FORMATION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE OF FUTURE AGRARIAN SPECIALISTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Nowadays, Ukraine’s education system is experiencing global changes that require innovative approaches to the management of educational institutions. In addition, modern requirements for the management of educational institutions, the quality of the education system require a high level of professionalism from all participants of the educational process, especially future specialists. Current social processes taking place in our country have caused an urgent need to increase the level of information and communication competence of future specialists in agriculture, education and pedagogy, who will be able to perform their duties productively in unpredictable conditions, especially under quarantine restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Application of modern computer technologies is one of the compulsory prerequisites for the use of information and communication competencies of future agrarian specialists in educational institutions. Educational interaction in blended learning can be implemented on the basis of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Internet technologies. Their advantages include the focus on collaborative learning technologies, wide opportunities for communication (exchange of messages, chats, comments, etc.), exchange of files of various formats, etc. However, they have some drawbacks: teachers are often forced to work with a specific interface within a certain logic of the environment; creation of educational components of the educational environment is available mainly to the teacher, which sometimes complicates joint work of the subjects of the learning process, i.e. there is no communication with the network community; operational load on the school server and problems with system administration. The reasons for the introduction of cloud technology into education in the process of formation of information and communication competence of future agrarian specialists are as follows: significant financial investments in the purchase and maintenance of equipment and software products; rather difficult adaptation of finished software products to the teaching process, and, as a consequence, only fragmentary use; the need to develop the information environment of educational institutions. The main benefits of common cloud storage in the formation of information and communication competence of future agrarian specialists are as follows: file exchange can be carried out in different directions: student – student, university – student, teacher – student; virtually no training is required to work with cloud storage; it supports different types of files that can be published on the Internet; it is possible to work with several files and folders at the same time; data on the local computer is automatically updated when you update the Internet; when multiple users work at the same time, the file update applies to all users. Therefore, information and communication competence is the ability and willingness to effectively use information and communication technologies within professional activities. Information and communication competence of the employee of the educational institution can be defined as the conscious, purposeful and effective use of knowledge, skills and labor actions in the field of computer science in the framework of one’s professional activity, namely educational activities. Analysis of the required knowledge, skills and labor actions of employees of the educational institution has allowed us to identify the basic information and communication competencies for the management level: construction of information space at the educational institution, organization of communication channels and ways to protect information; ensuring openness and accessibility for all participants of the normative-legal sphere of management of educational institution; analysis, formation and presentation of information about the activities of the educational institution, its property status, income and expenses; creation and updating of databases of all participants of educational relations at the educational institution; creation and provision of a system for monitoring the quality of the educational process, educational achievements of students, activities of the educational institution; possession of skills of work with electronic sources of normative-legal maintenance and systematization of normative-legal base of management of educational institution; design, compilation and processing of documentation using appropriate software.