This paper deals with the current issue of electronic education, and is based on a study of Internet support for education at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague.The goal of the study was to establish to what extent and in what ways electronic support for education is utilized at FNSPE CTU. In order to answer these questions, a questionnaire was conducted at the faculty. We will present the outcomes here.

Klement, V.

Vaněček, D.

Acta Polytechnica

English

CTU Open Journal Systems (Czech Technical University, Prague / České vysoké učení technické v Praze)

1 Electronic education1.1 IntroductionIn the present-day education system, e-learning is a wide-ly-used term referring to activities that can improve notonly distance learning but also full-time study. It refers toamanner of education which enables learners to complementand support the standard education with the use of moderncomputer technology (in most cases of web technologies).E-learning is changing the view on current education, andhas influenced even themost important pedagogical-psycho-logical theories of learning connected with technologies. Ifproper procedures are observed while preparing a course, itsapplication in education corresponds to modern conceptionsof cognition: constructivism and connectivism. To the con-cepts of remembering, recalling, and learning are added theconcepts of thinking, creating, and forming.A proper e-learning course should consciously supportinternal, rather than external motivation of learners, andshould accompany individual learning with cooperativelearning. The main attributes of the course should be: Open learning materials connected to a number of ex-panding and elaborating texts. Methodological candor. A problem-solving approach that propounds alternativeviews and theories, and consequently places emphasis oncritical and divergent thinking. Students can be included in preparing the content1.2 HistoryElectronic education as it is known today is a relatively newway of delivering education. Its history started to be writtenonly in the 1990s, alongside the development of the Internet.Nevertheless, if we take a broader definition of this notion,the first e-learning (in the sense of learning through tech-nology) was through learning machines, the first of whichwas constructed already in the 1920s by the psychologistS. L. Pressey. However, this machine did not come into itsown. The next attempt at program learning appeared in the1950s, and even came to the Czechoslovak Republic, wherethe Unitutor educational automaton was created. Howevernot even these automata were successful, most probably as aresult of their cost.Foreign language teaching attempted to make use of eachnew development in audio and audiovisual technology in the20th century, but until quite late in the century high cost,user-unfriendliness and unsatisfactory auditory quality wereconsiderable drawbacks.The next milestone of e-learning was during the period of1984 and 1993. An idea to support education by the use ofpersonal computers arose with their development. It con-sisted mostly of distribution of educational content by floppydisks or CD-ROM, this manner of application is often calledCBT (Computer Based Training). From the current point ofview, this way of education has many problems, such as theinability to update the content of learning materials, or thefact that the student has no contact with a teacher or otherstudents.The history of the true e-learning starts after the year1993 (although the term itself was not coined until 1999)alongside with the development of the web. At first there wereonly static sites, where learning materials were available, andcommunication with the teacher either did not take place atall, or only through e-mail. This phase is often called WBT(Web Based Training). Later, alongside with the developmentof Internet technologies, more elaborate courses have begunto appear, which enable better cooperation, contact with ateacher, and feedback. Moreover, also the content could stayup-to-date, due to easy updating of the sites, and becomemore and more multimedia.Nowadays, e-learning has found its application not only inthe educational system, but also in commercial firms, whichuse it in lifelong learning of their employees. As a result, thereare thousands so-called CorporateUniversities, which are oneof the main driving forces of this method of learning.Finally, the current situation in our country will be pre-sented. First attempts to introduce e-learning appearedaround the year 1999, and since then the number of projectsdealing with this topic is increasing. Within the CTU thewell-known conference Belcom also takes place. This con-ference is focused onmonitoring of the new trends in the areaof e-learning.48 ©  Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/Acta Polytechnica Vol. 50  No. 1/2010Electronic Education at the Faculty ofNuclear Sciences and PhysicalEngineeringD. Vaněček, V. KlementThis paper deals with the current