INTERNET AND SCHOOL EDUCATION IN RUSSIA Information about a Study Informatization of Russian education today is declared as one of the priority goals of our state. But at the moment usage of the global network by the teachers and students causes a lot of questions. First and foremost, for informatization of schools on the basis of Internet-technologies the communication links equipment are required - and also the schools should be equipped by the modern computers. That's why it is too early to talk about widely spread connection of Russian schools to Internet and the scale of Internet technologies propagation in Russia is much less than in the West. But besides technical equipment of schools there is another aspect - the teachers should be trained in new information technologies and Internet. Federation of Internet Education is going to solve this task, they have started the project "Generation.ru" within the framework of which they organize the training centers for teaching Internet technologies to the specialists of high schools. According the order of Federation of Internet Education the independent research center ROMIR started in June 2001 the cycle of studies of public opinion about the prospects of internet education in Russia. In particular they performed the poll of school teachers and the high school students in 5 Russian cities. The poll was performed by the method of personal interviewing. In total there were 600 respondents: 300 students and 300 teachers (150 teachers of humanitarian and social disciplines and 150 teachers of natural science, informatics and mathematics) in the cities of Barnaul, Novgorod, Belgorod, Irkutsk and Briansk. Purposes of the study 1. Detection of the informational needs and interests of teachers and students in informational/Internet technologies. 2. General evaluation of the state of high school education in Russia. 3. Analysis of the ideas of the study participants concerning the prospects of Internet education in Russia, evaluation of projects associated with Internet education. Main results 1. Work in the Internet Our results show that 34% of the high school students and teachers have the access to Internet (30% for teachers and 38% for students). In general the students work in the Internet 1 or 2 times per week, whereas the teachers - only 1 or 2 times per month on the average. 40% of students which use Internet have this possibility at home but there is only 18% of users among the teachers have this opportunity at home. Average time of one seance is from 30 min. To 1 hour, as for students (37%), as well for teachers (41%). 2. Informational preferences 64 % of the high school students having the possibility to use Internet, visit the entertainment sites, 61% of students search in the web information with the help of search systems and catalogues and 60% use e-mail. As for the teachers - 76% look for information, 63% visit sites with educational information and 52% use e-mail. It became clear as a result of this poll that the educational sites and specialized sites for teachers are rather popular among both the students and teachers. For the majority of students (44%) these sites are attractive by their collections of abstracts, 37% of students are interested by the tests and by the methodology of checking their knowledge, 30% visit the educational sites in search of the libraries. The majority of teachers (68%) are looking at the educational sites for methodology and curricula of educational courses, 68% - the tests and methodology of checking the students' knowledge, 55% are interested in the information about Olympiads and competitions in their subjects. It might seem interested that collection of references for the educational sites appeared to be rather unpopular - only 5% of students and 9% of teachers mentioned that they would like to see such collections at the educational sites. 3. Internet technologies at school In spite of all the conservative approaches of the modern school, today Internet is necessary for it. It is confirmed by the results of our poll: only 1% of the participants consider that Internet technologies are not needed for the educational process at school. The majority of respondents (63% of students and 73% of teachers) are sure that the information search with the help of the search systems and catalogues is the Internet technology, most actual for the educational process. Also conducting of the inter-school thematic Internet projects is necessary (36% of students and 58% of teachers) and also creation of the data and knowledge bases (42% of students and 51% of teachers). The teachers and students were suggested to answer a question about the difficulties met by introduction of the Internet technologies at schools. The most serious problems, according the opinion of teachers and students is the lack of finances to pay for the provider services (48% of students and 53% of teachers), lack of computers (42% of students and 47% of teachers) and also lack of the teacher's computer skills (mentioned by 45% of teachers and only 16% of students). It is interested that lack of the methodological materials is mentioned as an obstacle to introduction of the Internet technologies at school is mentioned only by 9% of students and 5% of teachers, lack of interest in usage of Internet technologies is mentioned by 9% of students and 8 % of teachers and only 1% of respondents mentioned lack of the students' interest towards using of the Internet technologies at schools.

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