By Elena Vartanova
Overview
In the face of the need to rapidly transit to online distance learning, two main problems arose: technical competences and equipment of university teachers to transit to online learning, and psychological unavailability of teachers and students. In addition, the majority of teachers lacked the personal communication with students and colleagues and classroom contact. The group of elderly teachers had a hard time adapting to distance work because of the lack of stills and equipment.
The main conclusion is that a journalism teacher needs to master new technologies ‒ this is one of the conditions today to continue the profession.
Compliance with the schedule of classes in “pajama format” weakens students, creates a craving for procrastination, unsettles them from the learning rhythm, diminishes motivation, and forms a certain laziness when performing practical homework. Many teachers note that such a feature of the remote work implies the need to change the rhythm of communication and the structure of lectures and practical classes, to increase the entertainment of communication, to saturate the virtual space with visual elements and teaching materials. All these methodological “concerns” fall on the shoulders of a professor.
In general, it can be said that the educational situation in remote mode was comfortable for students who interacted with the teacher on various online platforms at a convenient time, being at home.
At the same time, students noted that they lacked direct contact communication and “live” offline dialogue with the teacher. There were problems with self-organization in the learning process.
We can distinguish both motivated, interested students who are ready for this form of education (technologically and content-oriented), and “drop-out” students who have not taken the new format of work seriously.
Distance learning has become a powerful impetus for all the participants of the educational process to increase their digital competence. It was carried out on various Internet platforms, both in-house and outside. The main platforms were: Big Blue Button, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet. Social networks Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, as well as Viber and WhatsApp messengers were used by teachers to communicate with students, send out assignments, discuss materials and projects they were working on. In the first days of distance learning, many teachers created closed groups and group chats in messengers for certain academic groups. This type of interaction with students allowed to preserve the continuity of the educational process as much as possible and supported the “full-time” format of training.
However, many teachers and students did not have any single educational platform and, with the loss of efficiency, they have to use several platforms.
The remote format required additional resources, effort, and time. It is especially difficult to master applied disciplines and practical work in this format: publication of an educational newspaper, media technology, television journalism, radio journalism, editing of media texts etc. Online is most relevant for teaching general theoretical courses, and special disciplines and practices are still more effective to master, being directly in the conditions of real media production. It is impossible to use professional hardware and software.
However, there are types of classes and educational technologies that contribute to the effective development of the profession: theoretical courses, disciplines related to the study of the experience of masters, group and individual projects, discussions.
Advantages
- The teacher more often controls students and their knowledge;
- Use the form of a webinar that actually replaces a classroom lecture (“the advantage of webinars was that since students were forced to write answers to my questions in the chat, many answers appeared at once and the guys saw each other’s options. When a student sees that 10 people answered correctly and one person answered incorrectly, it makes an impression and is remembered”);
- During the distance education, teachers created a lot of methodological materials and training toolkits, which significantly increased the funds of assessment tools for disciplines;
- Students have the opportunity to save and use the materials provided by the teacher at any time;
- individual projects that were discussed by the whole group later proved to be very good (for example, the a longread format)
- A number of academic subjects can be transited to the remote format. The general requirements have been formed and the platforms have been coped with;
- Convenient for classes with graduate students in the late hours, as well as with the Extension Department;
- If the technical side is adjusted and everyone has a well-functioning programme, distance learning could perfectly complement the training in the classroom. This applies to individual consultations, for example, course works and theses, retaking of exams in some disciplines, classes devoted to the analysis of mistakes in control papers.
Disadvantages
- The main problem of distance learning is the lack of opportunities for practical training. The reasons are the following: students have no access to professional sound recording, video shooting and audio-video editing equipment, it is impossible to form practical skills and techniques for working with professional equipment in remote format, even creation of detailed educational video materials will not solve the problem;
- Teachers failed to implement discussion practices where students were required to speak out and discuss. Even the most successful webinar platforms limit the free flow of conversation for several people, there are inevitable pauses, hitches, and loss of the thread of conversation;
- The form of a seminar was not also very successful compared to the opportunities of contact work;
- The problem was insufficient technical equipment of the students. Not all students had the opportunity to fully participate in various resources (there is no access to a desktop computer, there is no way to put an application on the phone, etc.), so the most frequent platforms for interaction were e-mail and the social network Vkontakte (that is, teachers used several resources in parallel, so as not to “lose” any of the students).проблема – недостаточная техническая оснащенность студентов;
- Not all teachers feel confident in the digital environment, and not all have the technical capabilities to use different platforms;
- The lack of a single platform on which to conduct classes, send out materials, interact with students, and record the results of ongoing monitoring and mid-term assessment led to teachers using multiple resources within even one subject. It seems to be very inconvenient, first of all, for students: they are forced to receive tasks, send completed tasks and participate in an interactive format on several resources at once (at least 5 resources for each student). Therefore, a possible further increase in the number of platforms seems to be a minus rather than a plus (students simply will not be able to complete all tasks on a weekly basis);
- It is almost impossible to control the viewing of pre-recorded lectures;
- A recorded lecture is static, not adapted to situational actual reference examples (in the situation with coronavirus, for example, information reasons that should have been used in lecture courses appeared constantly). A standardized, pre-recorded, or unified lecture is a different educational genre, additional material, or material for self-study or in-depth study, but not a substitute;
- ZOOM-conference often disconnects participants of communication (due to the format unusual for students and teachers and a rather mediated style of communication, where real faces are replaced with “black squares” or avatars, etc.);
- Gamification of the educational process may be of a private nature within a particular topic, but when implemented as a general practice, it levels the educational process to an attraction with a rapid loss of interest and efficiency of learning;
- There are areas that can be implemented online – data journalism, visualization and infographics, VR and AR, virtual reality and computer graphics technologies, fact-checking using Internet technologies, etc. But this is not the basis of journalism as a profession and social system;
- At least part of the training must be implemented in contact.
