In a modern school, whether it is secondary, general or professional, electronic teaching aids are currently developing at a rapid pace, due to the constant improvement of technology. To master the necessary programs, interactive whiteboards and overhead projectors (rafo projectors), computers, as well as the latest devices designed to reproduce information from digital media, have appeared and are successfully used. Increased requirements for the development and improvement of teaching aids are imposed in connection with the use of the Internet in educational institutions.
For the successful conduct of the pedagogical process, it is very important to use as many different types of perception as possible among schoolchildren. At the same time, in the first place in importance are visual and auditorycombined forms. Due to the simultaneous impact of a whole complex of stimuli, the learning process acquires a special emotionality and strength. This is where e-learning tools come into play. With their help, the student is influenced by a powerful flow of unusual and at the same time high-quality information. It creates the emotional basis that allows you to move from a sensual image to logical thinking without certain difficulties.
Definition of concept
What do we mean by e-learning tools? The definition of this concept suggests that these are software tools that reflect a certain subject area and with the help of which it becomes possible to study it with information and communication technology tools. Thus, ESE create conditions for the implementation of a variety of areas of educational activities.
Currently, electronic learning tools are beginning to take an increasing place in the information and subject support of the pedagogical process. What is included in their composition?
ESA classification
The widespread use of computer devices and related telecommunications and information technologies leads to the creation of new directions in almost every area of public life. Education is no exception. Over the past two or three decades, computer technology, as well as the corresponding tools and technologies, have become an integral part of the educational process. So, for the preparation of schoolchildren and for the organization of education, they find their ownthe use of informatization tools, which are called differently in various publications. These are teaching aids for educational purposes, and computer training aids, and pedagogical software. This list of such terms is far from exhaustive. But directly in teaching schoolchildren, the definition of ESE is used, which is identified with such a concept as an educational electronic publication. Abbreviated OEI.
Based on the existing classification of e-learning tools, we note that their main types are:
- general purpose software tools;
- electronic fitness equipment;
- software designed to measure and control the level of skills, abilities and knowledge of students;
- software necessary for the implementation of simulation and mathematical modeling;
- reference information retrieval systems;
- laboratory software (virtual and remote access);
- EU - electronic textbooks;
- AOC - automated learning systems;
- EOS - expert learning systems;
- industrial systems, as well as their analogues, which are automation tools for professional activities, etc.
Online edition
This concept is more general when considering e-learning tools, as well as educational electronic publications.
What is EI? This publication, which includes a combination of text, graphics, speech, digital, music, photo,video and other information. It is performed either on any electronic medium or published on a computer network. At the same time, the electronic edition contains a systematized material devoted to the relevant field of knowledge. The main task of EI is to ensure the creative and active mastering of skills and abilities by students in a particular subject.
Such e-learning tools should be distinguished by the highest level of artistic design and execution, possess completeness of information, quality of technical performance and methodological tools. They should also be presented in a coherent, logical, and visual way.
The use of e-learning tools greatly improves the quality of audio and visual information. It becomes more dynamic, more colorful and brighter. Huge opportunities in this regard are those types of electronic learning tools that are based on modern multimedia technologies.
It is worth noting the fact that ESPs allow you to radically change the way various types of information are formed. If in traditional visual education the object under study had a certain specificity, then with the advent of information technology and electronic learning tools, it became possible to dynamically interpret not only specific subjects, but also scientific concepts, theories and patterns.
Software Tools
Of all the existing types of e-learning tools, these are used for the purpose of automationnext:
- documentation related to educational activities, routine calculations;
- data from experimental studies.
Software tools are used during practical laboratory classes, as well as for organizing project and independent work of schoolchildren.
