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The Importance of ICT in Education

Olevia Percival

Information Technology

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November, 2, 2018
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The Importance of ICT in Education

ICT can be defined as any technology or device that has the capacity to acquire, store,

process, or transmit information; this may include personal computers, the Internet, mobile

communication devices, and email. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have

become commonplace entities in all aspects of life. Due to the social orientation of activities in

education and the fact that quality education has traditionally been associated with strong

teachers having high degrees of personal contact with learners. The use of ICT in education lends

itself to more student-centred learning settings. With the world moving rapidly into digital media

and information, the role of ICT in education is becoming increasingly important. This

importance will continue to grow and develop beyond the 21st century.

Education has been affected by ICTs, which have unquestionably impacted teaching,

learning, and research (Yusuf, 2005). A great deal of research has established the benefits to the

superiority of education (Al-Ansari, 2006). ICTs have the potential to revolutionise, accelerate,

augment, and develop skills in order to encourage and engage students. This is with the intention

to help students relate school experience to work practices, generate pecuniary feasibility for

tomorrow's workers, as well as strengthening teaching and helping schools change (Davis and

Tearle, 1999; Lemke and Coughlin, 1998; cited by Yusuf, 2005). Kozma and Anderson (2002)

states that for an economy to be well-informed education should be its chief necessity.

Concurrently, the teaching strategies in schools are circuitous towards ICT. Similarly, Kozma

and Wagner (2003) agreed that the ICT will augment basic education and is a very stimulating

field of expansion work, in both poor and wealthy nations (Wagner, D., Kozma, R., 2003).

In Guyana, the Ministry of Education recognizes the importance of ICT in the education

system. According to the Guyana Education Strategic Plan (2003-2007) a variety of policies are
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demarcated, encouraging the use of technology and investment in ICT. The most significant

objective stipulated in this plan is the improvement in the quality of the education conveyance

focusing on the areas of literacy and numeracy. The amplified use of technology was amid the

approaches recognised to attain improvement in quality. The use of IRI to teach Mathematics at

the Primary levels was an initiative used to introduce ICT into the classrooms. The use of

computer technology has also become a foremost requirement for the Technical and Vocational

Education and Training (TVET) Institutions. Such establishments offers programmes on

computer studies for those without contact to the technology at school.

Any use of ICT in a learning settings can act to support numerous facets of knowledge

building. The more students employing ICTs in their learning procedures, the more distinct the

bearing of this will become. Teachers can engender evocative and engaging learning practices

for their students, tactically using ICT to enhance learning. Students enjoy erudition, and the

autonomous enquiry which innovative and apposite use of ICT can foster. Class teachers may

implement ICT in the classroom to enhance the quality and accessibility of education, augment

the learning environment and to boost learning motivation .

ICT upsurges the flexibility of the transference of education to learners, allowing them

access to knowledge anytime and from anywhere. It impacts the way students are taught and how

they learn especially in an environment where the processes are learner driven and instead of

teacher driven. This in turn better prepares the learners for lifelong learning as well as to improve

the quality of learning. In concert with topographical flexibility, technology-facilitated

educational programs also eliminate many of the chronological restraints that special needs

learners face (Moore & Kearsley, 1996). Students begin to appreciate the competence to assume

education in an omnipresent environment. With the help of ICT, students can now peruse
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electronic book (e-books), sample examination papers, previous year papers etc. and can also

have an easy access to resource persons, mentors, experts, researchers, professionals, and peers-

all over the world. This flexibility heightens the accessibility of “just-in-time” learning and

delivers learning prospects for many more learners who formerly were controlled by other

commitments (Young, 2002). Wider obtainability of best practices and best course material in

education, which can be shared by means of ICT, allow for better teaching. ICT also allows the

academic institutions to reach underprivileged groups and new global educational markets. As

well as learning at anytime, teachers also finding the aptitudes of teaching at any time to be

resourceful and able to be used to benefit. Thus, mobile technologies and unified

communications technologies support twenty-four by seven teaching and learning. In

developing countries like Guyana, operative use of ICT for the resolution of education is

potentially a bridge for the digital divide.

ICT presents a completely fresh learning environment for students, thus demanding a

dissimilar skill set to be fruitful. Critical thinking, research, and assessment skills are increasing

in standing as students have growing volumes of information from a variability of sources to sort

through (New Media Consortium, 2007). ICT is changing procedures of teaching and learning by

adding rudiments of strength to learning environments including virtual environments. ICT is a

potentially influential tool for offering educational opportunities. It is tough and maybe even

impossible to envisage future learning environments that are not supported, in one way or

another, by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This denotes not only to the

number of computers, but also to the placement of the equipment, e.g. in the classroom or in a

computer room. Kennewell et al. (2000) feel it is vital that computers be placed in the classroom,

in order to make the most of the opportunities for curriculum activity. ICT environment
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improves the experience of the students and teachers and to use intensively the learning time for

better results. The ICT environment has been developed by using different software and also the

extended experience in developing web based and multimedia materials. ICTs have an important

role to play in changing and modernizing educational systems and ways of learning.

ICT provides motivation to Learn. It has an impression not only on what students should

learn, but it also plays a key role on how the students should learn. Along with a change of

curricula from “content-centred” to “competence-based”, the mode of curricula delivery shifts

from “teacher centred” forms of delivery to “student-centred” forms of delivery. ICTs such as

videos, television and multimedia computer software that syndicate text, sound, and colourful

moving images can be used to offer challenging and reliable content that will engage the student

in the learning process. Interactive radio likewise makes use of sound effects, songs,

dramatizations, comic skits, and other performance conventions to compel the students to listen

and become more involved in the lessons being delivered. Some of the parents of the respondents

opined that their children were feeling more motivated than before in such type of teaching in the

classroom rather than the stereotype 45 minutes lecture. They were of the view that this type of

learning process is much more effective than the monotonous monologue classroom situation

where the teacher just lectures from a raised platform and the students just listen to the teacher.

ICTs can increase the quality of education in several ways, by increasing learner

motivation and engagement, by facilitating the acquisition of basic skills, and by enhancing

teacher training. ICTs are also transformational tools which, when used appropriately, can

promote the shift to a learner centred environment. ICTs, especially computers and Internet

technologies, enable new ways of teaching and learning rather than simply allow teachers and

students to do what they have done before in a better way.

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References

Al-Ansari, H. (2006). Internet use by the faculty members of Kuwait University. The Electronic

Library, 24(6), 796-803.

Davis, N.E., & Tearle, P. (Eds.). (1999). A core curriculum for telematics in teacher training.

Available: www.ex.ac.uk/telematics.T3/corecurr/tteach98.htm

Kennewell, S., Parkinson, J., & Tanner, H.(2000).“Developing the ICT capable school”. London:

Routledge Falmer.

Kozma, R.(2005), 'National Policies That Connect ICT-Based Education Reform To Economic

And Social Development', Human Technology, 1(2), 117-156.

Lemke, C., & Coughlin, E.C. (1998). Technology in American schools. Available:

www.mff.org/pnbs/ME158.pdf

Moore, M. & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance Education: A Systems View. Belmont, CA:

Wadsworth.

New Media Consortium (2007).”Horizon Report, retrieved July 1, 2007 from

www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf.

Wagner, A. D. (2001), “IT and Education for the Poorest of the Poor: Constraints. Possibilities,

and Principles”. TechKnowLogia, July/August, 48-50

Young, J. (2002). The 24-hour professor. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 48,(38), 31-33.

Yusuf, M.O. (2005). Information and communication education: Analyzing the Nigerian national

policy for information technology. International Education Journal 6(3), 316-321.