INFORMATION SOCIETY AND INFORMATIZATION

OF THE EDUCATIONAL SPACE: GLOBAL TRENDS

AND PROSPECTS

Ludmila Andreeva,
Associate Professor, PhD,
Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA),
Russia, Moscow

Abstract: The twenty-first century could be rightfully considered as an era of

information accompanied by the global informatization of the modern society. The globalization of
the information society in this research is interpreted as a macroscopic, multi-faceted and internally
contradictory process of the growth of similarity in the world systems: economic, political (Rhodes,
1997), educational, social and legal. The current dependence of human civilization on its
information component has made it much more vulnerable in this regard. In addition, such
vulnerability is connected with the fact that our society today is a fundamentally open structure
(Grossman, 1995). The most important result of the formation of information society was the
emergence of the so-called global information space (Martin, 2014). The authors of this article seek
to answer the following questions: how does the sphere of education develop in the context of
global information society and what are the key trends in the process of informatization of the
educational space. Information resources and structures have become a tool for achieving a
strategic advantage. The authenticity, credibility, as well as an adequate reflection of information
realities represent the key challenges for the communication society. It has become clear that to
live in a more complex, interconnected and detailed world the mankind needs to be well-equipped
with tools for understanding its own behavioral patterns and their impact on the new social
dynamics.

Keywords: information society, informatization, educational space, ICT-

technologies, educational environment, global education, digital revolution,
communication society, communication technologies, global information.

1 Introduction
The computers and related electronic resources now play a central
role in the process of education. Regardless of how we view the digital
revolution in education from the point of view of psychology, it is
necessary to recognize that this phenomenon is objective and inevitably
continues to gain momentum. At the moment almost the majority of
students (pupils, students of educational courses and programs) is
completely immersed in the process of the educational digital ‘revolution’
(Fuchs, 2009). Today, the teacher rarely accepts student tasks written by

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hand, preferring the version printed on the computer. Actually, in any
case, the student, when conducting independent research or preparing
homework in the form of an essay or a solved case, uses a computer, and
therefore students’ daily life has become almost impossible without
digital gadgets. The majority of students has considerable experience with
the Internet, and whether teachers like it or not, young people are actively
exploiting web-resources for the most of their academic work. The
students are taking advantage of an e-mail as a normal form of
communication with their teachers. But not only do students find
electronic resources valuable and useful. The teachers also find it useful to
apply digital resources in the educational processes. We emphasize the
word ‘useful’ because the electronic resources do complement, rather than
replace, more traditional methods of learning and teaching.

2. Problem statement

During the early twentieth century the nation-state had reached the
height of its development and, in its various forms, had come to include
within its iterations nearly the entire habitable surface of the earth. It was
explicitly defined in its dimensions, protected by recognized borders, and
entitled to self-defense according to defined rules of war. It was sovereign
in its domestic policies, wielding exclusive authority over its people and
resources. Each state was recognized as a member of the family of nations,
able to enter into relations with any one of its counterparts as an equal
polity.
One reason for the successful proliferation of the nation-state as a
form of governance had been that the stage of technical advancement was
well adapted to its limited territorial oversight. During the twentieth
century the state had been grounded in well-tested doctrines and practice,
but it also fit the level of technical advance prevailing at that time. This
included not only the printed book and journal, but also railroad and
industrial machines, and, finally, radio and cinema. Combined together,
these were able to create a total environment of public understanding and
national purpose within a region of common language and custom.
Difficulties with the mechanism of the state began to emerge in the
late twentieth century, however, because of the way further innovations in
communication and transportation were being employed. Suddenly,
capital could be assembled, labor concentrated, and resources marshalled,
without regard to distance or topography. Sound and image could be
broadcast across borders and around the world. Information of any
quantity on any topic could be transmitted from any one location to any
other location at any time, by any person.

