At the end of the 20th century, mankind entered the stage of development which was called postindustrial or information. The possibilities of modern technologies become unlimited. They contribute to the effective solution of professional, economic, and many other problems. Only those people who possess the necessary knowledge, allowing to orient in a new information space, are capable of using today's technical, information opportunities competently and professionally.
Why do schools need innovation?
Innovations quickly burst into our lives. The question of the role of modern information technologies was most relevant in connection with the introduction of computers into the educational practice, both combined in local systems and with access to the global network, where helpful educational portals and writing services can be used.
The integration of progressive technologies into the learning process makes it possible to activate cognitive and intellectual activity of students, not only to change the forms and methods of academic work, but also to substantially transform and enrich the educational paradigms.
Even such fundamental skills inculcated in the primary school curriculum as the ability to read and write are subjected to change. New literacy involves mastering the ability to navigate information flows, multimedia environment, to create hypermedia objects. So, the modern human has to learn how to read and write in the digital world.
Today, experts talk about the change in the content of education, the need for the students to master the information culture, one of the components of a global culture, understood as the highest manifestation of education, including the personal qualities of a person and his professional competence. The development of innovative technologies will allow young people to work on different projects, conduct joint research and quickly share results with partners who are far from each other.
Educational institutions that actively implement new approaches to training demonstrate the desire to provide a relevant level of teaching and high quality of education, to attract the attention of parents.
Modern developments
Studies of the use of information technology in vocational training have been conducted for a long time. Many computer systems have been developed in the educational institutions of the United States, France, Japan, Russia and several other countries. However, the scope of such instruments is much broader. They are intended for large industrial enterprises, military and civil organizations, independent retraining of personnel. In addition, the supply of new complex machines and technologies with computer educational systems that accelerate the process of their development and implementation becomes a standard practice.
In a progressive society, the creation of computer-based training products (methodical and software-information tools) is regarded very seriously due to the high scientific load and the need for joint work of qualified specialists: psychologists, subject teachers, computer designers, programmers. Many large foreign companies finance projects to create such tools in educational institutions and conduct their own research in this field.
The most promising ways of implementing the educational technologies
The organization of educational processes within the framework of modern technologies involves such basic procedures as the transfer, organization of storage and accumulation of data, formalization and automation of knowledge. Perfection of methods for solving functional problems and ways of organizing information flows leads to completely new training tools, among which we may identify the following ones:
- Computer educational programs, including electronic textbooks, simulators, tutors, laboratory workshops, testing instruments.
- Training systems based on multimedia technologies, personal computers, video equipment, optical drives.
- Intellectual expert systems used in various subject spheres.
- Distributed databases on the different areas of knowledge.
- Means of telecommunications, including e-mail, teleconferences, local and regional communication networks, data exchange, etc.
- Electronic libraries, distributed and centralized publishing systems.
The main directions of using information-computer tools in education:
- A computer as a means of increasing the effectiveness of pedagogical activity. It significantly affects all components of educational system: goals, content, methods and organizational forms of training, upbringing and development of students in institutions of any level and profile.
- A computer as an instrument of scientific research activities. Interdisciplinary, complex studies can no longer be successful without comprehensive information support, which involves the search for sources of the most relevant data that corresponds to the current level and content of education, the selective evaluation, storage, ensuring the proper classification of information and the freedom of access to it for potential consumers, prompt submitting of the necessary data to the user upon his request.
- A computer and an informatics as the components of educational and pedagogical management. This direction of informatization is connected with the adoption of managerial decisions at all levels of educational activity - from day-to-day work on the management of individual institution to the management of the entire industry at the federal and regional levels. The most diverse information of both background (on the development trends of the external socio-economic and socio-cultural environment) and educational nature is needed for the adoption of optimal management decisions.
- A computer as a motivational factor. With the use of information technology in the classroom, the motivation for learning increases, the cognitive interest of students is stimulated, and the effectiveness of independent work is much higher. Innovations open fundamentally new opportunities in the field of the educational activities and creativity. Enthusiasm of young people is very important, because progressive training means will become the main tools for their further professional life.
In recent years, computers and information technologies based on them have changed significantly. Dynamic transformations in the element base of computers have led not only to their wider use in the educational process, but also to the increase of reliability, accuracy and speed of their work, the expansion of their functions from the computational ones to the increasingly complex, logical, heuristic, and, to a certain extent, creative.
It would be an unacceptable miscalculation not to use these technical, information and communication opportunities for educational purposes. It is not only about creation of telecommunication and distance learning systems, but also about higher, still predictive, but already sufficiently tangible functions and tasks of education: cultural upbringing, providing support in the process of spiritual integration of societies, mental compatibility of peoples and human communities.
