Education and New Communications Technology

The spread of information technology is already influencing educati0on in schools in a number of different ways. The knowledge economy demands a computer literate workforce and it is increasingly clear that education can, and must, play a critical role in meeting this need. While household computer ownership has risen sharply in recent years, many children still do not have access to computer at home. For this reason, schools are a crucial forum for young people to learn about and become comfortable with the capabilities of computers and online technology.

Technology in the Classroom

The rise of education in its modern sense was connected with a number of other major changes happening in the nineteenth century. One was the development of printing and the arrival of ‘book culture’. The mass distribution of books, newspapers and other printed media was a distinctive a feature of the development of industrial society as were machines and factories. Education provided the skills of literacy and numeracy giving access to the world of printed media. Nothing is more characteristic of the school than the schoolbook or textbook. In the eyes of many, all this is set to change with the growing use of computers and multimedia technology in education. Will the internet, CDROM and video-tape increasingly replace the schoolbook? And will schools still exist in anything like the form in which they do today if children turn on their computers in order to learn, rather than listening to a teacher? The new technologies, it is said, will not just add to the existing curriculum, they will undermine and transform it. For young people now are already growing up in an information- and media-related society and are much more familiar with its technologies than most adults are – including their teachers. Some observers speak of a ‘class revolution’ – the arrival of ‘desk-top virtual reality’ and the classroom without walls. There is little question that computers have expanded opportunities in education. They provide the chance for children to work independently, to research topics with the help of online resources, and to benefit from educational software that allows them to progress at their own pace. Yet the vision (or nightmares) of classrooms of children learning exclusively through individual computer has not yet come to pass. In fact, the ‘classroom without walls’ looks some way off. For one thing, there are simply not enough computers to go around at schools or in the home!. Even well-resourced schools must develop rotating schedules which allow students turn at computer workstations. In schools with a small number of computers, students may spend only a few minutes a week behind a computer, or may have information technology lessons in small groups. The majority of homes still do not possess a computer. Second, most teachers see computers as a supplement to traditional lessons, rather than as a replacement for them. Pupils can use computers to complete tasks within the standard curriculum, such as producing a research project or investigating current events. But few educators see information technology as a medium that can substitute for learning from and interacting with human teachers. The challenge for teacher is learning to integrate new information technology into lessons in a way that is meaningful and educationally sound.

Education and Technology Gap

Whether the new technologies will have the radical implications for education claimed by some still an open question. Critics have pointed out that even if they do have major effects, these may act to reinforce educational inequalities. Information poverty might be added to the material deprivations which currently have such an effect on schooling. The sheer pace of technological change and the demand of employers for computer literate workers may mean that those who are technologically competent ‘leapfrog’ over people who have little experience with computers.