Zubchenko O. Information and Communication Technologies in the School Education of Great Britain

The dissertation is devoted to the problem of implementation of information and communication technologies into the school education of Great Britain. We have analyzed the formation of the concept "ICT in education"; uncovered the national education strategy of Great Britain in the sphere of ICT in the context of EU general approaches; defined key tendencies of ICT development in the education of the countries members of EU. Summarizing the development of technologies in the education of European countries and especially in Great Britain we can make a conclusion that the period 40-80-s years of the XX-th century had become the preparatory stage for the appearance of new pedagogical phenomenon and the new term "ICT in education", which is the direct subject of our research. The appearance of new term was connected with the transition of humanity to the information society and with the distribution of ICT in all spheres of human activities including education. The mass implementation of ICT in British system of education at the end of the XX-th century led to the discussion about the conceptually-based terminology, which would completely reflect the essential characteristics of above-mentioned technologies. The results of our research are evidence of the fact that the term "ICT in education" is the dominating one in British education at the modern stage - it is the most frequently used by governmental and non-governmental institutions in the sphere of education and at the same time by educators. At the state level of Great Britain ICT are recognized as the driving force of the educational system reformation. The official definition of the role of ICT in the school education is the evidence of it. Particularly the National Curriculum, which was adopted in 1988 and modernized in 2000, regulates that teachers within the school education process have to provide pupils with opportunity of getting the basic ICT skills. In 2005 the Government of Great Britain adopted the new strategy of e-learning "Harnessing Technology", the main purpose of which was the establishing the systematic approach to ICT-usage in the sphere of general education. The main implementers of the above mentioned ICT strategy at the national level are Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), LT Scotland (Learning and Teaching Scotland), NGfL Cymru (National Grid for Learning Cymru). The implementation of ICT into the British system of education is provided with the hierarchical structure "top-bottom", which is characterized by the integrity, consistency and subordination of its components. Using of the hierarchical structure stipulates for the division into three levels of management (international, national, regional) with the clearly defined functions and duties. The NC of Great Britain contains the detailed definition of the pupils' ICT knowledge and skills which have to be formed during the each stage of education. At the same time NC defines the main approaches to the development of the appropriate skills according to the Key Stages. Generation of digital competency in British schools is come from the wide implementation of ICT into the process of education. The innovation of Great Britain is the ternary approach consisting of the separate educational subject in ICT within the NC and "5-14 National Guidelines", inclusion of ICT knowledge and skills into all other subjects of the curriculum, as well as using of ICT as the means for the maintenance of the whole educational process. On the basis of the complex analysis of NC and British experience we propose the author's classification of the practical application of ICT in the education of Great Britain, show their peculiarities, effectiveness and rationality. We have classified ICT according to the hardware, software, resources and peripherals which are used within the educational process. We have formulated the author's definitions of the following terms: "ICT in education", "off-line ICT in education" and "network ICT in education". Our research results demonstrate the dynamics of the creation of the ICT-model in education development based on the key tendencies, which are observed in the functioning of British schools at four levels: legislative; inventories; contents; teachers' training. It was discovered the hierarchical structure of the implementation of this model into the education system of Great Britain. We developed the recommendations on the implementation of British experience in Ukrainian system of education.