The Post-COVID-19 Impact on Distance Learning for New Zealand Teachers

This article reports on a survey of New Zealand teachers, designed to assess their experiences of distance learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The survey gathered detailed quantitative and qualitative data from 31 schoolteachers who had previously experienced professional development in digital learning. The questions addressed many areas of practice, including the issues faced by teachers in the move to online distance learning, the impacts on relationships with students, families, and other staff, the impacts on workload and practice, and the experience of working intensively with digital technologies. The results suggested that this group of relatively well-prepared teachers were able to effectively move their practice online in a short period of time and, in most cases, to maintain the relationships with, and the learning of, their students. However, there were some indications in the data that learners from the Māori community faced resource challenges in successfully transitioning to online distance learning.

Theoretical and practical assessments over SSH

During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities worldwide were forced to close, causing a shift from presential to remote classes. This situation motivated teachers to find suitable tools to evaluate students remotely, fairly, and accurately. However, currently available systems are either survey or exercise evaluation based, not suitable for competency-based assessments. Faced with this context and limitations of available evaluation systems, we developed TestsOverSSH, a system to devise, deliver, and automatically correct assessments performed in a Command Line Interface (CLI) environment. Unique assessments are generated per student when they access the proposed system via Secure SHell (SSH). TestsOverSSH is composed of shell scripts that orchestrate a series of tools and services that come pre-installed in Linux distributions. It can be used to construct multiple-choice or direct answer questions while also requiring students to perform tasks in the environment per se, namely computer programming or CLI manipulation-related assignments. We present examples of the question types in this system, explaining question formats and operating guidelines. Since the assessments are directly performed in the system, logs and command history can be easily retrieved while keeping information within student devices uncollected. We performed evaluations using this system in a real context and obtained student feedback through a custom survey and the System Usability Scale (SUS). Survey results and SUS score suggest that TestsOverSSH is an intuitive evaluation tool, with eased access and usage, making it applicable for e-learning. © The Author(s). 2023.

Game Applications on Modern Devices as Means of Activating Educational Activities

The rapid development of modern information and communication technologies affects all spheres of human life, including the educational sphere. Moreover, today the objective circumstance of the hard introduction of distance education and online learning technologies into the educational process is the global spread of the "new disaster” of the 21st century – COVID-19. Under completely new conditions, it is necessary to restructure the educational process and, in particular, its methodological component in a short time. But until recently, one could hear about the use of digital technologies, online learning, including distance learning, as an innovative form of the educational process, and now the use of digital distance learning technologies in education does not surprise anyone and does not raise doubts. Internet resources, computer and mobile technologies are widely used by teachers in the educational process, and therefore there is a need to study the possibilities of using modern information and communication technologies in teaching, in particular, in the field of teaching foreign languages. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Post-Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Satisfaction of Foreign Students with Telelearning in Russian Universities

Introduction. The influx of foreign students into domestic universities makes it possible to attract foreign intellectual resources, develop international cooperation and diplomacy, and tools for the principles of "soft power”. In this regard, the urgent task is to study the satisfaction of foreign students of Russian universities with the parameters of distance technologies in the environment of a digital alternative to the educational system of higher education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods. Qualitative and quantitative methods of scientific knowledge were used as a tool for multi-stage research. At the first stage, a general theoretical method of analyzing the results of domestic and foreign studies was used. At the second, empirical stage of the study, the authors reasonably used methods of sociological survey of foreign students (N = 760 people) studying at universities located in various constituent entities of the Russian Federation, as well as an induction method for the purpose of interpreting and summarizing the results of the survey. Results. The assessment of the level of satisfaction with foreign students with the parameters of telelearning at Russian universities made it possible to develop practical-oriented recommendations in the field of digital competencies, technological and resource opportunities for better conduct of the educational process in remote digital format for foreign students in Russian universities. Discussion and Conclusion. The conclusions made by the authors make a theoretical and practical contribution to the development of scientifically based approaches and methodological tools for studying the level of satisfaction of foreign students with the parameters of distance learning in Russian universities. The materials of the article will be useful to scientists and researchers involved in such problems, as well as federal and regional governments, ministries of education, universities. © 2022 National Research Ogarev Mordovia State University. All rights reserved.

