APPLICATION OF DISTANCE TECHNOLOGIES AS A WAY TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION

The article dwells upon the experience of implementation and application of support learning based on Moodle, which has been created and applied in the Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies since 2014. The role provided for the distance education programs is emphasized, the benefits of system based on Moodle are proved in a well-argued manner: the system is freely distributed, simple to install on any platform that supports PHP; it is spread among many institutions of higher education; it has a multilingual interface (including supported Ukrainian, English), designed to meet the advances of modern pedagogy (focus is on the interaction between the students, forum discussion); has a simple, "easy", efficient, compliant web-based interface. Besides, the system provides great possibilities to conduct assessment of knowledge. It is noted that at this stage of application of the system based on Moodle is used in the academy to support traditional education as intramural and extramural forms of study, including the organization of independent work of students. Distance Learning Center website was developed by e-mail: http://moodle.onaft.edu.ua/, requirements document, the Center operates by, were prepared and approved. Along with installing Moodle software environment it was made possible to design distance learning courses on server hosting registration. It is noted that the present system of distance learning of ONAFT contains 285 distance learning courses filled with the necessary teaching materials. In general, 190 teachers are recorded as well as more than 3,000 students of all faculties of the academy and this number is growing. The requirements that developers of distance learning courses must consider are described. Examples of already created distance learning courses, their composition and characteristics are given. Some of them are offered teachers as a model for creating your own courses. Special attention is paid to the test control of knowledge required for current control of students' knowledge. The main types of tests, such as Multiple choice, Matching, Numerical, Essay, due to their features and settings are considered. Hereafter the mechanism of creation of these types of tests is explained on examples. Considerable attention is paid to the Journal of levels, which contains test results. Quality of creation of tests is analyzed, quality parameters are provided, the means to improve this quality are offered. The latest can be done by the application of external resources in the system Moodle, for example, by applying of such online resource as LearningApps.org.