Abstracts:

Network communities are becoming a basic form of community convergence. The increasing popularity of computer networks as an educational tool is related to ever-increasing changes within our society, which cause us to rethink basic educational principles. The current sphere of education and training appears to be much broader than the traditional framework of formal educational institutions. An association of all interested parties will contribute to the development of an up-to-date system of education. This global association could be carried out only on the basis of network communications. The principles of the foundation of an educational network were formulated in the early 1970''''s. Most of successful educational network communities are built on a convergence of educational resources and services that support skill exchange, peer-matching, and network evaluation of educational activity. Examples of such communities are the graduates of the IATP programs and a new community of non-governmental activists that was created in 2001.