Competitive programming in computational thinking and problem solving education

Building practical programming competency requires a long-lasting journey of discovery, trial and error, learning and improvement. This article presents essential findings of a case study of a Python programming contest with an automatic judgement system for Competitive Programming training extending the learning experiences for students in an introductory course, computational thinking and problem-solving. The benefits and challenges are discussed. Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, a hybrid model of the contest was adopted, that is, some students participated in the contest on-site, while others participated remotely. To alleviate human effort in judging the submissions, the DOMjudge platform, a web-based automatic judgement system, has been deployed as an online automatic judgement system and contest management in competitive programming. The implementation roadmap and framework were provided. The contest problems and contestants' performances were discussed. Not many junior contestants could solve at least one problem(s), and competitive computing training should be offered if the students are keen on open competitions. An empirical study was conducted to evaluate the student feedback after the contest. Preliminary results revealed that the contest offering the chance to stimulate student learning interests could enhance their independent learning, innovative thinking and problem-solving skills, and could thus lead to the overall benefits of the learning experiences, which further encourage them to participate in future contests to improve their learning and therefore enhance their employability. Employers often treasure student experiences in competitive programming events, like association for computing machinery programming contests, Google Code Jam or Microsoft Imagine Cup. Sharp vision requiring skills to tackle unseen problems within a short period is also instrumental to students planning for graduate school. © 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Quality of Educational Services in the Distance Format: Assessment of Moscow Higher Education Institutions' Students

The sphere of education was one of the first to experience the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and responded to the introduced restrictions by transferring all educational activities to the distance learning format. The gist of the problem is to preserve the quality of educational services in the transition to the distance learning format. The purpose of the study is to analyze students' assessment of the quality of educational services provided in the distance format by Moscow higher education institutions. The authors report the results of a survey of students from two universities, the Moscow State University of Food Production and the Russian State Social University. The survey sample includes 423 MSUFP students and 350 RSSU students studying in the full-time, part-time, and extramural forms of study. The time frame for the study is March-May 2022. The results obtained show that, according to students, the transition of the higher education system to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic was performed quite promptly and efficiently. However, the problem of the implementation of distance learning in teaching university students requires further work on both methods and technological instruments. The research results demonstrate that preservation of the quality of educational services in the transition to distance learning depends on the level of students' learning motivation, their readiness for independent studies, reliable means of communication (computers, laptops, tablets), high-speed communication channels and digital infrastructure of higher education institutions, and much more. The research findings suggest that the main problems faced by students as a result of the transition to distance learning can be classified into two groups. The first group is technical difficulties (Internet speed and quality of connection) and the lack of necessary gadgets (computer/tablet, and a headset for them), i.e. inability to communicate with the teacher. The second group includes problems of a personal nature: willpower, self-organization, motivation, and self-discipline. © 2022 by Cherkas Global University All rights reserved. Published in the USA

TRAINING OF ANDRAGOGES FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS USING DISTANCE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES br

The article updates the issue of continuous training of andragogues(specialists in the field of adult education) to perform professional functions by means of distance learning technologies in the conditions of domestic educational reforms, digital transformation of education, the global pandemic of Covid-19 and the declaration of martial law in Ukraine. The areas of use of information and communication technologies in the process of professional development are summarized, the study of frameworks and standards of digital competence of teachers in Ukraine and the world isanalyzed. In order to determine the functions of andragogues on the use of information and communication technologies in the conditions of open education, the main categories of andragogues of the professional development system have been singled out. Theresearch in the field of psychological and andragogical features of the training of pedagogical workers in the process of professional development has been analyzed. The functions of andragogues and their role in the organization of the educational process by means of distance technologies were defined. The model andresults of the experiment on the development of information and communication competence of methodologists of regional services as one of the categories of andragogues are highlighted. The pro cess of training andragogues at the next stage - methodologists and teachers of institutions of post-graduate pedagogical education, as well as teacher trainers on the implementation of the State Standard of Basic Secondary Education - is described. Subjects of trainings, which were used to provide scientific and methodological support to andragogues, distance learning technologies used during classes, exercises for formative assessment and ensuring interactive interaction of training participants, materials of the author's You Tube channel "ICT in Education" are proposed. It is concluded that the readiness of andragogues to use distance learning technologies largely depends on the activities of post-graduate education institutions, academies of continuous development, therefore scientific and methodological support of andragogues should be continuous and meet the requirements of educational reforms and digital transformation of education. The authors see prospects for further research in the continued training of certain categories of andragogues, in particular in establishing partnerships with employees of centers for professional development of teachers on the development of their digital competence;implementation of continuous training of teacher-trainers, development of their skills of working with adult students online;training of teachers of postgraduate education institutions to create high-quality digital content for distance learning courses and trainings

