Experience in Implementing Personal Support for Teachers Using in House Software

The activities of a university teacher are extremely rich and varied, so there are no general-purpose software products or IT (Information Technologies) solutions that specifically focus on the person of the teacher. The typical teacher lectures, makes assessments, publishes, collaborates on research, performs knowledge management, creates educational content, and performs a plethora of other related activities, including self-study in his area of expertise. All these activities of a teacher have one shared element: working with educational content or knowledge. The authors address the digital transformation of education as an interdisciplinary problem with a focus on the synchronization of pedagogical and IT activities. The basis of the research approach is that educational processes are based on educational knowledge, so they can be automated (technically, knowledge is a parameter of educational processes). As part of their long-term research, the authors have developed the WPad educational software, which uses so-called virtual knowledge. This virtual knowledge takes the form of a simple database table, and an individual (teacher, researcher, student) can fill this table with educational content in natural language. This software was initially applied to teaching in the classroom and creating e-learning content for undergraduates. It has gradually spread to academic research (e.g., computer-assisted collaborative learning, knowledge management, learning analytics). This article describes the multipurpose use of WPad as an all-in-one teaching tool on a combined offline and online IT infrastructure using examples from teaching and research. Further development will be focused on the mass creation of educational packages and multilingual support within the framework of international cooperation (a new educational porta is planed).