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 For the state, these new developments—not to mention advances in
warfare technology—marked a dramatic challenge, not only to its
functioning as a framework of authority and its foundation of national law,
but also to its self-sufficiency as a nation. Among the first problems to be
confronted was the effective negation of its borders as a protection against
unregulated communication and trade. Any former conception of the
border as an absolute and defined barrier separating not only territories,
but also legal jurisdictions, was becoming untenable.
With the great concession of the border, the next problem for
national governments was the regulation of affairs that involved
immigrants, visitors and commercial agents who had entered from outside.
The problem was how, on a practical level, these could be regulated, or
even monitored. Overseeing the affairs of its own citizens was rather easy,
because both they and their property generally existed within the region
defined by national borders. But matters were less simple with those
entities whose primary assets and ownership lay outside territorial limits
and beyond the reach of authority.
Moreover, the new technical innovations brought instability and
imbalance on an international scale as well. Especially when combined
with the existing advantage of the Anglophone infrastructure of finance
and trade, the result was another period of phenomenal corporate growth.
This sparked an outbreak of Third World protest and resistance, against
what was seen as the Western exploitation of foreign and disadvantaged
countries. A widespread movement developed during the nineteen sixties,
opposing what it viewed as a rapacious quest for profit.
Complicating this reaction was another unforeseen factor: television.
With the new ability to transmit sound and image, messages of discontent
and revolution could be widely broadcast. Nationalist, socialist, anti-
capitalist movements in smaller countries—in the past, wholly isolated
from the developed centers of power—could garner a sympathetic
following around the world. Official explanations of world affairs now
seemed to be undermined by the new broadcast media—especially among
young people, even in Anglophone countries. The result was disruption
not only in matters of foreign relations and foreign policy, but also in the
atmosphere of consensus necessary for quiet order and international
stability. These world-wide upheavals culminated in the student rebellions
of 1968.
But the impact of those technical innovations proved, once again, to
be simply a prelude to what would come. The arrival of the twenty first
century marked not only the advent of a new millennium, but also the
onset of a new age. It was termed the age of technology, of information,
and of globalization. It was sometimes referred to as the postmodern age
to distinguish it from the period of modernity that preceded it. In fact,

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because of remarkable advances in technology, many conventional forms
of governance and rule were coming to be reconsidered and displaced. In
particular, the nation-state seemed to be undergoing a profound regression.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the problems roiling the
state were offset by the exhilarating impact the new technologies were
having on the corporation. For that structure, electronic transmission of
sound and image, voice communication, information systems, and
computerization were unqualified benefits. The new ability to travel, to
transport, and to trade opened vistas of opportunity for expansion and
consolidation.
Technical advances greatly strengthened the ability to manage and
control, extending commercial opportunities to the most remote regions of
the earth. It gave great impetus to international business firms,
accelerating even more the proliferation of decentralized multi-national
corporations. Along with these was the continuing proliferation of
worldwide television broadcasting, a medium that brought enormous
commercial opportunity in both entertainment and advertising.
From the perspective of Anglophone governance, certain advantages
of the corporation over the state were also becoming obvious. Moreover,
the influence of technical applications was once again blurring the old
divisions between corporation and state, public and private, economic and
political. But for Anglophone practice, this posed no special difficulty,
because, in its view, both the state and the corporation were equally
subject to oversight by judicial authority. Beyond that, for the purposes of
articulating the directives of an elevated legal authority, each had
advantages particular to itself.
Most of all, from the perspective of English legality, the dichotomy
of public and private was an artificial creation, and, logically, there was no
reason why such a division could not be revised or ignored. As a collegial
system of law, in fact, the Anglophone ability to adapt pragmatically to
such changes was perhaps the great key to its longevity. From this
perspective, the possibility of an entirely new overarching legal regime,
anchored less in the state and more in the corporation, began to emerge.
Another disruptive challenge to the existing state system of the world had
arisen; it was technological, corporate, and legal in nature.
In the new technical environment, for purposes of rule, the
advantages of the corporation over the state were many. For example, the
modern corporation was potentially non-territorial, able to extend its
operations infinitely. At the same time a collection of numerous territorial
states covered the earth, a modern corporation could cover the same
territories--easily transcending state jurisdictions, extending its presence,
unimpeded by national borders. Also, the corporation had oversight
concerning its own internal affairs and was not directly accountable to

