International Scientific Conference Computer Science2011

Information technology, e-learning and web 2.0 tools as a means of training and education and the new Internet platform for science education Scientix
Tsetsa Hristova
PG po KTS, Pravets, Bulgaria, tzetza@gmail.com

Abstract: The term e-learning refers to interactive learning in which electronic technologies are woven throughout the learning process - preparation, presentation and verification of information. In accordance with the objectives of the Lisbon declaration and with the affirmation of the European Commission that there is a need to promote more widely inquiry based science education methodologies in primary and secondary schools and to support teachers networks, Scientix, a new web-based information platform for science education in Europe whose aim is to ensure the regular dissemination and sharing of progress, know-how, and best practices in the field of science education and providing a feedback mechanism has been launched. Scientix is a three year project run by European Schoolnet (EUN) on behalf of DG Research, and funded under the 7th Framework. Keywords: Scientix, DG Research, European Schoolnet, science education, teaching materials, project reports, community for science education in Europe, resources, e-learning, web 2.0 tools.

1. INTRODUCTION E-learning is becoming more important for the training of young people. Leading role remains that of the teacher who structuring and prepares curriculum. The idea of e-learning is not to replace the live contact and can be combined with other teaching methods to enhance the effectiveness of the educational process. Very important part of e-learning is the knowledge of the capabilities of various ICT products: Very important part of e-learning is the knowledge of the capabilities of various ICT products: 2. ICT PRODUCTS TO CREATE WEB PAGESAND FOR E-LEARNING One of the most used IT products for creating WEB pages and for e-learning are: 2.1.Macromedia Dreamweaver - a graphical web page editor, offers web designer to work with text, images, flash objects and other items and works on the principle that WYSIWYG means "What you see is what you get". 2.2. Joomla - system for content management (CMS), which will help you create your own website. Joomla is free and accessible to all. http://joomla-bg.com/ 2.3. HTML (HyperText Markup Language), is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML is the basic building-blocks of webpages. 2.4. Moodle - a very good system for e-learning, which is also open source. . Can be used both for self and for learning and testing.

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http://moodle.org/ 2.5. Hot potatoes - another free program for making a test. This is a open source program, if you have registered to use it for non-commercial purpose: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/index.htm 2.6.Smart board - the dream of every teacher is "Smart board". SMARTs award-winning products help teachers bring more collaboration and interactivity into the classroom. Details can be found at: http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/ http://www.tomsnyder.com/whiteboard/ 2.7. WebCT- for e-learning 2.8. Blackboard - for e-learning, which are commercial and expensive 3. OTER ICT PRODUCTS: 3.1. Power point for presentations. 3.2. MathType - provides a very good opportunities for writing complex formulas. 3.3. Video point offers accessible, hands-on learning through motion analysis of digital video. It can be integrated into the physics classroom in many different ways: http://www.lsw.com/videopoint/ 3.4. WIX for animation: http://www.wix.com/ 3.5. Scribd Scribd is a website for sharing documents, which allows users to publish documents of different formats and build them into a web page using the iPaper format. It can be picked up Power Point presentations, word documents and a larger volume: http://www.scribd.com/ 3.6. Photo sharing: http://picasa.google.com/ 3.7. Photo story 3 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.m spx 3.8. Google.doc To share documents and filling both shared documents. https://docs.google.com/

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3.9. WEB page maker - For making web pages: http://www.webpage-maker.com/ 3.10. SurveyMonkey help users to create their own Web-based surveys https://www.surveymonkey.com/ 3.11. Internet Internet offers many opportunities to seek information. 4. WEB 2.0 TOOLS Web 2.0 tools apply to the second generation of Web-based services such as websites, social networks (social networks), wikis, communication tools and more. where online collaboration, collaboration and sharing between users is important. The most typical examples of Web 2.0 applications are Youtube, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, WordPress, Wikipedia, EBay, Flickr and others (Tab 1). 4.1. Web 2.0 for education To use the WEB 2.0 tools in schools are most appropriate:
For sharing media For media manipulation: For talk For social networking: For blogs: http://youtube.com/group/reteachers http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast http://www.zentation.com http://www.gliffy.com http://www.thumbstacks.com http://www.yoono.com http://www.think.com/en http://www.bbc.co.uk/onionstreet http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/forum http://apps.facebook.com/mynewport http://www.schoolnetglobal.com http://learnhub.com http://www.blogspot.com/ http://edublogs.org http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/pivot http://blogs.longeaton.derbyshire.sch.uk http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk http://www.nature.com/blog http://www.bibsonomy.org http://www.citeulike.org http://www.ratemyteachers.com http://www.google.com/docs http://scribblewiki.com/main.php http://thinkature.com http://www.bubbl.us http://www.virtual-whiteboard.co.uk http://www.britishcouncil.org/etwinning.htm http://www.skoolaborate.com http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki http://knowhomeschooling.com http://westwood.wikispaces.com http://www.squidoo.com

For social notes:: For recommendations For collaborative editing

Wiki:

