Belarus: "Examen.BY" and "Examen.KZ" - Exam through life

Last week a joint Belarusian – Kazakh commission on scientific and technical cooperation worked in Minsk. Kazakh delegation headed by Vice-Minister of education and science Aidar Zhakupov visited Belarusian State University (BSU). At the meeting presentation and discussion of «Экзамен. kz» took place. This project is the prototype of «Экзамен. by», the one which was worked out by the Centre of Information Resources and Communications of BSU and the resident of High Tech Park LLC «Soft Perspective».  

Kazakh party became interested in the project «Экзамен. kz» during the visit of Belarusian Prime-Minister to Kazakhstan. It should be noted that that the leader of the Belarusian government proposed 37 mutual projects for joint implementation which could be included in the map of industrialization of Kazakhstan. They are projects in various fields including education and among them «Экзамен. kz». Presently it is being developed by both sides.

It will be easier to explain what «Экзамен. kz» is, by the example of project «Экзамен.by». The latter is well known to Belarusian schools, teachers, pupils and their parents as it was launched this September. «Экзамен.by» is a part of almost revolutionary educational technology ‘Perspective Learning’. With its help it is possible to organize the so-called distributive teaching during which key role is assigned to home computers of teachers and pupils. The technology envisages working out and supply to schools of electronic teaching aids, production of discs for home use. Such complexity is unique in CIS countries and, in developers’ opinion, it was this uniqueness that attracted people to the project.

Work on this technology began in 2003, first results were achieved in 2006. «Our proposal matched the idea of the Program «Complex Informatization of Educational System in 2007 – 2010». The idea of the Program was not to work out separate and isolated electronic teaching aids (ETA) but to unify them into a single unit, a system of guiding for learning, some kind of a ‘player’ for ETA discs» - Mikhail Zekov says, Deputy Director of the Centre of Informational Resources and Communications of Belarusian State University. The result of two years’ work of implementation of the program was 34 ETA’s. 19 ETA’s are in the unified system. Our branch, IBA company, “Soft Perspective, BSU”, participated in this work.

Initially, the developers analyzed the market and found out that existing electronic teaching aids are rarely used be school teachers even if they have possibility to do so. Instead, Microsoft ‘PowerPoint’ program for creating presentations is widely used.

“We discovered several main reasons of such situation, and based our future work on them, - Mikhail Zekov continues. – If we regard ETA’s as a means for everyday work of a teacher then they should be used both at work and at home. If ETA’s are available only at school, a teacher is not able to prepare for the lessons. Besides, he wants to give his methodic product (for example, presentation) to pupils for usage.

Traditional computer teaching program does not give such possibility. And, finally, a teacher works with collection of materials (theory, reference data, tasks for school drills, independent work etc.). PowerPoint makes possible to compile such collections, and classical teaching program – does not. The ‘tool’ which we have worked out and which is supplied to educational institutions free of charge has the following three properties: a teacher can use ETA both at work and at home, he can very quickly and conveniently prepare collections of teaching materials and give them to pupils for copying. By the way, for pupils it is also much easier to work with these collections than with the discs of teaching programs which contain a huge amount of information and it is not clear what in particular should be learnt for the concrete lesson”.

In this way, teachers got a set of modern electronic teaching aids. Many of training courses are yet to be developed. Russian language course is the most completed: for this subject 6 ETA’s have already been prepared. Conceptual part has been compiled completely as well as rules’ hierarchy, auxiliary resources (presentations, dictations), system of training tasks, diagnostic tests. All materials included in ETA form the foundation of school knowledge.

Nevertheless, there are objective reasons due to which the most modern and convenient ETA’s can’t be used in schools as a system. «We can talk about systematic use only when it becomes everyday practice for a teacher, - Mikhail Zekov says. – Let’s imagine a situation. There are 1000 pupils in school, 50 class sets and 2 computer classes. In one of them informatics lessons take place, and in the other electronic teaching aids can be used. One class comes here once a week, and taking into account that on average a class has 7 – 8 lessons, that means that these pupils will use the computer class only once in 8 weeks, learning, for example, mathematics. Naturally, in such situation we talk only about open lessons or final testing. For our country it’s rather unlikely to quip each classroom with modern equipment. But there is another way out – home computer. In towns and cities many people have computers, and among senior pupils – almost all of them. Practically all teachers also possess computers. That means, such a model of teaching process should be arranged in which computers both of teachers and pupils will be harmonically used ».

