Virtual learning environment in internationalization of higher education

International Conference Internationalization o f Higher Education: North-South Perspectives VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION Thái Thanh Tùng, Dr H a n o i O pen U niversity, V ietnam Abstract Since the last few years, first experiments have been carried on in our C enter fo r O n lin e In stru ctio n a l T e c h n o lo g y - c o n - at HOU and have got some positive results which, we would like to share with all our colleagues and hope to be able to ask for their suggestions and helps in this area The content of this presentation includes: a - P art 1: Interactions in the teaching - learning process and Criteria for a perfect virtual teaching learning environment Part 2: Application of internet services - websites and social networkings - for creating virtual teaching - learning environment in ICOHE P art 3: Case studies in Vietnam during the years 2005 - 2010: The FITHOU Cyberschool ® W ebsites and blogs for non-degree training Part 4: Experriences - orientations and perspectives O Since many years, coping with the demand of high quality manpower working for the fast growing national economy, along with the renovation and development of the traditional education & training sector of the country, some first international co-operations in higher education - ICOHE - have been running in many universities, colleges in Vietnam Comparing with those who study overseas in developed countries, the principal disadvantage of learners in ICOHE - especially part time students attending postgraduate training programs - is the lack of vivacious and attractive learning environment, of permanent contacts and communications with teachers and classmates - using foreign languages A t present time, the uses of website and social networkings for creating virtual universities, virtual classes and cyber schools become more and more popular in all around the world In fact, Internet services have evidently proved themselves as efficacious tools which may enhance principal interactions of the teaching - learning process with its obvious advantages comparing with other traditional Medias These realizations certainly should bring considerable results in ICOHE activities, where learners could not have opportunity to live in the important real communications with teacher, with classmates and although they are trained after the training curriculums of some developed countries but they are totally strange with the concrete life conditions and also with the tradition and the feeling of people in these countries In the last few years, some research projects and experiences about the realization o f virtual learning environment run at the Online Technology and Service Center - OTSC - Faculty of Information Technology, Hanoi Open University - FITHOU - have got promising results which we would like to share with this esteemed community of experienced experts and colleagues [5] 151 International Conference Internationalization o f Higher Education: North-South Perspectives Through this important international conference, we are hoping to be able to receive precious and useful remarks, suggestions, and to find out opportunities in inter - institution and/or international co-operations in this area IMPORTANT INTERACTIONS IN THE TEACHING - LEARNING PROCESS According to the concept of le arne r o rie n te d educatio n, the teaching - learning process is always being realized under the impact of important interactions: Learner - Teacher Learner - Classmates Learner - Environment We often illustrated these interactions in the following scheme called the interactive triangle in the Teaching - Le arning p ro ce ss [1], [2] TEACHER CLASSMATES*— ► > ENVIRONMENT Teacher, C lassm ate and E n viro n m e n t are very important factors which can form an integrated structure assuring highest result for the teaching - learning process To provide much information for -learnersr—tD—help—them—proeess—the—information—to—form—their—best~-skill““-cind-” -knowledgeT;theorganization/manager of each training project would have to develop synchronously all the factors mentioned above In the past, knowledge and special information in each deep area o f specialty were mostly provided by teacher: Teacher seemed to be the unique information resource for learner! Therefore, in the ancient Vietnamese society there was a well-known proverb: You can n o th in g w ith o u t te a ch e r (K hông th ầ y đố m ầ y làm nên) This proverb expresses the feeling about the supreme important role of teacher for learner! However, later in the condition of developed society, especially in this digital era, it is obvious that learner can find p le n tifu l information from many abundant resources in the society, through the media, through communication with team mates, classmates and/or with other people who share their interests in each area of specialty Teachers in the present society are not the unique information source for learners but the very important role of teacher is now a precious guide with his/her own knowledge and experiences, should help learners to select information in their own learning process, to find out orientation for solving difficult problems 152 International Conference Internationalization o f Higher Education: North-South Perspectives Besides, in many problems that demand learners to make deep research, to