Pedagogical Problems of Distance and Traditional Education

This article provides general information about the distance form of education and its traditional type, which is popular in our country, especially during the pandemic of Covid-19, pedagogical and integration problems of these two systems were discussed on a scientific basis on the basis of a comparative analysis of international experience, and the advantages and disadvantages of the mechanisms of organization of education in these two formats were studied and relevant recommendations were made. Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved.

I do, I understand: engaging distance and campus students in sustainability through active learning: Association for Learning Technology Journal

Distance online learning connects students to education opportunities without having to be present at the institution offering the learning module. This case study involved development of a dual on-campus and distance course into a fully online course. It required a student-focused approach and an innovative application of learning technologies, additional resources and learning frameworks to encourage student engagement, independent learning and growth of critical-thinking skills. Changes to the design of the teaching approach and the use of technology improved the quality and quantity of interaction and communication between staff–students and students–students and facilitated a hands-on learning experience for online students interacting asynchronously. Student engagement with the course material, other students and teachers increased compared to previous years. Additional resource videos, learning and assessment guides (written and video), and online field trips helped develop critical-thinking skills and connectedness of learning to real-world applications. Recommendations are provided of learning approaches that could be used by other educators in different subject courses.

Student-Centered Online Assessment in Foreign Language Classes

In 2020 educational institutions in many countries had to implement online learning due to quarantine restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The research aims to study the peculiarities of the distance learning technologies used by Ukrainian foreign language teachers for formative and summative assessment and their impact on students. At the end of 2020, a survey about online resources used for creating different types of tasks for foreign language classes in Ukraine was conducted by the authors of the study, and the main characteristics of the most popular online resources were analyzed. According to the survey, to create assessment tasks the majority of Ukrainian teachers use the following platforms: Kahoot, Google Forms, Quizlet, Classtime, Quizizz, Socrative, Quizalize, Gimkit, Blooket, Liveworksheets, and Wizerme. Some of these resources provide a strong element of competition that makes them perfect for formative assessment, while the others better suit summative assessment as they have a clear interface without distracting elements. When designing online tasks for the assessment, teachers should also take into consideration the possibilities online resources provide to reduce their students' anxiety and stress caused by performing test tasks. © 2023 Sciedu Press. All right reserved.

Re-envisioning Maritime Education and Training - Technology facilitated lifelong learning for future ship operators

The increasing introduction of novel and digital technologies on-board ships is changing the landscape of work and the seafaring skill and competencies required to perform the job. The maritime industry currently finds itself in a dynamic evolutionary continuum culminating in the techno-saturated realm of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) of the future. This ongoing transition to future ships foregrounds the continuous and lifelong learning for seafarers to remain relevant as the industry irrevocably progresses and evolves. Meanwhile, the imperative incorporation of new technologies in Maritime Education and Training (MET) during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the traditional classroom-based teaching-learning process. Even though this accelerated technology adoption in MET was not free from challenges, it cemented the trend of technologically facilitated maritime blended learning and e-learning. This paper notes the need for lifelong learning in an industry in a flux and the maritime education system undergoing a transition. Seafarer training as we know today cannot serve the needs of future operators who would not be physically present on-board autonomous ships. This paper suggests that the proliferation of on-board technology needs to be complemented by technology in education and training. Furthermore, technology facilitated lifelong learning is imperative for current seafarers to remain relevant. © 2022 IAMUC. All Rights Reserved.

