The Faculty FPSC of SumDU temporarily has been reassigned to distance learning because of quarantine.   Students stay at home and study online… this kind of learning can be called “pajama learning”. But is it so easy?

- Distance learning has been used by lecturers before quarantine, so it was easy to keep connection with students, to organize tests. So, the new studying module with the help of SumDU online learning platforms  - LecturED and MIX - has started according to the schedule, – says Olena Medvid, Associate Professor, PhD in Philological Sciences, Vice Dean for Education.

- Distance learning is well known for students of intramural education. Lecturers and students communicate through Facebook groups, chats in messengers, e-mails, Personal Cabinet SumDU and MIX but there is a lack of live communication, - says Andriana Kostenko, PhD candidate of the Department of Psychology, Political Science and Socio-Cultural Technologies.

Zoom and Skype, Google Forms, Google Hangouts Meet, etc. are also used as online platforms for videotelephony.

- We use Zoom for our online lessons. It is quite convenient. We study as usual, discuss different topics, laugh, and don’t have a feeling that we aren’t at the university, - says Anastasiia Kobelieva the third-year student.

The department of Germanic Philology can also share the successful experience of using online technologies.

The forth-year students study “Introduction of Innovative Educational Technologies in Foreign Language Teaching “ under the guidance of senior lecturer Alla Krasulia.

During the quarantine period, students are constantly in touch with each other and with the lecturer at Trello. They have completed the study project with elements of a research and development activity on the educational platform Graasp, they have learned to create intelligent maps based on course materials, using a number of mind mapping applications, namely: GoConqr, MindMeister, Mindomo, Ayoa  etc. The appraisal measures were implemented online through video chat at Google Hangouts Meet. The formative evaluation was done with the help of testing on the educational and entertaining platform Kahoot and completed at Google Forms, where students were able to recall key concepts of the discipline, determine the advantages and disadvantages of collaborative learning and mobile pedagogy, including the BYOD approach, and share their ideas on the prospects of using artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality in foreign language learning.

 Third-year students of the speciality "Philology" have discovered the power of Microsoft Office 365  and online applications OneNote, Sway, Publisher, Excel while studying the discipline "Basics of Computer Science and Applied Linguistics with expletive informative Module: Copywriting"
(Lecturers Larysa Hartsunova  and Antonina Prokopenko ). Microsoft Teams helps to hold meetings and video conferences, which is extremely important in the distance learning environment.

Students have learned to code an HTML web page, to translate with the free automated translation system OmegaT. They have acquired the skills of creating a brochure using Canva and have visited a virtual and augmented research lab reality «Ulab».

The Department of Journalism and Philology also uses modern technologies for distance learning: MIX, Personal Cabinet SumDU, Google Classroom, Telegram, Viber, Lectur.ED, Zoom. The forth-year students have worked on platforms WordPress, Tilda Publishing, Wix and introduced their projects there.

• Sometimes I feel that online lessons are even better than intramural education. I have time to read books, watch series, paint. Quarantine is the time for rethinking and recreation, – says Karyna Chornobok, the student of journalism.

The faculty of FPSC of SumDU introduced an action “Ask a question - get a reply...”, aimed to help this year’s graduates of secondary schools - future entrants. Preparing to the Independent External Evaluation, school graduates, as well as their parents, can receive online consultations in the Ukrainian and English languages on Facebook.

No quarantine can stop studying and working process of #the_best_faculty_in_the_galaxy! The Faculty FPSC continues its well-organized, rational and systematic work. Knowledge is everything, panic is nothing!

Kateryna Shestak, student of the group ZhT-61