issue of electronic education, and is based on a study of Internet support for education at the Faculty of Nu-clear Sciences and Physical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague.The goal of the study was to establish to what extent and in what ways electronic support for education is utilized at FNSPE CTU. In orderto answer these questions, a questionnaire was conducted at the faculty. We will present the outcomes here.Keywords: blended learning, LMS, FNSPE1.3 DefinitionDefining of the notion of e-learning proves to be difficultand disunited in spite of its high frequency of use. A numberof definitions has arisen during the time of its existence, andmany differ significantly from each other. The usual dif-ferences are whether it is a definition from a pedagogicalor technological point of view, or whether older forms ofusage of computers for education (especially CBT) belong toe-learning or whether e-learning means only the use of Inter-net technologies. For better understanding we will presentsome definitions of this notion by contemporary experts,see [1]: For me, e-learning is studying by the means of electronicmedia, let it be learning through CD or internet. By e-learning I understand educational and training sys-tems (especially on-line ones). I understand e-learning to be an education supported bymodern electronic means (computers, media, internet) indistant learning, combined and full-time study. I imagine e-learning to be an electronic education, i.e.educational course created in LMS which is intended forself-study under supervision of a teacher who communi-cates with a student in an electronic manner through thisenvironment.Experts in their definitions of e-learning mostly prefer itsmore sophisticated and more exacting form.1.4 Course creationCreating an e-learning course can prove rather difficultfor many teachers. In order to create such a course it is neces-sary to be able to create a website. This requires knowledge ofcreation of html documents and in a case of websites withsome active components also knowledge of programminge.g. in PHP. This is a big problem, because it cannot be ex-pected that every teacher will be knowledgeable in the area ofweb technologies. Fortunately, so-called web content manage-ment systems (WCMS) can be used for creating of e-learningcourses.WCMS are nowadays one of the basic means used forwebsite creation. They are mostly web applications (programsrunning on the Internet, which are approached through thebrowser) which enable almost anybody, even without any pro-gramming skills, to create and maintain websites. Their mainpurpose is to enable a visitor to log in and to add some text orother content, which will be saved and subsequently availablefor other users for viewing as a website (e.g. Wikipedia). How-ever, they often involve advanced functions which would notbe easy to create even for a skilled programmer. This includesvarious forums, discussions, inquiries and others (like e.g. onFacebook, which is a web application but not exactly WCMS).All these functions are moreover very well secured and de-bugged. For exampleDrupal, Joomla, or other systems on thebasis of Wiki belong among popular management systems.From that it was just a small step to utilize such systemsfor education-oriented website creation, and thus developedso-called LCMS (Learning Content Management Systems).They differ from ordinary WCMS by their specialization oncreation of specific sites (educational online courses) andby adding some functions specific for education. BesidesLCMS there exist LMS (Learning Management Systems).These systems do not serve to creating e-learning courses butto their operating and management. LMS thus enable to forexample, follow results of individual students, appointinghomework, or making available parts of courses created inadvance in LCMS. It should be noted that many applicationsfulfill both roles. The best known LMS/LCMS in the CzechRepublic is probably Moodle (see [2]).1.5 Utilization of e-learning at universitiesE-learning is being integrated as a part of educationat many Czech universities and is created and run byLCMS/LMS systems. This integration of electronic educationis at the present time of three types: (see [3]) Electronic support of full-time study, classic education ismixed with elements of individual work of a student withelectronic sources. Interactive elements are added to electronic support, clas-sic education is in some cases limited. Student gets access to electronic courses, and whole educa-tional cycles. Classic education is limited to minimum, or itis omitted completely. Electronic support is highly interac-tive and even tests of knowledge are often realized this way.2 Research of current electronicsupport of education at FNSPE2.1 Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and PhysicalEngineeringOur research of utilization of Internet support of edu-cation was conducted at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences andPhysical