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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