On July 6, Lviv Regional State Administration hosted a briefing on the training of teachers of distance education. Speakers were Oleh Paska, Director of the Department of Education and Science, LRSA, and Marharyta Noskova, Director of the Center for Innovative Educational Technologies, the Institute of Jurisprudence, Psychology and Innovative Education, Lviv Polytechnic. They told in detail about the development of digital competence of teachers and e-environment of educational institutions in Lviv region.
In particular, Marharyta Noskova, Director of the Center for Innovative Educational Technologies, Lviv Polytechnic, presented the mechanism, strategies and programs for the development of the electronic environment and education of Lviv region for 2021–2025.
– The education development program in Lviv region identifies two key objectives: to increase the efficiency of the educational process through the introduction of distance and blended learning technologies and to disseminate and support positive practices that allow teachers to implement them as quickly as possible, said Marharyta Noskova.
The Center for Innovative Educational Technologies, Lviv Polytechnic National University, has undertaken the implementation of several educational projects within the regional plan of the education development program of Lviv region. One of the powerful and ambitious projects is «Moodle is pro100». It is implemented for institutions of general secondary education and education in Lviv region. It is designed for 5 years. The key goal of the project is the formation and development of one electronic educational environment that will provide effective support for student learning, regardless of the form of study.
– It is important we try to do it with free funds, as there is always no money. That’s why we use open source software. We chose Moodle, because this platform is not adapted, like other systems, but specially created for distance learning, said Marharyta Noskova.
This learning platform is used by the world’s leading countries, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, France, Italy, as well as countries with large populations – India, Brazil, Argentina, and others. Lviv region is one of the first regions in Ukraine that have already started working with this platform.
Marharyta Noskova says:
– We understand that it is quite difficult to cope with it on your own and people need an appropriate center that would support, accompany and advise. In fact, this is undertaken by the Center for Innovative Educational Technologies, the Institute of Jurisprudence, Psychology and Innovative Education, Lviv Polytechnic.
Teacher training takes place in several stages: the first consists of a basic course for teachers of the invariant component. A total of 10 people will take part in it: the general coordinator, the technical coordinator and the teachers (8 people). The second stage includes thematic courses, and the last third stage – counseling and support of participants.
The Director of the Center for Innovative Educational Technologies also informed about the conditions of participation in the program:
the desire of the educational institution to create a full-fledged e-environment for the effective organization of education;
connection of the educational institution to the Internet;
the number of students in 5–11 grades is more than 100 students, but there have been cases when there were less;
readiness of the educational institution to share the results of the project implementation and scale positive practices.
The fixed price of the course from an educational institution for one teacher is 500–700 hryvnias, half of which is paid by the institution, and half is taken from the regional budget.
– Cooperation with the institution will not stop after the course completion. There will be consultations and constant support of the educational institution, added Marharyta Noskova.
There have already been concluded 87 training agreements under the project program, the rest are being signed, and 437 teachers have successfully completed training under the first stage programs. In total, it is planned to train more than 1000 teachers of the region at the first stage and more than 500 people – at the second stage.
There are schools that are currently unable to implement this project, primarily due to decentralization and local communities did not include funding for this project in their plans, but, as it was stressed at the briefing, anyone can join the project, for example, in 2022.
