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LIFELONG EDUCATION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS IN THE CONDITIONS OF COMPUTERIZATION OF SOCIETY
Т. А. Makarova
Education has been a major factor in a person’s socialization throughout the development of human society. Transfer of social and cultural experience by means of education ensures a continuous link between generations and promotes formation of personal reference points. The specific features of the present socialization are related to the onrush of information and communication technologies in society. The number of Internet users grows annually. They actively use the World Wide Web to achieve different purposes, including elearning. This new phenomenon in the educational sphere is related to a new stage in the computerization of society. The process of computerization of society is a global social process characterized by the fact that the dominant types of activities in the sphere of public production are gathering, accumulation, processing, storage, transfer, use, and production of information and computing techniques, as well as those based on the available means of microprocessing and various means of information interaction and exchange [4]. Computerization promotes a change in the structure of education: its content, mutual relations of participants, and documents regulating the educational process. All of this brings new realities into the activities of university teachers. The existing model of university education fails to create the perfect conditions for realization of the teacher’s freedom in designing the content of education. Changing the situation is prevented by the teacher’s position as a translator and the subject-centralism. Another circumstance complicating the teacher’s professional activities is insufficient knowledge of information technologies, which often becomes the reason for their rejection. As a result, new means and resources in the process of education are used only by teachers who are keen on innovations. It is important that new means and resources become an element of mass educational practice.
This new situation brings forth the issue regarding the need to form special expertise in the sphere of using new technologies. Experts at the UNESCO Association identify several kinds of literacy, including informational and media-literacy [3]. The availability of informational literacy allows both orientation in the digital space and application of information technologies in the process of selection, receipt, storage, processing, and use of information and new knowledge. The components of media literacy include understanding of the role and functions of the information environment, critical analysis and assessment of its content, as well as availability of competencies in the field of IT use. Assimilation of these kinds literacy becomes a must for a higher school teacher as it can promote updating his or her pedagogical instruments, allows for changes in the kind of interaction among participants of the learning process, and creates conditions for updating the content of the subjects according to the demands of the time.
At present, one can already see some changes in all spheres of academic life at higher schools caused by computerization. A great part of higher educational
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institutions have the necessary material and technical equipment that allows for application of new technologies in the training process, and Wi-Fi availability has become mass practice. New forms of organization of the training process have appeared, one of them being distance learning. This allows interaction both between the teacher and the learner and between them and the interactive source of the information resource, as well as organized control of the learning activities and control of assimilation of the training material [4]. Within the framework of distance learning, the teacher has the opportunity to create training courses and conduct videoconferences and webinars using modern learning management systems.
The use of information technologies in the process of training enables the teacher to enter a new level of interaction with students. It is an undisputable fact that getting training materials by means of known and new resources being assimilated both increases students’ motivation and develops their personality, forms their information culture, and them prepares for life in the environment of an information community. The availability of information literacy enables the teacher to maintain close contact with students. He or she can maintain correspondence by e-mail or create topic-related groups in social networks that allow for discussions and surveys based on the course materials in a new format. A specific feature of digital media is unrestricted access to information, and its constant updating. This circumstance stimulates the teacher into constant renewal of training course content with account of the level of the present culture, age-related specific features of students, their future professional activities, and employers’ requirements. Information technologies also enable the teacher to create different authors’ courses using media resources and the Internet.
It should be noted that the educational potential of the Internet keeps expanding. Use of new resources in the training process allows for efficient solution of other practical tasks as well: deepening of cross-curriculum links, differentiation and individualization of training, implementation of new forms of controlling results and assessment, strengthening the role of the independent and extracurricular work of students, and application of a creative approach in the training process [1]. Under the new conditions, the higher school teacher must continuously replenish his or her own knowledge, improve the available skills, and wish to learn new skills expanding his or her professional experience. This is possible given his or her active involvement in the process of advanced training and self-education.
References
1. Роберт И. В. Современные информационные технологии в образовании: дидактические проблемы; перспективы использования. - М.: ИИО РАО, 2010.
2. Федеральный закон об образовании в Российской федерации. - М., 2012.
3. Towards Media and Information Literacy Indicators. S. Moeller, A. Joseph, J. Lau, T. Carbo. -Paris: UNESCO, 2011.
4. Толковый словарь терминов понятийного аппарата информатизации образования /
Составители И. В. Роберт, Т. А. Лавина - М.: ИИО РАО, 2009. Электронный ресурс: Режим доступа: http://www.iiorao.ru/iio/index/pdf.js/web/viewer.html?file=/iio/pages/fonds/
dict/Dictionary.pdf#page=3&zoom=auto,0,385. Дата обращения: 27.02.2014.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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