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public opinion, since it generally operated outside of public view. Like
practitioners of English law, corporate proprietors were shielded from
public accountability, enjoying certain immunities from liability for their
actions under cover of the institution.
But there were other advantages as well: for example, unlike the
state, the corporation was, by its nature, indisputably subject to court
authority. There would be no disagreements about it having sovereignty or
independence. Thus, it offered relief from those issues sometimes
encountered, when an Anglophone authority attempted to reach beyond a
national border into the territory of another state. In extreme cases, the
corporation could also provide mercenary soldiers and operatives to carry
out what, in the past, would have been national military campaigns.
Finally, through the medium of television and other channels and
networks of communication, the private corporation could assume an
educative function as well. In the past, that role had fallen to the state. But
with the new advances, nothing could equal the various electronic media
as instruments for shaping public culture and consciousness. Unlike the
old brick and mortar national school system, the new media could, in
effect, create an artificial reality that was continuous and ubiquitous in its
effects. Nothing could match its potential ability to instill habits of
acceptance and compliance, a crucial necessity for an extended Rule of
Law.
In fact, in the case of Anglophone legal practice, the converging
elements of technology, state, and corporation marked a kind of reversion
to its primitive, more essential forms of the seventeenth century. From the
perspective of English language law, both the corporation and the state
were simply abstract entities, legal creations. Institutions of both the
political and the economic realm were equally subordinate to the
independent sovereignty of the judicial hierarchy. Viewed pragmatically,
either structure might be employed to do the coercive and persuasive work
that combine to form a legal culture.
The two legally defined structures, the state and the corporation—
both methods for ordering property and persons - would become central
institutions in the progress of Western legal development. The Treaty of
Westphalia in 1648 marked the symbolic establishment of the nation-state
as the sovereign means by which populations and territories would be
governed, on the Continent. At the same time, legal scholars at various
universities continued to develop the instrument of the corporation. As a
subordinate institution intended for purposes of large scale finance and
trade, it was especially suited for the modern enterprise, conducted on a
broad territorial or maritime basis.
The importance of both legal structures was multiplied, however, by
a second wave of technical advance that began early in the nineteenth

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century, especially innovations that had to do with traversing distance:
They included the steamship, railroad, and electronic telegraph. Although
these new inventions would not have profound effects equal to those of the
fifteenth century, they were even more important in one respect: They
would make it possible to extend Western methods of governing, of
finance and trade, around the entire world.
Their most tangible effect was to introduce an era of imperial
conquest and competition among the Western powers, an unfriendly
contest that resulted in the rise of several modern empires. With the new
machines it had become possible to not only conquer at great distance, but
also to dominate and control. By the end of the nineteen century virtually
every remaining unclaimed territory on every distant continent had been
annexed, colonized, or at least brought to subjection. In this period of
imperial aggrandizement and rivalry, Western methods would be imposed
on nearly all regions of the earth. Without the new inventions, such an
expansion of influence could not have occurred.
But the inventions had another result as well: they led to a
strengthening and consolidation of the already existing nation-states. With
rail and telegraph, national polities were able to connect disparate cities
and localities. With steam power and transportation they could promote
industrial growth. With new mobility and armaments and increased
military power they could defend their borders. Perhaps, most of all, by
these means of travel and communication they could centralize governing
authority. Nonetheless, as dramatic as the impact of the new inventions
was, on the empire and on the nation-state, it would be merely a prologue.
The twentieth century became a period of even more rapid technical
development, rising to an entirely new level, introducing the automobile,
airplane, telephone, and mechanized weaponry. More than that, for the
nation-state, especially important were new modes of mass
communication: radio and cinema. These electronic methods of broadcast
and dissemination, employed in separate languages, made it possible to
create a single atmosphere of awareness and understanding within each
nation. To an extent never before possible, during the nineteen thirties, an
entire population could be united and mobilized for purposes of
production and warfare.
Tragically, in the early twentieth century, the combination of rival
empires and powerfully armed states had led to the first modern war of
worldwide dimensions, beginning in 1914. Then again, unresolved
hostilities arising from that conflict, prompted at mid-century, a second
great worldwide conflagration, ending in 1945--with even more
catastrophic effects. Because of the effectiveness of radio and cinema, the
population of each protagonist nation, was virtually unanimously
convinced, they were in the right—adding a new dimension to the idea of

