2949775850

BEM 2/2013

Advantages and disadvantages of digital education

Paweł Mąkosa

Digital education is essentially a product of the past several years, although in different forms it already existed slightly earlier. It is evident, hovvever, that modem devices and means of information transfer are necessary for its development. This type of education would not be therefore possible without rapid development of computers and the Internet. In fact, it can be concluded that they were primary in relation to digital education and somehow they forced its emegrencel because the prevalence of computers and broadband Internet has given a very strong impulse to use them also in the educational activity. As a conseąuence, today ‘virtual lectures, modem e-leaming courses, educational games, electronic tests, portals with educational resources as well as digital school registers and monitoring systems of the leaming process’2 have entered everyday reality. This article aims to show the specificity of digital education, the current State of its implementation, the expected results and concems in this respect. The presentation of the perspectives for digital course books will be the culmination of the reflection undertaken here.

1. The real need or merely a fashion?

At the beginning of this reflection it is worth answering the basie ąuestion conceming the motivation for the introduction of digital education to schools. This is a fundamental issue because one must first determine why and whether it is worth taking such an action or not. Is this merely a kind of fashion or does it result from real needs? There is no doubt that today’s people, especially the young, belong to a different era. They are very often referred to as digital human^{1 2 3} or even digital

1

   Cf. W. Kołodziejczyk, M. Polak. Jak będzie zmieniać się edukacja? Wyzwania dla polskiej szkoły i ucznia. Warsaw 20lip. 48.

2

   Ibidem, p. 49.

3

   A. Andrzejczak. Cyfrowy człowiek - homo sapiens digital. [Online] [access on: 21.09.2013], Available on: <http://www.edunews.pl/nowoczesna-edukacja/innowacje-w-edukacji/623-cyfrowy-czlowiek-homo-sapiens-digital>.