INFORMATION AND DIGITAL SKILLS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS: ESSENCE, TYPES, AND CONTENT CHARACTERISTICS

Abstract

The relevance of the study is justified by the fact that all levels of education, in particular primary, direct their activities to the display of information and communication between the participants of the educational process through the use of digital means. This is due to the scientific and technical progress, reforms, cognitive and age needs of younger schoolchildren. According to the State Standard of Primary Education, information and communication competence should be formed in pupils of the 1st grade, in the structure of which information and digital skills are singled out. The purpose of the article is to clarify the essence of the concept of «information and digital skills», to characterize the types and content of information and digital skills of primary school pupils. The following methods were used during the research: studying of regulatory documents and psychological and pedagogical literature, analysis, synthesis, generalization and specification. The article clarifies the essence of the concept of «information and digital skills» as the ability to process digital information, in particular, to communicate online, and to select appropriate ICT tools and algorithms for actions to implement one's own request. The types and content of the information and digital skills of elementary school pupils are characterized by the following aspects: the ability to search for information on the Internet – mastering by younger schoolchildren the ability to quickly and efficiently, using the Global Network, receive answers to their own search queries; the ability to critically evaluate digital data – the ability of a junior high school student to interpret information from Internet sources and realize its correspondence to scientific or social reality; the ability to choose digital tools necessary for the performance of an educational task – the ability of younger schoolchildren to use such computer software and hardware or online tools that make it possible to implement the educational task with the least expenditure of time, effort and resources; the ability to choose and use digital tools for online communication – the ability of younger students to determine which ICT tools will most fully contribute to the realization of the goal of their communicative request, and to use them for learning and in everyday life; the skill of «netiquette» – the ability of younger schoolchildren to behave ethically on the Internet; the ability to create and edit a digital product – the ability of elementary school pupils to produce and make changes to digital files; the ability to behave safely on the Internet – the ability, formed on the basis of knowledge and experience, to perform online activities without harming one's own health, the health of others and financial situation; the ability to independently solve elementary technical problems – the ability of younger schoolchildren to eliminate the simplest inaccuracies in the operation of a computer or smartphone.