Tools for measuring and controlling knowledge
These e-learning tools are particularly widely used in education. This made it possible to make the relative ease of their creation. Currently, a number of shell systems are being successfully used, which can be used by the teacher. Even a teacher who is not familiar with the basics of programming is capable of creating an electronic learning tool in the form of a list of questions on a specific educational topic, as well as possible answers to them. The use of such tools allows the teacher to be freed from routine work related to the issuance of control tasks individually for each student, as well as checking the correctness of their results. This becomes especially relevant in mass education. When using such means of organizing e-learning, the teacher has the opportunity to more often control knowledge using, among other things, self-control. All this allows you to stimulate the repetition and consolidation of the material covered by the students.
Electronic trainers
The main purpose of these teaching tools is to develop practical skills and abilities of schoolchildren. Simulators as electronic learning tools in the educational process are considered to be especially effective in solving problems. With the help of these tools, students receive brief information from the theory of the relevant subject, after which children are trained at various levels with control and self-control.
The advantages of electronic learning tools in the form of simulators as one of the methods of mastering school programs are that they are able to perform three interconnected functions. Namely:
- Diagnostic. This function allows you to identify the level of skills, abilities and knowledge of the student. The didactic capabilities of electronic learning tools allow you to identify and eliminate the gaps in the knowledge of the student. Due to the fact that such a simulator, as a rule, is a certain set of test questions, in terms of its breadth, objectivity, and speed of diagnosis, it significantly surpasses all other types of pedagogical control.
- Educational. A similar function of the electronic simulator is that its use allows you to activate the student's work on mastering a certain subject. Indeed, when developing such tools, hints and leading questions are included in their program. Students, having solved tests, receive links either to questions or to sections of theoretical material for which incorrect answers were given. Performing its educational function, the electronic simulator provides the student with the opportunity to re-solve the task from the same type of group or the same level.difficulty.
- Educational. Modern electronic learning tools in the form of simulators discipline the activities of students and contribute to their self-organization. When working with these tools, students develop a desire to develop responsibility, independence and initiative.
Include similar e-learning tools and educational resources in a wide variety of subjects. That is why interactive simulators are very actively used by many teachers. Such electronic means are used for teaching languages, the exact sciences, etc. Interactive simulators find their use in those lessons in which it is important for the teacher not only to systematize the material studied, but also to focus the class's attention on the main points of the material being studied. All this will allow you to understand the topic and prepare children for test work.
Besides this, when developing electronic learning tools in the form of simulators, their visual range is often supplemented with drawings from the textbook. This improves the clarity of the lesson. At the same time, the electronic simulator becomes an indispensable tool that helps not only to explain complex educational material to the teacher, but also to successfully master it by schoolchildren during independent work.
Simulators as a means of organizing e-learning can be used at various stages of the lesson, for individual or frontal work with students, as independent homework, when eliminating knowledge gaps, and also for practicingskills in problem solving or theoretical material of the studied topic.
Simulators as a means of organizing e-learning significantly increase the motivation of students to master the subject. At the same time, each student is given the opportunity to work at a pace that is comfortable for him, which allows you to relieve psychological stress. In addition, the basis of electronic learning tools in the educational process of the school is certainly a gaming base. She brings positive emotions to the lesson.
Working with electronic technical teaching aids creates a situation of success for students. The task of the teacher is to unobtrusively achieve the goal, which is to motivate and interest the student to master the compulsory program in the subject, as well as to bring certain skills of the child to automatism.
The use of electronic learning tools in the educational process allows you to purposefully train children with repeated re-solving of the tasks proposed to them. And this is one of the advantages of such tools. In addition, the electronic simulator allows the teacher to spend a minimum of time to give an objective assessment of the performance of each student in the class. At the same time, the student understands that the completed tasks indicated the real level of his knowledge.
Software designed for simulation and mathematical modeling
With the help of such tools, the boundaries of theoretical and practical research are significantly expandedschoolchildren. At the same time, the physical experiment is supplemented by the computational one.
Some of these electronic learning tools in the educational process offer students models of research objects, while others offer models of measuring installations. With the help of such tools, the school can save money on the purchase of expensive laboratory equipment and increase the safety of students' practical work.
