Offline to Online: Finnish Experience

Natalia Bagrova, senior teacher of the Lab University of Applied Sciences (Lappeenranta) shared the Finnish practice of introducing e-learning.

While Russian universities are actively switching to distance education, we asked our colleagues in Finland to share their views and experience of introducing e-learning.

Natalia Bagrova, senior teacher of the Lab University of Applied Sciences offered her opinion:

“Over the last several years the global trend is to move offline studies online. The situation in the last months provided a further stimulus to the development of new forms of online learning and improvement of current digital tools. Against this backdrop, Finland proved to be sufficiently ready for the introduction and application of online formats into the study process. In the course of five years the Government of Finland has been supporting the development in the area of online education. Further it has allocated government grants for the creation of distance digital platforms.

Finnish universities have long been introducing distance education into educational programs, as well as have developed eAMK (virtual university of applied sciences). eAMK is a platform that has online courses in various subjects from different universities. All online courses must receive expert appraisal. With access to the CampusOnline platform, a student gets a clean-cut step-by-step guide of a study program (opetuspolku in Finnish). An education program in a chosen specialty includes principal and special disciplines, elective courses, practical training, and thesis work. A teacher is responsible for the content of a course, means of communication with students, and methods of assessing knowledge and skills.

Another platform designed specifically for teaching foreign languages is DigiCampus. The aim of the platform is to facilitate studying both popular languages (English, Swedish) and rare (Japanese, sign language) at every university in Finland. All students who study in Finland have access to the platform. The courses are distributed and rotated between universities. For instance, in the study year X the university A teaches courses at A1 and A3 levels, and the next year these courses will be taught by the university B. Meanwhile the courses of the university B are read at the university A. Currently courses are being tested and results will be in shortly.

The main tools for working with digital platforms are software and apps: Zoom, SkypeforBusiness, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect, and WhatsApp. They allow holding live lectures, seminars, departmental meetings, work meetings for project teams, and various consultations. Choice of an app depends on the aim of an event and the number of participants. Lectures and seminars are usually held via Zoom and AdobeConnect. Work in small groups is more convenient via SkypeforBusiness and WhatsApp.

Finnish teachers are proficient in methods of distance work and have the right and freedom to choose the most appropriate software for certain types of activities. Over 90% of disciplines are developed for mixed education (sulautuvaoppiminen) that combines offline and online learning.”