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Total War. When the ability to mobilize was combined with the
introduction of advanced weapons, including the atomic bomb, war
seemed to have become an unthinkable alternative for resolving disputes
between nations.
But there were two views on how to bring order and cooperation to
affairs of the world, and those views were closely related to two methods
of law. Emerging from the shock of the first great war, the death and
destruction it had wreaked, there had been a concerted effort to construct
an international order, the League of Nations, that could prevent such
outbreaks in the future. Although the effort was widely lauded, in less than
a generation, the attempt ended in failure. After the second worldwide war
another attempt was made to construct an international organization, the
United Nations. Unlike its predecessor, it was intended to include in its
membership all recognized nations-states around the world.
However, there was a second method for bringing order to world
affairs, centered less on the political and more on the economic—that is to
say, less on the state, and more on the corporation. It would attempt the
ordering of world affairs by a different means: through the policies of
Economic Development, Open Markets, Free Trade, and Interdependence.
In the collegial approach of English practice, both state and corporation
were subject to a presiding legal authority. For purposes of ordering
persons and property, the mechanisms of both state and corporation could
be equally useful, depending on circumstances. This would have important
ramifications with the onset of another period of technical advance, in the
late twentieth century, and the project of globalization that would begin.
Undoubtedly, the twenty-first century can be considered as the era of
information accompanied by the global informatization of the modern
society. The current dependence of human civilization on information
component has made it much more vulnerable in this regard. Moreover,
such vulnerability is linked to the fact that our society represents itself a
fundamentally open structure. The most important result of the formation
of the information society is the emergence of the so-called global
information space.
The information society is making major changes in the social
structure and the existing mechanisms for social decision-making process
at all levels. Globalization of social relations leads to their transformation,
including new mechanisms of control and decision-making processes.
Getting knowledge of ongoing social processes, discussion of trends and
forecasting possible outcomes are an important part of the goal of
achieving sustainable development. Nowadays the role of social
consolidation of the population in the countries and regions has become
even more important. Human potential in favorable conditions for the
development of free-thinking, informed and responsible person could

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become a factor of stability, as well as successfully deal with new
challenges in the form of extremism, racism, intolerance and moral
degradation.
Globalization of the information society is a macro-scale,
multifaceted and internally contradictory process of the growth of
similarity in the world systems (economic, political, social and legal).
Many processes in the communication society are in a dialectical
relationship and interdependence, and these relations are complex and
contradictory. According to the authors of this study, the use of historical
and dialectical approach (a historical context of communication, as well as
the unity of historical and logical elements of social interactions have been
cafefully studied by Putnam and Pacanowsky (Putnam, Pacanowsky,
1983) for analyzing the phenomenon of communication society is due to a
number of factors (Chebotareva, 2014; Day, 2001):
1) A certain degree of inertia of the communication society, its
unwillingness to fully perceive the products of scientific and technological
progress (due both to objective and subjective reasons);
2) While developing and improving, the information society is not
going in the direction of reducing all kinds of threats, but, on the contrary,
both the number and intensity of such threats are constantly increasing.
The information environment is in constant development, it is moving, it
is not static, and as a result – such environment is facing obvious
vulnerabilities and risks;
3) The excessive amount of information is increasing exponentially.
Such situation leads to the fact that a person is not prepared to perceive it;
4) The parallel co-existance of two trends: a formation of large
amount of databases (‘big data’) with general information and at the same
time – a lack of relevant and useful information (Ronald Day, for
instance, indicates that recently the information and communication
products have been treated mainly as ‘reified and commoditized notion’;
for more details – Day, 2001);
5) The irregular and unbalanced character of information
technologies implementation (for comparison: in contrast to electronic
workflow, paper workflow has been evolving over the centuries). As a
consequence, we are facing the mistrust to the process of implementing e-
government, as well as to providing public and municipal services in an
electronic form;
6) Digital technologies, used for process automation, do not have a
complete form; they are in a constant process of improvement and
replacement with latest upgrades;
7) Communication society in the context of globalization, based on
cross-border concept (in this regard, Judith Martin's concept of
intercultural communication has a crucial meaning; see Martin, 2014),

