum", "Chat", etc.). This system allows for a convenient presentation of the whole course of a discipline, starting from organisational material - syllabus, timetable, glossary, etc. This system makes it possible to present the whole course of the discipline, starting with the organisational material - curriculum, timetable, glossary, etc. and ending with providing students with textbooks on the studied discipline in a more convenient electronic format, which use hyperlinks, provide division into sections and blocks, use visual aids, video and audio. When developing and conducting classes in the Moodle system, the teacher uses a set of course elements, which include glossary, resource, task, forum, wiki, lesson, test, etc. In order to achieve the aims and objectives of specific sessions, the teacher can apply different elements of the course by combining them.
The glossary has proved to be a very useful tool for organizing terms that appear in all course materials and are hyperlinked to the relevant glossary entries. Using this system, students can create either a course glossary or a global glossary, which is accessible to all course participants . A resource can be any material for self-study, research, discussion: e.g. text, illustration, web page, audio or video file, etc. In order to create web-pages, a visual editor is embedded in the system, which allows a teacher who does not know HTML to easily create such pages, including formatting elements, illustrations and tables.
An "Assignment" element in the course can be used for presentational control, including homework. This interactive element allows students to post their answers to assigned tasks in any format in their e-course. The teacher is able to see which papers have been handed in, to give a grade and write her/his comments. All answers submitted by students are stored in a portfolio.
The "Forum" element of the course is an effective tool for team-based learning, as it facilitates discussions, consultations and so on. The posted material can be used to discuss problems and evaluate each other's work. The Wiki element of the course offers the opportunity to discuss problems collectively and to edit texts. The "Lesson" element of the course allows for a step-by-step study of learning material. The whole course material can be divided into didactic units and control questions can be offered as the material is absorbed. The system is designed in such a way that if students get a certain number of points as a result of the control they can go on to study the next material, whereas if they do not get enough points they can go back to repeat the previous material. The undoubted advantage of this element of the course is the automatic grading of student work and the recording of the results in a register.
The teacher uses the "Tests" element of the course for entrance testing of students as well as for intermediate and final control. On the Moodle platform it is possible to develop tests using different types of questions [9, P. 84]. When creating tests, the teacher sets the parameters: time limit, number of attempts, possibility to show correct answers or just to present the results in points. All results are stored on a worksheet, allowing the teacher to monitor the student's learning activity. The teacher can also track students' attendance and activity and their time on the Moodle platform.
According to the concept of information and educational environment developed at the university, the creation of electronic courses on the Moodle platform for the discipline "Foreign language in professional activities" is of particular relevance. When developing such courses, the following advantages of this platform are taken into account:
- individual learning pathway;
- expanding the space of students' educational choice;
- feedback;
- quality content with the latest information and telecommunication technologies;
- optimism and creative self-expression of students.
However, practice shows that these advantages are not a motivating factor for all students when learning foreign languages. When piloting a professional English course for the second-year Computer Engineering students on the Moodle platform, a survey was conducted and some features of e-course use in the learning process were identified. Availability of organisational material, i.e. placement of syllabus, rating plan, timetable, etc. on the platform is one of the advantages for 57.14% of the surveyed students. About 57% of the respondents were in favour of placing learning material on the platform (study guides, multimedia materials, etc.), and 41% of the students felt that with this kind of organisation of the learning process there is an opportunity to track it (current topic, homework, recommendations for assignments, etc. are very accessible and visualised). Finally, 28.6% of the respondents mentioned the advantage of reducing the use of paper copies in the learning process.
It should be noted that the creation of e-course in the conditions of reduced classroom hours takes into account the possibility of organizing independent work of students. If teachers see this as the main advantage of e-course, then 36% of the students surveyed consider the increased amount of independent work as a big disadvantage. Another disadvantage cited by 42% of respondents was the unfamiliar organisation of the course, and 50% said that there was a lot of screen work. Of those students surveyed, 7% appeared to have no access to the Internet, and 7% were dissatisfied with the course's unfamiliar interface. So, practice shows that not all students have the ability to work independently in a new environment, to use information technology.
It is known that extrinsic motivation can have a strong impact on the learning process, hence it is important to structure it in such a way that students are aware of the learning objectives, strive to achieve them, see and be able to assess the level of knowledge acquired [10]. As for intrinsic motivation, it is not related to external circumstances but directly to the subject matter itself. It is often called process motivation. A person likes a foreign language, likes to show his or her intellectual activity. External motives (prestige, self-affirmation, etc.) can reinforce intrinsic motivation, but they are not directly related to the content and process of the activity. With this in mind, it is necessary to pay more attention to students' intrinsic motivation when creating an e-course in a professional foreign language, taking into account the following factors:
- learner's characteristics (gender, self-esteem, level of intellectual development);
- peculiarities of the teacher and his/her attitude towards pedagogical activity; organization of the pedagogical process;
- specifics of the teaching discipline (in this case, a professional foreign language).
