D.A.Kapassova1, Е.B. Chekina2, B.Kh. Zhubanova3
1Candidate of philological sciences, The Egyptian University for Islamic Culture «Nur
Mubarak», Almaty, Kazakhstan, e-mail: assyl99_kz@mail.ru
2Senior teacher, Kazakh National University named by al-Faraby, Almaty, Kazakhstan, email: vesna-elena@rambler.ru
3Candidate of pedagogical sciences, Kazakh National Agrarian University, Almaty,
Kazakhstan, e-mail: bagdat-nagima@mail.ru
ELECTRONIC TEXTBOOK IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
The use of electronic textbooks in the educational process as one of the forms of the distance learning in the higher education is considered in the article. The forms of the distance learning and the fundamental методические recommendations for creating electronic textbooks are described. The step-by-step algorithm has been developed that allows reorganizing the printed version of the handbook into an electronic one on the basis of various computer programs. The tasks in the electronic handbook are built in various formats: tests, highlighting, compliance, translation, entering the necessary information, etc. The rational use of this handbook at the consultative lessons on organizing of the student’s individual work under the guidance of a teacher decides a number of issues, related to the learning of grammatical topics, offered for the individual learning. The strengths and weaknesses of the use of the electronic handbooks are analyzed in the educational process.
Keywords: distance learning, forms of distance learning, electronic textbook, individual work of a student, job formats.
INTRODUCTION
The modern education is impossible to imagine without computers and the Internet, they are used by the majority of teachers and students. In Europe and the USA, the higher education institutions have long been offering the distance education as one of the standard forms of learning. In Russia, the distance education appeared at the end of the 20th century as a kind of non-formal education and it is implemented as the correspondence learning using the distance learning technologies. In our country, interest in the distance learning on the basis of new information technologies is only starting to shape: exhibitions, seminars, presentations and scientific and practical conferences are held, centers and the distance learning councils are being created.
Nowadays, the distance learning in many universities of Kazakhstan is offered in the form of the correspondence learning or the learning without contacting the teacher in the full-time educational process: doing the individual work, various tasks, and the opportunity to prepare and check the tasks in case of absence in the classroom. The Kazakh Al-Farabi National University has the distance learning as a special form of education, and the distance form is actively used during the teaching of the students who miss the classes for various reasons. The Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Forecasting offers the possibility of the distance learning for students, living far from the university, as well as for students with a tight work schedule, i.e. out of work. The distance learning at the “Narhoz” university allows students to attend classes 24/7 without leaving home. Classes are held in on-line mode, each student gets access to a virtual classroom in which he can get acquainted with the materials in the disciplines, get recommendations on how to do the individual work, pass a test, to discuss the difficult questions with the teacher. A student, studying with the use of the distance learning technologies has the right to determine the time and the place for studying the disciplines individually. The Kazakh Abai National Pedagogical University is aimed at the obtaining a permit for the distance learning of specialties by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan: jurisprudence, informatics, information systems.
MAIN PART
In the distance learning, the teacher and the student are spatially separated from each other, so it is based on the student’s individual work, focused and controlled by the teacher. The objectives of such learning are basically the same as in the full-time education (if the same academic curriculum are used), but the forms of presentation and interaction with the teacher differ significantly. The learning material is presented in a non-standard form: video lectures, video presentations, many references to the additional resources. Of course, the basic didactic principles (scientific character, systemacity, activity, developmental learning, demonstrativeness, differentiation and individualization of education, etc.) are in force, but the ways of their realization are due to the peculiarities of the new learning environment.
The main forms of the distance learning are proposed in the Table 1. [1, 7]
Table 1. The main forms of the distance learning
№ Form Description
1 The distance courses The formation of the theoretical and practical skills is achieved in the process of studying of the learning materials, viewing (listening) and revising exercises, recorded on video and audio media
2 Web pages, sites,
forums, weblogs The distance lessons, conferences, seminars, business games, laboratory work, practical work and other forms of the learning classes. For the web-based classes, specialized educational forums are used that provide the opportunity for many days work and asynchronous interaction of students and teachers
3 An email (including the mailing lists) The systematic transfer of learning materials using the mailing lists
4 The chat and the ICQ They are used in the many distant educational institutions for the distance interaction of teachers and academic groups. The classes are held within the chat, to which all the participants have simultaneous access.
5 The Tele-, audio, video- conferencing They are realized to solve the educational problems. They are usually conducted on the basis of the mailing lists using an e-mail.