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elevates the anonymity in the networks, and, in turn, the identification of
subjects of information relations to a level of a fundamental problem.
The central subject of communication relations (Peña Acuña, 2017)
– a person or an identity – is subjected to serious challenges and threats;
hence, the state of its security needs special attention. The sphere of
security of information and educational space, in this regard, is not an
exception.
The efficiency and further prospects of development/functioning of
information and educational space, in our opinion, directly depend on the
implementation of three key directions:
1) the development of global distance education through modern
information and communication technologies (ICT technologies);
2) the expansion of the international information cooperation in the
spheres of education and science through UNESCO’s UNITWIN
programme and GUNI Global University Network, consistent with new
Sustainable Development Goals-2030 (SDG-2030);
3) a wider dissemination and development of electronic educational
resources, including the development of online educational programs and
courses, textbooks and manuals, as well as virtual standardization of
educational processes aimed at increasing the level of the so-called digital
literacy to minimize the gap between the age generations in the issues of
adaptation and application of the latest ICT technologies in the sphere of
education.
3. Research Questions
The rapid development of the information technologies has a
significant impact on the development of the educational system. It is
information technology that makes knowledge and education much more
accessible. Moreover, ICT technologies contribute to integration processes
in education and accelerate the pace of education’s internationalization
(Fuchs, 2009). In addition, the information technologies have radically
changed the educational methods (for example, the computerization of the
educational process has taken place), led to the emergence of new forms
of education (for example, distance education) and the introduction of
educational Hi-Tech instruments into traditional educational structures
(for example, online lectures at famous world universities). We should
also mention the emergence of innovative educational disciplines (for
example, robotics, global educational marketing, information law, etc.)
and new research areas.
4. Purpose of the Study
The aim of the research is to analyze the key trends of
informatization of the educational space and to assess the future prospects
of its functioning in the context of development of the information
society.

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 5. Research Methods
The research is based on the system and comparative analysis, a
dialectical method, as well as classification and generalization methods.
Special attention is paid to the system and functional approach which
allows to reveal and characterize interrelations of various levels of
educational activities. The study is interdisciplinary in nature.
6. Findings
The interests of a person in the information sphere are to meet all
his/her possible needs — to ensure the right to access to information, the
possibility of citizen's participation in law-making activities, including
through the development of electronic democracy mechanisms, the
possibility of obtaining state and municipal services in an electronic form,
as well as realization of the right to education, and etc.
The global information society appears as a platform for the
development of both positive and deterrent factors: the first one -
contribute to the realization of the whole spectrum of interests of the
individual, the last one - hinder the development of the information society
itself (as a whole).
The uniqueness of the virtual environment forces the subjects of
information relations to adapt, looking for ways and opportunities for
existing in “real life” conditions.
When discussing the possibilities of education through the
application of the latest ICT technologies, it is impossible not to mention
the issue of education’s internationalization (as a whole system).
The internationalization of education is reflected in such forms of
mutual cooperation as:
1) an individual mobility;
2) the mobility of students or teaching staff for educational
purposes;
3) the mobility of educational programs or institutional mobility;
4) the formation of new international standards of educational
programs;
5) the integration of the international dimension into educational
programs, as well as an international unification of educational standards;
6) an institutional partnership;
7) the creation of strategic information and educational partnership
(Abbate, 2000).
The “boom” of cross-border education, in turn, has increased the
number of countries in which the sphere of the higher education is
reaching a massive character. In parallel, the use of new information and
communication technologies is expanding; the positions of adherents to
the concept of the knowledge economy are strengthening; the

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internationalization of the labor market and the need for skilled labor are
rapidly increasing (Gumucio Dagrón, 2001).
Thus, there are essentially new forms of internationalization of
education at the present moment, reflected in the movement of institutions
and training programs across national borders. This phenomenon is
usually called a “transnational education”.
The mobility of educational programs could be interpreted as the
establishment of distance education courses by foreign educational
institutions, the arrangement of educational courses or training programs
by national educational institution in partnership with foreign
organizations, as well as the implementation of franchising courses and
programs.
The process of internationalization makes it possible to pool or
integrate educational resources (it is especially important in conditions of
their inaccessibility), avoid their duplication and/or excessive copying of
the research topics; it also greatly facilitates the identification of
educational projects.
At the same time, the process of maximizing the benefits for all
participants of educational internationalization requires the recognition of
foreign qualifications, which in practice implies the recognition of quality
assurance systems of education.
We furthermore turn to the peculiarities of distance education at the
present stage.
Over the years the distance education in various forms (from
distance learning programs or the format of open universities to Hi-Tech
online programs) has facilitated to realize the educational aspirations of
millions of students who could not attend full-time classes and educational
courses in the universities located in other countries.
The applicants/students often have concerns about the choice of
higher education through distance learning, as they do not have clarity
about the pros and cons of this method of learning.
It would be appropriate to highlight the following advantages of the
distance education:
1) It provides an opportunity for students to combine a possible job
with their study;
2) From a financial point of view, the distance education is more
profitable than full-time education (the opportunity to save money on
tuition fees). In addition, many educational courses in the remote format
can be provided free of charge with the timely execution of online tasks,
the answers to which are sent to the managers of the educational program
by e-mail or via online chat);
3) The application of the latest information technologies, which
increase the degree of interactivity of training sessions and fill them with

