Introduction

The author indicates and discusses the functions of the educational system. They are neither equated with the functions of the educational system nor with the objectives of general and vocational education, but are fundamental in the case of young people. They include: readiness to live in a democratic society, readiness to live an individual life, readiness to participate in the culture, readiness to live in the environment, and readiness for a professional life.

The work constitutes an analysis of selected sociological, psychological and pedagogic issues of the knowledge-based society. A special emphasis was paid to the role of education in the changing society, knowledge construction, professional skill and ability development, as well as self-education of individuals in the whole-life education, in both public and private education sectors with the use of information-communication technologies (ICT).

Technological development, starting from the industrial revolution, from the beginning of the 19th century, has led to the development of a website (media) society, thanks to the development of telecommunication technologies, their global scope, and a relationship between a computer and a telephone in the Internet. The author of the article, referring to his conclusions, makes an attempt to find out what characterises the society in question.

The article is devoted to the role of social capital in the development and perception of modern information technologies. What influenced personal and author’s views was an invitation to the conference devoted to, among other things, the impact of new information technologies on the functioning of the contemporary postindustrial society. On the basis of the issue raised, the author confronts the already-reached achievements in this field in Poland, arguing that traditional communities, in contrast to modern structures, limit a mass social participation in terms of the approval of patterns, norms and values propagated, among others, in the culture of digital modernity represented mostly by the Internet and real democracy. The author makes an attempt to pay the Reader’s attention to the native situation within the scope discussed here, which is marked by numerous contradictions.

Education is as much about teaching as it is about up-bringing. Thus, the aims of education constitute the category of development referring to the future as they concern the desired changes ongoing in knowledge, skills, cognitive abilities, interests, and learner personalities under the influence of a didactic and educational process. A child, in natural conditions, functions in diverse environments, which, influencing it, satisfy its cognitive curiosity, shape its mulstisensory development, as well as its opinion and value system. As a result of it, the acquired knowledge is not always real whereas the values do not meet the axiological requirements. What appears here is the importance of the role of a teacher as a guide who, staying in a direct contact with his/her learners via a dialogue, provides them with the conditions of a versatile development thanks to a pedagogic dialogue. The crucial condition of a pedagogic dialogue is treating learners as partners. The article presents the aims and the scope of a pedagogic dialogue, its didactic, psychological, and ethical aspects, as well as relations between school models and teacher attitudes, and their skills to come into a dialogue with learners.

The author looks at the educational reality. The subject of his analysis constitutes educational processes to be significant within its basic scope of action, scientific language, as well as subjective phenomena and categories. The subject of a discourse bases on two themes, the first one marked by the “philosophy” of human development and education, the second determined by the organizational culture of educational institutions, educational, health and social policy.

The essence of educational changes in high school is to spend students’ expectations. It concern changes in studying content, rise the quality level of information transmission and enrich students knowledge. The aim of my consideration is to present constructive point of view, which concerns academic education. That was presentation of effects and conditions of studying with informatics technology support.

A constant knowledge growth, which results in the increase of the teaching material to be covered by learners in schools, overburdening them with school duties, causes a systematic decrease in their engagement, dissatisfaction, frustration, and loss
of motivation to learn. More importantly, the learners expect that schools prepare them for an individual leraning in different fields, according to their individualised educational needs, rather than give them an opportunity to memorise a certain part of the material. Information technology can play a significant role here, however, its application to self-education is possible only when people have already created certain habits in terms of its appropriate usage as a tool of an intellectual human development.

The media has still been extending its scope in the contemporary human life. The young generation should be prepared to use it rationally. This diffcult task is to be realised by both school and family. Thus, there exists a need to prepare a family for it, educating it by means of media pedagogisation. Such pedagogisation can take place in higher schools, however, its scope will be limited. A broader audience can be reached by means of mass media, as well as school parent meetings. The issues covered within this pedagogization include a wide spectrum of media knowledge, ranging from the possibilities of using media in human life, and threats it brings, to the organization of leisure time for children and youth.

The author of the article analyses the issue of information society and media culture. She presents the results of her study on youth behaviour in terms of media culture, it being, above all, understood as information transmitter, be it traditional or electronic media. The subjects constituted gymnasium learners, aged 13–16.

The article deals with the problem of the application of blogs into the primary level education. It describes the beginnings of blogs worldwide and in Poland. It discusses various aspects of blog application, however, a special emphasis is put on educational blogs. What is given focal attention is the analysis of the results of the studies on the educational value of learner blogs. The article characterises the blogs under investigation, and attempts at dividing them into categories. On the basis of the research findings, practical conclusions were made concerning the application of blogs in developing knowledge and abilities to effectively use information technology.

The subject of the article is the natural pedagogical experiment which was to show an innovative didactic situation and changes in knowledge of arithmetic and skills learnt by elementary students. Moreover, some positive values of teaching computer assisted mathematics have been presented.

Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology at the University of Silesia - history, structure, development.