=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2770/paper25
|storemode=property
|title=Transformation of the Digital Transformation Tasks of Education
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2770/paper25.pdf
|volume=Vol-2770
|authors=Boris Starichenko,Liubov Sardak
}}
==Transformation of the Digital Transformation Tasks of Education==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2770/paper25.pdf
Transformation of the Digital Transformation Tasks of
Education
Boris Starichenko 1 [0000-0003-3916-6828], and Liubov Sardak1 [0000-0001-5400-6297]
1
Ural State Pedagogical University, Cosmonaut Avenue, 26, 620017 Yekaterinburg, Russia
b.starichenko@gmail.com, l.v.sardak@ gmail.com
Abstract. The possibilities of implementing the ideas of digital transformation
of education, formulated in a number of scientific works and programs are ana-
lyzed in the article. From a comparison of the stated goals of digitalization and
the conditions for their achievement, it is concluded that it is premature to set
them at the present time. At the same time, there are two tasks that are relevant
for Russian educational organizations of all levels - the creation of a universal
network communication system for educational purposes and the use of multi-
media testing. The need for a domestic educational communication system
clearly manifested itself in 2020 in connection with the massive use of distance
learning at all levels of education.
The need to use multimedia objects in test computer control is justified by a no-
ticeable expansion of the scope of its use: primary school, language disciplines,
disciplines of the aesthetic cycle, medicine, computer science, etc. Two main
technological approaches to creating multimedia tests are discussed: using spe-
cialized test systems and using interactive video. The approaches are illustrated
with examples from the discipline "Computer mathematics".
The solution to both problems is possible at the current level of development of
information technologies and systems. The developments must be financed by
the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education and do-
nated to all educational organizations in Russia. Thus, we are talking about re-
orienting the tasks of digital transformation to the needs of educational practice.
Keywords: Digitalization оf Education, Educational Communication System,
Multimedia Testing, Interactive Video, Computer Mathematics.
1 Introduction
The ideologist of digitalization of education in Russia is the Higher School of Eco-
nomics. Its specialists examined various aspects of this process in great detail, for
example, in the report "12 solutions for a new school" (2018 г.) [1]. In another report
(September 2019) "Problems and prospects of digital transformation of education in
Russia and China" its goal is defined as "the achievement of the necessary educational
results by each student through personalization of the educational process based on
the use of the growing potential of DT, including the use of artificial intelligence
methods, virtual reality facilities; development of digital educational environment in
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0
International (CC BY 4.0).
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Informatization of Education and E-learning Methodology:
Digital Technologies in Education (IEELM-DTE 2020), Krasnoyarsk, Russia, October 6-9, 2020.
educational institutions; providing public broadband Internet access, working with big
data" [2].
We are not going to analyze what the authors mean by "necessary educational re-
sults", but we are going to focus on the means of achievement, which, by definition,
should include the use of the most modern information technologies - artificial intelli-
gence, virtual and augmented reality, big data, blockchain, and etc. The use of these
tools creates the need to fulfill a number of conditions:
─ creation of a modern technological infrastructure in educational institutions, imply-
ing the equipment with the necessary computer equipment and access to fast net-
works;
─ creation of an educational environment that includes educational content and edu-
cational process management tools;
─ development of methods for applying the listed modern technologies in solving
educational problems (what educational tasks can be significantly improved, for
example, the use of artificial intelligence at the level of a university or school, and
to what extent is this justified from the pedagogical, economic, psychological and
ethical point of view?);
─ ensuring the readiness of teaching staff to use modern technologies.
─ the assessment of the realistic fulfillment of these conditions in schools and univer-
sities in Russia allows us to conclude:
─ the state of the technological infrastructure of educational institutions is mainly
determined by state funding, which was previously insufficient to create the re-
quired technical level in most universities and schools. A sad consequence of the
economic problems associated with the pandemic was the proposal of the Ministry
of Finance of Russia in August 2020 to reduce funding for the state programs
"Healthcare Development" and "Education Development" by about 10% in 2021
and 2022; thus, universities cannot count on a noticeable improvement in the mate-
rial and technical base and, accordingly, the use of advanced technological solu-
tions in the near future;
─ if we consider the areas of development, for example, in the field of artificial intel-
ligence (knowledge representation, machine learning, intelligent robots, cognitive
modeling, etc.), then they do not have tasks related to mass education; the same
can be said about other modern information technologies being developed above;
on the other hand, the tasks solved by educational organizations do not require the
use of such technologies; thus, as long as the linking of new technologies to educa-
tion is speculative or distant, they are not required for educational practice.
This analysis was made not to deny the need to digitalize education, but to indicate
a different approach to identifying its priorities. It is necessary to start not from beau-
tiful (but impracticable) slogans and someone's commercial interests, but from the
needs of educational institutions. As examples, the authors focus on two similar tasks
that are currently relevant for all schools and universities in Russia, the solution of
which is possible at the existing level of development of information technology, on
the one hand, and not requiring significant financial investments, on the other.
