The sphere of human activity and education
cannot be free of global evolutionary and revolutionary processes in the
political, economical, cultural, educational, technological, informational and
other environments that are necessary for the development of any society. There
had been drastic changes in the world by the end of 20 century in all
environments that were closely interrelated and globally ensured human
activity. The transition from primary sources of revenue to the intellectual
resources in the economic environment had been made in all developed countries.
Money as a tool in the geo-economic segment receded into the background and
gave a way to technology, which in turn led to the rapid development of the
technological environment. Since the early 90's «high-tech» technology began to
occupy leading positions in many industries, but today they are relying on the
rapid development of information environment, and increasingly giving a way to
the «high-hume» technologies – methods of creating technologies. As a
consequence there is now a significant dependence between the society and the
conditions of its informational structure. All these processes led to the fact
that modern developed society became a society of education. That education is
the cornerstone of economy. Reported trends are global in nature and, on the
one hand, are forcing the international community to reform education, and on
the other hand, leading to distinct imbalances, manifested in the intellectual
expansion of some countries on others. As the result, there is an outflow of
the intellectual potential in the form of people and ideas. Kazakhstan,
unfortunately, falls under this category and as a result of discrepancies
between the high intellectual potential of the country and a very slow pace of
its development; it needs a qualitative leap in the way of changes in
technology, science, industry and business.
Kazakhstan now needs fundamentally
different specialists from those who graduate from institution of higher
education in very large quantities. For a powerful qualitative leap the country
should grow an army of professionals who are ready for active and creative
activities, have professional skills and creative abilities to implement them,
and then develop a high level of professional competence, but also have social
tolerance, and be communicative. These principles lie in the development of
standards for the third-generation of higher education.
Embodiment of the declared principles
compels educational institutions of all levels to follow the path of changes in
educational technologies. For many years, education in Kazakhstan was based on
object-oriented methodology, assuming a passive assimilation of large amounts
of knowledge. As a result, which is contrary to expectations, the graduates
have not only weak skills, but often general scientific erudition which does
not equal to the proper amount of knowledge invested in the student during the
study at higher education institution.
The need to move from object-oriented to
student-centered learning process that requires a radical revision of
approaches to educational technology becomes obvious.
Innovations that are vital for any
professional person naturally become the subject of study, analysis and
implementation. Innovations do not appear out of nothing, they are the result
of scientific research and advanced educational experience of individual
teachers and entire communities. This process cannot be chaotic, it needs to be
managed. [3]
In the context of innovation strategy
integrated in pedagogical process in higher education, the role of president,
deans and faculty heads significantly increases as a direct carrier of
innovative processes. Taking into account all the diversity of educational
technologies: teaching, computer, problem, modular, and others - the
implementation of pedagogical processes should be done by teachers. With the
introduction of the educational process of modern technology, a teacher
increasingly develops as a consultant, advisor. This requires special
psychological and pedagogical training, as not only the specific, substantive
knowledge in the field of pedagogy and psychology, educational technology is
realized in the professional activities of teachers. On this basis the
readiness of perception, evaluation and implementation of pedagogical
innovations is being formed.
The concept of "innovation" means
originality, novelty, change; innovation as the means and process involves the
introduction of something new. With regard to the pedagogical process in higher
education, innovation means the introduction of new objectives, contents,
methods and forms of education, organization of joint work of teachers and
students. [3]
In recent decades, a new problem for
education has appeared. Knowledge ages every 3-5 years, and technological
knowledge - every 2-3 years. It won’t be long until it is 1,5-2 years. The
knowledge of university graduates is doubling every 3-4 years. If you do not
change the educational technology, the quality of training will lag behind the
desired objective in the labor market. Assimilation of knowledge by students
using information and communication technologies on the lowest is estimated at
40-60% faster or more, per unit time, than with conventional technologies (for
the same period are given more knowledge or fashionable to shorten courses in
Universities).