Engineering. We tried to determine how e-learn-ing is being used here nowadays, which means are used inits creation, and how students and teachers see its futuredevelopment.2.2 History of the facultyIt is one of the smaller faculties at CzechTechnicalUniver-sity in Prague. It was founded as a part of the Czechoslovaknuclear program in 1955 under Charles University in Pragueas a Faculty of Technical and Nuclear Physics. However, itquickly expanded its sphere of activity to a wide range ofmathematical, physical, and chemical subjects. By govern-ment order of 12th August of 1959 the faculty was transferredfrom Charles University to Czech Technical University as itsfourth faculty and was renamed to Faculty of Nuclear Sciencesand Physical Engineering.Studying at the faculty is generally considered to be verydemanding, but due to the small number of students they getalmost individual care, especially during the higher grades.The Faculty offers various subjects to study, but only as full--time. As a matter of interest, the Faculty is in possession of itsown nuclear reactor VR-1 (called “Vrabec”, i.e. “Sparrow”)which was put into operation in 1990.2.3 Methodology and formInquiries were divided into two groups. One for students,and one for the staff who uses Internet support. Because©  Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/ 49Acta Polytechnica Vol. 50  No. 1/2010Internet support systems differ department from department(sometimes even within a department), one teacher was cho-sen from each department to answer this inquiry.Inquiries for teachers were realized in a form of an inter-view, students could either fill out their inquiries online orsome were handed printed copies.2.4 Results from the staffThe inquiry was undertaken at six departments and as aresult six members of the staff answered it. It is apparent fromthe results that almost all departments have their own serversand web space where teachers can upload materials for theircourses. However, manners of execution vary greatly. Never-theless, they can be divided into three groups: Teachers have web space assigned to them, they createwebsites on their own (or with the help from students). Teachers give materials they want to put on web to a serveradministrator who puts them online. Teachers use some management systems for web sitecreation.Concerning management systems, they are used approxi-mately by half of the departments, when one uses specificallyLMS. However, general knowledge about the existence ofLMS is relatively low, they often have only a vague idea thatsomething like this exists. On the other side, almost everyoneknew what management system is.Concerning e-learning, opinions were rather skeptical. Agreat number of teachers sees behind this notion just a re-placement of a classic education in a form of presentationswhich are available somewhere on the Internet. They do notconsider this, understandably, as an improvement in educa-tion. Consequently, pure electronic form of education insteadof a classic one was renounced by almost everyone. On theother side, using websites as a support of lectures, accordingto the majority, makes sense. Nonetheless, they mostly con-sider it as time-consuming and technically demanding. Someof the teachers see e-learning as a convenient variant forpostgradual students and lifelong learning systems in thefuture.2.5 Results from students142 students from all grades of both bachelor and masterstudy have participated in the inquiry. First, we will deal withthe question of how often students encounter Internet sup-port of education.The results (Fig. 2) showed that approximately each thirdsubject already has some sort of internet support. Therefore,this manner of support is relatively used at the faculty andthus the inquiry itself makes sense.When we look at the question dealing with content ofthe websites (Table 1), we see that majority consists of staticelements such as study materials, exercises, news from thesubject, and links to other sites with similar content. Whereasassigning homework through the web, forum, or interactivetests are rather rare. The most common feature is studymaterials.Let us concentrate on the quality of these materials. Thisquestion is answered by the following chart. From it we can seethat if there are any materials, then the materials are of goodquality and cover the whole subject. On the other side, it isvery rare that thesematerials bring something new to the sub-ject and they are often just presentations from lectures.As a matter of interest, we tried to find out what studentsdo with electronic materials. Here the results (fig. 4) showedthat the majority of students print their materials, becausereading from the monitor does not suit them.50 ©  Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/Acta Polytechnica Vol. 50  No. 1/2010Moodle13 %Drupal25 %None49 %Wiki13 %Fig. 1: Chart shows which WCMS are used and their distributionNever(%)Once(%)Sometimes(%)Often(%)Almost always(%)Always(%)News from subject 10.00 20.00 51.00 15.00 3.00 1.00Study materials 0.00 13.00 30.00 41.00 11.00 5.00Related links 12.00 17.00 46.00 15.00 6.00 4.00Forum 69.00 17.00 9.00 4.00 0.00 1.00Homework assigning 15.00 26.00 36.00 19.00 4.00 0.00Excersises 6.00 11.00 64.00 19.00 0.00 0.00Interactive tests 84.00 16.