The Use Of Ict In Compulsory Electives In Slovenian Lessons

Adaptability, flexibility and lifelong learning are the key requirements that the workforce of the future will have to face. In the future, education will have to prepare participants for a process of constant learning instead of just focusing on ‘traditional’ knowledge of facts and contents. Innovation and flexibility in choosing the methods and ways of teaching and transferring knowledge are significant for the success of this process. The development of information-communication technology and material conditions at schools offer teachers who are qualified for the didactic use of ICT a wide spectrum of possibilities to achieve higher goals in developing students’ competence to use the acquired knowledge in new situations, to have a consistent approach to solving problems and to be able to form a report in a correct and comprehensive way. This contribution presents an example of good practice, i.e. how the use of modern technologies can change the process of carrying out compulsory electives which are planned in the syllabus for the Slovenian language in order to achieve a higher level of reading literacy with students. With the classic way of conveying information, such as worksheets, written and oral communication, we check the success of carrying out activities and the gained knowledge with an individual student. Information and communications technology offers the choice of various methods in every stage of the learning process (activities) – planning, carrying out and monitoring students’ activities, communicating and knowledge testing. With the change of methods and ways of performing activities we encourage students to develop the competences in science and technologies and the competences of self-initiative and entrepreneurship. With the ‘traditional’ form of the learning process (activities) we focus on the effect of an individual, whereas in a group we also focus on the effect of the group as a whole. Members of a group help and encourage each other, both group and individual responsibility are present, and there are rewards for achievements of an individual and the group as well. The comparison between the ‘classic’ method of carrying out compulsory electives and the ‘modern’ use of ICT shows a big difference in the success of transferring knowledge, the activity of participants and the achievements in performing activities, all in favour of the ‘modern’ method. Learning happens in various ways, thus learning becomes a continuous process and schools need qualified teachers, who can use ICT in a sensible and effective way, along with effective and quality e-content and with a deliberate plan of action.