6 The virtual classrooms Includes the texts of lectures on the discipline, interactive tests and simulators, dictionaries, etc. After reviewing the materials of the virtual lesson, the student does a number of tasks that are automatically checked by the grading system. A student can interact with the network teachers, consulting on the specific disciplines. Teachers can monitor and evaluate a student’s knowledge, communicating with him by an e-mail, a telephone, in a forum or using other signal communications equipment. Academic assessment for the entire course is usually realized in the form of the exam (full-time or part-time)
7 Radio,
television,
audio, video broadcasting It is used to transfer the lecture notes and online seminars or on electronic media
8 E-
Learning /
online Learning The electronic textbooks and teaching materials, other educational services, provided by the Internet
The forms of the distance learning can be used both: individually and in combination, depending on the equipment of an educational institution by technical training resources (TTR) and the specifics of the program. The nature and the efficiency of the educational process largely depend on the choice of the TTR.
Let us commit to the latest form (see table) of the distance learning — the electronic textbooks, which are often used at this kind of training in Kazakhstan.
The electronic textbook as one of the forms of organization of the students individual work. Nowadays, a large number of computer programs used in the educational process, training or supervising, electronic textbooks or textbooks, equipped with the multimedia resources (reference links, free movement within the textbook, etc.) have been created; almost any discipline is accompanied by the testing programs.
The achievements of the development of computer-information technologies make it possible to present theoretical and practical material of any course in a new way, using sound, links to the Internet, games, color palette, graphic work, multimedia technologies, and find their use in the textbook of the new generation — electronic.
Nowadays, an electronic manual is often understood as an electronic version of a printed publication “an unprinted textbook” or a collection of tests for the self-control, which has such multimedia components as scoring and the possibility of non-linear movement from task to task, but does not have a training component. In our opinion, the electronic handbook is a program-methodical complex, which provides the possibility of the individual mastering the course, containing the theoretical material, fixed on the basis of the automated monitoring programs.
The purpose of the electronic handbook is to teach to acquire knowledge individually, to be familiar with them freely, to use knowledge in practice, to use the earlier acquired knowledge as a basis for obtaining new knowledge; therefore electronic textbooks are intended for individual study of the learning material and testing its acquiring. In this connection, the electronic handbook is conveniently to use at the lessons of individual work under the guidance of a teacher, as well as to perform individual work.
In the modern educational process there is no problem more important and, at the same time, more complex than the organization of the students individual work. The Bologna education system proposes to increase the capacity of the student’s individual work up to 70% of study time, which will lead to the necessity for creating the special handbooks for the SIW. The importance of this problem is connected with the new role of the individual work: it is gradually pass into the leading form of organization of the educational process. As a result of self-educational activities of students, the process of acquiring, structuring and consolidating knowledge take place and therefore the individual work needs to be planned, special forms and methods for it should be created, time, classroom and technical resources should be allocated.
The students individual work has several components: completing the tasks individually, traditional homework, individual work — SIW and the students individual work under the guidance of a teacher — SIWT.
Many teachers have difficulty in the determining the type and the status of SIWT. If you clearly define the qualifications of the SIWT, then its content will line up automatically. The status of the SIWT is still not clearly defined and requires serious clarification in the regulatory documents. In our opinion, the SIWT has a consultative and control status. The SIWT is a multiple
type of a lesson, as the following strategies are possible for the “Russian language” course: 1) Control of the theoretical course material in the form of a colloquium or testing.
2) Control of the lexical and grammatical skills in the form of small test work – micro control.
3) Control of the practical skills of structural-semantic analysis of the text and the skills of creating the secondary text in various forms (in the form of «final product» — annotation or report, lecture notes, all types of a plan, as well as in the form of the «intermediate product» — abstract description.
4) Issuance and verification of tasks for the SIW.
5) Advice on the collection and systematization of materials for the SIW. 6) Additional classes with the low-performing students.
7) Creative tasks.
We can suggest the use of electronic handbooks as one of the forms of the SIWT. The electronic handbook is rationally used just on the SIWT, and the printed edition of the handbook is used at the practical lessons, as in the structure of the electronic handbook lack the creative tasks, the solution of which requires the students active work, revealing his own views, ideas and observations; they are not amenable to algorithmization, they require a direct dialogue with the student in the process of monitoring. Solving these problems is possible only at the practical lessons, when a student has the opportunity to express his vision, decision, opinion, work with a text, answer the questions, build various situations, etc. The tasks of a creative nature include the tasks such as: to make a discussion on the following topic, to carry out the linguistic analysis of the text, to write an opinion about, to fill in the necessary information, to answer the following questions in written form, to make questions to the text, etc.
