ICHTML 2020 – How learning technology wins coronavirus

This is an introductory text to a collection of papers from the ICHTML 2020: The International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning, which held in Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, on the May 13-15, 2020. It consists of short introduction, conference review and some observations about the event and its future.


Introduction: from social distancing to distant learning
The rapid spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has sparked worldwide alarm and media hype [1]. In the Ukraine, the Ministry of Healthcare is advising people to be prepared for disruptions to daily life that will be necessary if the coronavirus spreads within communities. On March 11, 2020 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine introduced a three-week nationwide quarantine in connection with a pandemic, and all public events in the country have been canceled: "In accordance with the article 29 of the Law of Ukraine On Protection of the population from the infectious diseases to prevent the spread in the territory of Ukraine of coronavirus Covid-19 and considering the decision of the State Commission on technogeneous and ecological security and emergency dated March 10, 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers ordered to initiate the quarantine from March 12 until April 3, 2020" [2].
In 1665, following an outbreak of the bubonic plague in England, Cambridge University closed its doors, forcing Isaak Newton to return home to Woolsthorpe Manor. It was a version of "social distancing" of 17 th century, a public health tool making a comeback this year as school and universities, including Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, send people home to try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Without his professors to guide him, Newton apparently thrived: the papers he wrote on mathematical problems he had begun at Cambridge became early calculus; the experiments with a prisms in his bedroom give us the theories on optics; and even apple tree inspired the gravity laws: "In the year he retired again from Cambridge on account of the plague to his mother in Lincolnshire & whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the same power of gravity (which made an apple fall from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but must extend much farther than was usually thought -Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself" [3].
"Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667, theories in hand. Within six months, he was made a fellow; two years later, a professor. So if you're working or studying from home over the next few weeks, perhaps remember the example Newton set", wrote Gillian Brockell for The Washington Post's history blog [4].
These risk-control decisions [2] have temporary led millions of students in Ukraine and other countries into massive open distance learning using contemporary educational technologies (Fig. 1): 1. To help minimize the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on students, the Coursera community is launching Coursera Coronavirus Response Initiative, a global effort to assist universities and colleges to deliver courseware online [5]. Educational institutions may enroll students in 3800 courses and 400 specializations through July 31, 2020 free of charge.
2. University of Massachusetts Amherst plans to shift their instruction to an online modality and help students to continue making progress in their studies with disruption-resilient instruction [6]. Instructors are asked to follow next steps: -use the Learning Management Systems (LMS) of Moodle and Blackboard for communicating with students about your course; -use the LMS to share course content, such as lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, assignments, and other course materials that can be uploaded to LMS course site; -use Zoom to stream or record class lectures: faculty members may choose to schedule a Zoom class meeting with their students during their normally scheduled course day/time (these Zoom class lectures can also be recorded to be viewed at a later time if desired); -adapt the course content, pedagogy, and assessment, if necessary, to fit this new modality of instruction.
The base of learning technologies is learning sciences, an interdisciplinary field that works to critical theoretical understanding of cognition and learning as well as design and implementation of learning innovations, and the improvement of learning/instructional methodologies.