AREL – Augmented Reality–based enriched learning experience

In present era, teaching occur either on a chalkboard or on a projected power point presentation on the wall. Traditional teaching methods such as blackboards and power point presentations are being phased out in favor of enriched learning experiences provided by emerging edtech. With the closure of schools due to COVID-19, the demand for online educational platforms has also increased. Furthermore, some of the recent trends in edtech include personalized learning, gamification and immersive learning with eXtended Reality (XR) technologies. Due to its immersive experience, XR is a pioneering technology in education, with multiple benefits including greater motivation, a positive attitude toward learning, concrete learning of concepts, and so on. Existing Augmented Reality (AR) based education applications often rely on unimodal input such as marker-based trigger to launch the educational content. Hence, this work proposes a multi-modal interface to enable the content delivery through marker and speech recognition-based content delivery. Additionally, the proposed work is designed as mobile based AR platform with the regional language support to increase the ubiquitous accessibility of the AR content. Thus, the proposed mobile AR based enriched learning (AREL) platform provides a multi-modal mobile based educational AR platform for primary students. Based on the feedback received after the usage, it is observed that AREL improves the learning experience of the students. © 2022 International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO). All rights reserved.

The Need for E-Learning Standards for Online Laboratory Management Systems

E-Learning education, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs) have been ex-panding in the last decade. However, it increased in giant strides during the COVID-19 pandemic when the schools and universities did not have another option than to use remote education. Having a general understanding of E-Learning technology is not enough to implement an engineering virtual classrooms and laboratories. E-Learning standards are needed in all areas of E-Learning Systems such as online educational web applications, Learning Management Systems, and online labs, among others to gain interoperability, scalability, sustainability, security, privacy, and safety. The main objective of this paper is to discuss in general the current standards and technologies applied to E-Learning systems and analyze the need for a specific standards for Online Laboratory Management Systems (OLMS). © 2022 IEEE.

All Aboard: One Year of Accessible and Inclusive Remote School Trips

The rapid spread of the CoViD-19 pandemic in early 2020 and the adoption of social distancing and "stay-at-home"orders gave rise to the sudden need for schools to be able to provide effective remote teaching. In Italy and elsewhere, the introduction of distance learning technologies has significantly impacted the education of students and limited their social interaction and activities, among which are school trips and other scholastic experiences. To support the constrained educational possibilities of Italian schools, we developed "ActiveViewer", a technological platform that enables massive and interactive remote events, and performed a year-long large-scale experiment, providing a series of massive remote school trips to several Italian cities. We designed a new school trip format, named "CodyTrip"that merges coding and computational thinking with elements of traditional school outings, and provides an engaging experience for participants. In this paper, we present the format and five online trips performed during the school year 2020/2021. The results based on user feedback support the adoption of the tool not only as a stopgap measure for school outings throughout the pandemic but as an accessible and inclusive tool to widen the possibilities of cultural tourism. © 2022 IEEE.

University students’ approaches to online learning technologies: The roles of perceived support, affect/emotion and self-efficacy in technology-enhanced learning

In the context of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), the quality of students' learning is determined largely by their use of online learning technologies. Building on the framework of students' approaches to learning, this study investigated students’ approaches to online learning technologies (SAOLT) in relation to their perceptions of support, affect/emotion and self-efficacy in online learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a questionnaire survey of 7210 Chinese undergraduate students, SEM analysis revealed that perceived instructional support was positively related to the deep approach to online learning technologies and negatively related to the surface approach to online learning technologies. Perceived peer support and technical support were indirectly related to the deep approach to online learning technologies, mediated by affect/emotion and self-efficacy. The findings deepen our understanding of SAOLT and yield pedagogical implications for efforts to promote a deep approach to online learning technologies, thus fostering high-quality learning in the context of TEL.