Educational-methodical base, educational and
information technologies of any university do not depend on the full-time
education, accelerated degree program or remote study. If knowledge, training
material and all the didactic components are collected and formalized in
computers, they still can be applied to the audience (or equipment) or any user
located outside the institution.
One of the types of innovations in the
organization of higher education is the introduction of distance education.
In recent decades, distance education
technologies have received intensive development.
Distance education is the educational
system of the 21st century. People have great expectations about this system.
Results of social progress, previously concentrated in the Technosphere, today
are concentrated in the infosphere. The era of informatics has come.
Experienced by the phase of its development can be characterized as
telecommunications. It is the phase of communication, the phase of transfer of
information and knowledge. Today education and work is synonyms: professional
knowledge age very quickly, so they must undergo continuous improvement - this
is an open education! Today the global telecommunications infrastructure
provides the opportunity to create systems of mass continuous learning, global
exchange of information, regardless of the spatial and temporal zones. Distance
education has entered the XXI century as the most effective system of training
and maintaining a high qualification level of specialists.
The term “distance education” is not yet
fully succumbed in Russian and in English language teaching literature. There
are options such as “distant education”, and “distant learning “. Some foreign
researchers, highlighting the special role of telecommunications in distance
education, define it as teletraining. But still the term "distance
education" is most often used. [4]
Distance education as accelerated degree
program originated in the early XX century. Today in absentia one can obtain
not only higher education but also learn a foreign language, prepare oneself
for entering higher education institution and so on. However, due to poorly
adjusted interaction between teachers and students and lack of control over
training activities part-time students during the periods between sessions of
the examination quality of such training is worse than what can be obtained by
full-time education.
Modern computer telecommunications are able
to provide knowledge transfer and access to a variety of educational
information on a par, and are sometimes much more effective than traditional
teaching tools. Experiments have confirmed that the quality and structure of
training courses, as well as the quality of teaching in distance education, is
often much better than that of traditional forms of education. New electronic
technologies such as interactive discs CD-ROM, electronic bulletin boards,
multimedia hypertext, accessible via the Internet using Mosaic and WWW
interfaces can not only ensure the active involvement of students in the
learning process, but also allow manging this process in contrast to most
traditional learning environments. The integration of sound, movement, image
and text creates a new unusually rich in its capabilities learning environment
with the development which will increase the degree of involvement of students
in the learning process. Interactive features that are used in distance
learning programs and delivery systems information allow adjusting and even
encouraging feedback, to ensure dialogue and continuous support, which is
impossible in most traditional systems of education.
The term "interactivity" is
widely used in domestic and in overseas educational literature. In the narrow
sense (for the user interacts with software in general) interactive
communication – it is a dialogue of a user with the program, i.e, exchange text
commands (requests) and responses (the invitations). With more advanced means
of dialogue (such as having to ask questions in any form, using the
"key" word in the form of a limited set of characters) allows to
select options for the content of educational material and mode of operation. The
more there are opportunities to manage the program, the more active the user is
engaged in a dialogue, the greater is interactivity. In a broad sense,
interactivity involves all stakeholders into a dialogue with each other using
available means and methods. This assumes an active part in the dialogue on
both sides - the exchange of questions and answers, the management course of a
dialogue, monitoring the implementation of decisions, etc. Telecommunications
environment, where millions of people communicate with each other, is
essentially an interactive environment. Teachers and students will act as
subjects in an interactive collaboration in distance education, and e-mail,
newsgroups, conversations in real time will be implementing a similar
interaction.
By 2000 according to foreign experts,
higher education had reached the minimum education level required for the
survival of humanity. Education of such a mass of students on full-time
(daytime) form is unlikely to survive the budgets of even the most affluent
countries. It is no accident for the past decade that the number of students in
non-traditional technologies is growing faster than the number of full-time
students. The global trend of transition to unconventional forms of education
is traced in the increasing number of universities, conducting preparation of
these technologies.
