Informatization of the education system, a view from the inside
A long time ago, in a certain kingdom, in a certain state, magic wonders appeared and with wonderful names. Few knew of the boyars and even the simple people. What a marvel is incomprehensible, unknown, and tricky. But they were found, good lads helped, they solved a difficult riddle and told that the mechanisms are cunning, not a bis, obsession. These mechanisms are yes and necessary, and they are considered faster by accountants of noblemen, and they are written better by clerks of orders, and the message is faster than any messenger, and if they give them instructions, they will not forget it for a fraction, and they will entrust the terrible secrets under the fierce ones torture. They thought about the boyars and clerks and decided that in the most distant volosts, everywhere, where people are waiting for the training, those machines should be necessary, so that the youths and their mentors could be controlled with them easily, and the overseas guests are surprisingly.
In 2001, centralized deliveries of hardware and software began in all schools in the country. Until 2005, curricula were developed, application software was selected, teaching staff, administrative and engineering personnel were trained, electronic training materials were created and conditions were created for access to them.
Since 2005, a second wave of supplies has begun, financed from the federal budget. The equipment has become larger and more powerful, and the software packages have included so much of everything that I don’t even dare to mention their estimated cost, I'm afraid to underestimate.
Since 2008, the source of supply has changed, since the financing of the project has passed to the subjects of the federation.
At the same time, a systematic connection of educational institutions to the Internet began using all the methods available locally, from fiber to satellite connection. According to official data, all schools in the country are now connected, a bit worse in the segment of primary and additional education and everything seems to be getting better, but there are a few but.
Since 2010 (the date is approximate, since each region has its own head), the distribution of hardware and software is very much dependent on how “successfully” the school uses ICT in the educational process. As one official said, "We water where it grows." If the school is not distinguished in this regard, does not participate in related projects, and is not strong in showing off (this is a very important factor), it will be deprived of many nice buns and will have to find funds from its own (or municipal) budget. In general, this is correct, but there is one flaw in this scheme - the opponents had initially different weight categories. I will give a simple example:
School A is located close to the “center of the universe”, has a technical specialist on staff, receives funding first and is oversaturated with technology.
School B is in a “bearish corner”, an already loaded informatics teacher (and he also leads maths and physics), is financed on the leftover principle, the equipment has been supplied, but in smaller quantities or a long time.
Provided that the level of training of pedagogical personnel in the field of ICT is the same, School A has more chances only on the principle of inertia and the fact that with all sorts of checks the equipment somehow works and sometimes even is used. Maintenance is generally a sore issue of small schools, the rates of those. there is no specialist in the state, and if there is, then the level of payment for it is very low. Somehow, the ministry did not think about this issue, although there are attempts to solve the problem - in my case one specialist serves several facilities at once, but considering the factor of distance, the number of equipment and users, he physically cannot keep up with everything.
By the way, about the level of training of teaching staff.
- official sources assure us, because statistics is not lying, more and more teachers successfully use ICT in educational activities, create interactive tutorials, participate in network projects tied to the use of the Internet, and even invent nothing less, but “absolutely a new, unparalleled principle of interaction of participants in the educational process ”- just pride takes over our education. And you know what I’ll tell you, this is true, but only in particular cases (which are served as a systemic phenomenon), and the overall picture is not very encouraging:
')
Firstly, the skills of ICT competence are distributed in a random order and it is foreseen that any particular teacher knows and is very difficult. There is absolutely no connection with age, specialization, place of work and place of residence (city / village).
Secondly, retraining and advanced training courses are mostly just a formal procedure. I have seen a lot of examples when a teacher has a whole set of crusts and evidence, according to which he is a guru of Windows and Unix, and in fact he doesn’t even use e-mail, and any Linux causes paralysis, I’ll better keep silent about poppies.
Thirdly, universities do not prepare young specialists for new educational standards (in which the notorious ICTs are often full), their curriculum is at least 10 years behind. Unfortunately, this problem is relevant not only in the educational sphere, but this does not mean that no need to decide.
In fairness, it is worth noting that ICT has become a kind of special “fad” in the ministerial heads, and they are introduced where necessary and not necessary, sending quarterly various “recommendations” to educational institutions. Despite the fact that recommendations are not like an order - they are carried out with a zeal worthy of a better application, creating paradoxical situations when the killer is a feature aimed at speeding up and facilitating the educational process in practice causes a diametrically opposite effect. That is, there is a problem at the administrative level, expressed in the inability to assess the feasibility of implementing a solution, but the “boss is always right” and cannot always / want to consult with a competent person.
One of the consequences of the large-scale introduction of high technologies was the greatly increased burden on teachers. To successfully pass the recertification, the teacher must be in various communities, invent network projects, digitize a lot of material, most of which will go nowhere. Various electronic gadgets in the classroom often lead to the fact that the preparation time for a lesson increases by two or three times, and regularly changing “recommendations”, along with rapidly evolving programs and equipment, lead to the loss of value over the past ten years of the electronic educational materials database.