Currently, a large number of modeling programs have been developed and used in the educational process. They were created specifically for teaching children various subjects within the school curriculum, namely mathematics and languages, biology and chemistry, physics, fiction, etc. There are also special computer information models that do not contain specific tasks, but at the same time very effective for the educational and educational process at school. This becomes possible due to the use of various methodological techniques in them.
The main features of this type of electronic learning tools are in their developmental and educational nature. And these are not only computer programs themselves, but also sets of similar programs presented in the form of separate series, packages, subsystems and collections.
It is worth noting that those information models that are used in schools are most often not universal. Each of them was originally created specifically for a narrow range of phenomena.
Models based on the application of mathematical technologies are used not only to demonstrate those phenomena thatdifficult to reproduce in a teaching setting. They are also intended for interactive clarification of the degree of influence of certain parameters on the situation being created. This allows information models to replace laboratory settings, as well as to develop the skills of managing practical processes in children.
There is a certain classification of electronic learning tools in the form of computer models. They are grouped depending on such criteria as the subject matter and the age of the students, the level of complexity and control, the tasks to be solved for the development of mental abilities, etc. In particular, the following computer models belong to such electronic learning tools:
- developing;
- training;
- for educational experimentation;
- aimed at diagnostics;
- designed to form skills and abilities.
Automated learning tools
What is this electronic tool for mastering school material? Automated learning systems are understood as a certain environment that performs the functions of displaying and controlling the material of an educational subject, which interact with each other based on the feedback principle. The AOS structure, as a rule, includes the following objects:
- e-learning course (problems, reference material and lectures);
- computer testing subsystems (program modules that evaluate a student's knowledge based on his answers to pedagogical questions);
- knowledge base in the form of a set of user data,which are stored in AOS;
- scheduler, which is a subsystem that adjusts the work of the ATS to obtain the highest learning effect.
Each of the automated learning systems has differences not only in composition, but also in its functionality. However, in the development of each of them, the general idea of individualization of education was used.
Electronic textbooks
What is the use of this type of electronic learning tools in the educational process? Currently, such textbooks are divided into two types. The first of them is an electronic copy of the publication familiar to all, with only a small number of additional features, namely:
- enlarge pictures;
- the presence of hyperlinks that open a topic related to the topic being studied;
- the presence of additional material not included in the regular textbook due to weight restrictions.
The second type of this electronic instrument is a training software package. It allows the student to do homework right on its pages. At the same time, such a textbook has video examples of the correct implementation of practical work, audio clips for the correct pronunciation of foreign words (when learning languages), as well as other multimedia components. In such software systems, it is possible to connect to the local network of a class or school. This will allow the teacher to control the completion of assignments by each student, as well as work with a group of children.
What opportunity do e-textbooks provide? With them, children can listen to dialogue in a foreign language read by professional speakers, view the deployment of troops during a famous historical battle on a map, explore museum exhibits by scrolling from all sides using a 3D image, and much more.
At its core, an electronic textbook is a program that can be downloaded to a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. This leads to the fact that schoolchildren do not have to carry a heavy load in their backpack every day. At the same time, as teachers and parents note, the use of electronic textbooks can improve the performance of children by 30%. With particular pleasure, teenagers perform tasks with the help of gadgets. Indeed, at the same time, they watch the necessary videos on the topic, listen to audio recordings of comments and explanations of professional lecturers. Obtaining comprehensive information allows students to understand and absorb the subject much better.
Expert learning systems
This electronic tool is a computer program built on the basis of the knowledge of methodologists, qualified teachers, psychologists and other experts in a particular subject area, which implements and controls the learning process. Another main purpose of such a system is to help students study a particular subject on their own.
Among the main elements of the EOS are:
- knowledge base;
- learning module;
- input machine;
- module designed to extract knowledge;
- explanation system;
- test module.
