IS CAL FULLY INTEGRATED INTO METEOROLOGY INSTRUCTION?

- IT IS RATHER NOT.

Prof. Andrey Belotsercovsky
State Hydrometeorological University of the Russian Federation
St. Petersburg
Russia

Email: ab@avb.usr.rshmi.spb.ru
Tel: +(812)352-9233
Fax: +(812)444-6090

INTRODUCTION
ADVANTAGES OF CAL AND DISTANT LEARNING
WHAT IS BARRING CAL ADVANCE?
WHAT TO DO?

INTRODUCTION

The good news: Birthrate of smart people in every country depends on neither quality nor funding of higher education. The bad news: It is the rate of self actualization for the smart people that does heavily depend on both

In the industrial era we go to school, whereas in the information age school comes to us in form of CAL and distant learning

At least at one sixth of the Earth's land covered by the Russian Federation CAL is not fully integrated into meteorology instruction

ADVANTAGES OF CAL AND DISTANT LEARNING

You, folks, know them very well so let's not waste time and take them for granted

It's especially beneficial for higher education as well as continued and vocational training in Russia with its vast area, uneven distribution of educational centers and expensive travel

WHAT IS BARRING CAL ADVANCE?

Those willing to achieve seek for ways, those who not seek for excuses.

So let's talk about excuses. Results of a survey conducted at the State Hydrometeorological University of the Russian Federation reveal some barriers preventing more lecturers from introducing CAL into their courses and students from active using those materials

Trainers. Only 10% would use in their courses teaching materials developed by somebody else and 75% responded that they would unlikely use them. 15% would use the CAL materials full-scale, 83% would use them only supplementary . The main barrier mentioned by virtually everyone was a lack of time and/or expertise. Besides that the following barriers or disadvantages were mentioned:

Lack of resources and technical support for using CAL modules
Low motivation and inconsistency between low recognition and high investment of time and efforts needed for CAL development
Lack of pedagogical flexibility of CAL modules - preprogrammed feedback
Insufficient computer literacy in students
Fear of total administrative control
Resistance of older generations of teachers and administrators
Confusing number of authoring tools, their incompatibility and need for special software

Trainees.

Lack of resources, insufficient machines available
Fear of technology, lack of computer experience
Isolation of the learner
Lack of timely feedback from instructor
Need for greater motivation and self-discipline on the part of the learner
Need for additional training
Dependency on communication reliability

WHAT TO DO?

From the mathematical point of view, the problem of automated learning can be considered as the discrete control problem with the given final state S_kand set of admissible operations D , so that the operation d_j ÎD implemented at i-th step steers the learner from one state to another. In this case, the time during which the learner achieves the definite knowledge should be minimal

T(Sk, D) = min T(s0, s_k, d_j) (1)

where s₀- is the initial state of the learner (knowledge, skills), d_j- is the operation of the j-th sequence, i – is the index of transition, i = 1,..., k, j – is the index of admissible
sequence, j = 1,..., n.

It is apparent that this discrete optimization problem gives a clear answer to the question of what to do in order to overcome the above mentioned barriers.

Those who can't see the immediate answer in the eq. (1) (the author is among them) might examine some of the following considerations.

Elaboration of theoretical and methodological fundamentals for using CAL in professional activity of instructors is needed
Every instructor tends to develop his/her own scenario for teaching and individual style of activity, to create his/her personally experienced strategy for addressing the didactic problems
Some of the barriers will eventually fall down of their own accord as technology and computer literacy progresses
Meanwhile, there are some directions for action to assist in overcoming the others:

In CAL development emphasize should be placed on

The authoring tools: unified, Java based, user friendly and easy to learn

The existing CAL modules should be easily modified, expanded and tailor able

Criteria for CAL products evaluation: 1) effectiveness of the computer support, 2) methodological properties, 3) graphic design, 4) user interface, 5) modifiability

Organizational and financial measures

Raise recognition and visibility of CAL importance at all levels

Due to of extreme scantiness of resources raise funds and optimally allocate resources

Training of trainers

Creating a motivation for instructors

Arrangement of conditions for students