The article intends to explore and estimate the possible pedagogical advantages and potential of cloud computing technology with aim to increase organizational level, availability and quality of ICT-based learning tools and resources. Holistic model of a specialist is proposed and the problems of development of a system of methodological and technological support for elaboration of cloud-based learning environment of educational institution are considered.
As it is now impossible to introduce advanced ICT while managing this process without mastering the ICT and other related pedagogical technologies, the main aim is to train ICT-skilled educational personnel. Cloud computing technology (CC) is to create a high-tech learning environment of educational institution, enhancing multiple access and joint use of educational resources at different levels and domains. On this basis it is possible to combine corporate resources of the university and other on-line resources, adapted to learning needs, within a unite framework.
Cloud computing is used for resources supply and to support collaboration in the
learning process in particular by means of mobile services. It requires the
development of new approaches and models for designing of a learning environment. Among
them there are those based on a holistic approach to learning [
For this aim a set of instrumentation tools for cloud-based learning resources collection, elaboration and design, holistic models of learning environment and specialist models, and a system of methodological and technological support for the development of cloud-based learning environment of educational institution should be created.
The purpose of the article is to identify trends and conceptual models of educational personnel training within the cloud based learning environment. 2
The problem of training of qualified educational management personnel as well as
teachers oriented on ICT based learning can nowadays hardly be taken independently
from the processes of the innovative development of educational space formed within
the school, region and educational system of a country or globally [
Emerging technologies of information and communication networks give a way for
implementing a holistic approach to education and training of personnel. A holistic
approach focuses on combining science and practice, training and production,
fundamental and applied knowledge and technological competencies with social and
humanitarian [
There is a problem of availability and valuable ways of learning resources
delivery, to achieve with their use the best pedagogical effect and to gain maximum
learning potential of ICT. This issue, may be hence partially solved if delivered by means
of cloud computing technology [
Public administrators are public servants working in public institutions, departments
and agencies [
There are significant needs in IT competent specialists in the sphere of public administration. Without ICT competence or competence in ICT for learning, problems with their adaptation at the workplace arise, as do problems with the necessity of additional and often profound training almost immediately after hiring. In some cases, a vague idea of future graduates about the real problems and conditions of work with innovative ICT infrastructures and ICT-based tools leads to lack of commitment to practical solutions of work situations thus to a low level of innovative inclusion.
Formation of the innovative institution’s ICT infrastructure could solve some of
the aforementioned problems [
According therefore to the high rates of development of both the global ICT market for the education sector, and the IT market of learning tools, the problem of training professional staff for the domestic public administration and the IT-oriented sector of education management; personnel which are primarily prepared within higher and post graduate schools (e.g. universities and advanced training schools) being continuous, we conclude that modern approaches to the design of educational systems are a key point.
It is unlikely that the current state of skilled personnel of management and public administration of education could be regarded as fully satisfactory for the needs of innovative development of ICT-based learning, for the required number of qualified professionals with appropriate structure and quality of training. The system of training and retraining of employees for public administration has not been properly formed.
These problems should be considered within the context of development of an
institution’s and a region’s innovative environment as well as on national and
international level [
Introduction of innovations into the educational environment of a state or a region,
is highly concerned with the development of human resources of informatization on
education [
Nowadays content-technological process regarding the creation and use of ICT products, and in particular the electronic learning resources, requires fundamental background knowledge in both ICT and pedagogy. The approaches however for training personnel today, do not sufficiently take into account the recent years’ innovative changes in the ICT industry, nor the real needs regarding the extent of such training.
