ғылыми мақала DISTANCE LEARNING

THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

Байтугелова Салтанат Бериковна, учитель английского языка

Общеобразовательная средняя школа №72 имени Сагадата Нурмагамбетова Казахстан, город Шымкент.

Not long ago, some ten years or even less, we did not know much about the modern Internet; we could not imagine its facilities and our life with it. Now we have got a lot of different kinds of literature about Internet telecommunication technologies: manuals on the usage of these technologies for various purposes, instructions for teachers showing how to use it in the teaching and learning process, popular scientific literature, advertisements calling upon the users to locate their information in the net. For effective education a mere access to Internet information resources is not enough. It is necessary to prepare the students beforehand to work with information or to provide those who use the distance form of education with special tasks destined to develop intellectual skills of critical thinking, working with verbal texts, multimedia environment, to create all kinds of so-called secondary texts (abstracts, summaries, essays, etc.), to be able to work with information. It means in other words to develop their critical thinking. This must be the goal of every education system. So, this is the first factor, which influences the efficiency of the Internet in education. Besides, we should keep in mind that reading electronic texts in the net is not like reading printed texts. We have to look it through rather than read it thoroughly and make decision if it is worth downloading and more attentive reading later or not. So, students should be taught to look through the texts quickly, selecting the main ideas interesting for them from the point of view of their cognitive task. Some preliminary preparation in this respect is necessary as well, if we want the Internet in education to be effective.

The development of critical thinking requires possession of definite knowledge, experience, and power of observation. The Internet creates opportunities for bringing people closer to each other, for mutual understanding but the realization of those opportunities depends on people themselves, their mental and spiritual abilities, their desire to understand and share the views of others. The next factor which impacts the efficiency of Internet use in education is that teachers in most cases are unprepared for the practice of integrating the information resources of the Internet, its facilities in teaching and learning process, let alone distance education. In many and many countries the institutes of education do not train future teachers for the specific activity of handling Internet resources. The situation is changing in some countries due to the organization of special associations for in-service teacher training. Still many teachers and educators consider this a self-dependent activity in terms of using Internet technologies, finding some materials for the projects, reports, essays, using e-mail if necessary, etc. But in fact if we speak about education, we must keep in mind that this is a mutual, interactive activity, which should be controlled and directed. Even if the students are supposed to study some course or material located in the Internet all by them, they should be provided with the necessary instructions how to do it, what additional information is to be used in the Internet or other resources. So, this problem deals with the training of teachers either in the universities or at in-service training courses. The analytical materials given below, touch upon some other problems, including navigation, which are also very important and mentioned by many specialists.

Distance education is very popular in the world. Nowadays it is more used in higher than in secondary education. But the pedagogical prognosis predicts integration of the traditional and distance education at any rate in high school and in higher education. The demand for distance education is strong in the society. There are social, economic and cultural reasons for that. Now the educators in different countries assume that distance education is a new form in the system of a life-long education. It is a teaching and learning process where the interaction between a teacher (and a tutor as they are more frequently called) and students or among students, is the core principle. Being as such it supposes the same goals, standards and content as the basic. The main pedagogic technologies used in the distance form of education are mostly the same as in the full-time tuition, but they are realized with the help of Internet technologies, which imparts them some special characteristics. The content of education is also structured under the influence of Internet technologies. Still the distance learning methods are quite recognizable: the basic lecture, cooperative or collaborative learning in small groups, project method, discussions, brainstorming, etc. Not long ago some pedagogues considered distance education either a modification of correspondent courses or self-education. There are a great number of such courses in the Internet. The practice of many countries shows that the majority of students of different ages prefer to learn with a teacher, a tutor or whatever you may call these specialists. Distance education, due to the opportunities Internet resources and facilities provide, gives a good credit to the students to consult with highly qualified specialists, who conduct a distance course, share their views with their course mates, get an access to libraries, museums, databases, which they certainly cannot have in the traditional education. However, the effectiveness of distance education like full-time education or any other forms of education depends on definite factors. Many of them are described in the analytical survey in Part I, and we shall not review them. We shall try to mention only those which were not discussed there. The first and the most important problem for many countries is the legality of distance education. Many educators have to admit that the employers are rather skeptical about the certificates of distance education. They evidently identify distance education with that of correspondent courses which are not highly estimated by the communities. In reality the effectiveness of distance education can be even higher than of full-time tuition. Again everything depends on many factors. The professionalism of the staff and management is very important. The Internet can contribute to solve this problem via teleconferences in which tutors from different countries can share their experience at the web sites organized for this purpose, etc. The portals of virtual schools and universities can also be helpful because they may employ highly qualified specialists from scientific centers, schools and universities. The authors of the analytical part point out the problem of cost. And right they are, at least for the countries where schools and universities do not have free access to the Internet, where the majority of students cannot afford the access to the Internet from their home computers. No less important is the problem of the quality of developing electronic textbooks, additional instructional materials. The significance of this problem is obvious for the Internet resources in general, as it has been mentioned above, but it increases immensely when it concerns the system of distance education.