Tab. 1: Web 2.0 for education

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4.2. Web 2.0 tools as a means of training and education Example of using e-learning and WEB 2.0 tools is an international Comenius project entitled "E-Learning and web2 tools as a means to improve education outcomes and establishing international cooperation." This project involved 9 countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. In this project for two years students from 9 countries have the opportunity to discuss different topics related to teaching, school integration, friendship, a favorite movie, book, novel, to present the city, their country, traditions, etc. . For this purpose use the power of blogs:
http://elweb2.wordpress.com/ http://2009elweb.wordpress.com/about/pm-in-bulgaria-sept-%E2%80%9809/

Before each meeting they are introduced, introducing oneself in blog and decide test conducted using the platform "moodle" related to cultural and historical circumstances and geographical realities of the country. This type of test is called webquest, because their main objective is to self-educate user. In the test itself is given a link to the appropriate web page. This way of doing tests is easy to obtain an initial knowledge when no assessment is necessary. By user name: comenius and password: comenius can have access to the project system "moodle" and to make tests. On some topics, and studies were made in the form of test which are also posted in these web pages.
http://moodle.unitus.it/moodle/course/view.php? id=92 http://www.elweb2.golink.pt/

Fig. 1: Project web page

5. SCIENTIX PROJECT In accordance with the Lisbon Declaration for sustainable socio-economic growth in Europe by truly knowledge based society and to support teaching of science in December 2009 launched a new Web-based information platform for science education in Europe - Scientix. Its purpose is to ensure regular dissemination and sharing of progress, know-how and best practices in science education and provide a feedback mechanism. In Europe only 22% of students aged 20 to 24 study Maths, Science and Technology subjects (MST). It is a concerning observation considering the commonly agreed need of an adequate output of scientific specialists, especially among women, as pointed out in the Lisbon Declaration of March 2000. This targets were translated into specific objectives including one that highlighted the need to increase the number of trained (and employed) researchers and science professionals in Europe. This, in turn, focused attention on its activities to make school science more attractive to young people.

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File Scientix is a three year project managed by European Schoolnet (EUN) on behalf of DG "Research" and financed under the 7th Framework Programme. http://scientix.eu portal is available in six European languages. Main user groups are teachers, but the audience is much wider - from scientists and researchers to students, parents and politicians and all stakeholders.

Fig. 2: The Scientixs portal

The project offers a repository of hundreds of resource material from European projects, research reports and opportunities for access to documents, the possibility of filing an application for translation of training materials to each of the 23 languages of the European Union. Platform offers online communication, including forum and chat rooms, online news included international scientific topics related to education and a calendar of upcoming events. A valuable addition is the possibility of online training and receive regular monthly newsletter for registered users. Platform is a dynamic and focused on consumers. . [2] GrasVelzquez, ., Joyce, A., Kirsch M. et al. (2009)

Details of the use of online resources for teaching physics and astronomy can be seen on my poster (Fig 3) for the Scientixs conference in Brussels:

http://files.eun.org/scientix/posters/Scx_poster-Tsetsa_final. pdf

International Scientific Conference Computer Science2011

Fig.3: The Scientixs conference poster

The main event of Scientix was the conference take place in Brussels on the 6-8 May 2011. There was 369 participants from 37 countries, 53 speeches, 32 posters, 25 EU projects presented, 14 sessions, 10 Mini workshops, 2 Round tables. In the epilogue Marc Durando, EUN Executive Director outlined the future strategy of the EU in relation to the teaching of MCT. Uploaded online presentations from the conference are here: http://www.scientix.eu/web/guest/conference/presentations-online 6. CONCLUSIONS A bridge among researchers and teachers at schools is open. Teaching materials are offered. Teachers are learning how to improve science education at schools. Policy-makers and education managers also are using the portal. Scientix community is growing and we hope good practices in science teaching will spread in Europe. Promoting MST and ICT education in Europe is all about challenges. A first challenge would consist in trying to convince each protagonist at the top of the learning scene (Ministries of Education, other public bodies, teachers) that MST education is necessary, but also that using new methods such as LR and ICT-based tools in the classroom has a positive impact on enhancing teachers science teaching and pupils learning in MST education. There is also a need to convince teachers that there is no better way to teach Maths, Science and Technology subjects and see lasting results among students than through using hands-on, inquirybased learning methods. European Commission plans to invest more in education and research Investing today for growth tomorrow. 7. REFERENCES
[1] Durando, M., Wastiau, P., & Joyce, A. (2009), Women in IT: The European situation and the role of public private partnerships in promoting greater participation of young women in technology, Special Insight Report (Online), Available at http://www.xplora.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/specialreports/women_in_it.htm [Accessed: 16 September 2010] [2] Gras-Velzquez, ., Joyce, A., Kirsch M. et al. (2009), Insight Report, Inspire: Motivating Students for Maths, Science & Technology using Learning Resources (Online), Available at http://inspire.eun.org/images/2/22/Inspire_Report_final-insight-report.pdf [Accessed 21 September

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2010] [3] Scientix: The new Internet based community for science education in, E. Gerard, . GrasVelzquez, EUN Partnership AISBL (BELGIUM)