INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

Information and communication technology is a vast field encompassing virtually all technologies that can store, receive or transmit signals electronically. ICT can lead to student learning and better teaching methods.

ADVANTAGES OF ICT IN EDUCATION

ICTs are potentially powerful tool for extending educational opportunities, both formal and non-formal. ICT provides students with the tools they need to discover and own knowledge.

Motivate the learners: ICT motivates students. Young people are very captivated with technology educators must capitalize on this interest, enthusiasm and excitement about the ICT for the purpose of enhancing learning.

·      Access to remote learning resources: Teachers and learners no longer have to rely solely on printed books and other materials for their educational needs. With the help of internet and the world wide web, a wealth of learning materials in almost every subject can now be accessed from anywhere at any time of the day and by an unlimited number of people.

·      Provides fast communication: Communication channels are increased through e-mail, discussion groups and chat rooms. ICT provides fast communication across geographical barriers.

·      Provides self-confidence and self-esteem: Students were motivated to learn and have increased self-confidence and self-esteem. They felt more successful in school. Its student entered than in a traditional class room.

·      Bridging cultural gap: Greater access to technology has help to bridge cultural gap by helping people from different cultures to communicate with one another, thus reducing prejudice.

·      Higher qualities student reports: learners can able to [prepare more legible more detailed, better presented reports with the experience provided by ICT.

·      Provide chances for co-operative leaning: ICT facilitates co-operative learning, encourages dialogue, and creates more engaging class room.

·      Learning beyond class room: computer use during lessons motivate students to continue learning outsides school hours.

DISADVANTAGES OF ICT

There are some disadvantages using ICT for teaching and learning.

·      Unemployment: While ICT technology may have streamlined the business process it has also created job redundancies and outsourcing.

·      Plagiarism: Apart from websites that claim to help students write papers, there numerous cases of downloading information from net and turning them for grades. There is an online service, plagiarism.org.at http:/www.plagiarism.org/, which can assist us in minimizing cases of plagiarism in the class.

·      Expensive: Another important drawback to using ICT in schools is the fact that computers are expensive. According to the IT learning exchange (2001), in most schools ICT will be the single largest curriculum budget cost. This may be seen as a good thing but on the other hand there will be little money left for other significant costs.

·      Student privacy: Criminals, marketers, and other persons can easily get information from other students when they are online. These could post danger to student’s lives or may even lead to litigation against school. In order to avoid this problem parents and teachers need to supervise student’ online activities.

·      Preparation time: It takes a lot of preparation time to effectively use internet resources for education. In addition to designing internet based lesson plans, it may have to surf the internet to download lesson plans or visit sites to select those appropriate for classes.

·      Low income groups: students from low income families may not have computers at home with any access to internet. Consequently, students from low income communities may be disadvantaged, so school need to keep computer labs open for longer/ odd hours. The use of computers at public libraries should also be encouraged.

·      New administrative responsibilities: teacher using the internet brings to bear a new set of administrative demands on the teacher and the school administration. These include development and implementation of acceptable use policy, training, developing new evaluation criteria as needed, and addressing parents concern.

·      Inexperienced trainers: teachers who are not experienced ICT throughout their learning tend have a negative attitude towards it, as they may lack training in the area of curriculum.

SCOPE OF ICT IN LEARNING

ICT creates inroads for better accessibility of all sorts of information for people from all over the world. It is widely used in education.

       Students develop capability in using ICT for tasks associated with information access and management, information creation and presentation, problem solving, decision making, communication, creative expression and empirical reasoning. Students develop knowledge, skills and dispositions around ICT and it use, and the ability to transfer these across environments and applications.

·      ICT as an assisting tool: While making assignments, documentation, collecting data ICT is used as an assisting tool.

·      ICT as a medium of teaching and learning: it appears in different forms such as drill and practice exercises, in simulations and educational networks.

·      ICT as a tool for organization and management in schools: it helps in proper management of the institution and increases accountability.

·      Anytime, anywhere learning: one defining feature of ICTs is their ability transcend time and space. ICTs make possible asynchronous learning.

·      Access to remote learning resources: With the internet and World Wide Web, a wealth of learning material in almost in every subject and in a variety of media can now be accessed from anywhere at any time of the day and by an unlimited number of people.

·      E learning: it is a learning programme that makes use of an information network such as the internet, a LAN, Intranet, or WAN based extranet whether wholly or in part, for course delivery, interaction and facilitation.

·      Creative learning: ICT supported learning promotes the manipulation of existing information and the creation of real world products rather than duplication of received information.

·      Blended learning: It refers to learning models that combines face-to-face classroom practice with e-learning solutions.

·      Integrative learning: ICT enhanced learning encourages interaction and cooperation among students, teachers, experts regardless of where they are.

·      Collaborative learning: ICT – supported learning promotes a thematic integrative approach to teaching and learning.

·      Evaluative learning: ICT enhanced learning is student directed and diagnostic. Unlike static, text or print- based education, ICT enhanced learning recognizes the presence of different learning pathways to explore and discover rather than merely listen and remember.

KEERTHY

ENGLISH