realize many time experiment, the role of classmates - who share the learning process with learner - become more and more important In many cases, although the teachers are trying to their best to present, to explain cautiously but learners still could not seize all delicate spirit of the problems Only after having discussion, communication with his/her classmates, in common exercises, practices and experiences, knowledge and skills of learners then reach a much higher level And so, it is interesting to recall another Vietnamese proverb, no less popular then that one we have mentioned above: To learn from teacher is less useful th an fro m cla ssm ate s! (H ọc th ầ y k h ô n g tầy h ọ c bạn) At first view, it seems that there are great contradictory between the proverbs! But in fact this only revealed the important roles o f both factors that complete one another their effects to the learning process About the le a rn in g e n viron m en t, we often use this term to design the concrete address, organization, institution where learners attend their study It is not strange when at the threshold o f each new school year, millions of learners, students and their parents always try to get the entrance to the “best" institutions, the top.schools and colleges everywhere in the world Therefore, besides the efforts of choosing "best” training curriculum, providing “best” materials, inviting “best” teachers in each field o f specialty, the organizations, managers of all training institutions are trying to create “best” learning environment for their learners But the term “learning environment” still has a wider meaning Learning environment also is used to indicate the total social condition, the society, the nation, the locality where learners live and study These conditions are obviously unrealizable for learners who attend foreign training programs when living in other countries! FITHOU CYBER SCHOOL - A CASE STUDY OF VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Since the past few years, many projects in software developing used for Online training, Distance Education and E-learning have been run at the Online Technology and Service Center - OTSC - and the Department of Web Technology - DWT - Hanoi Open University The principal task of OTSC and DWT in this research project is to design, to create an online learning environment - also called virtual class or virtual university, at first put in use at the Faculty of IT, HOU and later step by step in some other training units of HOU In the years 2002 - 2006, OTSC were assigned to represent the Vietnamese side to participate in the international project G reat M ekong S ub region Virtual U n ive rsity - GMSVU - a project financed by UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau OTSC has signed and fulfilled a contract with the GMSVU managing board in 2006.[2] A t HOU, OTSC has performed the project of FITHOU C yber S chool, put in use for experience in the Faculty of IT - HOU since 2003, at the address: http://www.fithou.edu.vn A t present time this site already attracts many thousands of members and more than million tim e-visitors [5] The system we called C yber S ch o o l includes these following sub-systems 2.1 Management sub-system.- MS 153 International Conference Internationalization o f Higher Education: North-South Perspectives The MS is the principal, central part of Cyber School; it manages the realization of all virtual interactions between different partners: learners, teachers, managers and staff members of the Faculty and the Institution 2.1.1 Users information management: This aims to store user’s registrations, classification and issuing different categories of authorization for users (security protected by cryptosystem) 2.1.2 D a ta in fo rm a tio n m a n a g e m e n t: All regulations, legal texts and documents related to different training programs and projects e Training curriculums for all subjects, fields and degrees of formation, relationships between subjects (prerequisites) in each training program « Personal information files of each student during his whole training process at the faculty (and later?) ® Personal information of faculty staff members ® In case of necessary, the management of u s e r’s fin a n c ia l in fo rm a tio n (tuition fee, scholarship, for student; salary, allowance " for staff members ) can be separated to make another sub­ system 2.1.3 Training plan and timetable management 2.1.4 Scores and results management e The official information is certified by the managing board of the Faculty before updated an announced according to the regulation o f the managing board Students may get the authorization to log in for viewing and/or downloading, printing, if necessary 2 K n o w le d g e d e liv e ry s u b s y s te m - K P S _ - _ The KDS in Cyber School imitates and realizes the interaction between teacher and learner: giving course, practice guiding, exercise correcting, summarizing a part and/or a whole course and also making tutorials for Learners 2.2.1 Course delivery • Storage of E-books and courseware (Problem of copyright!) ® Course presentations: not only using text media but in some parts, video and/or audio clips may be embedded 2.2.2 Exercises and Assignm ents • Storage of practical exercises subjects, assignments them and topics, examination questions; practical exercise tests that learners can online and get evaluation • Learners can