The teleteaching and the lifelong learning gradually becomes reality,
at least in the countries with developed technology. Striking
illustrations are the well-organized and funded programmes adopted during
the last years in the US and in Europe (for instance, the EC programme
TELEMATICS), the remarkable conferences (for instance, the LILIS conference
held in Genoa in March, 1996, or the present TELETEACHING conference being
a part of the XV IFIP congress). The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education
and the Media of the European Parliament held in June, 1996 a public hearing
"Educational Multimedia".
Great attention is paid to the development of the technology for distance education (one-to-one and multisite video teleconfetences, synchroneous and asynchroneous voice communications, storage and distant access of large volumes of video data, etc.). Thus, proceeding from the requirements of teleteaching, the American Educom have formulated in their project Internet II the demands to the international information network (see, e.g., "Why higher education needs an advanced Internet" in the IEEE Computer magazin, 1996, N 11).
Meanwhile, in our opinion, quite insufficient attention is paid to the
problem of quality of teaching and of educational materials. We are certain
that the primary advantage of the distance learning is the possibility
to offer lectures of best teachers (domestic as well as foreign)
to any student living in any place. As a matter of fact, one can imagine
the usual level of teaching in an ordinary provincial university. But,
if the distance education will not provide the unique quality of lectures,
maybe it is better to go to some local university and to associate with
one’s local teachers in the classroom ?
The present report concerns just the mentioned issue of the distance
education problem. The suggested Virtual University has to differ from
other by its unique, highly qualified professorial staff. To ensure high
quality of distance education, it is necessary to use collaboration of
highly competent specialists. This can be most easily achieved in traditional
centers of advanced science and education. Especially favorable conditions
are found in the Siberian Scientific Center, i.e. the Siberian Institutions
of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk).
This was the reason of our Project to establish an informal institution
of distance education called Siberian Advanced Virtual University (SAVU)
in Novosibirsk. As a matter of fact, the very idea of creation of the Siberian
Scientific Center was to ensure special conditions for science, technology
and education, exeptional in some respect, at that period of Soviet regime
called "stagnation". Because of these conditions there was an unusual concentration
in Siberia of highly competent and independent teachers and students.
At the same time, the new Novosibirsk University situated just in the Academic City of Novosibirsk became one of the reputed educational institutions, well-known in Russia and abroad. For instance, one of the brilliant Russian scientists Aleksey Lyapunov, called "The father of Russian cybernetics", organized here an advanced high school of a new type, a "Physico-Mathematical School" praparing for the Novosibirsk University. We hope that these traditions of Russian science, in particular these of Siberian Scientific Center will determine the unique qualification of SAVU teachers as well as high standard and originality of their cources.
It should be mentioned here that recently, due to the support of George Soros’s Foundation "The Open Society" the Novosibirsk University obtained excelent contemporary information techniques becoming the leading Internet site in the East of the country. This should undoubtly favor the successful implementation of the SAVU Project.
The project has two versions: the first - destined for Russia and other
NIS countries (teaching in Russian language), and the second - destined
for the Western students (the same courses in English).
1. Mathematics
Professor A. Fet
2. Physics
Professor Yu. Kulakov
3. Genetics
Professor V. Ratner
4. Ecology
Professor A. Titlyanova
5. Interaction between the environment and the
economics and social institutons
Professor R. Khlebopross
6. Psychology
Mr. R. Connor
7. Russian Literature
Professor Yu. Chumakov
8. Russian Music
Mrs. L. Petrova
9. Cinema in USSR and Russia
Professor L.Boyarski
10. The History of Siberia
Mr. S. Kamyshan
11. The History of Informatics in Russia
Professor Ya. Fet
At present, general plans of all above courses are prepared, while the detaled plans, taking into consideration the rich possibilities of new information technologies are developed.
Each course will be organised as a "multy-level" hypertext. The upper (outer) level represents a survey lecture giving the overall idea of the subject and sufficient to those students which are not interested in deeper learning . Meanwhile, the keywords and special labels of the upper-level text allow the access to the subsequent (inner) levels providing for the thoughtful familiarity with the given subject or with its distinct sections.
As far as the SAVU Project will grow, a number of additional cources
will be included in the Curricilum. In the next Section, the annotations
of several courses are listed to illustrate their contents.
Moving graphics are used to explane the notations of function, limit,
and derivative.
Approximate calculations (by means of computer) of velocity and acceleration
compared with the exact values of derivatives.
Geometrical meaning of the differential as the tangent to the curves.
Geometrical proof of the Rolle, Lagrange, Cauchy, and L’Hopital theorems.
The infinitesimals in physics and their mathematical meaning. The elements
of length, area and volume. The element of work and the notion of energy.
Visual presentation of the infinitesimals of different orders.
The definite integral and the area. Examples of direct calculation
of integrals by passage to the limit (using the computer). Advanteges of
the Newton-Leibnitz method. The table of basic derivatives and integrals.
Functions of multiple variables, partial derivatives and differentials.
The tangent plain. The geometrical meaning of the first and the second
derivatives. Maximum and minimum. Geometrical derivation of the Lagrange
factors. Examples from mechanics and thrmodynemics.
