Digital Communication in Educational Process: Development Trends and New Opportunities

The relevance of this article is in the need to study digital communications that affect the quality and content of education, its compliance with modern requirements and determine the level of intellectual potential of society. The University, as a Communicator, an intermediary between the student and the information provided to it, is forced to change the centuries-old traditions in order to stay on the market, in the face of fierce competition of the appeared open distance courses. The purpose of the research is to analyze the role of digital communication in the educational request of students. Research methods: As research methods, the following one was used: online questionnaire survey that allows you to analyze the prerequisites for the development of digital communication in the educational process and identify new opportunities in education through the personal account of the student. Research results: the article examines the reasons for using the personal account and determines the prospects for its further development in the University environment. The satisfaction of using a personal account from mobile devices among active users-students was studied. The existing problems are identified and the reasons for the rare use of the personal account are identified, strategies for attracting students’ attention to the personal account are formulated. The novelty and originality of the research lies in the fact that the concept of digital communication is considered in the context of education and its functions are highlighted. The main features of digital communication are presented. The level of approval of existing and potential innovations by active student users (chat for communication, modified portfolio, task scheduler and Bulletin Board from the Institute) is determined. The opinion of students regarding the content of the main page of the personal account is revealed. The preconditions for the development of digital communication in the educational process are investigated: the emergence of digital natives’ generation; the resulting request to continuing education; growing importance of self-education; formation of the concept of anticipatory learning; rapid development of open education; a trend to introduce elements of gamification into educational process; the universal gadgetization. The essence of the information and educational environment of the University and the opportunities it provides are studied. The possibilities of the student personal account as a single information space are considered. Recommendations for the modernization of the personal account are given: to rename the group of incomprehensible and non-visited subsections by students; to change the content of the main page by moving the schedule and the number of the school week on it. The research identifies problems with color (the ideal option that would solve a large number of problems, according to students, is the ability to independently design the color scheme or a choice of several options) and the design of the personal account (the main emphasis in the development of the personal account is most effective to make the development of a convenient and visual system of informing students; self-filling the main menu of the personal account, students themselves formulate the need for personalization of the personal account).