APPLICATION OF THE MOODLE SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPING ONLINE MATH COURSE FOR UNIFIED STATE EXAM PREPARATION

ПРИМЕНЕНИЕ СИСТЕМЫ MOODLE ДЛЯ РАЗРАБОТКИ ОНЛАЙН КУРСА ПО МАТЕМАТИКЕ ДЛЯ ПОДГОТОВКИ К ОГЭ

Панина Кристина Ивановна

магистрант, кафедра математики, Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет,

РФ, г. Белгород

ABSTRACT

This article discusses active integration of remote learning to the school education system in preparing students for the Unified State Exam in mathematics. It contains a comparative analysis of the most famous online platforms: Moodle, iSpring, WebTutor, Teachbase, GetCourse, Memberlux, among which Moodle is preferred. This will reveal the pros of Moodle platform in development of an online mathematics course for preparation for the Unified State Exam.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье рассматривается активное внедрение дистанционного обучения в систему школьного образования при подготовке учащихся к основному государственному экзамену по математике. Производится сравнительный анализ наиболее известных онлайн-платформ: Moodle, iSpring, WebTutor, Teachbase, GetCourse, Memberlux, среди которых преимущество отдается Moodle. Выявляются преимущества платформы Moodle для разработки онлайн курса по математике для подготовки к ОГЭ.

Keywords: Moodle system, online math course, Unified State Exam, remote learning, mathematics.

Ключевые слова: система Moodle, онлайн-курс по математике, ОГЭ, дистанционное обучение, математика.

In the age of information technology, the idea of remote learning through the use of Internet is considered not only an additional source of information, but as a significant alternative to traditional education which allows students to gain more knowledge and practical skills while mastering various disciplines, including mathematics. In addition to the fact that mathematics is a compulsory subject in the school curriculum, it is also viewed as a relatively difficult subject for a large number of students. It is not a coincidence that the Unified State Exam (hereinafter – USE) in 9th grade is an important stage in the transition to high school or admission to a secondary specialized educational institution. Thus, along with the traditional teaching of schoolchildren, online education is being actively introduced through the use of various educational internet sources.

Indeed, information technology is rapidly increasing their role in all spheres of life, including the education system. At the same time they are a powerful tool that, if properly applied, can dramatically improve the quality of education of a modern student. Nowadays every teacher is faced with the acute question of how to prepare students to successfully pass the USE in mathematics.

To ensure comfortable conditions for preparing schoolchildren for the USE in mathematics, it is proposed to use online platforms for processing a bank of exam tasks. Currently, a considerable number of ways to implement distance learning have been developed, but the most widely used is learning based on the use of network technologies. The basis of learning in this case is the use of electronic network courses – online courses.

It should be noted that most of existing online courses are aimed primarily at paid education, which narrows the target audience; most platforms are also aimed at a wide range of training in mathematics for 9-11 grades, which makes it difficult for students in 9th grade, since preparation material is the same as what is offered by the school curriculum. This is why there is a problem of developing your own online course to prepare for USE in mathematics on a free basis. Therefore, an important task arising during the development of online course to prepare for USE is choosing the optimal platform on the basis of which the online course will be developed. The competent solution of this contributes to the implementation of its basic principles, such as interactivity, and individualization of education. There are a large number of education platforms and we analyzed the most famous ones: Moodle, iSpring, WebTutor, Teachbase, GetCourse, Memberlux [4-9].

The analysis of platforms gives the idea that the Moodle system is without a doubt a good choice for the development of an online course for preparation for the USE in mathematics, since the platform is entirely free and supports video, audio files, documents, the ability to create tests with different answer options, to conduct dialogue with the teacher, etc.

This position is supported by G.E. Kedrova and V.V. Muromtseva stating that the leader among computer educational platforms is undoubtedly Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). The platform, which is best suited for conducting various forms of both remote and traditional learning, has successfully competed for a long time with a commercial product of similar functionality – the Blackboard virtual learning environment. For obvious (primarily economical) reasons, today the Moodle system is dominant in the Russian Federation [2, p.93].