Conducting the SIWT using electronic benefits promises to be exciting and effective, as the processed database of tasks in the handbook makes it possible to abandon the traditional lesson and dive into the world of “entertaining game” when the learner acquaints himself with theoretical material and using various computer programs can check the level of the studied learning material. The tasks are based on the various computer programs formats: the substitution (to write in the given correct answer), the free putting in (to write in the necessary information, for example, the gender, the number, the case, etc.), the accordance (the accordance is revealed between the data of the two classes), the translation (it’s suggested to the words in Russian, their equivalent in Kazakh), the test (the task + 5 answers, 1 of them is correct), the highlighting in color (the requested information is highlighted in different colors). Working with the mouse and the ready answers that require proper substitution, linking, matching revelation, transferring the data from one place to another, playing with a color palette, instantaneous assessment of the completed work motivate the learner to be active. A teacher at the SIWT acts as an observer, only in some cases, when a trainee, after the repeated familiarization with the theoretical material is difficult to do a practical task, can act as a facilitator or consultant.
The use of the electronic handbook at the lessons of the individual work under the guidance of a teacher is very effectively for several reasons:
• Compliance with the main conditions of a lesson — the individual activity of the student and indirect control by the teacher;
• Building a new learning path — “discipline – a student — discipline”, and not traditional — “discipline – a teacher – a student – a teacher”;
• Time management: all 50 minutes (1 lesson) the student is busy with the practical tasks and has the ability to get an automated assessment (right / wrong) for the completed work;
• The activity of each student, that is, the working group is busy 100% during the lesson;
• Assimilation of the specific theoretical material, knowledge of which is necessary at practical classes. The workload of the lessons is 45 hours, the whole material of the «Russian language» course cannot be learned in the allocated time), and in this connection, the lack of classroom time for full mastering and revision of the planned themes by the students allows to highlight some topics for the individual or extracurricular study by the students. For example, for the student’s individual work under the guidance of a teacher, we take out the following topics: Morphology and syntax of a scientific style of the speech, Expression of various relations in the structure of a sentence: the qualification of a subject, expression of a full or partial composition of a subject, etc. The knowledge of this learning material is necessary for the linguistic analysis and the structural-semantic division of the academic and scientific text on the specialty. In this connection, it is important to psychologically sensitize the student to the quality work and to describe to him the future prospects of his work in future educational and professional activities;
• Facilitation of the individual consultative help to the student;
• The organization of group lessons, in which each student, depending on the level of mastering the material, has the ability to do a certain number of practical tasks based on the principle “from simple to complex”. Simple exercises (1–4 tasks) are offered for the “weak” students, and the “strong” ones, having worked through the simple tasks, can continue working on the more complex tasks (from 5 to 10). Considering the factor of the lack of evaluation of the SIWT in grade points in terms of credit technologies of education, it is kept the records of the number of the correctly completed tasks. If the student does not cope with the goals and the objectives during the lesson, this lesson is not counted. The student, who has mastered the complex of tasks of one lesson, proceeds to the next topic;
• Increasing interest in the subject from the student, the desire for a deeper study of the discipline;
• Building trust with the teacher, which is very important in the educational process.
The specific forms and the ways of organizing of the students individual work under the guidance of a teacher depend on the specifics of the discipline, the level of training of students, the technical equipment of university, rational planning and other factors in the creative activity of the teacher; in this connection, the organization of the SIWT with the use of the electronic handbook is one of the possible forms of conducting of the students individual work.
The creating an electronic handbook does not cause separate difficulties. As a result of acquaintance with the theoretical foundations of the creating electronic textbooks, individual searching, coordinated actions with the developers of a virtual textbook, it is possible to create own handbook which is used in the educational process and built on the basis of the various computer programs. I would like to describe a phased algorithm for developing an electronic handbook.
1. As R.K. Potapova remarks, the learning resources are divided into two large classes — academic and learning [2, 86]. The main goal of the first class is the development of the student’s creative abilities. However, the first-class learning resources turned out to be impossible to verify with the help of the suggested programs, in this connection all the tasks of a creative format were removed from the structure of the handbook, as the solution of these tasks involves the student’s active work, revealing his own views, ideas and observations; they are not amenable to algorithmization, they require in the process of monitoring the immediate presence of the teacher. The solution of the given tasks is possible only with consultative learning. The tasks of a creative format include the tasks of the type: to make sentences with the following words, to make reasoning on the following topic, to write your opinion about, to write in the qualitative adjectives, to answer the following questions in written form, etc. However, it is possible that they can function in computer-integrated dialogue format systems.
