E.1. PRESENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE PROPOSED RESEARCH FIELD.
Telematics networks can provide valuable support for professional development (Davis, 1994, 1988). Teacher educators are willing to share their materials databases of materials and discuss new approaches to teaching and learning. Exemplary teachers provide models and can tutor others new to the use of IT in their work. Discussion with specialists in the same field as to the way in which new technology supports teaching within topics and disciplines in an important part of the process (Davis, 1993).
All over the world at the end of 1980s small and rather closed teams of educational software programmers and enthusiastic teachers were involved in creating of CIT applications for education.At the beginning of 1990s situation changed sharply. Tens of thousands of specialists became involved in researches, development and application of CIT for education.
This process was promoted by reducing of computer cost and realization of national programs for introducing of information science in education. Following P.Duguet (Duguet, 1989) and B.Levrat (Levrat, 1992), we can distinguish between so called "restricted" and "comprehensive" programs.
Developed countries mostly have reached restricted objectives of CIT in education and achieved computer literacy of significant part of population. They have provided introduction of computer technologies in vocational education and secondary schools, embedded training at working places, etc. These countries implements nowadays comprehensive using of CIT in education with such objectives as:
here are good examples of comprehensive program implementations in The Netherlands, Great Britain, and the USA.
The University of Twente (The Netherland), provides a master-level program in educational science and technology for prospective R&D specialists, many of whom are to be employed by training departments in large corporations and institutions. It also provides answers to questions relating to training, retraining and also general and vocational education. Faculty members in projects and students working on their theses use a general technological engineer-like approach to solve all types of problems in CIT. Emphases are given to the choice, design, development, use, and evaluation of audio-visual means and computer software. The research program concentrates on designing, producing and evaluating prototypes of audiovisual, computer-enhanced or multimedia products and on evaluating the use of such products in the field.
Various research projects at the Faculty of Educational Science and Technology at the University of Twente investigate following problems (Collis,1994):
A longitude research project (the PRONTO Project) about the impact of computers in education has been completed at Twente University. Two secondary schools in Enschede and the Faculty of Educational Science and Technology were involved.
The central idea of the Project was to equip both schools with extra facilities (in hardware, software and released time for teachers) to create a situation of a 'technology-enriched' school (TES) (Moonen, 1994; Collis, 1994). The main task of the project was to investigate the impact of a TES environment on the school as a whole and in an interrelated way.
Communication and information technology at the University of Exeter can provide a valuable support. The model of ResCue or the Open University (Davis,1994) could be modified to address pressing needs, providing appropriate resources.
Where suitable expertise is developed, networks of teacher educators and teachers could provide mutual support for course and curriculum development. Collaborative projects within and across countries would provide a valuable stimulus to the development of a new curriculum and the use of a target languages, as in those described for pre-service teacher education and the modern foreign language Newsday (Davis, 1994).
Most of developing countries are on the way to achieve their restricted objectives in introducing computers in education. These countries only begin making experiments with telecommunication means. A peculiar situation has arisen in countries of CEE and the NIS. In Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ukraine peripheral educational establishments are on the level of developing countries, but the leading research organizations, universities, and selected secondary schools set and successfully solve tasks connected with comprehensive objectives. A computer-assisted course "Expert systems in secondary school" worked out at IRTC UNESCO/IIP (Kiev, Ukraine) can serve as a good example of development of students' creative abilities. The course was tested in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Syria (Bykov et al.,, 1993; Dovgiallo, 1993). The next example of comprehensive level is an original conception of CIT that was formulated and received recognition and dissemination in the NIS and CEE countries at the end of 1980s and at the beginning of 1990s (Gritsenko & Dovgiallo, 1989; Gritsenko, Dovgiallo & Saveljev, 1992). This conception was described in details in the international handbook that contains more than 600 surveys and terminological articles on theory and practice of CIT in Education (CITE). The articles were written by 150 specialists of Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Cuba, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Czechia.
In recent years the conception of "CITE and intelligence in content and methods of instructions" was extensively applied in Module Teacher Training Course on CITE at IR&TC UNESCO/IIP in Kiev, at Sofia University, and at Kaunas Technological University.
As to telematics networks, for example, in Ukraine today there are many computers connected to distributed networks. From five worldwide computer networks (BITNET, INTERNET, UUCP, OSI) two networks UUCP (RELCOM) and FIDONET are widespread in Ukraine. Last year we had got a direct connection with INTERNET. These networks are used mostly for supporting e-mail, for commercial and research applications. There are also several BBS for software exchange. We have not much experience with educational networking because this kind of activity is prevailing in INTERNET. However we have some experience of this kind here in Ukraine because about 150 Ukrainian High Schools participate in IBM "Pilot Schools" program for countries of the former Soviet Union. These schools took part in HELLO and RAINS projects which included exchange of letters and e-mail communications (through UUCP) between Ukrainian and European participants. In the final analysis we can state: countries of CEE and the NIS are ready to assimilate Western experience in educational networking, CIT and Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL).
There is also a need for institutional commitment to new forms of flexible and distance learning and the willing support of 'outside' collaborators has an important facilitating effect. Collaborative projects within and across countries would provide a valuable stimulus to the development of new curricular and target languages as described in (Davis,1994) for pre-service teacher education and modern foreign languages.
These objectives can be achieved with by collaborating of East scientists with colleagues at Twente University and the University of Exeter.
REFERENCES