ICHTML 2020 at a glance
The International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning (ICHTML) is a peer-reviewed international conference, which covers interdisciplinary research on education, learning and training, and applications of theories and philosophies used in the sciences of learning and adjacent sciences (Fig. 2). The ICHTML occupies contributions in all aspects of psychology of learning, learning theories, learning technologies and tools, paradigms and models and related fields of interest with an emphasis on human and machine learning. The main problematic field of the conference is the current and future issues of modern pedagogical science: psychological and pedagogical, philosophical, socio-cultural aspects of education, learning and training, modern theories, technologies and teaching aids, the emergence of which is determined by globalization, integration processes, social transformations, humanitarian and scientific and technological development. There is urgent general need for principled changes in postclassic education elicited by current theories, models, tools, services, networks and communications.
ICHTML has two presentation levels, Main Conference and Doctoral Consortium. The purpose of the Doctoral Consortium is to orient the PhD students to the world standards of quality of scientific work and to give an opportunity to present their achievements standalone.
ICHTML topics of interest are grouped into 4 tracks:  (Dr. habil.) in 2009. She studied at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, trained at the largest universities in Germany and France. Since 2012, she has been working at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. Her research interests include theory and methodology of professional education; pedagogy of higher school; methods of teaching foreign languages and translation; syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the Germanic languages. She participated in numerous scientific-theoretical and scientific-practical conferences. She was a member of numerous scientific-theoretical and scientificpractical conferences. She is the author of many scientific publications, including monographs, articles, and reports.  Dr. Yannis Dimitriadis is Full Professor of Telematics Engineering and ex Dean of the Doctoral School, University of Valladolid, Spain. He is also the coordinator of the GSIC/EMIC research group, an inter-disciplinary group, integrating over 20 researchers and practitioners from the field of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Pedagogy.
His recent research work has focused on learning analytics and smart learning environments, alignment of learning design and learning analytics, design patterns, conceptual and technological support to the orchestration of computersupported collaborative learning processes, active pedagogies at scale, and acrossspaces (Web, 3D worlds and augmented reality) learning. He has participated in more than 50 competitive research projects on technology-enhanced learning, coauthored more than 80 journal papers and 200 conference papers, and organized several workshops and symposia, such as the ECTEL Yasemin Gulbahar has lectured on many topics such as programming languages, problem solving and algorithms, instructional technologies, instructional design, material design and development, distance learning, web design, measurement and evaluation, research methods, teaching methods, software development, technology integration and planning both in undergraduate and graduate level. She has also many national and international publications as books, book chapters, journal articles and proceeding papers. Liubov Panchenko was awarded a Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences degree (Dr. phil.) from H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1995, and a Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences degree (Dr. habil.) from the Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, in 2012. Since 1993, she has been working in the field of information and communication technology in education. Since 2016 she has been a Professor at the Department of Sociology, National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute". Her research interests include information and communication technology in education, university's educational environment, MOOCs, data analysis and multivariate methods in scientific research, digital storytelling, adult education. She has published a number of papers and text books ("Computer data analysis", "Data analysis practicum") and is an editorial board member of the Ukrainian journals "Information Technologies and Learning Tools" (associated editor), "e-Environment of Modern University", and "Humanization of the educational process".  Technologies in Education (2013). Prof. Spirin is an expert in the informatization of education and science and information training of students. He has published a number of papers in international journals and volumes in book series, is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Electronic scientific edition "Information Technologies and Learning Tools", member of the Editorial Boards of the specialized journals "Information Technologies in Education", "Computer in School and Family". WWW: http://umo.edu.ua/en/university/leadership/spirin-olegh-mikhajlovich E-mail: oleg.spirin@gmail.com

Conclusion
The vision of the ICHTML 2020 is to create a leading interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators, to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of learning.
The conference is a successfully performing forum to transferring and discussing research result among the academics, students, teachers, government, private sector or industries. Participants and presenters from several countries such as Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden and Ukraine have attended the conference to share their significant contribution in research related to the History, Theory and Methodology of Learning.
We are thankful to all the authors who submitted papers and the delegates for their participation and their interest in ICHTML as a platform to share their ideas and innovation. Also, we are also thankful to all the program committee members for providing continuous guidance and efforts taken by peer reviewers contributed to improve the quality of papers provided constructive critical comments, improvements and corrections to the authors are gratefully appreciated for their contribution to the success of the conference. Moreover, we would like to thank the developers and other professional staff of EasyChair, who made it possible for us to use the resources of this excellent and comprehensive conference management system, from the call of papers and inviting reviewers, to handling paper submissions, communicating with the authors, and creating the conference proceedings.
We are looking forward to excellent presentations and fruitful discussions, which will broaden our professional horizons. We hope all participants enjoy this conference and meet again in more friendly, hilarious, and happiness of further ICHTML 2021.