The EU not only provides funding, but also has launched several policy initiatives and interventions on the digitalisation of education, outlined, for instance, in “Europe 2020 Strategy,” “Digital Agenda for Europe,” “Agenda for New Skills and Jobs,” “Innovation Union,” “Opening up Education: Innovative Teaching and Learning for All through New Technologies and Open Educational Resources,” “DigComp 2.0: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens,” “A European Framework for Digitally Competent Educational Organisations,” “A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe,” “New Skills Agenda for Europe: Working Together to strengthen Human Capital, Employability and Competitiveness,” Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, and “Strategic Framework – Education and Training 2020.” Furthermore, contests such as European Digital Skills Awards for outstanding projects contributing to digital skills development have been launched. The authors from ten countries try to consider and analyse the contemporary topics and modern trends in the fields of internationalisation of higher education, IT competence, and intercultural competences development in conditions of the digital world.

The present volume includes seven articles gathered in three chapters.

The paper presents a synopsis of the evolution of methods and techniques up to the digital age and characterises the main aspects of behaviourist and constructivist models in order to study the development of new advanced pedagogical tools and methods in education science in constructivist environment. For the purpose of the study, an analysis of the technological evolution during the last decades and its impact on education science was made, with a special focus on virtual teaching and learning. The practical outcome of the study was a series of online seminars and workshops, prepared by the international team of the IRNet project. The keynotes and workshops were held during DLCC2017 Conference (Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Distance Learning, subtitle: Effective Development of Teachers’ Skills in the Area of ICT and E-learning) at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Video presentations and an automatic translation are available at: https://areis-en-constructivism.blogspot.pt.

The article focuses on the internationalisation of education and competences approach in the digital world as viewed by experts from different countries: the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine. The article aims to provide opinions, views, and reflections on important topics addressed by the IRNet project and DLCC2017 Conference participants.

The text presents a short overview of activities of the Polish Ministry of National Education over the last dozen years or so, with a particular focus on the activities that are the results of planned or already implemented reforms in Polish school in terms of both improving its competitiveness and taking practical steps aimed at teaching practical skills, and not just providing the theoretical knowledge on such topics as new technologies, usage of ICT tools as didactic aids, Internet accessibility, cyber-safety, e-textbooks, or international cooperation projects (for instance eTwinning). The article can function as the base for comparison with the actions of other countries’ governments from our region in this field. The numbers given in this text are to give only the general idea of how many more challenges there are for the governing authorities, education financing system, and the Ministry of National Education. The school does not have to encourage students to use the Internet or multimedia, but it should teach how to use them in a safe and conscious way in order to develop one’s self, qualifications, and competences.

The article investigates the problem of future primary school teachers’ training in using information technology (IT) in teaching mathematics and, in particular, in the aspect of the use of various online resources, online services for teachers, and other pedagogical software. The results of the diagnosis of conditions for future teachers’ training for the introduction of IT at the mathematics lessons in primary school are analysed. The peculiarities of the digital generation of children are determined, and, based on this, the necessity of the introduction of IT in mathematics lessons is substantiated. Finally, the approaches to training for future teachers to create interactive exercises – in particular through the Learning Apps online service – are identified.

The article elaborates on the concept of the e-tutor providing high academic achievement in electronic and blended learning. Moreover, the arrangement of the e-tutor, the instructional process features, and the scheme of the whole system functioning are given, while the concepts of a task kit, a normalised lesson, e-tutoring, and an e-tutor are introduced.

An interest in integration of mobile applications in education will continue to rise. What is necessary nowadays are such didactic methods that will facilitate and accelerate the transmission of knowledge to students, activate a process of mastering knowledge, teach them to undertake independent work with the given material, and enhance the productivity of educational process and teachers’ work. Such methods of studies can be realised on the basis of the use of information technologies in education. The basic problem is a requirement to develop methods and resources for support of the use of mobile technologies by elementary school students. Mobile technologies can make the learning process more interesting, answer the requirements of today, and give necessary information at the right time. In this model, the activity approach will be employed. The cognitive activity of a child will get organised in such a form that opens him or her for knowledge, so that learning becomes the main activity, as required by the discussed programmes. The article analyses the game models necessary for the education and development of children of elementary school age. The contents of mobile platform gaming models are revealed. The article also provides the classification of the proposed products that promote the learning and development of a child, the so-called soft skills and hard skills. The suggestions for using gaming models on different devices are given. The requirements for the use of gaming models of mobile platforms in the educational process are offered.

This article, prepared by an international team of researchers from different scientific areas connected with ICT, e-learning, pedagogy, and other related disciplines, focuses on the objectives and some results of the international project IRNet (www.irnet.us.edu.pl). In particular, the article describes research tools, methods, and a procedure of the Work Package 7 “Dissemination of the Project Results,” that is, objectives, tasks, deliverables, publications, and implementation of research trips in the context of the next stages and Work Packages of IRNet project – International Research Network.