Information and technological ensuring of educational process at
higher educational establishment.
In todays conditions of modernization of Russian education informatization is considered one of prospective directions of university educational process perfection called for significant increasing of professional specialists training level and for ensuring of students information culture forming. Informatization here is not only the process of mastering information technologies but one of modern societys human values which is an important part of Russian higher education system perfection in the whole.
Under the conditions of educational process informatization at universities teachers have got quite different possibilities of students cognitive activity conducting than it is under traditional teaching models. In connection with it there is necessity of solving problems with volume, quality, quantity and ways of getting and presenting educational information to students in a modern manner. Available approaches to projecting, constructing and realizing teaching information technologies used at universities nowadays should be reinterpreted. A new role of computers in pedagogical activity as a depository for well-structured information, comparative simplicity of access to it displaces teaching purposes from remembering large volume of studied material to ability of its researching and reinterpreting, understanding what exactly information is necessary to solve educational and applied tasks. So the problem of redistributing knowledge between a computer and a man, forming and developing students information and technological abilities and skills is becoming urgent. Consequently, using teaching information technologies at university nowadays should be oriented on strategic aim achievement training not only a specialist-executor but also a creatively thinking and acting person capable for constant self-perfection and self-development.
Everything said above stimulate scientific research of the ways of solving a designated problem. Using a new kind of educational process ensuring at university information and technological one is suggested as one of such ways. Methodological basis for it is a regularity well-known in pedagogy didactic unity of pithy and procedural sides of teaching which witnesses impossibility both to realize the content of a subject out of didactic process and to carry out teaching itself out of concrete content
Information and technological ensuring of educational process at military university is expediently to be considered a system being integral unity of technological and information components connected to each other functionally and structurally, their usage in pedagogical practice allowing a teacher under the conditions of information teaching to solve didactic problems on technological basis, i.e. with guaranteed quality.
Information component providing content aspect of specialist training at university should be considered in the context of solving the problem with full and adequate giving to students and a teacher educational and other kind of information promoting guaranteed achievement of raised didactic aims.
The application of a subject information ensuring application didactic complex is suggested as an information component. This complex represents didactic system in which applied program products, data bases and other didactic means and methodic materials are integrated for the purpose of creating conditions for pedagogically active information interaction of a teacher and students. These means ensure and support educational process.
The idea of realizing subject content in the limits of didactic (teaching and methodic) complexes is not new. In Russian ( Soviet) pedagogy it finds its sources at the end of 1980s the beginning of 1990s in works of V.P.Bespalko, U.V.Tatura, V.L.Shatunovsky and other followers. With the development of educational means, particularly computer ones, A.A.Andreyev, V.I.Bogolubov, N.A.Klochko, O.A.Kozlov, I.V.Robert, I.M.Shlapakov and other scientists became adherents of the idea of creating didactic (program and methodic) complexes on information basis.
Named authors works analysis allows to contend that a suggested approach has a range of fundamental features, they differing it from ones considered before. In particular, the possibility to project and construct a subject didactic complex as a didactic system is substantiated, such a system allows a teacher to carry out integral information teaching technology through an information component of teaching process. It solves the task of guaranteed achievement of students professional training aims at university. Every component of a didactic complex is not only a carrier of correspondent information but also fulfils specific functions defined by teachers intention. So, it is suggested to consider an educational subject information ensuring didactic complex as an integral system presenting constantly developing knowledge base in one of subject fields studied at university. From these positions the approaches considered in works of P.O.Okolelov, A.V.Solovov and E.G.Skibitsky are very close to us.
Among the advantages of using such complexes at university it is expediently to distinguish the following:
firstly, named didactic complexes are projected and created as integral systems of pedagogical program means integrated with the aim of gathering, organizing, storing, processing, transmitting and presenting educational information to their users;
secondly, all elements of didactic complexes are interconnected, they have common information basis and hardware and software environment;
thirdly, with projecting didactic complexes it is primarily foreseen to use them both in local and distributed computer systems of university and with remote teaching of students. It solves the problem of their support with information and telecommunications means available at this university.
