CEENET, RUWIRED AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN

ELECTRONIC LEARNING IN BELARUS

dr. Gajane Valcheuskaya1), dr. Jacek Gajewski2)

    1. The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus SRRYE “Informational Technologies”

    2. CEENet – Central and Eastern European Network Association

 

The goal of this publication is to introduce Russian project RuWirEd – advanced distance course, created in WebCT environment, about basics of methodology and technology of electronic education and activities have been made by CEENet and the National Academy of Sciences since the 6th CEENet workshop.

In spite of the recent progress in Internet development and growing amount of Web-resources and databases, the utilization of modern information technologies in education in Belarus is still very limited. Recently a well-known and widely used “electronic learning” technology has received recognition in Belarus and only now makes a path, first steps in regional education. Internet skills and knowledge of newest communication technologies of educators are insufficient and are limiting essentially application of these efficient tools in professional activities.

Keen interest the concept of eLearning in Belarus has got in 2000. This year Fund of Informatization of the Republic of Belarus opened the National Program on distance education (DE) strategy development. The leading organizations are the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in cooperation with Belarusian State University.

Recognizing the growing importance of eLearning in Belarus, CEENet has begun to explore the possibility to help educational community to improve and create its eLearning infrastructure. The common believe of local educators at that time was similar to the expectation still existing among the majority of educational community worldwide - that there is a strong need to embrace so called "Star Wars" technologies [1]. Dr. Valcheuskaya’s participation in 6th CEENet workshop has ensured that this paradigm is not correct. Efforts to introduce western-style education to academic institutions in Belarus are occurring at a time when funding for education is being dramatically curtailed. Cost-effective, collaborative distance learning projects can help address the problem of dwindling educational resources and compensate for the legacy of old educational patterns and values [2].

In cooperation with CEENet, the National Academy of Sciences organized a serious of meetings with administrators from

The goal of the meetings was to assess existing demands and needs, to face regional challenge and to present newest models of National distance education strategies.

The conclusions about problems to be addressed (resources, technology and organization) were resulted in follows:

  1. The collapse of the Soviet Union has had serious economic consequences for higher education in the region. Although in main Belarusian cities Internet is very popular and widely used tool most of national secondary schools, libraries and non-governmental organizations still do not have access to Internet. In the worst situation are organizations outside Minsk.

  2. Nowadays on-line education is not as so impossibly "high tech" as it pretended to be. Electronic learning in a greater degree utilizes the more common technologies, which already exist in Belarus and which can be efficiently applied by local educators in 1-2 years. To such conclusion independently came few teams, that explored eLearning capabilities in FSU region. [1].

  3. The use of computer technology in the classroom is an age related issue. Those faculties who grew up part of their lives working with computers see the new communication technologies as tools to be use when appropriate. While faculty from old generations usually have problems adapting to the use of these new technology.

  4. Low faculty motivation to implement the advanced methods such as Internet-learning, which requires extensive training on the part of the faculty members.

  5. Although there is no legal foundation for DE, in the FSU countries remains a cultural legacy for long-life and continuing education, night schools and instruction by correspondence upon which to build. Thus, the challenge is to develop and improve an existing forms and methods of education “rather than to import a whole new concept of education” [1].

  6. Local ministries need to be directly involved in the creation of distance learning initiatives especially on the stage of its becoming. This includes strategy definition, provision of human, financial and technical resources (like Internet infrastructure), and forcing the creation of legislative base for DE as well.

  7. The challenge is reach mutual understanding among local universities communities, which was recognized as a key point for success of DE technology implementation. Absence of cooperation leads to the fragmentation of efforts when each organization prefers to develop their own primitive platform for distance education, and disables the exchange of already developed e-courses.

  8. Belarus is not taking advantage of globalization and its participation in global communication environment, in development of international cooperation and partnership in education is inadequate to her potential and needs.

Following the above conclusions, in September, 2000 a kick-off international seminar was held in Minsk, directed by CEENet Secretary General dr. Jacek Gajewski, who invited DE specialists from Poland, Ukraine, US, Latvia to figure out a plan for creation of advanced Russian language version of the distance course Wired Education, named RuWirEd. RuWirEd aimed for wide usage in the Central and Eastern European countries including FSU among those for whom English language is still a barrier. As it follows from CEENet experience, who conducted workshops on Networking Technologies for about six years, in FSU countries the knowledge of English language limits participation of qualified specialists in solving urgent problems of education and social development.

Therefore, an idea came up to organize a Russian seminar (workshop) devoted to the problems of electronic education. Correspondent project under the title "Electronic Education: Ways for Solving Problems of Development of New Forms and Methods of Education in the FSU and CEE countries" was submitted to East-East Program of the Open Society Institute (OSI) – Moscow, Russia.

The course RuWirEd is considered as a preparation phase for the round table seminar (workshop) to be held in Tver, Russia this year. Tver University and Tver Internet Centre have been suggested as an appropriate location for such a workshop by OSI-Mosccow (Mr. Sergei K. Kovalenko, Deputy Executive Director Megaproject "Development of Education in Russia", OSI-Moscow).

The course target audience is: local educators, developers and e-course designers, educational authorities and leaders, higher education administrators, government officials, business administrators, and nonprofit organizations. The project encompasses all sectors (public, private, non-profit).

As a result of CEENet and the National Academy of Sciences partnership, their common activities materialized into

References

1. Irex Frontline, v.4, n.1, 1999

2. Judy Barrett Litoff*, Gaytha A. Langlois,* Joseph A. Ilacqua,* Harold A. Records,* Mikhail Mahaniok° and Gayane Valchevskaya° Using Technology to Foster Collaborative Learning at a Distance: the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and Bryant College Connection