2. The determination of the format of the task. When compiling the electronic handbook, we used the following formats: the test (task + 5 answers, 1 of them is correct), the substitution (write in the suggested correct answer), the free putting in (write in the necessary information, for example, the gender, the number, the case, the category, inanimateness / animativeness, etc.), the accordance (between the data of the two classes the accordance is revealed), the translation (it’s offered to the words in Russian, their equivalent in Kazakh). In the process of work, the following fact was revealed: not all tasks “worked” within the framework of the suggested formats. Thus, a new format is the selection of color. Color highlighting allows the student to do the tasks by highlighting the requested information in different colors. Verification of the result is carried out using control systems. The tasks which are done in this format constitute 60% of the total number of the tasks in the electronic handbook.
3. Adjustment the term of the task. Depending on the format in which the task will be done, the term of the task also changes. The program, and not the person, acts as the controller of the correctness of the assignment, therefore it is necessary to clearly and consistently formulate the terms of the tasks. Otherwise, even with the correct doing of the task, the program will give a failing grade. For example, the task is done in the free putting format, the term of this task is to write in the endings of the adjectives, determine the gender and number of the adjective. Thus, the learner faces three tasks that he must consistently solve: first write in the endings, then determine the gender, and only at the end determine the number. In case of an inconsistent putting the answer, the program will set the answer as incorrect.
4. Arrange the tasks in accordance with the principle «from simple to complex.»
5. Prepare a theoretical material and compress it. In the electronic handbook it is necessary to give the minimum theoretical material that allows getting the necessary information to perform tasks.
6. For the completeness of knowledge on each topic, it is necessary to select the additional theoretical material and arrange it in the form of hyperlinks. Also relevant are the hyperlinks that refer to the relevant Internet sites for more information on a particular issue. The hyperlinks allow combining files of the very different formats into one whole: with their help you can move from one document to another, a video program, a graphic editor, audio files, etc. In addition to consecutive hyperlinks leading from one task to another and to keys for selftesting, there should be cross, allowing to get from one section to another; hyperlink to content. Hyperlinks are placed at the very end of the work, because when the file is moved or if it is renamed, the computer will not be able to find it and the hyperlink will lose all meaning.
7. To do each task in accordance with its condition — the most important in the electronic handbook is the development of keys. It is very important to observe the terms of the task, use the colors specified in the term, consistently fix the requested information, etc. All the keys are in italics and one color, for example, pink, which is very important for the programmer to differentiate the tasks from tasks with the keys. Exercises with keys are placed after each task, before the keys the format is pointed, in which the task is done. This information is extremely important: the electronic handbook is developed not by a specialist in this discipline area, but by a programmer, because the choice of the format, clarity of the task terms and the accurate and correct forming of the key are the insurance to creating of an effective electronic handbook.
In this article, it is impossible to demonstrate the multicolor keys. Working with the keys gives the developer great pleasure, it also becomes the possibility of doing the tasks individually in various formats, the diversity of which, in our opinion, activates the student’s work. Imprinting answers, highlighting certain letters, phrases, sentences in different colors, dragging various objects around the screen with the mouse, appending missing letters, deleting certain objects, translating words cause a keen interest of all who work with the electronic handbook.
CONCLUSION
As a result, the electronic handbook may have the following form: it begins with a video recording in which the author introduces the student with the objectives and goals of the course, as well as the expected results at the end of the course [2]. The course is divided into blocks by topics; the block contains the minimum theoretical material, after each topic the exercises are offered, the doing of which determines the level of mastering the topic. After each block, there are hyperlinks that refer to the specific Internet sites or theoretical material prepared by the originator of the handbook. The answers are evaluated according to the principle of correct / incorrect, in case of an incorrect answer, the student is offered the opportunity to view the correct answer and compare it with his answer, the opportunity to analyze their mistakes or inaccuracies and, conversely, in the case of the correct answer, go to the next, more complex task proceed to the next, more complex task. The tasks are based on the various training and control programs, which make the handbook interesting and exciting. The handbook is mobile: it is equipped with a system of hyperlinks that allow the student to be at any time in any place of the handbook, check the correctness of their answ ers and decisions and return the information material [3]. If necessary, it can go to the theoretical part and re-read it, as well as get the additional, sufficiently large amount of information on the subject of interest. The electronic handbook makes the student to work much more actively than the usual printed edition.
REFERENCES
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