«MODERN SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGES AND TRENDS»
SCIENCECENTRUM.PL
ISSUE 3
ISBN 978-83-949403-3-1
43
Implementation of the blended learning program involves a host of benefits
for students to gain. The initial obvious advantages which blended learning
program offersare characterized by the remarkable knowledge of computer
technology and overcoming of the psychological barrier when facing the new
information technologies. Furthermore, this formal education program does not
necessitate learners being in the classroom at exact times. Namely, flexibility and
freedom to learn anywhere and anytime is the vivid benefit the program covers. In
addition to what has been stated as yet, blended learning program does not cause
the need for students to experience high costs. The virtual non-existence of
restrictions for any age groups of learnersto use blended learning program is the
other huge advantage to highlight. Moreover, development of the skills and abilities
including the capacity for reflection, comparison, synthesis and analysis, identifying
relationships and finding solutions to complex problems, planning and group
interaction might be regarded to be the other major requisites of blended learning.
However along with the above mentioned advantages of blended learning
program there are some problematic issues with it. In the beginning, even if the
university succeeds to establish a normal system of blended learning education,
there still remain factors that cannot be fully taken into account. For instance,
multimedia application cannot identify individual needs and learning difficulties and
therefore cannot respond to students like a teacher. Accordingly, insufficient
number of verbal communicationsbetween students and teachersmight breed a
gross distortion of some specific terms. To put it briefly, computers cannot replace
the full-time teaching, but only expand its opportunities.
In Blended Learning program, new teaching methods emerge with new tools
available for both the teacher and students to support learning such as forums,
chats, blogs, discussion boards, online seminars, web and audio conferencing,
online simulators and so on. Hence,the teacher and studentscan interacteffectually
through these online tools tailored to the needs of the education market.
There are a broad range of platforms to be utilized in blended learning. The
most popular ones are Moodle, Blackboard, Ermodo, Kahoot, Otus and
Blendspace. Among these, the accessibility of Moodle platform is highly noteworthy
owing to a reasonably simpleinterface. Thus with the users of 90 million at present
time, Moodle is one of the most widely used learning platforms. To give an instance
of it, successfully selected master‘s degree students of Uzbek State World
Languages University initiated experiencing the MA Blended learning program
which was implemented in the framework of TEMPUS Project using the Moodle
platform. To elucidate the program more in detail, it is worth to clarify the modules
included in the course such as ―English Language Improvement‖, ―Technology and
Language Teaching‖, ―Course Design and Evaluation‖, ―Language Teaching
Methodology‖ and ―Age Appropriate Pedagogy‖. This cannot be further from the
truth to regard the modules as having been utterly useful for the MA Blended
learning program participants to enhance the professional arsenal by modern know-
how of teaching and integration of technology in this very sphere. Needless to
mention that Blended learning has been entirely new concept and thence in the
beginning there were some problems related to the accessibility to the modules and
behind-the-scene technical issues. However, these were only marginal problems
which were soon neglected. The structure of the course was linear that every
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