Digital learning materials or traditional workbooks?
Maidu Varik, teacher of civics in Kuressaare Gymnasium, Estonia, tells us how the digital learning materials are being used and combined with traditional teaching methods in his country. His main focuses are social sciences, history and civics.
Success of the implementation of ICT in school education depends on several factors: access to computers and communication tools, professional skills of teachers and students’ attitude. The access to computers and the Internet has been dramatically improved in many countries thanks to national programmes supporting ICT use in education. ICT has taken very important role in our everyday-life. One of the keywords for information society is “knowledge media”. E-learning should therefore be a part of normal teaching practice in each subject. The question - traditional versus resource based learning techniques - is relevant all the time. It is important to find a way to connect computer-based learning with the school curriculum in all subjects. The interactive computer-based learning can be instrumental when integrating different subjects and extra-curriculum activities.
According to the all-Estonian research “Tiiger Luubis” (2000), in history and civics lessons computers are used only occasionally and not as often as in other subjects. On the top of that, one of the greatest hardships of the Estonian school curriculum is the lack of integration between subjects. The traditional viewpoint of many teachers is that computers are connected primarily with sciences (lot of possibilities for visual material). To make teachers comfortable with computer-based teaching, the software must be attractive, teacher must understand how he/she will benefit from computer usage, and the software must be made specifically for this subject. It means that computer-based learning in social sciences must offer more possibilities for cooperation and communication.
Since computers have come on the scene of education, an increasing amount of software has been released for different subjects. At present, a lot of educational resources are available at school and, thereby, it appears to be rather difficult for educators and curriculum experts to choose a certain item of software which meets educational needs the best.
In the social science field, two types of educational software dominate. First, there are so-called drill-and-practice and tutorial programs. These programs use a system of repetition and examination to convey lessons to students. Most of these applications consist of challenging academic discovery via animations and colourful graphics, which catch and hold a student's attention. Although this method of instruction has its advantages for self-learning, it is not the most popular computer-based instructional tool. Computerized simulations have recently become a significant component of computer-assisted instruction. Simulations are also beneficial for social sciences since they can be used to systematically re-create events and situations. Basically, computer simulations are simplified versions of situations from real life. In this simplified world, students solve problems, learn procedures, and come to understand the characteristics of certain phenomena.
Teachers must learn to identify situations, where the use of instructional multimedia material is successful. In such cases, it is also important to keep in mind the infra-structure or pedagogical constraints that may impede effective use of such multimedia. The weaknesses of digital learning materials: • hypertext has different logic; • redundant attractiveness (multiplicity of links, colours, effects); • for the majority of human beings it is easier to read from paper than from screen; • complicatedness with copyrights and licenses. Nowadays, it is normal that with every textbook, there must be a supporting web-page and also some digital learning materials. One example of an e-workbook: www.oesel.ee/yhiskonnaopetus
More and more Estonian teachers are using learning management system VIKO (virtual school – e-learning environment designed especially for Estonian schools) (http://www.htk.tlu.ee/viko/), which is a simple tool to combine advantages of e-learning with strengths of traditional teaching methods. In collaboration with universities, the idea of learning object repository was created and this is one of the main fields in e-learning to be developed in national programmes.