Standardization - the cornerstone of the IT industry could not but be connected with the informatization of the education system. And yet not connected. It begins with the educational program and ends with the equipment and software used — there is no such zoo as in the educational environment in any office in the world. On the one hand, this is a plus - the teacher is given the freedom to choose a tool for learning. On the other hand, the lack of a framework allows you to do this “as a god for the soul”. To take such a subject as computer science - in one school, children study computer devices, algorithms, one or several programming languages ​​- in another they paint in Paint and learn to type in Word.
Again, the general formulations and the weak level of agreement give a huge scope for "pushing through" super-mega hardware-software systems with a price like that of a spacecraft, the use of which, however, is not always advisable. Sometimes I look at ministerial sets of delivery, and the words “kickback” and “cronyism” appear in the head by themselves, or maybe this is incompetence? - well, I don’t know ... Do not think that I’m trying to blacken someone - schools come up with very cool things: kits for learning robotics, electron microscopes, kits for various physical experiments, interactive projectors, netbooks capable of withstanding crushing children, servers such software and hardware stuffing that they can tie all the needs of a small village and not just a school. And it’s very good when this equipment and software is used in the classroom and for maintaining the infrastructure of the institution, but even here I have to add a fly in the ointment: often access to expensive equipment may be limited (and it will break), or it will simply be unclaimed and gather dust. in the museum, or used at 5-10% of the potential. In addition, institutions rarely ask what exactly they need. If everything goes smoothly according to the reports, they will send a couple of class-sets, although for the second year the administrator requests the server ...
For 13 years, the state has done a great job, and, across the country, has achieved very good results. The very base has been prepared, the need for which has matured at the end of the 20th century. What will happen to this base next?
With regard to equipment and software - its purchase and maintenance will be transferred entirely to the competence of the school. The need to cut the budget for something that until recently was provided free of charge would inevitably lead to the degradation of the technical park in individual institutions. But there will be an opportunity to participate in various competitions, in order to obtain grants that can be spent on these goals.
As for the educational program, it is undergoing significant changes and the educational process without the use of electronic devices will very soon become unthinkable (if you're interested, read the new GEF ), but only in relatively large localities. The backyard will work in the old manner for at least the next 5 years, then I just don’t undertake to predict, since the state is able to issue many more passages, like the exclusion of computer science from a compulsory school program.
As for the direct use of ICT in the educational process, everything here will remain at the level of the average Russian user, since the current level of motivation to increase one’s ICT competence comes down to the formal procedure of “learning in a dream” and we will not see anything more than banal presentation or video on an interactive whiteboard.
In 2001, centralized deliveries of hardware and software began in all schools in the country. Until 2005, curricula were developed, application software was selected, teaching staff, administrative and engineering personnel were trained, electronic training materials were created and conditions were created for access to them.
Since 2005, a second wave of supplies has begun, financed from the federal budget. The equipment has become larger and more powerful, and the software packages have included so much of everything that I don’t even dare to mention their estimated cost, I'm afraid to underestimate.
Since 2008, the source of supply has changed, since the financing of the project has passed to the subjects of the federation.
At the same time, a systematic connection of educational institutions to the Internet began using all the methods available locally, from fiber to satellite connection. According to official data, all schools in the country are now connected, a bit worse in the segment of primary and additional education and everything seems to be getting better, but there are a few but.
Punishing the innocent and rewarding the uncomplicated
Since 2010 (the date is approximate, since each region has its own head), the distribution of hardware and software is very much dependent on how “successfully” the school uses ICT in the educational process. As one official said, "We water where it grows." If the school is not distinguished in this regard, does not participate in related projects, and is not strong in showing off (this is a very important factor), it will be deprived of many nice buns and will have to find funds from its own (or municipal) budget. In general, this is correct, but there is one flaw in this scheme - the opponents had initially different weight categories. I will give a simple example:
School A is located close to the “center of the universe”, has a technical specialist on staff, receives funding first and is oversaturated with technology.
School B is in a “bearish corner”, an already loaded informatics teacher (and he also leads maths and physics), is financed on the leftover principle, the equipment has been supplied, but in smaller quantities or a long time.
Provided that the level of training of pedagogical personnel in the field of ICT is the same, School A has more chances only on the principle of inertia and the fact that with all sorts of checks the equipment somehow works and sometimes even is used. Maintenance is generally a sore issue of small schools, the rates of those. there is no specialist in the state, and if there is, then the level of payment for it is very low. Somehow, the ministry did not think about this issue, although there are attempts to solve the problem - in my case one specialist serves several facilities at once, but considering the factor of distance, the number of equipment and users, he physically cannot keep up with everything.
