Multimedia technologies penetrate into various spheres of educational activity. The spread of innovations is facilitated by external factors associated with the ubiquitous informatization of society and the need for appropriate preparation of schoolchildren, as well as by internal factors related to the popularization of modern computer equipment and software in schools, the adoption of state and interstate programs for the informatization of education.

In many ways, these processes were stimulated by the emergence of the Internet. Today, every student can find the necessary information on the Web or contact an online paper writing service whose employees can be located at the other end of the country.

Despite the fact that progress has gained tremendous speed, its expediency is still being questioned. Let’s find out whether innovations really help to improve the educational system.

In what situations are modern technologies useful?

In most cases, modern tools have a positive impact on the intensification of pedagogues’ work, as well as on the academic performance of students. At the same time, any experienced teacher will confirm that, against the background of a fairly frequent beneficial effect from the introduction of information technology, in many cases, the use of multimedia means has no impact on improving the quality of training, and sometimes, such use has a negative effect. It is obvious that solving the problems of appropriate and justified informatization of education should be carried out in a comprehensive and universal manner. For some real fun, you can try  golden-bonus-code.com – it’s ready to play!

Teachers should consider two possible areas of introducing the technology in schools. The first one presupposes that innovations are included in the educational process as “supportive” means within the traditional methods of the historically established training system. In this case, multimedia resources intensify the learning process, individualize it and partially automatize the routine work of teachers related to the recording, measurement, and evaluation of schoolchildren’s knowledge.

In the second case, the introduction of multimedia resources leads to a change in the content of education, a review of the methods and forms of training, the construction of progressive holistic courses. New knowledge and skills are considered not as a goal, but as a means of developing the student’s personality.

The use of modern technologies will be justified and may lead to increased learning effectiveness if the innovations meet the specific needs of the education system, when full-fledged learning without the appropriate modern means is impossible or difficult.

Such needs arise during the study of elements of micro and macro worlds, as well as when considering a number of concepts, theories, and laws that cannot find the required experimental justification in usual conditions (the study of weightlessness, acquaintance with the notion of infinity).

The need for multimedia arises both when developing the skills typical for each discipline (for example, the compilation of structural isomers in chemistry) and when forming the general educational skills (systematization and classification, analysis and synthesis, the ability to plan experiments, collect and analyze information).

Another group of needs is determined by the development of creative skills. Such needs arise when solving the optimization problems, i.e. one of the possible options, the most economical variant is chosen (finding the optimal solution not only mathematically but graphically).

Technology may be used for checking the hypotheses put forward, for development of constructive-combinatorial skills. Progressive digital tools allow to assemble an integer from parts, to simulate objects and processes. In addition, sometimes, it is necessary to model a sequence of events, and a student has to draw conclusions about factors that affect the final result.

Some laboratory experiments may take a very long (short) period of time or require devices that are inaccessible to a particular educational institution. Such tests also can entail the need to use appropriate information and telecommunication technologies.

Advantages and disadvantages of modern technology in education

It is necessary to know the main positive and negative aspects of informatization of learning and using the modern resources. Obviously, knowing these aspects will help to introduce innovations in the areas where they entail the greatest benefits and to minimize possible negative effects.

There are many positive aspects of the use of progressive technologies in education. As the main ones, we can distinguish:

• improvement of processes of information selection and formation of the curriculum;
• new disciplines related to information technologies appear and evolve;
• students and teachers move to new levels of interaction;
• even those subjects that are not connected with computer science undergo significant changes, for example, at biology lessons, children may not only read about prehistoric animals but also see 3-dimensional models of their bodies;
• strengthening of the individual approach: the assignments are compiled taking into account the opportunities and preferences of each student;
• interesting and bright educational content is one of the strongest motivators for learning;
• the management of the educational institutions becomes more convenient and simple thanks to automation.

There are also some negative aspects:

• individualism, reduction of social contacts and communication;
• difficulty of moving from the standard form data representation on the pages of the textbook to the digital screens and practical actions;
• in the case of the widespread use of modern technologies, teachers and students can’t find really useful data in a large amount of information that modern facilities provide;
• complex ways of presenting information distract students from the material being studied.

It should be remembered that, if a student receives information of different types simultaneously, he is distracted from one type of data in order to keep track of others, skipping important information. In addition, the use of multimedia often deprives students of the opportunity to conduct real experiments with their own hands.

Individualization kills the live communication between pedagogues and students, inside the groups of young people, offering them communication in the form of “dialogue with the computer”. The student does not receive sufficient practice of dialogical speech and formulation of thoughts in a professional language.

Finally, the excessive and unjustified use of modern technology negatively affects the health of all participants in the training process.

The listed problems and contradictions suggest that the introduction of progressive tools in school on the principle “the more, the better” cannot lead to a real increase in the effectiveness of the education system. The use of innovations requires a planned and clearly reasoned approach.