BLENDED LEARNING TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN PARADIGM OF EDUCATION

Abstract

The impact of digital technologies on the society, economy and education increases every day. Children are using digital gadgets from preschool age, and the younger generation who  cannot imagine their lives  without the Internet starts school. The virtual technologies penetrating modern school, teachers must be prepared not only for the awareness of the fact, but to be ready to use them. Before higher education there is the task of training specialists who can use a computer for the organization of interactive training and testing, video conferencing, participation in telecommunication projects, webinars, forums, etc. Although the popularity of blended learning increases in modern educational institutions, not all teachers understand the essence of this concept.  The conducted analysis of the publications of foreign scientists showed that blended learning being a new approach in the organization of distance education began to be introduced at the end of the twentieth century in order to optimize the retraining of employees of enterprises.  The development of computer technologies with which pupils and students can freely use the Internet services has contributed to the  implementation of blended learning for the organization of educational activities of general and higher education institutions. A generalized analysis of works by domestic scholars has shown that the notion of “blended learning” relates to such concepts as “learning process”, “learning system” “educational technology”, “educational methodology”, “combination of methods”, “modernization tool”, etc. On the basis of the analysis of literature on the concept of “blended learning” by foreign and domestic researchers, the author presents her own definition, showing the main components of blended learning and its benefits in organizing educational activities in institutions of general secondary education. A scheme of combining traditional and e-learning in a mixed one is suggested. Digital technologies have a significant impact on the nature and the character of training and students’ activities. It allows the implementation of fundamentally new forms and methods of learning, and consequently, increases the efficiency of educational process in a digital society. It is noted that modern teacher has to develop independent educational content in text, video, multimedia and hypermedia format, to use digital and educational resources, to set up educational content management systems and to organize training with the use of the Internet and its services. A computer science teacher at school should be a specialist who can effectively use the new technologies and teach others.