Once upon a time, in a past life, when I was working at the RIO Center – there was once such a fund in Moscow, fully called the Center for the Development of the Information Society – I already had to deal with various ratings that assess the level of information technology development . At that time, in the early 2000s, Russia was also going to move towards the development of the information society and was developing appropriate strategies. The strategies were good – at the project stage, at least – but then authoritative comrades in uniform pointed out that it was not the information society that needed to be developed, but sovereignty should be protected, and bright prospects for the development
of e-government, openness to the world, free movement of information, etc. . at once shied away from the no less bright prospect of establishing comprehensive control of the competent authorities over the information space. But Russia, as you know, goes its own way, and the world continues to closely monitor the indicators of the development of the information society, believing that they are closely interconnected with the prospects for economic development and with the standard of living of people.
On November 30, 2015, the International Telecommunication Union published the report “Measuring the Information Society”, which included a huge amount of data on the development of information technologies in 167 countries of the world. The report is also accompanied by a rating that allows each country to assess the degree of its progress in this area since 2010 (the date of publication of the previous rating) and compare its achievements, for example, with the achievements of its neighbors.
The first three leaders are South Korea, Denmark and Ireland, but today they are not occupying us, but Serbia, about which hardly anyone will write in Russia.
So, in the global ranking of information and communication technologies development in 2015, Serbia occupies 51st place (the same as in 2010) in the first third of the list. It lags behind Russia (45th place), but is ahead of such countries as Argentina (52nd place), Kazakhstan (58th), Brazil (61st), Ukraine (79th), China (82nd), South Africa (88th). If we compare Serbia with countries where our compatriots willingly leave for permanent residence in order to work via the Internet on a freelance basis, then its positions also look good. Below in the list are the popular Cyprus (53rd place), Montenegro (65th), Turkey (69th), Thailand (74th), so in this sense it looks quite competitive (except, of course, the lack of sea beaches).
If we take the Balkans as a whole, then here Serbia also looks good in the ranking, losing to Greece (39), Croatia (42) and Bulgaria (50), but ahead of Romania (59), Macedonia (60), Montenegro (65), Bosnia and Herzegovina (77) and Albania (94). Another thing is Europe as a whole. Among 40 European countries, Serbia ranks 33rd, below all EU members with the exception of Romania.
The weakest development of broadband access to the Internet remains the weakest point – only 15.57% of the country’s inhabitants have it. Three more problematic points that pull Serbia down:
— insufficient number of households with their own computer (65.62% against 51% in 2010);
— insufficient number of households with access to the Internet (51.75% vs. 40%);
— insufficient number of Internet users (53.5% versus 41%).
The biggest progress over the past 5 years was achieved by Serbia in the field of high-speed mobile Internet distribution – the share of users increased by 86 times from 0.18 to 15.57% – which, however, is quite natural, given the pace of development of relevant technologies and the spread of gadgets that allow you to receive access to these services.
It is easy to see that lagging behind Europe is primarily due to lagging behind in income levels, which is why more than a third of households do not have their own computers (without which, of course, it is impossible to connect to the Internet). The country will get out of the crisis, wages will rise – and the situation will change and change quickly. As soon as people have the ability to pay for fast Internet, the corresponding opportunities will not be long in coming.
One of the most important goals of education and upbringing in the Republic of Serbia is the development of key competencies for lifelong learning, interdisciplinary and professional competencies in accordance with the requirements of the profession, the needs of the labor market and the development of modern science and technology [1, art. 8].
In solving this urgent educational problem, a significant role is given to information technologies (hereinafter referred to as IT). This area of work, implemented in comfortable and health-saving conditions, has a positive impact on all areas of the child’s development, improving the quality of all areas of educational work. The successful use of digital technologies in preschool education is achieved by increasing the information competence of preschool teachers.
Preschool age is a period when children, using all the senses and mental abilities, are trying to actively learn about the world around them.
The need to take into account the age characteristics of preschoolers, the specifics of educational work with them requires a special approach to the introduction of IT in the system of preschool education. Teachers acquire basic theoretical and special methodological knowledge in the field of IT, practical skills related to the use of these technologies in educational work with preschool children [2].
Acquaintance with the huge creative potential of IT to improve the quality of teaching and educational work is a motivating factor for
improvement of preschool education. The results of studies conducted by Serbian scientists show that the introduction of IT in the preschool educational system is a response to the needs and interests of children. The integration of digital technologies into the educational work of preschool educational organizations is focused on improving the quality of all areas of educational work and developing the foundations of the information and communication culture of the child [3; 4].
It can be argued that there is no such area of educational work and creative activity of preschoolers in which IT could not be successfully applied and seamlessly integrated with traditional forms and methods of educational activity. They provide significant assistance to the teacher in the analysis and systematization of their work, fixing and subsequent analysis of materials from observations of the activities of the child or group. By
