New European View of Education: Implementation of ICT in Overall Education Process: Scopes and Limitations

Abstract

Educational Programs based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) contribute to the quality of education and training and to Europe’s move to a knowledge based society. The European Commission has been very active in supporting and complementing the efforts of EU Member States in this fi eld. The Leonardo da Vinci Program is a part from the efforts implementing the e-learning Initiative and Action Plan in operation through different measures (pilot projects, transnational networks, etc.). This way it has gained considerable experience in encouraging cooperation, networking and exchange of good practices at European level. Introduction of e-learning approach is a further step towards realization the vision of technology serving lifelong learning. It focuses on a set of actions in high priority area, such as Biotechnology and Public Health, chosen for their strategic relevance to the modernization of Europe’s education and training system. The infi ltration of new communication and information technologies of education and training requires standards to be set and roles and teaching methods to be redesigned in order to receive better benefi t from the opportunities offered by technological information. Teaching approaches have to be furnished with a user centered approach in order to be pedagogically effective. Thus, integration and support of lifelong education and professional training without emphasizing a negative impact on learners’ individual development and its projection in society could be achieved. The implementation of ICT approach for realization of virtual learning gives an opportunity for use the results from rapid evolution of science and technology into education. The analysis of European general scenario of education gives the following aspects, characterizing the common trends: ¾ establishing criteria for selecting ‘good’ practices; ¾ implementing changes in education; ¾ organizing ICT based-learning system. The integration of the requirements of the ‘information society’ into educational system is linked with the following features: ¾ Methodological: the used didactic tools must be useroriented and the applied solutions must support the usability of multimedia tools; ¾ Pedagogical: providers of the teaching process (teachers/ trainers) are engaged to play a key role in tele-education in order to guarantee qualitative pedagogical content of multimedia tools. The advantages and limitations of virtual reality are based on learning at experimental level;