By the way, about the level of training of teaching staff.
The level of training is growing!
- official sources assure us, because statistics is not lying, more and more teachers successfully use ICT in educational activities, create interactive tutorials, participate in network projects tied to the use of the Internet, and even invent nothing less, but “absolutely a new, unparalleled principle of interaction of participants in the educational process ”- just pride takes over our education. And you know what I’ll tell you, this is true, but only in particular cases (which are served as a systemic phenomenon), and the overall picture is not very encouraging:
')
Firstly, the skills of ICT competence are distributed in a random order and it is foreseen that any particular teacher knows and is very difficult. There is absolutely no connection with age, specialization, place of work and place of residence (city / village).
Secondly, retraining and advanced training courses are mostly just a formal procedure. I have seen a lot of examples when a teacher has a whole set of crusts and evidence, according to which he is a guru of Windows and Unix, and in fact he doesn’t even use e-mail, and any Linux causes paralysis, I’ll better keep silent about poppies.
Thirdly, universities do not prepare young specialists for new educational standards (in which the notorious ICTs are often full), their curriculum is at least 10 years behind. Unfortunately, this problem is relevant not only in the educational sphere, but this does not mean that no need to decide.
In fairness, it is worth noting that ICT has become a kind of special “fad” in the ministerial heads, and they are introduced where necessary and not necessary, sending quarterly various “recommendations” to educational institutions. Despite the fact that recommendations are not like an order - they are carried out with a zeal worthy of a better application, creating paradoxical situations when the killer is a feature aimed at speeding up and facilitating the educational process in practice causes a diametrically opposite effect. That is, there is a problem at the administrative level, expressed in the inability to assess the feasibility of implementing a solution, but the “boss is always right” and cannot always / want to consult with a competent person.
One of the consequences of the large-scale introduction of high technologies was the greatly increased burden on teachers. To successfully pass the recertification, the teacher must be in various communities, invent network projects, digitize a lot of material, most of which will go nowhere. Various electronic gadgets in the classroom often lead to the fact that the preparation time for a lesson increases by two or three times, and regularly changing “recommendations”, along with rapidly evolving programs and equipment, lead to the loss of value over the past ten years of the electronic educational materials database.
Harmonization and standardization
Standardization - the cornerstone of the IT industry could not but be connected with the informatization of the education system. And yet not connected. It begins with the educational program and ends with the equipment and software used — there is no such zoo as in the educational environment in any office in the world. On the one hand, this is a plus - the teacher is given the freedom to choose a tool for learning. On the other hand, the lack of a framework allows you to do this “as a god for the soul”. To take such a subject as computer science - in one school, children study computer devices, algorithms, one or several programming languages ​​- in another they paint in Paint and learn to type in Word.
Again, the general formulations and the weak level of agreement give a huge scope for "pushing through" super-mega hardware-software systems with a price like that of a spacecraft, the use of which, however, is not always advisable. Sometimes I look at ministerial sets of delivery, and the words “kickback” and “cronyism” appear in the head by themselves, or maybe this is incompetence? - well, I don’t know ... Do not think that I’m trying to blacken someone - schools come up with very cool things: kits for learning robotics, electron microscopes, kits for various physical experiments, interactive projectors, netbooks capable of withstanding crushing children, servers such software and hardware stuffing that they can tie all the needs of a small village and not just a school. And it’s very good when this equipment and software is used in the classroom and for maintaining the infrastructure of the institution, but even here I have to add a fly in the ointment: often access to expensive equipment may be limited (and it will break), or it will simply be unclaimed and gather dust. in the museum, or used at 5-10% of the potential. In addition, institutions rarely ask what exactly they need. If everything goes smoothly according to the reports, they will send a couple of class-sets, although for the second year the administrator requests the server ...
Results and prospects
For 13 years, the state has done a great job, and, across the country, has achieved very good results. The very base has been prepared, the need for which has matured at the end of the 20th century. What will happen to this base next?
With regard to equipment and software - its purchase and maintenance will be transferred entirely to the competence of the school. The need to cut the budget for something that until recently was provided free of charge would inevitably lead to the degradation of the technical park in individual institutions. But there will be an opportunity to participate in various competitions, in order to obtain grants that can be spent on these goals.
As for the educational program, it is undergoing significant changes and the educational process without the use of electronic devices will very soon become unthinkable (if you're interested, read the new GEF ), but only in relatively large localities. The backyard will work in the old manner for at least the next 5 years, then I just don’t undertake to predict, since the state is able to issue many more passages, like the exclusion of computer science from a compulsory school program.
As for the direct use of ICT in the educational process, everything here will remain at the level of the average Russian user, since the current level of motivation to increase one’s ICT competence comes down to the formal procedure of “learning in a dream” and we will not see anything more than banal presentation or video on an interactive whiteboard.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/206922/
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