7 th Workshop Software Engineering Education and Reverse

7 th Workshop "Software Engineering Education and Reverse Engineering“ Risan, September 2007 Dušan Vučković – Faculty of Electronics, Niš Dragan Janković – Faculty of Electronics, Niš Katarina Milanović – Microsoft d. o. o. THE USE OF E-LEARNING IN THE FIELD OF CONTINUOUS EDUCATION OF INFORMATICS TEACHERS

Contents §Microsoft and education in Serbia §Cooperation between Microsoft and Faculty of Electronics in Niš §Education of high school teachers §e. Learning education of teachers §VB. NET e. Larning course – experiences §What next? §Conclusion

Microsoft and education in Serbia §Signed Memorandum of Understanding with Ministry of Education and Sports in 2004 §Promotion of digital literacy §One of the main Microsoft activities: Organisation of free courses for continuous education of teaching staff

Serbian Mo. E Strategy §Based on EU documents, Education development strategy from 2005 to 2010 formulated, Serbian Ministry of Education and Sports defines: the concept of continuous education of teachers is a part of overall policy and strategy of training and vocational education development §Continuous education of informatics teachers is necessary because of the frequent changes in informatics curricula, in accordance with the changes in the field of informatics

Cooperation and In 2004. –Microsoft IT Academy established at the Faculty of Electronics § In 2005. – Cooperation between Microsoft and Faculty of Electronics regarding education of teaching staff § Several courses for teachers and professors of elementary and high schools in Serbia organized § Transition to e-learning courses in 2006 §

Continuous developement of informatics teachers – the needs Computer science is an elective subject from 1 st to 8 th grade in Serbia § In high school, informatics is a regular subject (state approved program) in the 9 th and the 10 th grade of K -12 (computer literacy) and through various subjects of the 11 th and the 12 th grade (different programs and the number of classes depending on the educational profile, but generally dedicated to learning of programming and the implementation of specialized software packages in vocational subjects) § 37, 372 FTE teachers in high schools § 2, 000 informatics teachers in Serbia §

Classic education § § § Higher number of attendees from Serbia Free of charge courses Results of education – good Weaknesses – small number of attendees Absence from work – class compensation Significant T&E for schools or attendees

e. Learning education § § § § e. Learning VB. NET course prepared based on Microsoft materials Learning materials for teachers (attendees) Learning materials and Web site for students LMS distrubution and testing Homework Forum exchange experiences (best and worst practise) plus online community formed Final examination of new aplication Top list and prizes for motivation

LMS implementation Enables easy remote distribution of elearning content that can be employed in many ways § Possibility of individualized courses for continuous education of teaching staff § Results of learning are tracked and recorded in the database of continuous education of teaching staff and can be analyzed §

Goal and resources of the course § § § The goal of the online course – training of informatics teachers to help them provide quality programming teaching in VB. NET programming language We have author learning materials for students and teachers VB. NET course is diveded into 12 units Number of tests: 12 One individual final aplication in VB. NET

Portal

Number of page viewings per VB. NET course unit

Number of page viewings per lesson

Cumulative number of page viewings

Certificates

Results § § § Number of attendees - 369 Number of certified attendees - 75 Attendees from all around Serbia (Novi Sad, Gračanica, Kraljevo, Smederevo. . ) Overall satisfaction high Interest for new courses Significant experience in organizing new e. Learning courses

Experiences The teachers were not motivated for obtaining the certificate that is not acknowledged by the accreditation system for teachers in Serbia § The course duration of 4 months, with 12 units together with the tests and multiple working tasks (around 40 hours of work for teachers) was too long §

More statistics and conclusion Necessary investments in continuous education of teachers § Necessary investments in continuous education of informatics teachers § E-learning is practical solution for continuous education §