Origen - Origin

Origen - Origin

by Moira Doyle -
Number of replies: 11

Hola a todos! Brevemente les contamos como surgio esta idea de crear una materia en educacion a distancia en Meteorologia en Argentina. Ha sido un gran desafio en el que habia muchas expectativas porque a su vez es la primer materia a distancia que se crea en la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Miren nuestro video en el DIA 1 de Experiencia en Educacion a Distancia en Meteorologia y los esperamos en este foro donde queremos escuchar sobre el origen de sus materias a distancia.

Hi everyone! In our first day we share with you how the idea of creating a disntance learning course in Meteorology came to life. It has been a great challenge with much expectation since it has been the first distance learning course to be created and dictated in our Faculty of Science in the University of Buenos Aires. Watch our video in DAY 1 of Experience in Distance Learning in Meteorology and share your experience in this Forum.

Moira

In reply to Moira Doyle

Re: Origen - Origin

by Marines Campos -
Hola Moira,
Nuestro curso de observador meteorológico de superficie a distancia fue muy bien recibido por los participantes distribuidos a lo largo de todo el país. Coincido con vos en el tiempo y trabajo que demanda la preparación, dado que hay que desarrollar el material y las activ. Es importante que esto se tenga en cuenta en las propuestas y planes para que sean realistas.

Our online course (for surface weather observer) has been well received by the participants. It was necessary to work in an interdisciplinary team. Distance learning opens great opportunities . Yes, it demanded hard work, much more than what we had imagined.This should be taken into account in future proposals and plans. Saludos Marinés
In reply to Marines Campos

Re: Origen - Origin

by Moira Doyle -

Hola Marines

Gracias por compartir tus experiencias. Si, verdaderamente armar una materia a distancia demanda mucho tiempo. Es un trabajo muy enriquecedor del cual aprendemos mucho, especialmente cuando trabajamos con personas de otras disciplinas que nos hacen cuestionar lo que muchas veces damos por supuesto!

Hi Marines

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Preparing a distance learning course from scratch is very demanding. However it is also very enriching and we learn a lot from it, specially from working with people from other disciplines who question things that many times we take for granted.

In reply to Moira Doyle

Re: Origen - Origin

by Larisa Nikitina -

Hi, Moira! Thank you!

It is extremely interesting to see how all this started and what happened at the end :)

In Russia we are very close to your problem of very soon retiring personal, we too have a luck of meteorologists, but for other reasons. Lucky we that we have a very great Russian State  Hydrometeorological University with a very good specialized education.

But our need of distance learning of advanced forecasters is very high as we have so big territory (1/6 part of Eath land), huge number of forecasters (only aviation forecasters are about 1000 people) and 11 different time zones! it is not so easy to have all forecasters to be trained only in classrooms! :)

So I am really eager to see what happens next and for sure looking forward for your experience in Distance Learning!

 

Lara

In reply to Larisa Nikitina

Re: Origen - Origin

by Moira Doyle -

Hi Lara!!! Thanks for sharing with us in this session on Distance Learning. Filling in gaps people who retire leave is quite a task. And by the numbers you are talking your problem is according to your country's size. It would be quite a task for us to train 1000 forecasters!!! We receive only about 50 students per year and only about 1/5 get their degree each year, and many stay to get a PhD. These scholarships are a great possibility but there are about 20 each year, quite few but persisting in time the gap will be smaller.

Hope to hear some more from you these days

In reply to Moira Doyle

Re: Origen - Origin

by Izolda Marcinonienė -

Good morning, Moira and All team,

Argentina, Russia, USA-the biggest countries and teaching online is really one of solutions to train  a huge amount of forecasters. Here, in Lithuania, one of the small Eastern Baltic countries, we have only 25 operational forecasters (marine, aviation and general-public). There are no distance learning organized at Lithuanian HMS. Mostly we train specialists face-to-face. These courses (usually1-3 days) involve people who attended blended or class phase trainings and share their experience or knowledge to the rest colleagues. Or trainings are organized by people who implemented a new sofware, technics, workstations or methods.

We use distance learning since 2005 -2006. The main advantages and reasons are:

1.Due to a small number of weather forecasters it is impossible to send 2-3 specialists abroad for 1-2 weeks. Who will change them at work then?

2. Distance learning saves money and time: it is much more cheeper (even if we pay some fee) than face-to-face way. Do not need to spend time on trips.

3. This learning is very flexible-it could be recorded and people on shift could listen lectures when they are free

4.Much more specialists could be educated by high qualified teachers (round the world!)

5.They learn not only the main material presented but also learn how to use Moodle tools, students tools, virtual libraries, links etc.

6. Some meteorologists feel more confident online and even could make presentations easy and know how to practise teachers tools online

7. Usage of forums make people more communicative, keep contacts with a big audience, discuss, exchange their material

....No doubt, I vote for DISTANCE LEARING:)

Izolda

 

 

 

In reply to Izolda Marcinonienė

Re: Origen - Origin

by Larissa Timofeyeva -

Hi all

I would like to join your conversation )

(It is nice to be again with Izolda and Lara - Thanks to the hardworking Argentinian Team)

Izolda, you seem to be a really experienced distance-learning user!  

I  first knew about this 3 years ago, at Train the Trainers workshop. That was a challenge! Since then I have been studying this approach (Coursera, for example, offers some courses on Virtual learning).