Wave processes. Phase and group velocity in computer models.
Simple examples explaning the meaning of differential equations. Qualitative
integration: the method of phase pictures. Computer calculation vs analytical
solutions: a comparative study.
The special feature of this course is the broad application of the resources
of modern computer graphics, which appear to be ideally suitable to illustrate
the basic notions of the subject.
The course is divided into five sections: "Molecular genetics",
"Mathematical population genetics", "Molecular genetic regulatory systems",
"Molecular evolution", and "Mobil genetic elements and quantitative characters".
The SAVU course is based on similar courses taught by the authors for many years at the Chair of Cytology and Genetics of the Novosibirsk State University. The main part of this materials was published in Russia and abroad.
To adopt the courses to teleteaching each of them is divided into 3
levels:
The 1st level : one popular lecture - for pupils, school-teachers,
and the broad audience.
The 2nd level: 3-5 lectures covering the main problems - for all biologists.
The 3rd level : 10-20-25 lectures - detailed courses for those specializing
in genetics, mathematical genetics, and molecular biology.
The through concept of all these courses is the key role of the molecular-genetic organization and evolution.
Each course is illustrated by a huge number of slides (up to 200 slides
per course) contaning theoretical and experimental data.
1. The twenties: the time of manifesto and films. The creative credo
and the films of
S. Eisenstein, L. Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov.
2. The thirties: formation of cinema education (VGIK). Is "director"
a profession or ... ? New masters: M. Romm, I. Pyr’ev,
G. Kosintsev, L. Trauberg.
3. The fourties: not just the war, but also the attempts to realize
the Russian life through the history of this country.
4. The fifties: the seeming lull before the storm of ideas and films.
5. The sixties: the thaw, time to turn your face to the people. M.Khutsiev,
M.Kalik, M.Bogin.
6. Georgian cinema: brothers Shengelaya, T. Abuladse, O. Yoseliani.
7. Lithuanian cinema. V. Zhalakyavichus and others.
8. M. Romm’s new cinema: "The Common Fascism".
9. S. Paradzhanov and the poetic cinema.
10. The seventies: hard years, not only for A.Tarkovski.
11. Aleksey German’s cinema.
12. "The shelf": Gennady Poloka, Aleksander Ascoldov and others.
13. Roland Bykov’s phenomenon.
14. Animation: from F. Khitruk to Yu. Norstein.
15. Non-fiction cinema: F. Sobolev, G. Frank and others.
16. The cinema movement of 80s and 90s at a glance.
17. Interaction between the cinema and the classical literature. Dostoevski,
Chekhov, Shakespear.
18. The progress of the comedy genre: from G. Aleksandrov to G. Daneliya
and E. Ryasanov.
19. N. Mikhalkov and A. Konchalovski - the finding and the loss of
the proffesionality.
20. "The present youth" ...
I. Early History of Soviet Cybernetics
The cybernetics as a «bourgeois pseudo science».
Professor Alexey A. Lyapunov and the struggle for cybernetics.
Alexey Lyapunov – «Computer Pioneer».
Andrey Kolmogorov. «Theses on Cybernetics». The famous lecture «Automata and Life».
A strange history on the attempt to establish an Institute of Cybernetics within the USSR Academy of Sciences
Admiral Axel Berg as a pilot of Soviet cybernetics.
Modest Haase-Rapoport: Seminar on the History of Cybernetics.
An echo of Gulag in the Academic Board on Cybernetics.
II. Computer Linguistics
Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Uspensky about the «silver age» of structural, applied, and mathematical linguistics in the USSR.
A.A. Lyapunov and the machine translation.
Igor Melchuk: the beginning of mathematical linguistics.
III. Cybernetical Problems of Biology
Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky: the fate of a scientist at totaliarian regimes.
Igor Poletayev: «the physicists against the poetry».
IV. Cybernetics in Economics
Leonid Kantorovich. The struggle for recognition of mathematical methods in economics.
Nobel Laureates Leonid Kantorovich and Tjalling Koopmans. Different fates of a discovery in the Soviet Union and United States.
V. Cybernetics in Siberia.
Khroushchev’s «thow» in the cold country.
Academic Village - a new Scientific Center near Novosibirsk: Situation
in early 60s.
Cybernetics moves to the East.
We have summarized the main prerequisites of computer-aided learning
and teleteaching. It was emphasized that the major requirement is the quality
of teaching, the level of teachers’ competence.
A project is suggested of so-called Siberian Advanced Virtual University (SAVU) notable for the extremely high qualification of teachers, and specific methodology of teaching directed toward the modern new information technologies.
In our opinion, the realization of the present project will be of special importance for the contemporary Russia suffering from the lack of democracy. Only the enlightment, the scientific and cultural knowledge can guarantee real democracy. Instead of the endless bothering TV serials and silly computer games, we propose for everybody highly professional and interesting scientific and cultural subjects accompanied by striking multymedia illustrations.
We hope as well, that the original lectures of Siberian scientists
in the frame of SAVU will stimulate an interest in the countries
of the European Union, thus bringing our contribution to the European integration
in the field of education and culture.