use the documents online or download for printing or using offline 2.2.3 Student aid and tutorial 154 International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: North-South Perspectives In the Forum o f Cyber School a website is created to provide many course/subject sub-forums with experienced teachers as moderators Students log in to these sub-forums to have contacts with teachers and departments, to send questions and to receive direct responses e Regularly,, each department and/or teacher personally organizes and announces online meeting for discussing difficult problems found during course delivery ® When the department or the teacher finds that many questions of learners (through the Forum) are concentrated in sopne parts of the course, or before the beginning of a difficult part, the department or the teacher writes and posts some tutorial - note or guide for learners to help them study these parts F orum The role o f Forum in Cyber School is the realization of virtual classes, virtual learning groups, aiming to enhance the learning enthusiasm and to reduce the lonely psychology for students when staying away from their classmates - especially for isolated (part time) students All students (principal components), staff members, teachers, managers, and even everybody who pay attention to the institution and the Faculty can easily register to become members o f the Forum (in different categories) To prevent Forum spamming, for some categories of members, censorship will be installed and the moderator of each sub-forum take responsibility of controlling before posting The Forum of Cyber School includes many sub-forums which realize different activities in the learning community at the faculty/institution 2.3.1 News and information sub-forum This is a fast and direct and more convenient two-way contact channel between learner and the institution Through this sub-forum, students can post questions; proposals about all information announced in all sub-system of the website and get the response quickly 2.3.2 Course-subject sub-forum As mentioned above in II.2.3 These sub-forums imitate and realize friendly contacts and easy interactions between Teachers/Departments and Learners 2.2.3 Learning com m unity sub-forum Every learning community at FIT-HOU: students in each class, in each subject (for credit training system), a group of students sharing a common field of knowledge are encouraged to build their own sub-forums - o f course, with the permission and the control of website administrator or forum moderators These sub­ forums become friendly virtual meeting places where students can, anywhere, at any time, gathered to communicate, to chat to their classmates Many ancient students can register to become members in a sub-forum which they pay more attention, to share souvenirs, experiences with younger students Some groups o f ancient graduated students even build their own sub-forums (alumni forum) in the Forum systems o f FITHOU Cyber School 155 International Conference Internationalization o f Higher Education: North-South Perspectives For some communities, the use of foreign languages in sub-forums is encouraged aiming to raise the foreign language thinking, writing and learning skill for members Through the experiences of some sub­ forums in FITHOU Cyber School, we note that only after some 6-10 months, foreign language (namely English) skill of many active members were promoting quickly! And so, the Forum system of FITHOU Cyber School strengthens the friendship, the solidarity between students and staff members of the faculty, people who in the real life, have very few opportunities to meet themselves Furthermore, through the forum, students of FITHOU still raise the pride and enhance the prestige of their institution 2.2.4 D ay life & Relaxation sub-forums In real life, in any institution there are not only teaching-learning activities! Along with learning activities, the community of learners in any institution still has multifarious day life activities: sport, music, entertainment relaxations These activities are reflected in the Cyber School through many sub-forums called virtual clubs: Guitar club, Dancing club, Pencat silat club Soccer fan club, Tourism club, Fishing club etc And it is quite interesting that these virtual clubs have attracted many active members outside of FITHOU! Associate Blogs [3] Together with the FITHOU Cyber School located at the address: http://forum.fithou.net.vn since the last some years, some teachers have built training blogs to communicate with students in the subjects that they are in charge: Discrete Mathematics study Blog, E-commerce study Blog, PC & Electronics Blog, Website construction Blog etc These blogs quickly attract thousands o f visitors; receive thousands of comments from students, especially in examination time or during dissertation preparation time of students CYBER SCHOOL MODEL IN SERVICE FOR ICOHE B a s e d o n e x p e rim e n ts g a in e d a lrF IT -H O U d u rin g m a n y y e a rs w e firm ly b e lie v e th a tth e m o d e lo fG y b e r School could serve as an efficacious tool to enhance interactions in any Teaching - Learning process In the context of ICOHE projects, learners - especially part time learners - have a big disadvantage when missing the daily contact with their real learning environment Cyber School system with appropriate modifications and complements, especially