2 Objective 1. Educational communication system
In connection with the forced mass appeal of education to distance technologies
and, in particular, to interactive technologies, the absence of accessible communica-
tion systems oriented towards application in the educational process was revealed.
Teachers are forced to use many different systems: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google
Meet, Mirapolis, Discord, Skype, etc. However, firstly, these are not specialized edu-
cational platforms, but universal communication services, which do not provide for
the solution of many educational tasks (keeping a progress journal, polls, access to the
listener's screen, recording, file exchange, etc.); secondly, most of these systems are
commercial - available free versions have limitations on the duration of work (Zoom),
the number of listeners (Discord, Skype). Universities do not provide for the acquisi-
tion of official licenses, as a result, teachers are forced to independently choose the
most convenient system for themselves, and the range of such systems is wide. This,
in turn, forces students to create multiple accounts and work in different systems. At
the same time, it is impossible for teachers to carry out a unified preparation for the
use of services and develop unified organizational and methodological approaches.
Thus, it seems extremely important for Russian education to have a universal
communication system focused on solving educational problems and providing both
on-line (conducting interactive classes) and off-line – saving and accessing educa-
tional content, giving-receiving-evaluating educational assignments, keeping a pro-
gress journal, communication of participants at the chat and forum level, interaction
with mobile devices. The system should be developed by order and with funding from
the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of
Education of the Russian Federation, and free for schools and universities. It will
ensure:
─ universality and continuity between different levels of education;
─ unity of approaches to building the educational environment, content development;
─ uniformity of teacher training;
─ the issue of using systems with personal data located all over Russia will be with-
drawn.
The development of such a system is quite possible within the framework of exist-
ing technologies, and it will provide a real involvement of schools in the digitalization
of education.
3 Task 2. Multimedia testing
3.1 Statement of the problem
Test checking of knowledge is one of the main forms of control, which was further
developed due to the possibility of using a computer in the testing procedure. At the
same time, the computer assumes a number of functions of a teacher of an algorithmic
nature, performing the storage of the task base, generating a test version from it and
presenting it to the student, receiving answers, comparing them with reference values
and determining correctness, scoring according to established criteria and demonstrat-
ing the results to the testee. Thus, the test computer technology provides large-scale
participation and control operational efficiency, which, in turn, creates the prerequi-
site for their frequent use, positively affecting the rhythm of students' academic work.
There are many works devoted to the use of computer tests in the educational process.
The authors analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this form of control, discuss
the possibilities of its use in the distance learning [3-8]. In particular, the following
advantages of computer testing stand out:
─ automation of the survey procedure, which provides the possibility of testing with-
out the direct involvement of the teacher; the possibility of organizing self-control
of students and distant (remote) checking should be considered as a private mani-
festation of this quality;
─ expanding the range of responses of the testee – besides “mark” and “write” in the
blank testing, additional mouse manipulations are involved: mark with a click,
specify an area, move an object on the screen - this opens up fundamentally new
possibilities for constructing tasks (for example, constructing a final image
(phrases) on the screen from individual blanks);
─ efficiency of evaluating the response and the conclusion of the result immediately
after testing;
─ the possibility of automated mathematical and statistical processing of results in
order to generate output forms of performance, as well as assess the quality of the
test, which, among other things, eliminates the need for the teacher to master and
implement computational algorithms;
─ higher security of measuring materials, since a non-variant (accepted in the blank
testing) approach to building an individual test is used, which leads to the possibil-
ity of borrowing answers between students, but a facet one, which allows you to
generate an almost unlimited number of individual options [7];
─ the possibility to personalize current control through the use of a customizable
rating scale and adaptive testing algorithms.
Due to these advantages, computer testing has been used in the educational process
for more than 30 years since the first domestic computers appeared at the school
(KUVT-86, Corvette, Yamaha). In the meantime, the capabilities of computer tech-
nology in terms of screen display of information have grown tremendously, however,
this has almost had no effect on the presentation of test tasks - even in the most mod-
ern testing systems and distance learning platforms (including the most famous),
mainly alphanumeric tests, less often - tests, containing static graphics are used. But
an alphanumeric representation is not at all indispensable quality of a computer test-
ing. Modern computers are focused on the processing of multimedia information. The
use of multimedia in education is considered mainly as a means of increasing the
visibility and interactivity of the educational process [6, 9]. In educational practice,
tests that include multimedia objects — animation, sound, and video — are not ap-
plied. At the same time, they would significantly expand the scope of the use of test
technologies: elementary school and language disciplines, in which it is possible to
provide a vocal formulation of the task; disciplines of the aesthetic cycle, medicine,
etc., in which video and sound fragments could be successfully applied; mathematics
and computer science with the ability to demonstrate screencasts, etc. This article is
devoted to the discussion of technological possibilities of including multimedia ob-
jects in the testing and polling procedure. These possibilities are well described in the
book by I. Cheng et al [10].
3.2 Problem Solving Approaches
The authors' experience allows to distinguish two approaches to solving the indicated
problem of creating multimedia test control materials.
