Capability of the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine in Progress of the National Education Area

Abstract

Reforming of education requires updating its content and methodological components, including didactic toolkits. In a broad sense, the proposed study is concerned with the design and implementation of a wide range of educational tools in the educational process. In a narrow sense, it identifies the opportunities and prospects of using encyclopedic online resources as a didactic toolkit. These issues are covered on the example of the e-version of The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine. The idea of using electronic encyclopedias in the educational process is not new. Researchers suggest that thematic encyclopedias are very important in the teaching of certain subjects. The introduction of encyclopedias into teaching is a contemporary trend initiated by the publishers of the world’s largest encyclopedias. For example, the popular Encyclopedia Britannica has recently become available in three online versions: for primary school students (Britannica Kids), middle school students (Britannica Students), and high school students (Britannica Scholars). This study demonstrates that the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine a) can be a platform for providing encyclopedic knowledge in a subject; b) can be a didactic tool that increases the effectiveness of learning; c) can be used as a source of information for in-depth study of topics in various subjects. Thus, electronic encyclopedias (in particular the online-version of the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine) provide significant opportunities for successful study of educational material, focusing on the most important aspects of educational topics and creating conditions for systematization and generalization of information, as well as actively involving students in self-study, arousing their interest in learning and generally increasing their motivation.