Distance learning?

The Governmental program "DIGITAL KYRGYZSTAN" for 2019-2023 year indicates that “Creating a Digital Society” assumes the ensuring long-run sustainability, the starting digital transformation of the country through the increase of the development of the human capital level, which also requires digital transformation of Education with an outperforming rate. In Kyrgyzstan, the same to the rest of the world, a digital generation has evolved, which is called the “generation of the seven screens” – the TV, computer, laptop, tablet, phablet, smartphone, and smartwatch. As a result of such dense of the digital environment and constant interaction with it, “the new generation of students think and perform the data-handling procedures in a fundamentally different way from the previous generation”. / Marc Prensky /

 

The digital generation cannot and should not be taught in the same way as their parents had been taught. It is not a good idea to teach this generation writing on a blackboard with white chalk. At the same time replacing the blackboard with a white one, and the chalk with a marker doesn't change things, meaning that, this is not the way to motivate students of today to gain knowledge and to develop skills for successful integration on the job market.

 

What is needed to be done – is adapting of the educational system to the digital generation by massive and effective application of ICT-based innovative educational technologies and didactic models, giving the opportunity for EVERYONE to learn on 24/7 FORMAT at ANY place with the help of ANY lecturer using ANY device (computer, laptop, tablet, phablet, smartphone, etc.).

 

At the same time, it is necessary to use the research approach of teaching more actively, aiming to develop students' research skills, creative thinking skills, and abilities based on IT-competencies. But we have to emphasize that information and communication technologies that are not a panacea to all problems in the education system but are just tools which could make lectures and seminars more informative and more attractive to the digital generation.

 

Educators will retain their key role in an interactive teaching process-oriented to learners' needs. Here we should also mention that the reputation of an educator and the effect of his/her activities will depend more and more not only on his/her level of mastery of the course content and on his/her pedagogic competence, but also on the extent to which he/she applies modern information and communication technologies for collecting, processing and delivering the specific teaching material. In other words, education in the digital era has to be redefined, and the educational paradigm must be shifted because learners do not want to study the traditional way anymore and educators should not keep on teaching in the conventional way.