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Without talking about the development of a unified e-learning system in Lithuania, the educational community analyzes how it should be.
Advance preparation helped
One of the most frequent challenges of distance education is the organization of the learning process on different platforms. Taking lessons in a variety of settings not only distracted students but also made it difficult for teachers. Only schools that have been familiar with e-learning systems for years have avoided stress at the beginning of distance learning.
“When the distance learning process began in the country, there was no panic: we have been preparing for distance learning opportunities for several years.
Distance education has become a challenge only for the part of the teachers who did not believe that learning at home could become a reality, “says Vaidas Bacys, director of the Aukštelkė School in the Šiauliai District.
Rūta Filončikienė, an elementary school teacher expert at the Engineering Lyceum of the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU), emphasizes that it was important for the institution to choose global platforms as soon as possible.
“We chose a distance education platform that we will use to provide students with educational material, to communicate, consult, evaluate and evaluate. In addition, the environments that will be necessary to assign or generate electronic tasks and receive feedback, ”says R. Filončikienė.
The idea of a unified multifunctional system
According to education experts, to reduce the chaotic learning process in the country, a unified electronic system is needed. You must link the existing emails from the market. educational products and respond to all the needs of the school community through physical and distance education. This system must integrate the main virtual learning environments, e-learning and e-learning. journals, e-learning content delivery platforms and other widely used tools that teachers are already used to working with.
R. Filončikienė believes that if such an integrated system existed in Lithuania, it would be used by all schools. Perhaps not as the only teaching tool, but as the primary one.
Edgaras Jasalinis, the head of the TAMO group, which has been managing apprenticeship systems for more than five years, says the company’s primary goal is to make work easier for the educational community.
“The TAMO group is constantly trying to add new features to the learning platform and integrate various e-learning tools. Educational solutions. We are constantly looking for partnerships with existing developers of educational content and other electronic tools needed to ensure the smoothest, most convenient and time-saving learning process possible and to create a unified solution for the school, “says E. Jasalinis.
According to him, a partnership with publishers of educational content “TEV”, “Baltų lankai” textbooks “,” Briedis “,” Didakta “has become a major step towards unity. Only since the beginning of education to distance and the publication of publication material in the TAMO systems, more than 0.5 million people reviewed it during the first week together.
Skeptical about the possibility of creating a new learning system in Lithuania, V. Bacys suggests that teachers can decide for themselves which part of the system they would like to use in their activities.
“Some Western European countries have developed unified e-education systems in which different platforms interact with each other, and teachers have the right to choose: to use all their possibilities or just a small piece,” introduces Bacys.
E. Jasalinis agrees with him that the objective should be to integrate and use the solutions available on the market, and not to create completely new systems.
Mutual communication is required.
Education experts also emphasize the importance of communication and feedback during distance learning.
“Learning has many elements of team play, so during lessons in the electronic space, it is important to preserve feedback, social interaction: between students, between teachers, the school community.” V. Bacys presents other functionality required for the electronic learning platform.
It is also supported by R. Filončikienė, who said that by integrating the communication feature into the e-learning platform, students could communicate with both classmates and teachers in the same environment.
Data security and confidentiality are important.
As education moved from the school bench to screens, bullying also moved into virtual space. Under the pretext of being able to maintain their anonymity provided by some communication platforms, the students obtained the freedom to make fun of their classmates without revealing their identities.
“To integrate the communication function into our systems, we looked for reliable partners for whom the security and authentication requirements are no less important to us. We have seen how teachers and students lacked direct contact: already during the first month, the platform Virtual Team Meeting “Microsoft Teams” was tested by more than several thousand users, “presents E. Jasalinis.
It also highlights the importance of ensuring not only data security, but also the confidentiality of confidential personal information for operators of e-learning systems.
“System developers must take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the information on their systems,” says E. Jasalinis, adding that the TAMO group is responsible for data security in a responsible way: each user has a account and can only view your data, the company maintains maximum security requirements and TIER III compliant data centers, systematically backs up data and protects against hacker attacks.
Internet friendly
Aušra Vaitkevičiūtė, Advisor to the Public Information Division of the Department of Strategic Communication and Public Relations of the Ministry of National Defense, said about the harassment in Delphi cyberspace. She recommended access to this project, which also includes hotlines and helplines.
