THE USAGE OF THE INTERNET IN TEACHING BIOLOGY: THE ANALYSIS OF A SITUATION AND PREDICTIONS

Recently, the issues of Information and Communication Technologies have been exhaustively discussed. The questions are debated at scientific, technical, political, managerial etc level. Certainly, the present technologies have many possibilities. However, ‘transferring' them to the educational system seems to be the most difficult problem. What are the solutions to be reached in order to effectively apply the technologies for teaching/learning purposes, to decrease a possible negative impact on health etc. The world rapidly changes and technical potentiality is constantly growing. The digital revolution is making life easier for people in both directions work and leisure time. A question if we can support an idea that modern ICT helps with the educational process is not explicit? Obviously, ICT improvement leads to applying them in different areas of our life. The Internet - the effective tool during studying biology. On the one hand, use of the Internet during teaching/learning process extends, on the other hand - it is necessary to study a situation in Lithuanian schools. Therefore, the object of our study is the usage of the Internet for teaching biology. The main aim of the study is to analyse the situation of the usage of the Internet for teaching biology and highlight the hindering/encouraging factors of its usage in the teaching process. The most important study tasks have been formulated: • To analyse the situation of the usage of the Internet for teaching biology; • To identify the hindering/stimulating factors of Internet usage for teaching biology; • To highlight the experts' opinion about the expected development perspectives of Internet usage for teaching biology in the nearest five years period. The study employed expert inquiry. The type of expert inquiry – “Delphi study”, containing several experts' inquiries (stages). The data of every round are generalised and repeatedly submitted to the experts. Such procedure is repeated several times, most often 3-4 times. The study was carried out in September – December 2006. The situation in aspect of use of the Internet has changed at the Lithuanian schools. The quantity of computers and opportunities of access to internet networks has raised. But there is expressed enough difference between rural and city schools. Qualification of teachers in a context of use ICT too various. Principal reasons limiting use of the Internet - lack of computers and access to the Internet network, bad knowledge of foreign languages. On the other hand the desire of teachers to improve the competence is observed. Use of the Internet stimulates greater opportunities of dialogue with colleagues, an exchange of methodical experience, an opportunity to use different methods of teaching. Use of the Internet creates conditions to carry out virtual experiments, to visualize process of biology teaching.