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Second Pillar of the Infovek – Educational Contents of the Project

The educational concept of the Infovek Project is based on modern tendencies of the transformation of society into information society, which are being realised in the EU countries and other countries since the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Nowadays there is no developed country, which doesn’t express the importance of the education development in terms of ICT through the series of the wide government and non-government projects, implementation of the information and communication technologies to the preparation of the young generation – since the pre-school age until the completion of the secondary education as well as through the tertiary education and the quickly developing new forms of the distant and life long education.

If we look at the level of utlisation of ICT in all professions, we accept the opinion that the question of the participation of a computer in education is already irrelevant. Ignoring this tendency would mean to overlook the development of the society, development on the labour market, priorities and preferencies in unifying Europe. Modern school with new education opportunities on the basis of new technologies is becoming a strategic place, which will decide further economic and cultural development of the particular countries.

The basis education goals of the Infovek project are as follows:

pupils and students must, during their elementary, secondary, and university education, familiarize and have an active command of ICT because they will use these technologies at work as well as in their private life,
integration of ICT into teaching of all subjects gives the excellent preconditions and at the same time opens new dimensions of education, which require change of the traditional education content and curricula, change of the current relationship of the teacher and pupil to new partnership relation as well as change from the passive role of the pupil while adopting finished knowledge to an active role, in which the pupil takes over the responsiblitiy for her/his education in the conditions, which give her/him the opportunity to develop abilities and talents in a creative and effective way,
use of ICT in the teaching of all subjects offers a possibility to teach in a new way (new methods and forms of teaching) as well as the new content (hence, not just to teach the current content in a new way but to teach the new content in a new way). As an example we could mention utilisation of the geographic multimedia information (for example encyclopedia on CDs). This huge potential allows to introduce to the teaching a new concept of geography – the so called investigative geography (as we observed at the Dutch secondary grammar schools at the beginning of the 90s). The concept is based upon constructive approach, which prefers the construction of knowledge instead of less active form, which is accepting the knowledge from the teacher. The new method, supported by ICT, which is motivating for the active work of pupils in the learning process, is the project teaching, where the pupils are resolving various projects from the school level through the national level up to the international level. Resolving of the projects does not only provide them with the opportunity to obtain new knowledge but also reveals that learning makes sense and helps to resolve the problems of everyday life. These modern methods of application of new technologies of education develop creativity of pupils as well as their personality, critical thinking, will to co-operate, communication abilities etc.
to participate in the transition of the current school to a modern school of the third millennium, utilising fully the new information and communication technologies, breaking down the traditional walls between classes and schools, between subjects, goes over time and space in the education process and provides a possibility of life long education both through the forms of presence and distance education etc.

The Infovek project could not possibly be successful without a thoughtful concept of construction of an education content, prepared in co-operation with the Education Committee, working at the Council of the Minister of Education for the Infovek Project.

The education content is being realised at various levels:

The creation of the education projects for subjects and the creation of a virtual education content on the education server of the Infovek project is the first level of realisation. Outstanding teachers from schools, education experts at universities and the education institutions as well as students, working as facilitators of the education projects in the framework of the Office of the Department of the Infovek Project at the Institute of Education Information and Prognoses (kancelárie Oddelenia projektu Infovek na Ústave informácií a prognóz školstva) in the framework of the Association of the Infovek Project or at schools, are participating in the process of creation of the educational contents. During the realisation of the Infovek project significant tele-projects were created and are currently under realisation („Rok v krajine/Year in a country, VIRGAL, Látky okolo nás/Matters around us, Let’s Sing Together”, Mozaika/Mosaic, etc.“), education websites for the particular subject taught at elementary and secondary schools, are gradually created. Step by step the discussion groups, focused on the sector of new education with the support of ICT are getting more and more active etc.
The second level of the educational contents of the Infovek project, which starts taking an important place, are the complex educational projects, focused on the sector of new education based on ICT. Such projects are realised in co-operation with the partners (in the sector of virtual simulation of economy - Investland project, What do you want to know about NATO in the framework of education and culture for the integration of Slovakia to NATO, e-Economy for the preparation of the young generation for the work in a new virtual economic environment etc.).
The third and at the same time a very important level of the educational contents of the Infovek project is – the educational package for schools, which includes the purchase of the education software (multimedia CD ROM), purchase of books and publications, specialised in the application of ICT in education. The specification and as well as the selection of the educational package is prepared by the Education Committee working at the Council of the Minister of Education for the Infovek Project.
The fourth, developing part of the realisation of the concept of the educational content of the Infovek project, is the international co-operation in the area of the application of ICT in education. We have initiated the co-operation with England, Canada, the Czech Republic, and since 2002 Infovek is also a part of the European RAFT project, in the framework of which there will be experimental testing of new communication environment for education at selected Infovek schools and also the new content of education will be created.