Specialists from the National Center for Cyber Security (NCSC) warn that malicious cyberspace is making intensive use of the appearance of the COVID-19 virus.
Under the guise of various authorities and false information, emails are sent with malicious code, fake websites are distributed, and social engineering methods are used to encourage the user to install malware and otherwise capture devices and extract confidential information .
After noticing the cyber incidents, A. Vaitkevičiūtė called to report them to the NKSC.
Due to quarantine, children and adults in Lithuania rate distance learning quite positively, but still students are more positive than their parents. Of all the Baltic and Nordic countries, the Finns liked distance learning the most and the Danes least. These data were revealed by an investigation carried out in May in the Baltic and Nordic countries on behalf of Telia.
“Distance learning was a whole new experience for many children and their parents, and they had to adapt quickly and unexpectedly. However, surveys conducted by Telia show that children accepted the changes in a more positive way: after all, most of them grew up with technology, the Internet is like a second home for them, so it was easier to accept the innovations after moving into virtual space and lessons, “says Birutė Eimontaitė.
Lithuanian students – in the middle
According to the latest survey of children, every second Lithuanian child between the ages of 10 and 18 liked to study at home, 54 percent. The students in the study noted that they valued distance learning positively. And there are less than a fifth (17%) of these students in Lithuania who did not like the new way of learning.
Finns enjoyed learning from home the most, up to 67 percent. children experience this experience positively and only 8%. – negatively The Danes are the most skeptical: in this country, positive evaluations represented 41% and negative evaluations 20%. answers
“Lithuanian children in the context of 7 countries are in the middle. They rarely indicated that distance learning was boring for them and stated that learning from home increased their independence to solve tasks, created more opportunities to rest between lessons.” B. Eimontaitė summarizes the results of the investigation.
Children missed friends from class and physical activity
One in two Lithuanian students between the ages of 10 and 18 says they started learning better at a distance, and only one in five admits that the results have deteriorated.
It is interesting that students from Lithuania and Latvia evaluate their results the best of all Nordic and Baltic countries. In comparison, in Denmark, Sweden and Finland, only one in three children better scores their home learning outcomes.
“And in their open responses, most children are positive about learning from home, saying they have begun to learn more diligently and thanking their parents for their help. And what is lacking are two things: classmates and physical activity, ”said the Head of Communications at Telia.
The tasks became more difficult
Learning from home was positively rated at 49 percent. adults, negatively – 20 percent. Adults have a different opinion: fathers are more likely than mothers to believe that the quality of distance learning has deteriorated during quarantine.
The responses of adults and children also differed when asked to assess individual aspects of distance learning. Only a third of parents believe that their children’s learning outcomes have improved over the three months, and a quarter feel that they have deteriorated.
Interestingly, mothers value their children’s results more moderately than fathers, the difference between them being more than 10 percent.
And what about the lessons themselves? Young people felt the most independent tasks more: in all countries, more than half of the surveyed students named it (61% in Lithuania). Almost every second Lithuanian student also indicated that homework has become more difficult and that they have to spend more time studying; a large part of fathers, especially mothers, agree.
Not only Lithuanians but also Latvians with Estonians study longer. In contrast, a higher proportion of students in Denmark, Finland and Norway spent less time in science during quarantine than usual.
Specialists in the protection of children’s rights have also received reports on the problems of distance education.
Although in the early days of science, many experienced some problems (lack of computer equipment or interruptions to the Internet connection), gradually the problems seemed to be solved. However, almost every day, specialists in the protection of children’s rights received at least some reports from educational institutions on the potentially violated rights of children to education.
Due to the aforementioned problems, child rights protection specialists had to react to reports received in different regions of Lithuania on a daily basis, they were registered in Vilnius, Kaunas, Utena, Šiauliai, Marijampolė, Telšiai and Tauragė counties , and none in Panevėžys county.
It was observed that even in large cities, not all children had the necessary technological tools at home to use during distance learning.
Specialists in the protection of children’s rights, in cooperation with social service centers and educational institutions, sought opportunities to temporarily borrow computers from schools for those without computers or tablets. In addition to technological problems, child rights advocates saw a lack of parental attention to children’s educational needs and a lack of closer cooperation between parents and representatives of educational institutions.
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