A long-term goal of distance education
system in the world is to enable every student living in any place, to take a
course of any college or university. This implies a shift from the concept of
the physical movement of students from one country to the concept of mobile
ideas, knowledge and training to spread knowledge through the sharing of
educational resources.
Experts believe that the interactive
teaching telecommunications cost 20-25% cheaper than the traditional teaching. Microsoft
believes that the cost of network training can be reduced at least twice as
much as traditional as the teacher in a position to give lessons from anywhere
in the world, and even special computer equipment is not required. Savings can
be achieved and due to other factors. Adopting a system of distance education,
training department can be confident that all students enjoy the same and, moreover,
the most recent teaching materials. Because training manuals are updated with
Internet much easier. An interesting observation is that while training in
distance education system it is easier to produce screenings weak students. Passive
behavior at the usual seminars is easy, and at the electronic is impossible. As
a result a larger number of students drop out in distance courses than in
traditional ones.
Distance education within the system of
higher education is such an organization of educational process in which a
teacher develops a curriculum which is mainly based on self-study student. Such
a learning environment is characterized by the fact that the student is often
separated from the teacher in space or in time, so students and teachers have the
opportunity to dialogue with each other by means of telecommunication. Distance
education allows teaching village people who do not have other opportunities
for education or access to university professors or specializations.
Since the mid 70's in many countries a new
type of educational institutions started to appear, they were called
differently -"open", "distance" university,
"electronic", "virtual" college. They have the original
organizational structure, use the original set of pedagogical methods, economic
operation mechanism.
Characteristic trend of distance education
is just the union of the organizational structures of universities. There are
basic types of organizational structures of the university distance education,
which include:
- units of accelerated degree program
(distance education) in traditional universities;
- a consortium of universities;
- open universities;
- virtual universities.
Thus, in recent years a new type of
organizational structure of distance university education - a consortium of
universities - has begun to develop. Distance education services are provided
by a special organization that integrates and coordinates the activities of
several universities. University Consortium offers a suite of courses which are
developed at various universities - from college courses to courses for
degrees. In the 70's and 80's, many countries established national public
universities. They used many of the organizational principles of accelerated
degree programs. But in general, open education brought many new things in the
educational system. The principle of openness of education means freedom of
enrollment in the number of training courses, the individual making the
curriculum and the freedom of time, place and pace of learning. In an open
education there is a rich and elaborate educational environment in which the
learner is guided entirely independently, desiring to achieve his educational
purposes only.
At the heart of the new educational system
based on the principle of openness, which is applicable to higher education
there is:
- an open admission to higher education,
i.e waiver of any conditions and requirements for admission, except for
reaching the required age (18 years);
- joint planning of training, i.e freedom
of making individual courses by choosing from a system of courses;
- freedom in the timing and pace of
learning, that is, admission of students to higher education throughout the
year and no fixed terms of education;
- freedom to choose the place of study: the
students are physically absent from the classroom most of training time and be
able to choose where to study.
Carrying out the principle of openness has
led to significant organizational innovations that have become feasible
precisely because of the introduction of new technologies of storage,
processing and transmitting information. For example, in the 90’s a new model
of distance education appeared, based on technology of teleconferencing. This
model is called telelearning or teleeducation. In this case, teleconferencing,
which may be in real time, is the main form of interaction between teacher and
student, expanding this interaction, previously carried out mainly by mail. This
teleconference can be carried out both between teacher and students and between
learners. This can be audio, audio graphical, video and computer conferencing.
