A movement such as that of the Young Computer and Electronics Club, has hundreds of facilities throughout the territory of Cuba where mainly adolescents and young people, but also adults of any age, acquire basic knowledge about computing and its many applications. This constitutes an exemplary expression of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for socially useful purposes, different from those that, as a dominant trend, are reserved today for these advanced technologies in the world.
The educational practice in today's society necessarily implies a methodological preparation supported by ICT, which must take into account three main aspects: 1) for the effective use of ICT by teachers and students requires skills and competences; 2) ICTs are a powerful resource in the teacher's hands, an efficient means of information processing, aimed at promoting knowledge organization processes; 3) ICT serve as an agent of change, due to its impact on the ways of accessing knowledge, the exchange of information and the methodology of teaching-learning processes.
In this work the problem of the pedagogical preparation of the instructors of the Young Club that come from very diverse professional sectors is addressed. The use of an e-learning platform and a digital library is proposed, in order to improve their pedagogical preparation and raise the quality of the teaching-learning process in the Young Computer Club.
Introduction
In the current conditions of economic and commercial blockade against Cuba, our country has achieved the interaction of society with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) through the Young Computer and Electronics Club, whose essential mission is to contribute to create a computer culture in the population, especially among children, youth and adults. The preparation of the new generations in the use of ICTs and the use of these to increase the quality of the educational teaching process are policies designed to ensure the future of the country.
During the last years, Distance Education has been opening a legitimate space within the world educational concert. From job training to university postgraduates are on offer in the most diverse educational institutions.
The meaning of Distance Education is more or less understood by most people. However, it is related exclusively - in some cases in a derogatory way - with correspondence teaching. As a first approximation, it must be said that this identification is not exact, since written correspondence is only one of the means used, among many others.
The fellow instructors of the Young Computer Club come from different professional sectors and although they have high technical training, they often do not have experience in the area of education. If they are provided with a tool by which they can raise the quality of their class preparation, this will have a positive impact on the quality of student learning. Therefore, the present work intends to implement a computer system through which you can access the information regarding each plan of the courses taught at the Young Computer Club and the plan of each class, including the exercises of the classes practices. This information would come from the instructors with more experience in this field and can be renewed with new contributions,as the courses go by and with the vital support of the methodologist.
Development
When speaking of Distance Education, it usually refers to an education system in which the actors - students and teachers - are not all in the same place. This process is carried out through remote access to educational programs, while the learning process is developed as a complementary modality to the traditional one, through the use of various technologies classified into three categories: computing, telecommunications and print.
Distance Education has been favored with the advances made by computer networks and communication systems, combined in what is called «telematics», synonymous with Distance Education; from the Greek "tele" at a distance, and "mathisis" education or learning. The term "telematics" suggests that the responsibility for learning rests with the student; This implies a more independent relationship with the teacher.
In Distance Education, the distribution of didactic contents does not oblige the participants to be physically present in the same place. Thus, for example, in the satellite classes the specialists are in an Emission Study and the students in teaching centers within Virtual Classrooms. In electronic conferences the teacher is in an educational center and the students connect with him from their homes, offices or virtual classrooms through computer networks.
The terms "distance education" and "open education" encompass flexible study modalities that do not require the physical presence of the teacher and the student in the same place; however, they benefit from the beginning of the educational process. In this type of environment, the student is expected to carry out their learning task independently and that the materials of the specific courses contain the concepts of teaching as well as the opportunities for interaction that normally exist in the traditional classroom. Course materials must contain the full range of elements that are designed to offer maximum flexibility, much more than that offered by traditional classes. This flexibility can be expressed in a variety of different ways, including course level, structure,the conditions of attention, the schedule of the studies, the methodology of the work, the use of different means to establish communication, access to information and it is complemented through personal tutoring, local, regional or international study centers (as the case may be), advisory services and the use of the media to communicate with new technologies.
Today the various networks are being used to distribute and manage distance courses. In most institutions that offer distance education based on ICT, both satellite and interactive television networks are used, as well as the Internet and local networks. The Internet environment is increasingly cheaper and easier to apply in the EaD, taking the use of a corporate intranet as a more specific case.
In distance education, fast and effective channels are required to teach courses in the virtual classroom; the suggested means are based on cutting-edge technologies. The infrastructure and nature of networks is of utmost importance to pedagogues when they need to design and operate distance education strategies.