No doubt, for certain audience and some subjects this kind of learning can be the most appropriate. There are different not face-to-face modes - on-line learning, virtual learning, distance learning - and these terms are often confused. 

At Russian State Hydrometeorological University we have a traditional Distance learning Department for years. Students from different places (often rather remote) study at their places on their own according to the Study Plan and must go to Saint Petersburg for 1 month face-to-face session 1-2 times a year. Of course, even for prosperous students these sessions are hardly survivable, they have to do too much. 

I think, blended learning/teaching could help a lot in this situation. But as far as I understand from my own experience (and from your shared opinions) it is not easy - to create a proper course, especially aimed at a Degree. 

You are right, there should be an interdisciplinary team, ready to work hard and collaborate for a long time. 

Anyway, DL in Russia is officially approved and  has  the  legislative basis required. In 2012,  a Federal Innovative Site for creating an international distance system of long life education in applied hydrometeorology started to operate at RSHU. It is quite fruitful.

Oh, I am too talkative ) At the end I would like to add that my experience as an on-line learner is quite positive. Right now I am waiting for the results of my sixth free Pedagogical course at  Coursera.  

Sure, I am a fan of DL and vote for it as well )

 

 

In reply to Larissa Timofeyeva

Re: Origen - Origin

by Larisa Nikitina -

I agree with Larissa that we often mix up the different events – distance learning and e-learning (on-line or virtual learning).

Larissa gave a good example of a distance learning in the University that is very usual in Russia. She is working in RSHU with mostly students. Whilst I am working with advanced operational forecasters, so my area of interest is mostly e-learning, that is most suitable for the on-shift forecasters.

I also agree very much with Izolda`s list of advantages and challenges of DL (and e-learning too!).

I attach the presentation that I made after we had started in 2013 the first on-line weather briefing in Russia as a kind of e-learning for the advanced forecasters. It was a great experience and a great success! I hope we can soon move further.

So that is why I am so excited to know about other experiences! And I like so much what Argentina`s team is doing!

 

Lara

In reply to Larisa Nikitina

Re: Origen - Origin

by Wilfried Jacobs -

Dear colleagues,

To build a distant learning seminar from the beginning is really challenging. However, a lot of material and of experiences already exist. In the frame of EUMETCAL and EUMeTrain (and may be other organisations/projects) blended seminars have been offered since years, e.g., radar meteorology since 2009, satellite meteorology since 2011.

Additionaly, pure online seminars have been offered since years: Aviation, high impact weather and probably many others. Additionaly, EUMeTrain offers so-called event weeks about a special topic. They include a series of online presentations. Then you will have access to socalled case studies and CAL-modules

And we should not forget COMET. There is not only excellent material but also excellent courses for self study.

Almost everything is freely available. This material could be used as an idea or as a starting point for your own training. The only problem for some of you might be that the target group are mainly forecasters and rather seldomly hydrologists. However, the amount of training for the latter will be increased.

Thank you for reading, best regards,

Wilfried.

In reply to Moira Doyle

Re: Origen - Origin

by Moira Doyle -

Thank you Lara, Larissa and WIlfrid for sharing with us. Its really great to hear about your experiences and ideas, I am learning a lot from you all.

In Argentina many of us use COMET material for our classes, it is wonderful to have access to it. Next week you will have a better insight to the course we created and how we used moodle platform. Our course is quite extense, it is divided in 11 units which are presented on a weekly basis to our students. I will say no more for now, you will have to wait until next week for more. Cheers and keep sharing in this forum

Moira

In reply to Moira Doyle

Re: Origen - Origin

by Marines Campos -
I agree with you all, we started head on our online Weather Observer course including basic meteorology ( lasting 1year and a half- observations being carried our in situ). Many other courses have been adapted to online mode, Our greatest difficulty was updating resources to suit online format, incorporating new learning resources, trying new things. We are also fond of Comet in many ways and appreciate all the resources that important organizations share with the world, it is wonderfull, inspirational , leading the way!. In Argentina there is a very solid foundation of researchers and teachers at the University who are all very busy. But for most in service courses we must build our own material . this implies a great effort but the results are encouraging. The material on online courses become public , not like a professor giving his own lessons.
If there is a chance of outreach provided online , how can we not use it? We must find a way to value the development of teaching resources in meteorology.
saludos.

De acuerco con todos, nosotros empezamos de lleno con el curso de Observadores Meteorológicos online ( practicas presencial- duración año y medio) nuestra mayor dificultad fue preparar los recursos para esta modalidad.Utilizamos Comet y otros materiales desarrollados por instituciones como Eumetrain y otras que las hacen disponibles al mundo, nos sirven de inspiración y marcan el camino.Tenemos una sólida base de investigadores y profesores universitarios en Argentina todos muy ocupados.<(br/> Pero para la mayoría de los cursos en el trabajo se requiere desarrollar nuestro propio material. Si hay una oportunidad de que la capacitación alce a más personas , como no la vamos a parovechar? Una gran ventaja de cursos online es que el material desarrollado qeuda expuesto, se hace público a diferencia de las clases dictadas por profesores de manera presencial. Espero encontremos la forma de valorar el desarrollo de recursos de capacitación.
Saludos
Marinés