That is the key idea of technology ‘Perspective Learning’. How can a teacher make use of a home computer? He can prepare for lessons, compose necessary collections. It is planned that teachers will be able to allocate his methodical materials on «Экзамен.by» portal, exchange them with his colleagues, give them to the pupils. And what about the pupils? They can use knowledge base. Besides, there will be an interesting system of remote tutoring for them on the portal. With its help they can undergo diagnosing of their preparation, get the chart of gaps in their knowledge and corresponding correction. (These very components of the project are the most laborious, that’s why the services of «Экзамен.by» are chargeable for users). The chart of gaps in pupils’ knowledge is available not only to pupils themselves, but to school administration, teachers, parents. By the way, for parents monitoring of learning of their children becomes much simpler: it will be quite enough just to control percentage of mastering of this or that course.

«We insist on the term ‘system of remote tutoring’, - Deputy Director of the Centre of Informational Resources and Communications of Belarusian State University emphasizes. – Why? Because this system makes a pupil study. As a parent I understand that a tutor gives knowledge but I also see certain harm. What about the principle “learn throughout your life”, endless education? They require not knowledge but ability to learn. After the tutor, who gives ready knowledge a young man enters an institute of higher education. The amount of knowledge increases several times as much there, but the student is not accustomed to learn independently. Quality of students’ knowledge drops just because of the fact that during school years when, through development of independent learning, the foundation was laid for future success, they were using tutors’ services. By calling the site «Экзамен.by» a remote control tutor, we want to return the original meaning of the word ‘tutor’ (according to Dal’s dictionary – ‘teacher’s helper’), leave only the best and useful: finding out gaps in knowledge and means to correct them. The main idea is that a pupil works independently and accustoms himself to such work. If we look at «Экзамен.by» as an alternative to a tutor, then it does not block the ability to work independently, on the contrary this ability is developed.

Working out of electronic teaching devices is going on and the main concern of the authors is its quality. In their opinion, the quality depends on three components: skill of designers, professionalism of developers and continuous upgrading of ready ETA’s. Among the authors, who prepare materials for electronic teaching devices there are university professors, authors of school manuals, or simply talented teachers (of not lower than the highest category). Stuff methodologists are responsible for composition, after that experts work with ETA’s. “The courses are very bulky. For example, after printing out of mathematics course there were 900 pages! Naturally, expert examination is not able to detect all mistakes and inaccuracies. That’s why we propose technology which is used in the whole world when working with software – technology of updating. In the near future we will launch a site where any teacher can leave his remarks, additions, point out the mistakes, - Mikhail Zekov says. – And then all users will be able to get updated versions of ETA’s. Thus, software product will be live; it will develop and gradually get rid of even minor shortcomings”.

Mikhail Georgievich is sure that electronic teaching devices can be worked out by a body of authors who have nothing to do with programming. In future the authors of technology ‘Perspective Learning’ plan to transform the school knowledge base on which all ETA’s are based to a national project like Wikipedia. Its filling will be the result of collective creative work of those teachers (and not only teachers) who are interested in this. «Belarusian teachers have excellent workings, which are inaccessible for their colleagues, - Mikhail Zekov says. – Our task is to technologically structure this ‘people’s arts’. We plan to create a special resource on the Internet, probably, within «Экзамен.by», which will unite community of such teachers. By our calculations, if everything goes smoothly, before 2012 we will satisfy schools’ needs in electronic teaching aids.

«Экзамен» is a replicated product, it can be implemented regarding any level of education in any country, - Andrey Gutnikov, Deputy Director of LLC «Soft Perspective» sums up. - At that, specialists of some particular country can join filling of electronic teaching aids. Because of this technology ‘Perspective Learning’ has a huge export potential. We have already sent our proposals to Kazakhstan and Belarus. And in Belarus, for example, the Republican Institute of Professional Education became interested in this technology and it is ready to establish the centre for development of ETA’s for Belarusian system of professional education and for export. Equally successfully this technology can be implemented in higher institutes, in the system of post-graduate education”.

Translated by Igor Matveev.

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