Agile method for Roma centered e-learning

U ovom doktorskom radu istraženo je na koji se način alternativnim agilnim pristupom, konkretno scrum metodom, mogu identificirati poteškoće učenika romske nacionalne manjine u cilju prilagodbe, nadzora i transparentnosti nastavnog procesa e-učenja usmjerenog manjinama. Temeljno je ljudsko pravo obrazovanje, ali ono općenito nije postignuto kod nacionalnih manjina u svijetu. Danas klasične metode nisu dovoljno fleksibilne i brze u kreiranju obrazovnog procesa prilagođenog specifičnostima manjina. Istraživanje se temelji na redizajnu postojeće scrum agilne metode za oblikovanje e-učenja usmjereno Romima Rezultati provedenog istraživanja pokazali su da agilna metoda e-učenja usmjerena Romima pozitivno utječe na učinkovitost obrazovanja te smanjuje razlike u uspješnosti obrazovanja između većinske populacije i Roma. Utvrđeno je da agilna metoda e-učenja usmjerena Romima umanjuje razlike u socijalnoj distanci među učenicima.The basic human rights have been established by the international legislative whose basis is the International Charter of Rights, within which, namely in the General Declaration on Human Rights, education is proclaimed to be the basic right of every human being. Education is guaranteed to everyone in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia and in line with the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities (The Government of the ROC, 2002.) and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (The Government of the ROC, 2008.) and the right is exercised and developed as well by the national minorities members within the major population. In the Republic of Croatia, the Roma national minority lives in relatively hard and poor conditions and they have problems with employment. Moreover, the majority of the Roma feel the negative attitudes coming from the major society as well as a direct consequence of it – a wide range discrimination. The research into education and the integration of various minorities into the life of the community done up to now show that similar problems do exist in other countries as well. Presently, for many a reason, the classic e-learning design methods are neither flexible enough nor fast enough whereas the newer methods, despite iterativity, collaborativeness, efficiency and manageability, are not agile enough for special cases. It is obvious that the process of learning/educating as a whole should be adjusted to the needs and abilities of the minorities. The traditional methods follow the previously defined curricula, whereas the alternative agile approach – namely, by means of the most utilized scrum method – provides for an iterative and approximate assessment of e-learning, the approximate performance plan, risks and strategies for the purpose of implementing the planned didactic objective. The agile method should lead to the objective as soon as possible (using the minimum of other resources) with the keyrole played by teachers who are willing to work in teams in the new culture of learning and teaching aimed at creativity and innovations. The use and deployment of the IC technology is the most important factor for the successful teaching and educating processes. Regarding a series of unknown factors when educating the Roma minority students via e learning, by means of the scrum agile method the difficulties faced by the Roma students are identified for the purpose of adjusting, monitoring and transparency of the e-learning teaching process. This kind of “self-organizing” empirical process leads to utilizing the agile method within the special problem domain – the electronic teaching of national minorities. Adjusting the teaching process through agile methods increases the efficiency of the teaching process and e-learning and the level of communication and cooperation in students, i.e. the level of understanding their needs. The instructional design of the kind offers educational contents of a better quality and the consequent better knowledge acquisition. The efforts of the students are directed to discussion groups (e-mail, chat, forum), i.e. to social networks with the objective of amending the contents proposed by LMS. The adjusting of the educational contents while taking into consideration the abilities limitations within the Roma national minority population and while prefering their individual learning style, the previously acquired knowledge and personal motivation contribute to a cooperative surroundings for implementing the IC technology. The motivation and partaking on the part of the students in creating the content and the empirical guidance aimed at enhancing the educational contents provided by teachers should provide for preserving the cultural and traditional features of national minorities. The conceptual framework of the agile methods provides for a dynamic, spontaneous and an intuitive ambiance that in turn provides for a flexible deployment and use of the adjusted techniques in shaping the multimedia contents. The problems faced at online courses by some national minorities (the Roma one in this case) depending on the peculiarities of a particular group of students, the language barrier of the minority members, the technology at disposal, the culture and tradition of minorities, the learning style (previously acquired knowledge), the social interaction, the approach to knowledge and the current surroundings, all of which influence the future education process, are possible to be resolved by using the agile methods regardless of educational diversities. It was a challenge then to use the agile method for the specific needs of national minorities at designing e-learning, which presents a scientific and social value although it has not been researched scientifically and has not been resolved in a systematic way up to now. Some e learning processes are adjusted to a certain population of students that feature various XIV previously acquired knowledge and the processes use a wide IC technologic range (multimedia, social networks, web pages, online knowledge assessment testing, web 2.0 tools, m-learning etc.). The agile procedures and the immediate partaking of the Roma national minority students in the creation of contents may influence positively the efficiency of education and reducing the difference in successfulness of education between the major population and the Roma minority while, at the same time, diminishing as well the feeling of the social distance/discrimination in the Roma national minority