The last decade has seen information and communication technologies (ICT) dramatically transforming the world, enabling innovation and productivity increases, connecting people and communities, and improving standards of living and opportunities across the globe. Now it is time to implement information technology to the education system.
To choose the necessary information in order to computerize the learning process, taking the shape of education, to teach this information to students, to assimilate, to understand it, and use information technology to memorize the lesson, the general knowledge of experts and to raise the quality of professional training considers implementing high level of information technology to the education.
The challenges for foreign language learning and teaching in a world divided by clashes of cultures and beliefs, the potential of the new media for fostering intercultural understanding and exchange is enormous. In the history of mankind, access to information and knowledge has never been so straightforward at a local, regional, national, or global level. Judicious deployment of ICTs can encourage and sustain cultural and linguistic diversity in individuals and in society in general. Facilitating access to other cultures and languages is the chief goal of the language teaching profession, and using ICT resources effectively in their teaching represents one of the chief challenges facing language teachers today. In their contribution to this study (Modeling a Field-Based Internet Resource for Modern Foreign Language Learning: the Case of RussNet), Dan E. Davidson and Maria D. Lekic demonstrate the potential of ICT-driven language learning, highlighting the flexibility of the media available. One important aspect that has evolved in the study of the use of ICTs in foreign language learning and teaching is that, as a subject area, it differs greatly from most other subject areas in the curriculum: it is both skill-based and knowledge based. In this respect it has more in common with a subject like Music than, for example, History or Geography.The World Summit on the Information Society, http://www.itu.int/wsis/map/index.html5 has implications both for the types of hardware and software that are used in FLT/FLL, but also for FLT pedagogy and methodology. Increasingly, reference is made to the need for teachers and learners to acquire the “new literacies” involved in the appropriate use of the new media. This issue is addressed directly in the article on Web Literacy for Language Teachers by Bernard Moro in this study as well as in the article on Information and Communication Technology in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning — an Overview by Anthony Fitzpatrick, and is taken up later by other contributors.
New approaches of learning. Using information technology during the learning process considerably changed the content, figure and method of learning. The results of this changing characterized below:
– traditional approach which considers taking the knowledge and practice according to the certain subjects are replaced by integration approach;
– to comprehend the world is carrying out through making its model, in spite of traditional learning method as it was before;
– the main purpose of studying is not just taking the knowledge and practice but to develop the personality of students while they are learning;
– the approach which is directed to the common person changes to the individual psychological approach for each student.
The speed, level and productivity of using information technology during the learning process is related to the correct use of technology, to the preparation of teachers, to the comprehension, assimilation, computer literacy of students and their intellectual abilities of using information to memorize the lesson.
To rebuild the education system, firstly requires changing education members and teachers. Pass to the information society attaches new maintains and importance to the educator’s activity. The main wealth of information society would be the proportion of knowledge importance and value to its usage. This requires from society members to know and assimilate the information. This process is carrying out through the education system. The main person who stays in the center of the learning process is a teacher. The activity of a teacher attaches a new social sense and marks the information society from many aspects.
Thus, implementing of new information technology to the education would change the relationship between teachers and students completely. If in traditional education system a teacher was the subject, and a student was the object of teacher’s activity which considered the authoritarian relationship, new education system which is based on the information technology forms new terms in which teacher and student are the subjects of education process, and their relations are developing in the root of cooperation pedagogies.
The role of information technology in information society. Passing to the information stage in societies development, makes learning to increase the educational activity in order to carry out its main duties. Pedagogical proficiency is considered to be the most complicated branches of creative activity. It relies on a very big pile of scientific knowledge and considers high thinking and culture of behavior. During the educational activity to assimilate the subject and culture and using them requires increasing the socio-cultural proficiency of educators without stopping. That’s why for developing the teacher’s skills, learning the computer systematically, to learn foreign languages, to hold educational seminars, to exchange of views with each other in the problems of perfecting teacher’s work and to make wide discussions is very important.
Besides, it is important to implement developing changes which is related to the connection method based on education system. Understanding precisely should stay in the center of learning process. The main duty of teacher would be to choose the right direction working with multimedia, instead of just give an account of material. Information technology will connect universities and cultural, scientific centers with each other, which gives the opportunity to distribute the required work measure for making individual approach to education using computer software. Through the internet to the several data bases as e-libraries, museums and others are available. E-books, dictionaries and encyclopedias are created, distance learning and computerize checking knowledge are appeared. “Changing the paradigm of education step over from instrumental intelligence to communicative intelligence are suits for new- information, communication and systems society.” [1]
In education process computerization environment, the importance of increasing the pedagogical skills developed the intensive rising pedagogical informatics. It studies creation and innovation of concept for people of information society. It is clear that information society considers increasing intellectual abilities of people as well as humanism and generality of education. With the fore mentioned strategically organized tasks, educational information solves tactical tasks as to provide the education with information, to create individual educational methods on the root of new computer technology, to increase the computer literacy of students and pupils.