The first is to use specialized test control systems that support the inclusion of mul-
timedia objects in the construction of test tasks. As an example, we can cite the do-
mestic INDIGO system [11], which allows to perform testing control in a local or
global network, and which has a number of other advantages. The disadvantages of
the system include the fact that it uses flash technology to work with multimedia ob-
jects.
The second approach is to use interactive video. Various didactic possibilities of
interactive video and technologies for its creation are described in the work of C.
Benkada and L. Moccozet. However, they do not focus on testing [4]. If in test sys-
tems m/m objects are placed in test tasks, then in the interactive video the situation is
the opposite - test questions (and polls) are included in the training video. During its
viewing, the student is presented with questions or comments regarding what he saw;
while the fragment is paused and resumed after answering the question. Examples of
such applications include PlayPosit [2] and Learnis [12].
Of practical interest is the popular LearningApps application, which, being freely
distributed, allows you to create both multimedia tests and interactive video [13].
Separately, those and other LearningApps features lose to the above systems, howev-
er, this is compensated by the free use, the presence of the Russian version, a simple
and intuitive interface, the ability to upload products to SCORM format or viewed
from mobile devices.
The didactic features of each of the approaches can be specified.
Multimedia testing system:
─ provides all types of control: classroom - training, formative, final; extracurricular
- training, final;
─ requires a large number of short multimedia fragments to ensure the variability of
test tasks;
─ in the test, tasks with m / m objects are used along with “ordinary” ones (alphanu-
meric or with static graphics);
─ testing procedure is carried out by means of a test shim.
Interactive video:
─ used for educational control (classroom or extracurricular);
─ based, as a rule, on one video fragment of medium duration (5-15 minutes);
─ a relatively small number of possible types of tasks included in the video clip;
─ product creation is carried out in a specialized application; presentation is possible
in other environments and, in particular, on a mobile device.
Thus, approaches in a certain way complement each other - their skillful combina-
tion can significantly increase the interactivity of the learning process.
3.3 Field of application example
The stated approaches were tested by the authors in the process of teaching the disci-
pline "Computer Mathematics".
Interesting classes of problems, the algorithms for solving which can be advanta-
geously illustrated, are problems that include the analysis of mathematical models, in
particular the solution of problems with parameters. At the same time, it is convenient
to conduct dynamic visualization of the solution using the animation tools that are
available in the packages Mathcad, Mathematica, Maple [14]. The toolkit of packages
allows you to view video using the built-in players, however, there is always the pos-
sibility of capturing the screen and recording a video clip in the form of a screencast
with teacher comments. The resulting screencast can be used to prepare an interactive
video.
As an example, the solution of the task 4.38 from the task book "Tasks with Pa-
rameters" by V. V. Amelkina and V. L. Rabtsevich is given [15]. It is necessary to
analyze the influence of the parameter a on the number of roots of the equation
|3x + 3| = ax2 + 4
The solution is conveniently implemented by the method of graphical modeling in
the Mathematica package, making parameter a changeable and using the Manipulate
function - this will allow you to animate the representation of the right side of the
equation on the graph with respect to the fixed graph of the left side. Interactive video
with test tasks included in it is implemented in the LearningApps environment and is
available at https://learningapps.org/display?v=pfi2dq28n20; the final test task, which
allows to evaluate the degree of student understanding of the results of dynamic mod-
eling, is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Test task from the interactive video “Roots of the equation”
Multimedia test tasks were implemented in the INDIGO system. Below are screen-
shots of such tasks (Fig. 2, 3).
Fig. 2. Multimedia test tasks in the INDIGO system
Fig. 3. Multimedia test tasks in the INDIGO system
The discussion and practical testing of the ideas presented showed that the use of
multimedia testing is quite technologically accessible and, therefore, its non-use in the
educational process can be justified only by the conservatism of platform developers,
on the one hand, and tests, on the other. From our point of view, the use of interactive
computer tests should become as common as the use of multimedia to increase visibil-
ity. However, test systems on platforms for hosting online courses, the use of which in
the educational process of universities is now becoming mandatory, do not yet pro-
vide for such an opportunity, which imposes thematic and content restrictions on the
courses being created.
Thus, we have designated the 2nd task of digitalization, which may well be solved
by existing technologies or simply purchased at the level of ministries (for example,
INDIGO) and transferred to educational organizations.
In this article, the authors wanted to show that we should free ourselves from the il-
lusions and captivity of beautiful words contained in the Programs for the revolution-
ary transformation of education. We can move on to pedagogically justified planned
activity in the right direction (even with the available scarce technical means). At the
same time, without diminishing the importance of work on the development of mod-
ern technologies - artificial intelligence, virtual reality, big data, etc. – the authors
wanted to note that from the point of view of the problems of schools and universities
practice, it is undoubtedly more urgent to create a national educational communica-
tion system, to develop a networked computer multimedia testing system (possibly
with proctoring elements) of an accessible and convenient interactive video system
with the ability to post content in domestic clouds storage.
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