Informatization of technical vocational schools: Theoretical foundations and practical approaches

The aim of this study was an experimental research in vocational schools intended to the development of the system of educational process informatization taking into account the structure of the ICT competence of skilled workers and the trends of the information society. Representative sample of over 800 students of 10 vocational schools from different regions of Ukraine, 80 teachers, 17 specialists of VET centers allowed to study and analyze the state of informatization of VET schools, as well as to determine the degree of influence of education informatization on the quality of workers’ training. The system of educational process informatization at a technical vocational school, i.e. the creation of the ICT-saturated educational environment was implemented. This is a set of interrelated activities that comprise learning management systems; information and analytical databases; computer simulation of professional actions; programs of control of knowledge; application of ICT for writing diploma papers; computer methods of competence diagnostics; simulation training complexes; expert and decision support systems. The experiment showed that the use of the developed methods of skilled workers’ informational training, of applying pedagogical software tools at technical vocational school and of training vocational school teachers how to use ICT contributes to the improvement of graduates’ professional competence.