The potential of ICTs in language education ICTs can expand access to language programmes and improve the quality of teaching and learning in general. The World Wide Web expands the classroom context and provides access to current, up-to-date materials from the country or countries of the target language, offering learners and teachers a plethora of materials in different modes, bringing the foreign culture and language to life and making it more tangible. In environments where teaching staff are not able to fulfill all requirements of the curriculum with regard to the skills and knowledge required, ready-made, high quality audio-visual and other programmes may provide sufficient backup for them to offer appropriate courses without having to engage in time-consuming and expensive (re)training. Andreas Lund’s article points out that there is a strong tradition of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) addressing materials, software packages and technologies that aid and promote cognitive development and linguistic performance, but emphasizes that we must pay more attention to how technologies are embedded in larger social and cultural practices for them to be truly effective. The professional isolation of teachers may well be relegated to the history books, if they learn how to use the potential for networking, which ICTs offer. 7 The affordances and deployment of multiple media are well illustrated in the contribution by Dan E. Davidson and Maria D. Lekic, where they not only show how different exercises can offer practice in basic skills and how learners may use new information to solve problems, but also how they can bring the Russian-speaking world into the classroom.
ICT competencies required of language teachers Language teachers working in a media-rich environment will, like their counterparts in other disciplines, need to:
– recognise the individual learning problems of learners;
– make a careful and considered choice concerning the use of the media;
– check the truth of information content offered;
– develop efficient search techniques and be capable of conducting effective research with the help of the computer;
– be able to use standard software confidently and competently;
– make wise and critical choices of information found.
These new competencies are often related to what has become known as “the new literacy”. Basically, we can identify five types of new literacy in relation to ICT that teachers need to understand and master alongside learners. They are: scientific, digital, critical, linguistic, and cultural literacy. Scientific literacy relates to the ability to think scientifically in a world, which is increasingly shaped by science and technology. This kind of literacy requires an understanding of scientific concepts as well as an ability to apply a scientific perspective. Digital literacy relates to the ability to use ICT adequately and apply them in a principled way to the subject matter at hand. For the language teacher, it refers in particular to web literacy, i.e. the ability to make use of the World Wide Web for language research; to the use of linguistic tools and standard programmes for exercises and testing. Critical literacy implies the ability to evaluate the credibility, usefulness, and reliability of any given sources of information. It also encompasses skills in sifting and identifying the relevant and important in the flood of information which threatens to engulf the unprepared. Linguistic literacy in this context refers to the ability to recognize different genres as they develop, to track developments in language use and usage and to adapt materials (authentic or not) for teaching. Cultural literacy relates to observing and recording changes in the society or societies of the target language together with implications for language teaching. Such changes may be of a general nature leading to convergence between own, native culture and the target culture, or to changes particular to the target culture. Furthermore, in order to function adequately in the world of the new media, teachers need to acquire and master a whole range of new skills ranging from the technical to the organizational and conceptual. They need to become completely computer-literate in a practical sense, and have the confidence to use the available technology adequately. They should be able to cope with the most common problems arising from the use of computers very much in the way that average car drivers can cope with commonly occurring problems with their motor vehicles, i.e. no specialist knowledge of the machine, but knowing what to do when routine breakdowns occur. As mentioned above, language teachers are now required to take on new roles and come to the classroom situation with appropriate attitudes and approaches. As in contexts of autonomous learning, the teacher now increasingly has to function as facilitator and guide to the learners. Other new and important teacher roles are those of mediator, researcher, designer of complex learning scenarios, collaborator, and evaluator.
In conclusion overwhelmingly, the response to the question of “who should be responsible for developing the use of information technology to the education system” was everyone. This includes: government, professional societies, faculty, teachers, librarians, students, publishers and manufacturers of learning technology products. We want to conclude our idea with the Uzbekistan President’s words: “Technology science, the ability of acquiring the complicated technology should go alongside with moral perfection and independent intelligence.” [2]
References:
- Muhamedova Z. The humanize of education — T.: Tashkent medical academy. 2004, p48.
- Karimov. I. A. Dream of perfect generation.-T.: Uzbekistan, 2000, p 34
- Manuel Castells Information technology, Globalization and social development. UNRISD Discussion paper № 114, September 1999.
- Information technology, Its impact on undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. Report on an NSF Workshop
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology
- http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/careersintechnology/p/ITDefinition.htm
- http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-information-technology.htm