On an Architectural Concept for Didactics in the Context of Constructive Alignment

In the wake of the massive digitalization in education brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, a vast variety of didactic concepts, methods, activities, tools and technologies came into use and are now widely discussed. However, a lack of clarity is observable, as to how these different concepts, activities and tools integrate into a big picture, when to use what, and which aspects have to be considered and addressed to create solutions that work effectively towards achieving specific learning and teaching objectives. To systematically structure this vast variety of didactic concepts, activities and tools, we introduce an architectural concept for didactics in the context of constructive alignment. We achieve this via an ion process, which clusters the existing didactic concepts, activities and tools, and specifies interrelations between the identified clusters. On this basis, it is possible to quickly adapt our model by subtractive customization, thus focusing on what is really needed within a specific teaching and learning situation.

Digital storytelling in online elementary science education: a case study on science and technology club activities

With the spread of online education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instructional technologies have gained importance. One of these applications is digital story, which is the presentation of a story specific to a particular subject using various digital multimedia such as visual, audio and video. This case study aimed to reveal the effect of the digital story-based Science and Technology Club on students' digital story performance and academic achievement in the science course and to examine the students' and teacher's reflections on digital story-based experiences. As data sources, interviews with 16 students, teacher's reflection notes, students' digital stories and students' science course grades were analyzed. The evaluation of digital stories showed that they performed best in providing relevance of the content to science but had problems integrating voiceover and music. The students' science course grades significantly increased. The results also revealedthat digital story-based activities encouraged them to research and learn new information and their audio-visual features facilitated their learning. Moreover, students expressed that the use of digital stories triggered their technology skills and improved their social skills. Despite its contributing and motivating features, they stated various difficulties because of spending a lot of time in front of the screen while using this application.

Wearable Sensors for Learning Enhancement in Higher Education.

Wearable sensors have traditionally been used to measure and monitor vital human signs for well-being and healthcare applications. However, there is a growing interest in using and deploying these technologies to facilitate teaching and learning, particularly in a higher education environment. The aim of this paper is therefore to systematically review the range of wearable devices that have been used for enhancing the teaching and delivery of engineering curricula in higher education. Moreover, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of these devices according to the location in which they are worn on the human body. According to our survey, wearable devices for enhanced learning have mainly been worn on the head (e.g., eyeglasses), wrist (e.g., watches) and chest (e.g., electrocardiogram patch). In fact, among those locations, head-worn devices enable better student engagement with the learning materials, improved student attention as well as higher spatial and visual awareness. We identify the research questions and discuss the research inclusion and exclusion criteria to present the challenges faced by researchers in implementing learning technologies for enhanced engineering education. Furthermore, we provide recommendations on using wearable devices to improve the teaching and learning of engineering courses in higher education.

Revisiting cognition and information technologies through a COVID-19 lens

This chapter explores the cognitive load students experience when technologies are added to their learning environments. Specifically, this chapter looks at one university's response to the COVID-19 global pandemic and the institution's need to pivot to online learning. Using a program review approach rather than a formal research study, findings suggest the university's decision to focus on understanding and improving the conditions for student learning rather than merely attempting to improve online teaching practices was well received. The program that was reviewed took an interesting approach to addressing the challenges of pivoting to online learning in March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, by developing a Transition Support Framework. Central to the framework was the development of Learning Design Intern (LDI) program for graduate students. The LDI program is explained and reviewed in this chapter. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Deep Neural Networks for Stock Market Price Predictions in VUCA Environments

The purpose of this paper is to examine the useful application of deep neural networks in stock price prediction in efficient markets and under Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments, especially in the covid-induced USA financial of 2021 crisis. VUCA environments such as stock markets have made it difficult to predict stock prices. This study investigates the usefulness of deep learning architectures in stock price prediction for S&P 500’s top 3 stocks namely Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. The Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (BLSTM) and Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BGRU) were implemented in this study and provided excellent accuracy results, the highest been 95.04% using the BGRU for Microsoft stock. The novelty of this study is the successful application of bidirectional deep neural networks to financial time series and forecasting of stock prices under financial crisis. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.