The development of ICT has enabled distance education to acquire new characteristics.
According to Lorenzo García Aretio (2001), coordinator of the UNESCO Chair in Distance Education at UNED, some of the characteristics of current distance education are:
- Separation between teacher and student: both subjects do not share the same physical space. Use of technical means to facilitate access to knowledge and communication for students. Organization of support for students through tutoring. Students can learn from in a flexible and independent way, which does not necessarily mean learning alone. Two-way communication between teachers and students and between students. Technological approach in decisions regarding the planning, development and evaluation of distance education actions. Massive and unlimited communication with students in geographically dispersed contexts.
Based on these characteristics, García Aretio defines Distance Education as “a bidirectional (multidirectional) technological communication system, which can be massive, based on systematic and joint action of didactic resources and the support of an organization and tutoring, which, Physically separated from the students, they promote independent (cooperative) learning ”.
Distance Education promises to be the answer to many questions that arise in the face of the social fact of education. Given the continuing concern about the need for access to education throughout life, distance education is a valid alternative, since it facilitates permanent education strategies. Usually these are adults who want to start or continue studies, or graduates who seek to update or improve their knowledge, without leaving their work, social or family context. The latter allows to overcome the classic barrier between school and life, since the student is not separated from her environment. Furthermore, given the broad social coverage that can be achieved, distance education fosters equal opportunities,so it becomes a response to the democratic demand for education.
Computer systems are very popular in educational institutions; if you also add the connectivity offered by large networks such as the Internet, you can glimpse the wide horizon of possibilities that are available: online registration, visualization of the academic situation, online consultations, request for documents, dynamic evaluations and with instant review, just to mention some of the available features. These types of systems are known as e-learning platforms or technological platforms for remote training.
Currently it is going through a time when training is seen as a value. Learning is not conceived as a period, but as a cycle in which the person is permanently involved. Similarly, educational offerings have evolved hand in hand with ICT. Thus, it has been necessary to develop training proposals that, being effective, allow for flexible learning times for students, while responding to their specific needs, often oriented to the world of work.
The answer to these demands is found in an e-learning platform, which can be defined as a technological system that facilitates the development of distributed learning based on information of a very diverse nature, using the Internet's own communication resources, while supports collaborative learning, anywhere, anytime. Normally, e-learning platforms provide various levels of use: administrator, author, tutor and student. The first of them manages the different courses that take place within its Web space, giving access to tutors and allowing them to authorize students to access a certain course. In this type of platforms you can find a wide range of tools that facilitate communication between participants, such as: chat,email, forums, calendars, digital libraries, etc. There are various educational platforms worldwide, among which we can mention:
Blackboard http://virtual.uprrp.edu/
Web CT
LearningSpace http://www.learningspace.org/
Cyberclass http://cyberclass.com/
Virtual U www.virtual-u.org/
Virtual Profe www.virtualprofe.com /
Moodle www.moodle.org/
Although not all the existing platforms were mentioned, the work methodology in each of them is very similar, differing from each other due to the quality of its graphic environment, the organization of the information, the technology with which it has been developed, the costs, etc.
In our country, the Personalized Distance Education System (SEPAD) stands out as an e-learning platform, on which several higher education projects are currently supported. This system developed at the Central University of Las Villas (UCLV) is in constant development and also offers support and online help for its operation and configuration. In the present work it is proposed to use SEPAD as a platform to support the pedagogical training of the Young Club instructors who require it.
The e-learning platforms are responsible for distributing the necessary materials for the development of the course or topic in question, but it is also important to have a virtual library on the intranet to make reviews, searches and research on topics related to the course, and to support in this way student learning.
A virtual library is a set of services that allows remote access to the contents of a real library. In a precise sense, a virtual library is a projection of the real services of a library to serve a greater number of users, located remotely.
In order to achieve a quality education, it is necessary to have an appropriate infrastructure and an endowment of human resources (teaching staff) with a level of preparation, means, materials and teaching methods, etc. The teaching media are those elements that support the teaching methods, to enable the achievement of the proposed objectives. If the ICT-related means are made available to the instructors themselves as resources for their pedagogical preparation, a highly prepared faculty can be obtained to attend the teaching-learning process.