A mean for provision of users with relevant services of cloud computing
technology is considered to be outsourcing; i.e. a service in a specific system to implement its
core functions is required, offered and sold by another system external to this [
The main problem in educational practice is the contradiction between on one hand
the objective need for a continuous improvement of the software and the hardware
power of training computer complexes, and on the other, the lack of personnel’s
ability (in both qualitative and quantitative manners) to maintain, manage and develop
their ICT systems appropriately. The informatization hence of an educational
institution in terms of cloud computing and ICT outsourcing, will offer realistic solutions
for both the deepening of informatization and improvement of ICT’s educational
performance and use of information resources [
The basic principles of such introduction should be: a tight relationship of learning
with training and methodological support for tutors, focus on a specific educational
task; modularity of learning; continuity of learning, sharing experience and formation
and participation in professional association activities (including electronic) [
Being cost-effective the user can get (buy) products and services proposed by the
virtual supermarket of ICT according to their needs (individual or group, collective,
corporate), they may pay only for what has been bought (e -transport, e-content,
eservices, virtual e-tools, a generic and subject software applications, network
platforms - full range of cloud services along with services for the design and
implementation of ICT systems and their fragments ordered by the users, their warranty and
post warranty service, maintain, upgrade and improvement, etc.) and only for the
actual time of use of the purchased product [
It is designed for increased flexibility and effective access to learning resources so as to build a unified and mobile infrastructure.
On the basis of CC infrastructure all main aspects of interaction of a learner may
be comprehended on the unite basis. Along to approach introduced in [
Due to the principles of open education [
Holistic approach to education deals with the learning processes to be taken as unity of all main aspects of a personality development, for example such as mental, emotional and volitional. This is in tune with a meaning of the term “holistic” as completeness, being impossible with disregard of some of its components.
There are innumerous investigations devoted to the problems of holistic learning
development in different aspects such as learning and teaching interaction,
collaboration processes, engagement of both aspects of theory and practice to gain
comprehensive view of a subject [
Dr.Sc PhD Magister Specialist Bachelor Levels 5-9 to reveal main components and types of interactions within the different learning process settings.
The notion of holistic learning occurs in relation to personnel training, concerning
to different components and interactions within educational organization. It may
touch upon certain types of activity, collaboration and resource management
processes, engaging thus the entire organization at all levels and developing a performance
culture of personnel. There are different ways to approach peculiarities of specialist
formation, namely in the aspect of personal or professional features. That concerning
to modeling of professional competencies [
The proposed approach is based on holistic model of a specialist in the sphere of informatization of education presented in Fig.1. It concerns to Domain Competencies which would occupy fundamental knowledge of educational management and modern learning technologies and also ICT skills and ability to use e-learning tools. There are also Personal Competencies, such as leader skills, critical thinking, and capability to holistic view of a problem, responsibility and activity of an individual. As for professional skills there are planning, design, resources management, cooperation and collaboration skills, performance skills and ability for monitoring and self evaluation.
Fundamental knowledge of management Skills for modern educational technologies
Leader skills Critical thinking Holistic view of a problem Responsibility and activity ICT skills
Skills for creating and use of e-learning tools
Planning Design Resources management Cooperation and collaboration Performance activities
Monitoring and self evaluation
Fig. 1. A holistic model of a specialist
All the components of a specialist’s competencies, skills and knowledge are consistently formed within the main level of education which corresponds to National qualification framework (levels 5-9).
Cloud computing decision is a reasonable way to support holistic learning settings giving a platform for unite representation and access to learning tools for different levels and domain of education as also for different individuals and groups of users.
Promising ways of assessing resources quality, while building a holistic learning environment are:
A. Analysis of the most appropriate ways to use cloud computing technology to supplementing and structuring collection of educational learning resources, filling it with the resources on this basis and organizing multiple access to their use B. Use of a certain set of educational resources for testing methods to evaluate the quality of their use within the cloud-based infrastructure of organization C. Recommendations on methods to replenish the collection, its prototyping and ways of structuring resources D. Elaboration of requirements to provide electronic resources, for collection replenishment E. Analysis of cloud computing technology outsourcing for optimal selection and use of resources’ collections F. Creation of recommendations to developers and material for replenishment and application of existing electronic learning resources G. Development of recommendations for dissemination and use of collections of electronic resources 6
The important step to wider application and introduction of new learning approaches and to gain most possible benefit from emerging technologies and ICT tools should be achieved through modernization and upgrading of ICT learning environment of educational institutions, increasing of overall level of e-learning.
