There comes such a critical moment, from which the teacher can no longer work without modern technologies. He begins to use various services not only to facilitate his work, but also to communicate with colleagues, students, parents, and society.
Today, such services as e-mail, Internet search, and Skype calls have become indispensable, and thanks to their convenience, they are also universal. However, there are many new tools that teachers need in their daily work, for interesting learning and development of critical thinking of schoolchildren, which are freely available and worth trying.
Participants of the "Digital Transformation of Education" Forum of the Google Educator Group Ukraine community began to spread the virus of understanding simple technologies. The event brought together educators, scientists, managers, and masters in all aspects of using information technology. And for an open exchange of experience, innovative teachers from Estonia, Belarus and Ukraine were invited.
The format of the meeting is an informal communication of teachers in a friendly circle, where there is an opportunity to talk about their inspired work, about innovative highlights, discovery and use of ICT during education.
Discussions of pedagogical possibilities concerned, first of all, the safety of the child on the Internet, the new quality of education, digital technologies at the service of educators, the implementation of Google Apps for Education, and the use of Google tools.
The organizers of "Learning with Google" - educators Nataliya Sarazhynska, Nataliya Gushchyna and Antonina Bukach - are convinced that the best source of inspiration for a teacher is another teacher. And if he can also help, advise and share his own experience, then he is definitely a modern teacher of the 21st century, who himself brings innovations to education.
On Safer Internet Day, which coincided with the forum, Elijah Laval, Google's security expert who joined via Skype, made one very important point: Google offers a lot of free web services, but it's up to parents to make sure that so that children see only appropriate content, without violence, disasters, etc. He briefly presented Google products and familiarized himself with the settings for safe search, privacy protection and blocking of unwanted users.
The experience of Ludmila Rozhdestvenska (Tallinn) regarding the implementation of STREM schools - an innovative system of education for schoolchildren aimed at developing children's technical creativity in terms of mathematics, physics and astronomy, chemistry and biology, computer science and art sciences - was quite interesting. Such an education system teaches to live in a real fast-changing world, to be able to respond to changes, to think critically and to be a developed creative personality.
My colleague from Minsk, Iryna Vasylieva, presented the non-formal education of the Republic of Belarus, focusing on the distance education of teachers, various useful resources, face-to-face and distance seminars offered and conducted by the National Institute of Education.
A productive working day ended with several bar camps - informal, open interactive meetings. Teachers from Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Ternopil, Bila Tserkva, Shostka, Mykolaiv shared their improvements.
In general, the Forum "Digital Transformation of Education", organized in partnership with Google Ukraine, the GEG-Ukraine community, the Institute for Modernization of Education Content of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Ukraine, became a unique platform for broad cooperation, exchange of experience and ideas regarding the use of digital solutions and Google tools in the educational process.
