The Role of Information Technology in the Cultural Space of Higher Education: Myth and Reality

The article is devoted to the analysis of changes that are currently taking place in the sphere of higher education in connection with the active informatization of this most important component of human culture. It attempts to demonstrate that new information technologies essentially transform the framework of the traditional educational process, creating not only new opportunities, but also new problems. The importance of the educational process, its features, opportunities and perspectives in the ever-changing conditions of the information society makes it possible to place informatization of education among the most important strategic problems of the state. At the same time, informatization is a serious challenge to pedagogical science and the education system as a whole. The article emphasizes that the study of the specifics of information culture influence on this most important sphere of human activity faces many difficulties, one of which is that the educational process, like other self-organization processes, contains elements of unpredictability. The article shows that the widely held opinion about the opportunities of information technologies to dramatically strengthen the intellectual capabilities of young people and to activate their creative potential, increase their motivation for learning, its effectiveness and productivity is largely mythologized. The use of computer technology significantly transforms not only the communicative sphere of people, but also the mental, motivational and emotional ones, and forms a fundamentally new environment for development and functioning of mental processes. The carried out analysis of scientific researches on the psychological consequences of informatization allows us to characterize computer technologies as a new form of mediation, which substantially rebuilds the structure and dynamics of human activity. The article notes that the mechanisms of changes formation and their consequences are almost unstudied at present; at the same time, one thing is certain: the historically formed life styles and forms of human interaction undergo radical transformation. Development of informatization concepts in the education system should be carried out taking into account these and other risks.