Today, expert learning systems are becoming increasingly popular. With their help, the teacher is able to manage the learning process, diagnose students' readiness for the lesson, etc.
EOS are created on the basis of technologies and ideas of artificial intelligence. Such systems are able to simulate the activities of the most qualified experts in solving complex problems. With the help of EOS, children acquire new knowledge, as well as receive answers to questions that arise in the course of solving tasks in a particular subject area. At the same time, EOS are able to provide an explanation of the tactics and strategies for solving tests.
Among the disadvantages of the ETS, experts note the lack of organization for the application by students of already acquired knowledge. In addition, when working with expert learning systems, children themselves do not look for a solution. This results in a lack of feedback and dialogue.
Intelligent learning elements
These electronic tools are classified as tools of the highest level. The creation of IOS is also based on artificial intelligence. With the help of this tool, the teacher can manage the educational process at all stages of solving the problem, starting with its formulation and ending with the assessment of the optimality and correctness of the solution. With the help of IOS, it becomes possible to have a dialogueinteraction, which is carried out, as a rule, using a language close to natural. At the same time, not only the correctness of the actions taken is subject to discussion, but also the strategy that was used in the search for solutions, control methods, action planning, etc.
The difference between IEE and other electronic learning tools is that they do not have the main and auxiliary pedagogical influences in a ready-made form. These tools only allow you to generate them.
Automation of professional activities
Such electronic learning tools include CALS-systems, packages containing application programs, etc. Such tools are considered as one of the elements of ESE not only as a subject of study, but also as a learning tool used in process of professionally oriented tasks.
Advantages and disadvantages of ESP
The progress that is observed in the field of information technology will certainly entail the emergence of the term "information society". It is understood as a society in which the main product of production is nothing but knowledge. That is why such increased attention to informatization is paid during the educational process. And this approach allows us to achieve the following strategic goals:
- improving the efficiency of any type of educational activity based on information and telecommunication technologies;
- improving the quality of training professionals with a modern type of thinking, which is completelycorresponds to the visions of the information society.
How to achieve your goals? Informatization of education is impossible without the practical application of specially created computer software and hardware tools. These include electronic learning tools.
ESO used in teaching schoolchildren are necessarily supplemented by the ideological basis of informatization, as well as the work of specialists in various fields. Only in this case the teacher will be able to achieve the goal.
The use of e-learning systems makes it possible to revise traditional educational technologies, methods and courses in order to teach the student where he can find information resources, how they are accessed, and how they can be applied in further professional activities.
However, the use of ESP at school is not always justified. Informatization of education carries a number of negative aspects. They, as well as positive factors, must be known to every teacher in order to take them into account in their work with children.
ESO allow enriching the organizational and pedagogical activities of the school with such opportunities:
- improvement of technologies and methods of formation, selection and content of education;
- introduction and development of new directions in education and specialized disciplines related to information technology;
- introducing changes in the teaching of most traditional disciplines by increasing the level of differentiation and individualization of education;
- usingadditional leverage to motivate students to learn;
- improving the mechanisms for managing the entire education system.
The use of ESP contributes to the development of the student's personality. Such a process forms in children the ability to develop the necessary strategy when looking for solutions not only to educational, but also to practical problems.
Among the shortcomings of using the ESP, experts point out the total individualization of training. It minimizes live communication between the teacher and students, since the "dialogue" is conducted mainly with a computer. Schoolchildren who use ESP are silent for a long time during such work, which is typical for those people who study remotely. At the same time, speech as an organ that contributes to the objectification of thinking is simply turned off. And if this happens over the course of many years of being at school, then the growing person is not able to receive the practice of dialogic communication necessary for him. Subsequently, it will be difficult for him to formulate and form his professional thoughts.
Another significant disadvantage of using EOS is the reduction of social contacts. Subsequently, it becomes difficult for such a student to move from information to independent actions in the professional field.
So, we have looked at e-learning tools in education, their pros and cons.
