The Potential of the Digital Educational Environment to Enhance Distance Education in Ukrainian School
摘要
The chapter describes the potential of the digital educational environment to support and enhance distance education in Ukrainian schools. The overall digitalization of education and challenges faced by Ukrainian teachers and pupils forced the implementation of digital education all over Ukraine. The post-COVID period was changed by war conditions that led to critical changes in the Ukrainian education system as well as in society. New approaches and new technologies of teaching and learning processes became the focus of education policymakers and teachers: the variety of distance methods that teachers started to apply to provide classes revealed the urgent need to create and develop an effective digital educational environment in schools. This article shows the examples and the components of such an environment, in particular the automated management systems, educational hubs, STEM laboratories and the potential of these instruments. Based on the positive lessons learned and experience of the use of mentioned components the principles and criteria of the effectiveness of the digital educational environment are substantiated. Therefore, the criteria, in particular, include compliance with the needs of the target audience; availability of users’ instructions; logical structure and clear sequence regarding the support of the educational process; the educational focus of content and tools; availability of content for students with special educational needs; availability of modern software and hardware tools that provide free and safe access to digital content; convenient and simple interface; consistency of data that can be used by different consumers; safety of the environment and availability of means of personal data protection; the possibility of expanding and improving the environment; availability of digital means of monitoring educational processes in the educational institution. It is recommended that the proposed criteria be applied in the monitoring process of the effectiveness of the school’s digital educational environment.