EXPERIENCE OF GROUP SOCIAL NETWORK AS A MEANS OF INFORMAL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Тhe author analyzes the concept of non-formal education of young people, stresses the importance of free and independent choice of destinations, means, time and place of the non-formal education by participators. It should be noted that the purpose of freely chosen non-formal educational activities can be: the development of mental or physical abilities, realization and deepening of talents, training of certain moral qualities, formation or improving of professional skills. In addition, the chosen target can be changed at any moment of educational activities based on the needs and aspirations by participator of formal education. The article analyzes the possibility and feasibility of social networks and other Internet resources use as means to organize a non-formal education of young people. The experience of using social networking site Facebook and the services provided by Google (ie services Google +, Google Drive, etc.) to organize non-formal education in public organizations. The author has given example of certain benefits of using social networks to organize the non-formal education of children and youth, namely social networks: a familiar environment for the contemporary youth; members of social networks act under their real name and surname; social networks allow all without exception participants to create their own learning content, share links, initiate debate and discussion, etc; the use of social networks raises the possibility of cooperation (also remote); there is a possibility to express an opinion as on the "wall" and create a group chat (or a few chats which helps to work with different groups of people); with "personal message" service you can communicate with each participant separately; activity of participants is observed via news feeds; it is useful for projects, surveys; it is an opportunity to tell about their activities to more people and more. The article stated the following characteristics of non-formal education through social networks: - learning from different perspectives: social networks help to share ideas, find partners, simplifies networking between people with common interests; - joint training and self-organization: social networking tools help create personalized educational environment to study for social networks participants. Also the learning style is not uniform, as members of social networks that come into various groups are not alone and can get feedback from group members, experts and specialists; - electronic (social) learning: by constantly reading blogs, forums, posts to social networking groups on topics of interest beginners can learn from the experts regardless of geographic or some other boundaries; - various tools of joint education help the development of learning ability: participants publish personal thoughts and reflections that are available for evaluation and development; - social network support reflective writing.