eLearning as a Possible Solution for Distance Education

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eLearning as a Possible Solution for Distance
Education

• Zdenka Telnarova, Eva Burianova
• University of Ostrava
• Faculty of Science
• Czech Republic

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How do we perceive distance education and what
role can eLearning play

• Distance education is an example of
  democratisation in education and indicates to
  societys economic, social and technical
  standards.
• Its main advantages are
• Territorial accessibility.
• Age and social accessibility.
• Possibility of parallel economic activity.
• Study individualisation.
• Flexibility.

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How do we perceive distance education and what
role can eLearning play

• Distance education expands the offer of
  education possibilities for disabled people like
  people with
• Health problems.
• Social problems.
• Financial problems.
• etc.
• Generally for all who cannot attend present
  courses and who are sufficiently motivated to
  independent study.

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How do we perceive distance education and what
role can eLearning play

• The importance of Distance Education grows with
  development of ICT
• Various communication methods.
• Forms and means for development and publishing of
  study materials.
• Organisation of distance education using special
  software products.

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How do we perceive distance education and what
role can eLearning play

• Virtual University
• VU is a server with a software providing
  tuition and organisation support.
• VU distributes tuition materials accessible by
  web browse.
• VU supports intensive communication
• Between students and tutors.
• Among students themselves.
• VU can evaluate tests.

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Motivation Why we implemented eLearning

• The idea of distance form of study programme
  Application of Informatics (University of
  Ostrava, Faculty of Sciences) came in 1998.
• It was reaction to the request of the Institute
  for Deaf and Dumb people, which was trying to
  find possibilities of higher education for
  students of special secondary schools for deaf
  and dumb students.

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Motivation Why we implemented eLearning

• Deaf and dumb students could not study any
  programme at high schools or universities before
  because there were only present.
• Many students from special schools for deaf and
  dumb students wish to study at universities.
• They are positively motivated.
• They have the right intellectual prerequisites.

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Motivation Why we implemented eLearning

• In academic year 1998/99 we offered the distance
  study programme exclusively to deaf and dumb
  students (there were 12 students) - pilot
  project.
• In the following years distance study programme
  Application of Informatics was offered to all
  students (every year 3 5 of them were deaf and
  dumb).
• In future we plan to offer distance education
  for deaf and dumb students as well as for others
  and transfer all subjects into on-line courses.

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Teaching technology

• The subject offered as on-line distance course
  is prepared in LearningSpace system with the
  following structure
• Schedule
• CourseRoom
• Tests
• Profiles
• Portfolio
• Exam
• Tutorials

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Teaching technology

• Schedule
• Consists of subject modules (a module always
  corresponds to a relatively independent problem).
• Each module consists of
• Tuition texts
• Elaborated problems
• Case studies
• Demo applications
• Assignments
• Tests

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Teaching technology

• Educational modules are created for all subjects
  of study programme according to the methodology
  elaborated by
• The National Centre of Distance Education in
  Prague.

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Teaching technology

• CourseRoom
• Virtual classroom for communication, assignments
  and discussion.
• Communication between tutor and students.
• Communication among students.
• Tutor is the group discussion moderator.
• Platform for locating distance assignments
  (private or public).
• Comments of assignments and grades.

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Teaching technology

• Tests
• Tests are part of almost every module and serve
  mainly as autotests (self control).
• Students can verify how they are getting on with
  a given module. Tests can be solved variously,
  just like evaluation can take on many different
  forms. This depends on the nature of the module
  and on the pedagogical aspects.

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Teaching technology

• Profiles
• Profiles consist of personal experiences,
  educational background, hobbies, interests,
  contact (address, telephone, e-mail) and photo.
  
• Profiles serve for better acquaintance with
  students and tutors. This is also important and
  tutor should motivate students to pay careful
  attention to their profiles. Profiles also serve
  to personify virtual classes.

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Teaching technology

• Portfolio
• LearningSpace keeps a portfolio of each student.
  This portfolio includes results of tests and
  assignments.
• Tutor can find out whether students have
  fulfilled all their duties, required by a given
  subject.
• Tutor can, of course, monitor students progress
  and take appropriate measures.

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Teaching technology

• Exams
• Exams in the distance form of study program
  Application of Informatics are in principle
  taken in present form.
• They are usually organised for distance and
  present students together.
• The main objective is that students from both
  forms of study should have the same level of
  knowledge.

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Teaching technology

• Tutorials
• Tutorial is a personal meeting of distance
  students and their tutor.
• The main objective is to evaluate students
  results (tests, assignments).
• Tutorial focuses mainly on discussing most
  frequent mistakes and problems.
• The social aspect of tutorials is also important.

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Evaluation of current experience with
LearningSpace

• As we have 5 year experience with Distance
  Education and eLearning, we did evaluation of
  LMS we use. This system is Learning Space.
• Evaluation brought us idea about possible
  improvements of MLS (LearningSpace).

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Evaluation of current experience with
LearningSpace

• Better support for development of education
  multimedia materials.
• Better import of already completed materials from
  other resources /environments.
• Synchronous communication.
• Study agenda to be directly included as an
  internal part of LS or automated link to
  University IS.
• More attentive environment as for the student, as
  well as for the tutor.
• Czech localisation.

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Problems that must be solve in Distance Education

• A distance education centre must be active
  throughout the university.
• Individual faculties can establish faculty centre
  which can be a part of the university centre for
  distance education.
• These centres have to ensure the professional
  level of education.

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Problems that must be solve in Distance Education

• Funding of distance education. The increased
  financial demands of distance course design and
  creation must be considered together with
  necessary technical facilities and organisation.
• Technical facilities (purchase of LMS) were
  obtained through a grant, as well as the
  development of certain on-line courses.
• However, the initial investment will have to be
  valorised.

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Problems that must be solve in Distance Education

• Ensure qualified personnel for distance education
  (managers, author of courses, tutors,
  administrators).
• As the distance form of education exists very
  shortly, there isnt enough information on
  specific elements, conditions and presumptions.
• Therefore academic and administrative staff need
  to undergo training courses.

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Problems that must be solve in Distance Education

• Due to the high financial demand of creating
  distance courses (on-line courses), their
  repetitive use must be ensured. Therefore,
  attention must be paid to the offer of already
  existing courses as part of lifelong education.

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Thank you for your attention.