To achieve these goals the main problem is to rise ICT and professional level of competencies of subjects of the learning process – managers, pedagogical personnel and staff and also personal of ICT departments. Just the people are the most valuable factor of empowerment of development and formation of social and economical systems and educational systems in particular. Just the people are the most important resource which should be involved so as to improve the quality of these social systems and to manage their purposeful and productive growth. By this reason development of tools and resources to train teachers and stuff is critical point because it really concern to all levels of educational systems functioning.
The whole impact of implementation of learning tools and techniques based on cloud computing is aimed at: Broaden use of ICT in education aiming at wider take up by learners and teachers Effective public-private partnerships for introduction and managements of learning environment solutions More efficient introduction of ICT into the learning process through the exploitation of monitoring and assessment tools More timely and purposeful acquisition of skills and competences through ICTbased learning technologies, in educational establishments and public administrations Increased involvement with the adoption of learning digital technologies
The important step to wider application and introduction of new learning
approaches and to gain most possible benefit from emerging technologies and ICT tools
should be achieved through modernization and upgrading of ICT learning
environment of educational institutions, development of new learning approaches, creating
more advanced learning technologies [
Formation of innovative ICT infrastructure of the institution could solve some of the problems of development highly skilled educational and management personnel, bridging the gap between the process of training and the level of demand for their product.
Due to development of cloud computing technologies opportunities, functionality
and access to collections of electronic learning resources has significantly increased.
In this regard, cloud computing is a promising direction of development of electronic
resources’ collections (may be relevant for development of collections), as it allows
the creation of a unified methodology for a single platform, a framework for
development and testing, and for improvement and elaboration of integrated assessment
methods’ quality. This gives an added value to available recourses [
The social results will help to modernize the learning environment of educational institutions and organizations, to increase educational potential of ICT and add value to the best examples of available learning resources due to their flexible and learneradaptive access.
At the same time there are several aspects of the cloud-based learning architecture to be a subjected to further research. There are problems of pedagogical and psychological support in regard to the processes of the design and organization of an educational institution’s cloud infrastructure, prospecting possible organizational structures to provide learning environment functioning and to teach educational managers and organizers, pedagogical and technical stuff how to use new methods and approaches to learning, based on cloud computing. There is a necessity therefore, to create an educational and training system of support used by management personnel, teachers and learners.
The result of instrumentation for cloud-based learning resources collection elaboration, and development of cloud-based learning environment of educational institution might be used within different learning and organizational educational structures. 7
The cloud based learning infrastructure is to give the opportunities: To combine the processes of development and use of electronic resources to support learner competencies To insure holistic approach to specialist education and training, combining both technological and social competences, development of critical skills of a learner To integrate the processes of training, retraining and advanced training, at different levels of education by providing access to electronic resources of a unite learning environment To solve or significantly mitigate the problems of association of electronic resources of the institution into unite framework To access to the best examples of electronic resources and services to those units or institutions, where there is no strong ICT support services for e-learning To provide of invariant access to learning resources within the unified educational environment, depending on the purpose of study or educational level of the student, enabling person-oriented approach to learning To make conditions for a higher level of harmonization, standardization and quality of electronic resources, which may lead to emergence of the better examples of learning resources and to more massive use them 8
There are real advantages of CC technologies to assure more flexible, scalable and cost-effective decisions of access to learning resources as within the learning environment of the university and also in learning environment of the whole region, national and international scale. This is an advantage so as to ensure joint use and widening participation in the learning courses of learners from different institution were necessary services are substantiated and supported. As if holistic approaches to cloud services development are already used in education so the challenge is to transfer this experience into wider context.
The project is implemented within the framework of the joint research laboratory of Cloud computing in education of the Institute of Information Technologies and Learning Tools of NAPS of Ukraine (Kiev) and the Krivoy Rog State University (Krivoy Rog), www.ccelab.ho.ua.