The questionnaire showed that the learning process built on the Moodle platform is more welcomed by male representatives; students with higher intellectual level find it easier to adjust, get used to new teaching methods, they are ready to experiment and be creative in their learning activities. Undoubtedly, the work organised on the Moodle platform contributes to the growth of students' motivation, their independence, and this, therefore, leads to increased self-control in the learning process, to the desire to learn and find out for themselves, rather than to get a bit of the necessary information.
As far as teachers are concerned, their role changes considerably. "Whereas in traditional teaching he or she is the mentor and the main person, in a computer-based classroom the teacher is only a facilitator"[10]. The requirements for the teacher in this new context are also becoming different. Nowadays, the teacher is regarded as an active, free and responsible person, who carries out designing and stays in active innovative search, development and implementation of pedagogical innovations into the educational process.
When using Moodle environment teacher "not only gives his students a certain amount of knowledge, but also directs them to search for information independently. This helps him/her to be prepared for the possible involvement of others in learning situations, enables all participants in the process to share ideas, listen to others, ask questions and organize communication" [2].
For this purpose, Moodle provides a large number of tools such as forums, wikis, glossaries, databases, workshops, blogs, private messages, which provide ample opportunities for students to participate in content creation. Practice shows that not all teachers and students are ready to work in the Moodle environment and that it takes time to adapt the participants of the educational process to the use of information technology. Given the great prospects and advantages of the latter, on the one hand, and the continuing advantages of traditional methods, on the other hand, we can talk about the feasibility of using blended learning technologies. Blended learning is a form of learning in which the learning process is carried out both in traditional face-to-face form and using e-learning technologies. The ratio between traditional and e-learning (in our case, based on Moodle) can vary. As C. Thorne points out, blended technologies are based on a combination of the following elements in learning:
- multimedia technologies;
- virtual classroom technology;
- voice mail, email, teleconferencing;
- online text animation and streaming video [11].
All these elements can be successfully combined with traditional teaching. When organising the educational process of professional foreign language teaching in a technical university it is advisable to use blended learning, combining traditional classroom learning with learning in the Moodle environment at a ratio of approximately 20% to 80% respectively. The teacher should
have a good idea of what material needs to be taught in the classroom and what can be studied independently through distance learning. Under such conditions, students learn to work independently with the active support of the electronic environment. The teacher is not distracted by the training assignments; the system itself can track the assignments and evaluate them (if, of course, they have been prepared in test form). Only two hours are allocated for direct interaction between teachers and students in the classroom, where they practice, summarize and analyze independently prepared material in communicative situations and offer creative forms of conducting practical classes. Thus, the use of Moodle electronic environment in blended learning contributes to the optimization of the learning process in conditions of insufficient classroom time, while students have the opportunity to manage the learning process, which increases their importance in the implementation of educational goals and affects their motivation.
But there are some disadvantages faced by educational institutions which have chosen Moodle as a basis for EIEE and need to be taken into account.
The Moodle platform does not supply a single centralized technology for the development and enlargement of an educational portal. The Moodle system does not include a management level corresponding to the level of educational administration, dean's office, department only the management of the training course made by the teacher. This means it would be difficult to get the analysis on learning process.
In addition, functional characteristics of Moodle do not imply preparation tools of the so-called case studies that is off-line training modules.
Conclusion. Today, dozens of developers offer educational institutions a wide variety of software products and learning management systems. The choice of both technical means of informatization and software is the most important and crucial stage in the implementation of electronic information and educational environment into the university education process.
The result of the global digital effect upon scientific and technological progress and the transition from an industrial society to a knowledge society can be considered as the formation of a global electronic information and educational environment. The characteristic manifestations of globalization in education can be considered as the emergence of open educational resources, the unification of software tools in educational institution management, development of electronic learning technologies, the increasing use of cloud services. All the shifts of applying the informational technologies in educational institutions go along with the formation of the electronic information educational environment within educational area of any institution or university. However, every higher educational institution has the right to choose those electronic technologies that help optimise the whole learning process as much as possible. The Moodle e-platform offers great opportunities in this regard, as it focuses on collaborative learning technologies and allows for collaborative learning and knowledge sharing.
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