Tagad 2016 (10)

TAGAD
INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION –
CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHER
ZANDA RUBENE
Editor-in-chief of magazine “Tagad”
During the last two decades a new generation has grown up in Europe for whom life in
media environment and daily use of digital technologies has become a norm. Representatives
of this generation use technologies at home in their leisure time as well as for studies
at school or university. Besides, they would like to experience the integration of technologies
more often and more widely in the field of education. The researchers of social
sciences have concluded that social contexts helping any individual, including a student,
to acquire experience and knowledge have changed radically in contemporary society
(Underwood, Farrington-Flint, 2015).
Evidences have been summarized to prove that digital technologies have changed the
life of children and adolescents in Western culture in such speed and way that no one –
neither producers of technologies, nor teachers, parents or researchers of social processes
have foreseen (Prensky, 2010; Postman, 1982; Underwood, Farrington-Flint, 2015). Nowadays
Internet or global network has facilitated not only new processes of democratization
and decentralization in society (Eriksen, 2001), but also has completely transformed interpersonal
communication (Underwood, Farrington-Flint, 2015).
For example, on the one hand social network
offers new opportunities by providing access to
enormous number of digital tools that can be
used in communication, cooperation and for the
exchange of ideas while on the other hand communication
with the representatives of digital
generation, cooperation with them in the field of
education is changing radically and becoming
more troublesome for the representatives of
older generation.
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