It is for this reason that the methodological preparation of the instructors of the Young Computer Club is vital to carry out their work with the highest possible quality. Improving and perfecting the lesson plans for each course taught should be an aspect to consider; therefore, working in this sense will result in an increase in the quality of teaching. The implantation of an e-learning platform that offers information related to the lesson plans can be of great help both for instructors new to the Young Club and to promote the exchange of experiences among instructors with more experience in the subject. Furthermore, in this way this system can motivate the discussion and exchange of the most appropriate methods, forms, styles and exercises at all times.On the other hand, the provincial methodologists would carry out their controls in this way, contributing their knowledge on the different topics.
Considering the importance of preparing the instructors of the Young Computer Club, it is proposed to use the SEPAD platform, created at the UCLV, to implement on it the course programs and lesson plans of the Young Club. This important tool will be available from the network of each Young Computer Club; in this way, each instructor will have all the necessary information for the development of their activities. In this case the system for the methodological management of the Young Computer Club will be focused, the students would be the instructors of the Young Club and the teachers would be the provincial methodologists, under this scheme the debates and controls towards the instructors are based, making it possible to raise their methodological preparation.
The choice of SEPAD as a platform for the solution to our problem is precisely due to the facilities it provides, since it seeks to promote alternative ways to those already existing in the field of computer-assisted education, in addition to being a national product which guarantees support. continued in future versions. For this, it takes as a starting point the new style of WEB applications to create a client with all the classic multimedia capabilities of image, sound and video. To this is added a centralized processing that allows to take individual control of the expired objectives allowing to know at all times the state in which each of the users of the system are and the level of response to the topics of each course.
By using the discussion forums, Chat and email, services that it has implemented, the debate of each class plan will be carried out, as well as the exercises of the practical classes, investigations, etc., thus achieving an improvement and enrichment of these plans through the experiences of the instructors and the contribution of the methodologists.
A systems administrator will focus the monitoring activity on the forums, constantly updating the information as a result of its analysis and approval at the time intended for methodological preparation, an aspect that is well established in the Young Clubs. The system will be installed in the provincial nodes and will be accessed from the Young Clubs through the intranet.
E-mail will be used as an alternative means of communication between students and teachers, and a file transfer service (FTP) will also be offered. In addition, in each Young Club there will be a virtual library that will give access to digital information downloaded from the Internet related to the courses taught and will serve as support material for teaching.
The digital library will be installed in each Young Club from an information package designed by specialists in pedagogy that will be related to the subject, it will be accessed through the intranet of each Young Club and will be enriched from the instructors themselves through their Internet searches, research, thesis, work or assignments, specialized theses consulted etc. The network administrator will be in charge of uploading the aforementioned content to the intranet of each center. The instructors will access it as auxiliary material for the development of their studies and as a complement to the materials provided by SEPAD, enabling a reduction in traffic to the Internet, in addition, in the absence of Internet service, the contents will be available on the Intranet.
From the implementation of the e-learning platform and the virtual library, a survey will be applied to its users in order to assess the needs of the students (instructors), as well as the level of acceptance and effectiveness of the system. In the case analyzed after a period of time of use of the platform, an evaluation will be applied through informal and structured questions that allow the evaluator to form an idea of the user's perception of the system being evaluated. The survey will be applied to students, teachers and system administrators to determine the requirements of each group of users, in order to achieve a system capable of meeting the requirements.
Conclusions
With the development of ICT, it is expected that Distance Education will continue to gain ground, making more and more people decide to study under this modality, thus overcoming the inconveniences that regularly appear in student environments.
In addition, EaD is a vital support for people who for some reason cannot transfer to the educational institution and equally for all professionals who want to continue updating or obtain a higher level of preparation.
As for systems, as in any other productive area, they also play a very important role within education, and even more so with the demands of our time, where people can no longer maintain themselves with the knowledge acquired in their careers., but a continuous training process is necessary.
Through the implementation of the SEPAD platform, the instructors of the Young Computer Club are offered a powerful resource for their improvement. Here they can find updated information on the course programs and lesson plans taught at the Young Computer Club., which is complemented by the information available in the digital library, such as books, magazines, articles and search systems, which will contribute to raising your scientific and technical level, as well as updating your knowledge. This system will be an interactive product that will allow developing skills related to the search and treatment of information through ICT.
This service can not only be used by the Young Computer Club but also by education and computer professionals from other centers in our country, being accessible nationally if it is published in provincial or national nodes.
Bibliographic references
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