with the participation of foreign partners - teachers and managers, even student communities from foreign partner institutions, can contribute superbly to the final result of learners, and more important, can improve the close relationship between learners and the institution! In the following we try to enumerate some additional complements to each subsystem of Cyber School mentioned in the last paragraph 3.1 Spreading information from foreign partners It is quite absurd when we meet a person who, in fact, graduated from such or such an institution in such or such a country but he had no information about the institution and/or about the country! The managing board and admin of Cyber School must: 156 International Conference Internationalization o f H igher Education: North-South Perspectives Try to their best to collect, as much as possible, information from foreign partner institutions and to disseminate the collected information to each student of each ICOHE project - through the Cyber School Information includes not only training programs or about pedagogic aspects but also - very important - about the history, the tradition o f the institution, about current event newly occurred at the institution s Try to contact with the partner foreign institution to ask for the authorization for students to contact with their storage o f E-books, courseware, exercises and examination questions - through our Cyber School In teacher/department sub-forums, help students to try the tests, the exercises and examination questions of parallel courses given at the partner institutions 3.2 Participation of foreign partners Perhaps, it would be a bit difficult to realize, but very useful if the managing board o f ICOHE project could attract the participation of teachers - and managers - from foreign partner institutions • The manager board o f foreign partner institutions must consider the students attending ICOHE projects as their own students, so they have to provide them all institutional information regularly And, it should be a great spiritual gift and compensation for students if in some special occasions (opening / closing session o f each training course, New Year seasoning, national and/or international ceremonies, etc ) in the Home page of the Cyber School appear some messages/ congratulations from managers of the foreign partner institutions! ® Encourage foreign teachers to participate in the activities in department/teachers sub-forums, student group sub-forums and training blogs ( using english, french, foreign languages) The participation o f foreign teachers in forums and blogs will not only motivate students to promote their foreign languages skill but also give them more opportunities to make acquaintance with the thinking and feeling of native people in the country of their training institutions! CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL Through my short presentation, I personally think that the audience will certainly agree with me about the possibility and advantages that Cyber School model can bring to ICOHE projects But our result is only first steps on a long, long way! I am hoping that, through this important conference, I could receive precious remarks and suggestions from experienced specialists, from my colleagues - incountry and overseas - and right after this conference we can establish some inter-institution and/or international scientific relationship day by day more closely in the field of ICOHE I would like to take this opportunity to propose to you, dear and esteemed colleagues, further relationship and co-operation with FIT - HOU in this area of research, aiming to make some remarkable contributions to enhance the final result of our ICOHE projects in the next future 157 International Conference Internationalization o f Higher Education: North-South Perspectives REFBRBCES Thai, T.s and Thai, T.T, (2002) The Role of ICT in TVET at the 21st century in Vietnam International Conference: DEVELOPING SKILL FOR THE N EW EC O N O M Y - W innipegManitoba - Canada - October 2002 Thai, T.T (2005) strategy for E-training development in developing countries, asiapacifficodl.edu m y - Malaysia 2005 Thai, T.s (2009) Blog Training: An efficacious new way to enhance educational interactions in the Teaching-Learning process -IN TE R N A TIONOAL SYMPOSIUM ON OPEN, DISTANCE AND E-LEARNING -Yogyakarta, Indonesia - D ecem ber 2009 Thai, T.T and Truong, T.T (2011) - Urgent need for sustainable development education through Open Learning- THE 24™ WORLD CONFERENCE ON OPEN - DISTANCE EDUCATION, B a liIridonesia - October 2011 Thai, T.T and Collaborators at OTSC - Báo cáo nghiệm Thu đề tài CTMS - Đại học M Hà NộiThảng 10/2011 - (Final report o f the Credit Training Management System P ro je c t- CTMS - In Vietnamese) 158 ... training programs when living in other countries! FITHOU CYBER SCHOOL - A CASE STUDY OF VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Since the past few years, many projects in software developing used for Online... and to find out opportunities in inter - institution and/or international co-operations in this area IMPORTANT INTERACTIONS IN THE TEACHING - LEARNING PROCESS According to the concept of le arne... teachers in each field o f specialty, the organizations, managers of all training institutions are trying to create “best” learning environment for their learners But the term ? ?learning environment? ??