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unique digital content (video presentations, promotional materials,
interactive cases, 3-d models, etc.), which facilitates to study in more
detail those issues that in full-time format often remain unaffected in the
training sessions;
4) Distance learning saves your time. The students, who do not have
enough time for full-time study, can apply for distance education and pass
the educational program without actually leaving home;
5) When applying for a second higher education or additional
training programs, many people are psychologically ‘afraid’ to return to
the format of training in the classroom or open audience. Therefore,
distance educational technologies form a comfortable environment for a
person without being disturbed. The ICT technologies help us to stay
psychologically resistant to gaining new knowledge, not being afraid to
miss some educational material due to possible noise in the audience, and
etc. Thus, the distance education ‘protects’ the student from the effect of
the crowd.
6) The accredited distance education programs are recognized by the
majority of employers, which provides an opportunity for a person within
a short period of time to get, for example, a new specialty and a new job,
without fearing that such a format of education will be ignored by the
companies/employers.
Among the disadvantages of distance education we would like to
stress the following points:
1) Without professional teaching staff for personal interaction and
classmates, who could help, constantly reminding of the upcoming tasks,
the chances for distraction and not meeting the deadlines remain high
enough.
2) The availability of hidden financial costs. Although the cost of
distance education programs is usually cheaper than a regular full-time
education program, in fact there may be hidden costs.
3) The complexity of ICT technologies (Chebotareva, 2014). An
excessive dependence on technology could be considered as a major
drawback in distance education, especially when the process of learning
takes place in an online environment;
4) The distance education is often hampered by a lack of well-
qualified teachers.
It is necessary to ensure that electronic educational resources are
focused on the implementation of the goals of education, without
compromising the content and the quality of the educational program.
Thus, e-learning resources allow:
1) to manage and administer the online educational program
(Martin, 2014): the routine administration of the courses (class
advertising, providing copies of the curriculum, assigning discussion

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sections and receiving course news) can be carried out and processed more
efficiently through the home page of the course, electronic discussion
groups and online mailing lists (Pashchenko, 2014).
2) to form and structure the source base for teaching and research:
the Internet and CD (USB/ Blue-Ray) media provide a wider choice of
primary and secondary sources (including visual and audio sources).
Using these sources, students/learners/trainees can bring their own
evidence and arguments to lectures and discussion sections, and conduct
research and analysis on a wider range of research topics (Taramova,
2015).
3) to increase the level of digital literacy (Grossman, 1995) through
the preparation of educational projects and presentations: instead of
reporting on the decision of traditional tasks-tests and exams,
students/trainees can perform more independent exercises in the
publishing sector, prepare exhibition stands and poster presentations,
group project presentations and models, develop training modules and
other materials for their peers. Web archiving training materials for
several releases (this refers to the graduates of the programs or courses)
allows you to turn online educational course or educational program in a
stable, functioning, sustainable and collaborative intelligent educational
and outreach design (Rogers, Kincaid, 2014).
4) to increase the level of interactive lectures: a computer with
relevant software for presentations can provide a unified tool for filling
lectures (Bradberry, Greaves, 2015) with graphic structures, photo
materials, combined slides, statistical charts and tables, images, music and
even video clips. In addition to printing them as handouts, you can save a
classroom/auditorium presentation in a web-compatible format for later
viewing and discussion.
5) to create an interactive online discussion and debate
environment: electronic communication tools (Feenberg, 2013) such as e-
mail, conferencing software, and online chat services can initiate a wide
range of topics/questions for discussion even before a face-to-face
classroom or face-to-face scientific conference. The formation of an
interactive online environment (Medina, 2013) makes it possible to
overcome the difficulties of planning the work program of the course,
taking into account the interests and ideas of the students themselves
(pupils, course’s applicants, etc.).
Completing our analysis of the process of informatization of
education, we would like to give practical experience in the
implementation of ICT-technologies in the educational process on the
example of the innovative model of tutor classes in Moscow State School
№ 37 (Moscow, Russia).