The development of electronic teaching and instructional materials requires a team approach. It means that unlike printed aids, the electronic ones require different specialists for their development: experts in the subject, methodologists, programmers, designers. These educational products are always complex. One should bear in mind that the leading specialists in these teams are a subject expert and a methodologist, which means that the pedagogical ideas dominate. There are two more problems in distance education: psychological interaction of the participants and the language barrier. In the analytical survey some authors consider the first problem to be supreme. In contrast to face-to-face communication, the distant communication has its psychological peculiarities. The participants do not see each other, if they do not use videoconferences. On the one hand, it stimulates the freedom of self-expression, but on the other, it sometimes leads to undesired utterances, behavior which can inspire misunderstanding and even a conflict. It is more important when small groups of collaborators are formed.

The problem expects the investigation and examination by specialists. As for the other one, which also makes distance learning unavailable for all those who want to get education not only in their own country, but also in some foreign institution, it needs time. The largest part of information in the Internet is in English. The English language becomes dominant in the Internet; however the information space of other countries is developing swiftly. So, learning not one but two and more foreign languages turns out to be a very urgent problem for the education systems of all countries. That was one of the reasons why UNESCO has called the coming century the century of polyglots. We certainly could not mention all issues, which arise while using Internet resources in distance education.

How distance education is organized

Tutorial work

• In every educational process – and in the Internet, too – the student is the main actor of his/her own training.

• The students have tutors who advise, accompany and guide them in the study along with some consultants that guide them in the task of learning.

• In the training via the Internet, the students send their consultations, suggestions, questions and evaluations to the professor's tutorship office via electronic mail or forum.

• The professors carry out their direction and advice task by electronic mail.

• The tutorship office is open 24 hours a day. This is an advantage and a saving for everybody. Tutorship and training via the Internet the tutorships have great importance in the educational processes. The contact tutor-student facilitates the follow up of the marked line and the attainment of the established objectives

• The Internet replaces the presence relationship using other services, like electronic mail

• The service can eliminate the feeling of isolation that can happen in distance training by guaranteeing a quick and continuous communication with the tutor.

• For the tutor, the Internet offers a supplementary powerful instrument, because many questions that the student could outline have their answers inside the Internet. In these cases, the tutor must offer the convenient Internet address.

• The electronic mail, since it is a written communication way, favors a presentation of questions in a more objective, reflexive and more thoughtful way. It is very important for a student of distance form of education to be able to estimate his/her own work. This process can be facilitated if the student knows how to do it. So, the tutor should point out some most significant areas of the student’s activity in the concrete materials.

• Define the benefits for the society, which in general could be if the values of the new era affect it globally.

• Indicate the number of successes and mistakes you have got in your work with the Internet and electronic mail.

• Point out the most exciting thing you have learned from the obtained documents and exchanges carried out in the Internet.

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