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00Table 1: Tab shows how often specific elements of electronic support are usedWithout internetsupport69 %With internetsupport31 %Fig. 2: Chart shows an average use of e-learning during classesaccording to studentsIn the second part of the inquiry we explored whatstudents think about e-learning and teaching based one-learning.First we inquired in which areas of subject e-learning couldbe used (Fig. 5). Programming oriented subjects absolutelywon this question. Next followed the final question howstudents would envision integration of e-learning into study(Fig. 6). Here an option of a mere support won by majority,only some students would at best accept reduction of numberof lectures per week, but students definitely do not wantpurely electronic form.3 ConclusionInternet support of education at FNSPE is not unknown.A lot of teachers at this faculty are skilled enough to createtheir own web support and they often do so. Moreover, atevery department there is someone who is able to take care of©  Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/ 51Acta Polytechnica Vol. 50  No. 1/2010Perfect and extending the subjectGood and completeSlides from lecturesPoor and insufficientThey don t exist'0.00 % 5.00 % 10.00 % 15.00 % 20.00 % 25.00 % 35.00 %30.00 % 40.00 %Fig. 3: Chart showing quality of electronic materials according to studentsDon t use them at all'Don t use too much' themPrint themWould prefer printedthemRead from monitor0.00 % 10.00 % 20.00 % 30.00 % 40.00 % 50.00 % 60.00 % 70.00 %Fig. 4: Chart showing students’ opinions on work with electronic materialsMath Physics IT Others0.00 %10.00 %20.00 %30.00 %40.00 %50.00 %60.00 %80.00 %70.00 %90.00 %Fig. 5: Chart showing students’ opinion on which fields of study are appropriate for e-learning (students could check multiple answers)web creation, if there are teachers unable to do it themselves.Concerning used technologies and space, almost all depart-ments have their servers and do not use for web supportmeans provided either by the faculty (unified web space) orby the university (LMS Moodle). In addition, half of thedepartments do not use any management systems and indi-vidual authors do not cooperate in any way. Thus web sitesdiffer in visual, functional and technological aspects basicallysubject from subject.Concerning opinions on e-learning and its utilizationthere is an agreement between students and teachers. Almosteveryone agreed that Internet support has many advantagesand should be used, but it should definitely remain onlya support and classes should not become purely electronic.References[1] Sak, P., Skalková, J., Mareš, J.: Člověk a vzdělání v infor-mační společnosti. Praha: Portál, 2007.ISBN 978-80-7367-230-0.[2] České stránky systému Moodle, http://moodle.cz/,[online].[3] Rambousek, J.: E-learning z druhé strany. ZpravodajÚVT MU, 2003, roč. 8, č. 5. ISSN 1212-0901.[4] Pejsar, Z.: Elektronické vzdělávání. Univerzita J. E. Purky-ně v Ústí nad Labem, 2007. ISBN 978-80-7044-968-4.[5] Vaněček, D.: Informační a komunikační technologie ve vzdě-lávání. Praha: ČVUT, 2008. ISBN 978-80-01-04087-4.Ing. Bc. David Vaněček, Ph.D.e-mail: vanecek@muvs.czCzech Technical University in PragueMasaryk Institute of Advanced StudiesHorská 3128 00 Praha 2, Czech RepublicBc. Vladimír Klemente-mail: klemevl1@fjfi.cvut.czCzech Technical University in PragueFaculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical EngineeringBřehová 7115 19 Praha 1, Czech Republic52 ©  Czech Technical University Publishing House http://ctn.cvut.cz/ap/Acta Polytechnica Vol. 50  No. 1/2010Pure electronic educationInstead of lecturesFewer lecturesJust supportDon - at all't use e learningSomehow else0.00 % 10.00 % 20.00 % 30.00 % 40.00 % 50.00 % 60.00 % 70.00 %Fig. 6: Chart showing the best form of integration of e-learning into study according to students

Electronic Education at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering

This paper deals with the current issue of electronic education, and is based on a study of Internet support for education at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague.The goal of the study was to establish to what extent and in what ways electronic support for education is utilized at FNSPE CTU. In order to answer these questions, a questionnaire was conducted at the faculty. We will present the outcomes here

D. Vaněček

V. Klement

Directory of Open Access Journals

https://ojs.cvut.cz/ojs/index.php/ap/article/download/1157/989

Electronic Education at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

CTU Open Journal Systems (Czech Technical University, Prague / České vysoké učení technické v Praze)

Directory of Open Access Journals