Problems of Education in the 21st Century

5-8

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

The title of the article does not promise a positive attitude towards education. The reader can feel impressed that the only purpose of the author is the criticism of education with no positive points. However, this is a wrong position as any vivid detail can be clearly noticed. On the other hand, both positive and negative sides need to be considered and in this case, improvement and modernization are not the only ways. A steady increase in welfare is a myth, thus there is no need to discuss which area of life looks is described. When mentioning progress in education and modernization, we must face the other side of the road full of phenomena of degraded education which is not new in Lithuania. The last decade has generated discussions on this issue at different levels, although this is unfashionable and finally useless from different points of view. The most pressing problem is that the concept of degraded education has not been accepted as reality up to now. Therefore, the above introduced points should be plausibly argued.

20-29

Authors: Bernard W. Andrews

ArtsSmarts, a national arts education initiative, supports artists collaborating with teachers to implement arts instruction in partnership with school and community organizations. This study was undertaken after policy interventions were undertaken by the partners to refine 214 arts education projects across Canada. Findings indicate that the projects emphasized student exploration, creativity and arts integration across the curriculum, and teachers undertook an increased role in organizing and participating in the projects. Most projects were offered at single sites in urban settings, and projects were extended over the school term to increase their impact on learning. Visual arts was the most common arts discipline and grade five was the dominant grade level in which arts partnership projects occurred within the national arts program.

41-50

Authors: Martin Bílek, Ivana Šimonová, Jan Lašek

The paper deals with research activities run at the University of Hradec Kralove, Faculty of Education and Faculty of Informatics and Management, Czech Republic, which relate to information and communication technologies implemented in the process of instruction in various subjects. Particularly the role of a virtual learning environment (VLE) is mentioned and discussed, and information about core current projects is provided. The project work is understood to be a tool of VLE reflection, which is considered both from generally accepted points of view, and some new approaches are also introduced.

60-86

Authors: Michalis Evripiotis, Vassilis Orfanos

The introduction of technology in general and especially information technology in education is a big change in the educational concepts which has taken place during the last two or three decades all over Europe. Besides, Europe through the process of continuous education improvement tries to maintain maybe the unique but also so much decisive comparative advantage that it possesses against all the other countries of our planet that is nothing else but the quality of its human potential. This article presents with brevity the important steps that the main European countries have made in the introduction of modern technologies of information technology in the primary and secondary education, as well as the process and the problems of their introduction in the Greek school. We believe that this experience will be very useful in a country like Lithuania that has already made very important steps in this sector simultaneously with its successfully continuing transition in the market economy system.

97-104

Authors: Blanka Frydrychova Klimova

The article firstly discusses cultural differences between Western and Central European cultures as far as the academic register is concerned. Moreover, the fact why Czech students have a lack of experience in writing is explained. Secondly, the most problematic areas – linguistic and stylistic – (e.g. articles, word order, indirect speech, long sentences, register . . . ) the first-year students at the Faculty of Informatics and Management in the Czech Republic have to pay attention to when they write an academic paper in English are being analyzed. Thirdly, a new approach to writing at a university level is introduced and a few challenging assignments how to make writing more attractive are explored in the article. Thus, the reader might experience how students increase their communicative competence in writing, their motivation, cultural awareness and responsibility when, for instance, they write an article for Wikipedia.

124-136

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas, Violeta Šlekienė, Loreta Ragulienė

It is accepted that ICT makes the process of teaching/learning more effective and beneficial whereas the education system starts functioning faster. The development of ICT and the process of globalization determine alteration in the education system as well as in the whole society. The implementation of new technologies in the educational process raises new possibilities for both teacher and learner, enhances education quality and makes the educational process more versatile. A crucial point is that employing ICT must be highly efficient in the process of training would-be teachers of sciences. The students graduated from comprehensive or upper secondary (gymnasium) schools have a broad knowledge of mastering ICT the major part of which are PCs, palmtop computers, mobile phones, different kinds of audio, video and digital players etc. In this case, we encounter a problem of how to properly develop the acquired abilities in the further process of studying. Thus, the object of our research is the ability of the fourth-year undergraduates to use information and communication technologies. The aim of research is to gain information concerning the fourth-year students’ opinion on the application of ICT in the process of studies. The research A Student and Information and Communication Technologies was conducted in January – March, 2010. Research sample consisted of 322 respondents who were 4th year university students. To analyze research data, the measures of descriptive statistics (absolute and relative frequencies, popularity/usefulness/necessity indexes) have been applied. The surveyed fourth-year undergraduates have almost unlimited possibilities of using a computer, mobile phone, the Internet and an electronic data storage device - USB flash drive. The students almost daily use the basic functions of the mobile phone (writing SMS, calling). However, calling to other people using a mobile phone and sending SMS are a more frequent occupation of females as male students are tend to search for information on the Internet and send and receive e-mails. Considering all aspects of using information and communication technologies among the surveyed fourth-year students that graduated from city or regional schools, no statistically significant deviation has been noticed.

146-157

Authors: Jane Mattisson, Teri Schamp-Bjerede

This article discusses an on-going pilot project for improving essay writing at Kristianstad University, Sweden. It presents a so-called boilerplate which has been designed for Master’s-level English students. This e-learning tool is used as a cognitive tool that facilitates learning with as opposed to learning through technology. The boilerplate is part of a joint learning system (Kim & Reeves, 2007) in which there are three equal participants in the learning process: the tool, learner, and activity. As technology is increasingly implemented in education, there is a need to understand pedagogical processes that not only take into consideration the student, but how the technology is used by the student. Our paper discusses the e-learning tool created at Kristianstad University, and looks at the first, preliminary results of its use in connection with pedagogical issues, usability, and interaction.

166-178

Authors: Ineta Ruškuvienė, Dalia Augienė, Domas Auga

The article analyses structural and intensity features identifying parents and pedagogues’ social attitudes towards education of disabled children. The performed research allows to assert that the structure of attitudes towards educability of disabled people contains the following components: recognition of personality and social value of a disabled person, recognition of their abilities, pedagogical pessimism, fatalism, humanistic pedagogics, segregation, inferiority of a disabled personality and their family, orientation to social – every day education priorities, the underestimation of special education needs, archetypical fears of socializing with a disabled person, pedagogue’s function as a family substitute. In fact, all these components integrate into two main educability construct dimensions, pedagogic pessimism and pedagogic optimism. Features of commonness and individuality identify parents and pedagogues’ social attitudes towards educability of mentally disabled people. Commonness lies in the educability model, its structure. Individuality means that parents’ social attitudes towards educability of their disabled children are oriented (with respect to attitude intensity) to a person, whilst pedagogues’ – into education and integration process. The intensity of parents and pedagogues’ social attitudes changes depending on social –demographic factors. The attitude’s intensity (positive and negative evaluation range) to their disabled child’s educability is conditioned mostly by parents’ psychological state. Professional motivation, age, professional activity place, the type of educational institution condition pedagogue attitude’s intensity the most.