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 The model of classes with tutor support was introduced in Moscow
State School № 37 in 2016. The key principles of this model of education
are the following:
1) The principle of information openness. Outwardly, the
diversity of educational forms and proposals does not guarantee the
implementation of the principle of education openness: the student needs
to acquire the culture of choice and co-organization of various
educational proposals in his / her own educational program, make
maximum use of various own resources to build his / her educational
program. Tutor's task in the framework of the principle of open education
is to expand the educational space of each student, providing him or her
with the greatest variety of movement options for self–determination.
2) The formation of students’ ICT-competence occurs during
the application of information technologies in all lessons, as well as in
project activities.
3) The basis of open education is represented by an individual
educational program (IOP), which is not connected with a particular
institution or a standard, and at the same time is tied to a specific student,
a specific person.
The functioning of the tutor's department in the school differs in
levels of education. At the primary level, the main thing is to support the
child's interest in education. The tutor’s tasks at the stage of primary
school are to identify and capture the cognitive interest of the younger
schoolboy; to identify the individual problems of the student; to teach the
students how to learn with cognitive interest; to provide recommendations
on how to obtain the necessary information, etc.
In a higher school the technique of tutor support is extremely
complicated, since now the tutor needs to build a support system for the
joint reflection of the educational search. Competitive and communicative
aspects of interaction with peers are especially important for high school
students. Online (interactive) educational games (Teisman, 2000) and
educational sessions as a form of tutor support at this stage allow the
student to be active in order to understand his or her current opportunities
and prospects of movement in education and career.

7. Conclusion
The process of educational informatization in the context of global
processes makes it possible to form a special online (digital) educational
space that eliminates national and territorial differences between the states,
thereby allowing an open and quick access to innovative educational
resources from around the world. The ICT educational resources, in our
view, provide an opportunity to address two most urgent tasks:
1) to ensure continuity between all levels of education;

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 2) to gradually eliminate the ‘gaps’ in digital literacy between
young and old generations, thereby realizing one of the most important
values recognized by UNESCO and the UN as a whole – an inclusive and
continuous learning/ lifelong education.
Has globalization made the mankind smaller? Has the World
become more intimately connected? Are the boundaries between global
and local, public and personal eroding? Is this the time when nobody is
perfect and no doctrine is universal? Is this the time when the abundance
of choice leads to a decision paralysis? Is this the time when the world
economic leaders need a facilitator to agree on a strategy for the global
economy?
It has become clear that to live in a more complex, interconnected
and detailed World the mankind needs to be equipped with tools for
understanding its own behavioral patterns and their impact on the new
social dynamics. Survival in the new World means being able to navigate
a gradually more unstructured and rich in detail social universe, being able
to sort across a greater array of options, and possessing a deeper and more
strategic understanding of self with lesser time for learning and self-
discovery. What are the emerging solutions to the challenges of survival in
a globalized World?
In recent years there has been an explosion of research in
psychology and social studies aimed at gaining an insight into what
motivates us as species, what makes us change our ways, and what makes
us happy. A new body of research focused on gender dynamics has
provided us with a greater awareness of the needs of each gender. It
explained the reasons that underlie gender-based social protocols and gave
many the tools for improving their interactions with the other gender.
Studies of consumer behavior have made us aware of how our brains and
our feelings work when exposed to different external stimuli.
From the conversations we have, to the words we choose, to the
questions we ask, to the way we think, each action or inaction speaks
volumes about us. Understanding these clues and noticing the differences
among individuals at an early age will make us more receptive, aware,
influential and evolved as species.
Despite the abundance of social research and the growing necessity
to know the techniques for effective social interactions early in life, this
valuable information has been slow in getting into school or university
curriculums. Social studies continue to be confined to auxiliary subjects in
business schools and catch all in university curriculums or remain in the
form of bestsellers and articles in popular psychology magazines.
High schools and universities should integrate social studies and
communications into a discrete social skills discipline and teach it in the
way a foreign language is taught.

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 More scientific research of social networks is also needed. Social
networks are the most vivid manifestations of globalization. They have
already shown their capabilities in changing social structures, bringing
people together, creating greater prosperity in underdeveloped locales.
Social networks if partnered with (and not just observed) can inform a
variety of disciplines, from history and sociology to business and
management. The IT industry and academia must join forces to produce
new analytical data on social tools that facilitate growth and development
of mankind, scale successes and improve social climate.

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