Model of distance education has appeared
recently, but it leads to radical changes in the organization of modern
education. This is evident in the fact that on the basis of this model there
began to develop a new organizational form of modern education - virtual
universities. This form of training is considered a new, just incipient model
of education. In this model, a fully implemented those potential restructuring
of the education system that are characteristic of teleconferencing technology
used for training purposes. These technologies enable groups of students and
individual student to meet with teachers and other students, being at any
distance from each other. Such modern communication tools are supplemented by
computer training programs, which replace printed texts, audio-and videotapes. The
emergence of such a model of distant education leads to the fact that education
is conducted not only at a distance, but regardless of any institution. Such a
model has not been yet fully implemented. It faces significant challenges, in
particular, the problem of obtaining public recognition and the right to issue
diplomas and certificates, to assign the appropriate level (the problem of
accreditation of a virtual university). Overcoming these difficulties and full
development of a model of virtual university will mean profound changes in the
organizational structure of modern education. [6]
However, despite all the above advantages
of distance education at the moment there are a number of problems. One of the
key problem is attracting teachers to the training content. Because of low
salaries, teachers tend to perform as much as possible the amount of training
load, and the result they devote less time for preparation of educational and
methodical support courses. However, the majority of teachers demonstrate a
serious interest in using distance education technology. The solution to this
problem could be either a decline in the number of hours teaching load for
teachers using distance educational technologies, or their incentives.
The second problem is more general and goes beyond one
institution. The introduction of distance education technology is a process
which requires considerable expenses. Therefore, it seems expedient to combine
in this way the efforts of several institutions with similar educational
programs. However, as a rule, content developed in one institution is difficult
to adapt to another because of different standards for the formation of content
and process management systems of distance education. It is important that the
various universities had the opportunity to share training and educational
materials with each other. Way of solving this problem lies in the use of
international standards for creating courses, so that an effective means of
learning, developed in one university could be used by other universities,
without changing the existing infrastructure of distance education.
Distance education technology, applying audio, video, forums
and chats allows creating effective training courses, but there is a problem
with the preparation of teachers to work with these technologies. But mastering
these technologies is no guarantee of quality teaching disciplines. It is well
known that the main character, must possess a teacher learning (tutor) is the
ability to perceive the student as a colleague, send a text form, not only
knowledge but also emotions, keep communicating, in an entertaining way to
represent knowledge. For the development of precisely those qualities it is
necessary to organize training and retraining of teachers. It becomes necessary
to conduct training on the content of such courses and teaching in an
e-learning environment, where the distance learning technology is used in an
educational process that enables teachers to be in the role of student and to
pass through the course themselves.
Departments should be involved in the process of distance
education to connect undergraduate and graduate students to problems solving
associated with the introduction of distance education technology.
A huge number of facts, examples above show the need for the
establishment and expansion of distance education in Kazakhstan, as an
essential factor in the development of skilled, intelligent, highly
professional society.
Distance education offers students access to nontraditional
sources of information, improves the efficiency of independent work, gives
completely new opportunities for creativity, discovery and consolidation of
various professional skills, teachers can implement fundamentally new forms and
methods of teaching with the use of conceptual and mathematical modeling of
phenomena and processes.
Thus, distance education as a new socio-important
information services already exists in reality and will have great prospects in
the future, both for learners and suppliers of the service.
Distance education is becoming one of the most important
tools to improve the educational system as a whole, starting from governing to
educating and ensuring access to education. Distance education is one of the
main tools for the implementation of open education, providing for substantial
expansion of educational content, methods of obtaining educational services,
forms certification, covering the concept further, accelerated degree program
and continuing education.
LITERATURE
1. http://college-training.ru.
2. http://db.informika.ru//
3. www.dis-edu.ru.
4. www.istu.edu.
5. Clarine M. “Innovations in education. Metaphors
and models”. M.: Nauka, 1997.
6. Gozman L.Y, Shestopal E.B “Distance
education at the threshold of the XXI century”. Rostov - on - Don:
"Thought", 1999.
7. Shakhman N.M “Technical means of
distance education”. M. - "Knowledge", 2000.
8. Jasinski V.B “Distance education - the
condition, technology and prospects”. Scientific publications /
Karaganda State Technical University. Karaganda, 1999.