A composition and a structure of a complex can be quite flexible and
depend on the content of the subject field for which it is worked out. For
example, the information ensuring didactic complex of the subject Psychology
and Pedagogy used for specialists training at GCIFA Academy includes: the
program of the subject ( hypertextual variant); a computerized students book
including a textual variant of lectures on psychology and pedagogy, lectures
electronic summary and electronic album of schemes and visual aids ( the latter
are realized on the basis of Windows-95/98 interface and Microsoft Office-97
PowerPoint-97graphic editor); an
information and inquiry system consisting of two electronic vocabularies
according to psychology and pedagogics (designed on the basis of graphic
interface Windows 95/98 and virtual libraries Borland Database Engine; automated
system of control and assessment students knowledge).
The technological equipment is the second important component of good training, which is based on using modern computerized teaching technology.
Analyzing scientific works devoted to the problem of computerized higher education (works by B.S.Gershunsky, A.L.Denisova, S.R.Domanova, M.I.Zhaldakov, L.V.Lutsevich, O.P.Okolev, I.V Robert, A.N Tikhonov, A.N.Sholokhovich and others) we couldnt find the same interpretation of computerized teaching technology in their works and in modern didactics. As a rule, different authors gave different meanings of this concept. For example, O.P.Okolelov believes computerized teaching technology consists of electronic means and methods of operation which are used in teaching activities. L.V.Lutsevich defines computerized teaching technology as technological processing using PC, transmission and distribution data, creation programs. M.I.Zhaldakov suggests this technology consists of storing, processing, communicating technical means and methods. This technology enriches learners knowledge in managing technical and social processes. V.F. Sholokhovich supposes the concept of computerized teaching technology is a branch of didactics, which studies planned and organized training process using different techniques of computerization.
There are two interpretations of this technology more frequently used in modern literature on pedagogics. In the first version computerized teaching technology is considered to be a didactic process, which uses new means and techniques of processing teaching information. The second approach is a creation of technical teaching medium, where new technologies are introduced. Thus, in the first case we speak about a process of teaching and in the second we deal with the using different specific technical assets in this process.
Its useful to follow the first approach in using computerized technological support in educational process. Not denying the second approach we consider it gives a bit narrower concept. To our point of view we can speak about computerized teaching technique when
it satisfies the main principles of technological approach (preliminary projecting, diagnostic planning, systematic integrity, reproduction, back respond etc.);
it solves problems, which were not solved theoretically and practically earlier in teaching process;
the whole complex of modern pedagogical programs and collected, stored, processed teaching data are available for learners.
To sum up what we have said computerized teaching technology is a didactic process using a complex of modern pedagogical techniques, allowing organizing succeed interactions between teachers and learners to achieve successful scientific prognosticated results.
The main peculiarities of projecting and creating computerized teaching technologies in information technological support of training process are:
this technology is a basis forming necessary information medium, which helps teachers to communicate with students successfully
originally teachers dominate the structural and subject matter of didactic complex projecting computerized teaching technology according to the aims and contents, used techniques and problems. This complex is a key element of computerized teaching technology and its basis.
The result of projecting computerized teaching technology is a technological map, where the project of educational process, its main parameters, diagnostic purposes, logical structure, final tests are represented. Also we can see there the description of didactic process in teachers activities according to the consecutive order showing sequences of using appropriate elements of didactic complex, system of control, assessment and correlation.
Hence, computerized teaching technology is considered not only as a process or a result of its projecting (a description, a model) but as a specific technique, which helps to organize educational process according to the technical level.
The results of experimental training held in 1998-2001 in the FACI Academy showed the efficiency in studying the humanities and social science increased about 4,4%. The main professional skills characterized engineers were estimated to 8.4.
The effectiveness of studying professional subjects increased to 0,15(3.0%). Time for doing laboratory works and reports was decreased in two times, but practical skills, students knowledge in experimental groups were higher than 2.4% during the month.
Students effectiveness in studying special subjects increased about 9.4%, practical skills and knowledge were higher than 3.0%
The results of experimental training show the use of computerized teaching technology is:
to intensify and individualize training process;
to make more active cognitive students activity;
to realize individual approach in studying materials, using didactic complex of friendly interface, providing motivation in mastering knowledge, practical skills;
to control knowledge and professional skills;
to do statistics of progress in training and predict the training level of each student the whole group; it gives objective assessment and informs teachers.
The realization of the described approach in studying some subjects in the Academy is perspective in information conditions at higher schools and can be recommended as a basis in educational process.