From viewpoint of the authors I.A. Belous and A.Ya. Chupalov, the Moodle system is one of the most powerful and widespread e-learning environments on the market today. It is distributed under the open source GPL4 license. On its basis you can configure a specialized e-learning system that will best meet the needs of this educational institution. Moodle supports over 40 languages, including Russian. Many educational resources: sites and courses – have been created and are successfully functioning on its basis. The popularity of this tool can be estimated by the statistical data provided on the official website of the project:

• About 100,000 registered educational sites;
• The number of users is close to 130 million;
• The number of courses created is over 14,800,000;
• Used in 232 countries [1, p.88].

So, based on research of the above authors, we note that the main advantages and features of the Moodle system are following:

1. The system is entirely free and ready for implementation.
2. Free distribution and open source code. This factor is very important for educational institutions (in particular, universities), which are able to conduct their own software development. The open architecture of the system allows you to fill it with custom modules and customize the program code for the specifics of a given organization and the current situation.
3. Software development

The Moodle system is a dynamically developing software environment. Members of the international Moodle community participate in its creation: users, programmers, system administrators and organizations. This ensures continuous improvement of the system and its compliance with modern and perspective requirements of e-learning.

4. Easy installation, configuration and administration of the system.

Moodle is easy to install and doesn’t have high requirements for hardware and system software. Moodle runs on major modern operating systems: Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Netware and others. Requirements for computing system resources are very modest by modern standards.

5. Functional completeness. Moodle allows you to implement all the main functions of a modern e-learning platform. Experience shows that in the Moodle environment it is possible to develop any modern didactic methodology and even experimental pedagogical technologies.
6. Scalability. System doesn’t have significant “dimensional” restrictions. It is suitable for working in the environment of a small educational organization (school, college, etc.) and can serve as a technical basis for organizing the educational process in a large university, numbering thousands of students and hundreds of e-courses and trainings [3; 6].

To sum this up, we can conclude that the development of an online mathematics course using the Moodle system in order to prepare for USE allows students to study and prepare according to an individually composed plan using audio and video information, while being able to communicate with the teacher and students remotely at a convenient time, if necessary. Another advantage is that students can improve their skills in using modern information and communication technologies, and most importantly, carry out an independent preparation for successfully passing the Final State Certification.

References:

1. Belous I.A. Comparative analysis of modern systems of distance learning / I.A. Belous, A. Ya. Chupalov // Vestnik MGPU. Series: Informatics and Informatics of Education. – 2019. – No. 3 (49) – p.88-89.
2. Kedrova E.G. Current state and directions of development of distance learning systems / G.E. Kedrova, V.V. Muromtsev // Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Series Economics. Control. Right. – 2017. – No. 4. – p. 88-101.
3. Ritskova I.R. Development of online courses for additional general education programs through the implementation of e-learning. Methodical recommendations / R.I. Ritskova, A.B. Razumova, E.P. Nechiporuk, E.F. Shklyaruk; under total. ed. A. V. Zolotareva; Yaroslavl: YaGPU im. K. D. Ushinsky, 2018 – 115 p.
4. Ispring Official Site [Electronic source]. – URL: https://www.ispring.ru/ (request date 09/14/2021).
5. Getcourse official website [Electronic source]. – URL: https://getcourse.ru/ (request date 10/01/2021).
6. Moodle official site [Electronic source]. – URL: https://moodle.org/ (request date 09/15/2021).
7. Memberlux official site [Electronic source]. – URL: https://memberlux.ru/ (request date 09/21/2021).
8. Teachbase official website [Electronic source]. – URL: https://teachbase.ru/ (request date 09/17/2021).
9. WebTutor official site [Electronic source]. – URL: https://www.webtutor.ru/ (request date 09/21/2021).