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maxwell
Joined: Apr 24, 2002
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The Future of Information Technology in Education
Apr 25, 2002
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Information technology is everywhere, and it is certainly changing our world. Some of the change is
well summarized by the expression "Global Village" coined by Marshall McLuhan. The technology is
connecting people from throughout the world. The technology has provided a new and powerful tool,
and people throughout the world face the task of learning to use this tool.
Marshall McLuhan is also known for his statement, "The medium is the message." Information
technology is a new medium, a new way of representing, communicating, and working with information.
Information technology is both an important area of study in its own right and also a tool that is
being integrated into the everyday lives of more and more people.
To date, however, the impact of information technology on our K-12 educational system has been
minimal. It isn't that our schools don't have computers and other information technology facilities.
Rather, they don't have enough, and much of what they do have is not used to their advantage.
Students and teachers lack basic information technology knowledge and skills. The curriculum,
instruction, and assessment do not adequately make use of the capabilities of today's networked
information systems.
Much of the pressure for integrating information technology use in schools is coming from outside
the school system. Parents, politicians, and business people are making the observation that
computers are routinely used outside of schools, and asking why they are not more routinely used in
schools.
In the United States, more than 55% of adults make use of a computer at work and/or at home.
Business and industry in the United States have spent hundreds of billions of dollars acquiring
information technology, training their employees, and adapting their methods to take advantage of
the technology. By and large, if a worker's productivity can be increased by access to such
technology, the technology is made available.
Computers are now relatively common in households. There are more computers in the homes of our
students than there are in schools. As the following brief news items indicate, home sales of
microcomputers are a large and growing business.
PC Homes Up 16% From Last Year
The number of households that own personal computers grew by 16% last year, according to a new
survey by Computer Intelligence Infocorp., which interviewed 11,500 PC users. That puts the total
percentage at 38.5% of U.S. homes that have one or more PCs. "We were surprised to see penetration
levels jump five percentage points," says a Computer Intelligence analyst. "That is a very healthy
increase." Recent buyers tended to be older and less-affluent Americans. The growth in PC ownership
among households making $10,000 to $30,000 is up nearly 25%, to a range between 10% and 30% of the
total, and about 20% of households headed by people over 60 now contain a PC.
Wall Street Journal. (1996, May 21). p. B10
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Raymond M. Kristiansen
Joined: Mar 1, 2002
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important topic
May 2, 2002
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hello edusei 
interesting topic, and one which indeed is being discussed majorly around the world.
here are some links:
http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd
http://pd-icle-edu-02.ifi.uib.no/Seusiss/
Myself, I am slightly involved in this project:
Spot +
are there any programmes in which a person can volunteer to go to African countries on a volunteer
basis and work with educating more local people about the possible uses of ICT?
just curious
dltq
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Terri Willard
Joined: Jul 27, 2001
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Country: Canada
Province/State: Manitoba
City: Winnipeg
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Hi dltq
I just spotted your posting about ICT volunteer opportunities in other countries.
UNITeS (http://www.unites.org/),
the United Nations Information Technology Service, is an initiative that channels the creative
energies, skills and solidarity of volunteers around the world to collaborate with people in the
South to improve their capacity to make practical use of information and communications technologies
(ICT).
The program is run through the UN Volunteers. The hard thing is that UN Volunteers is typically
looking for people over age 23 who have five or more years of work experience in the field of
computers and networking.
To deal with some of these restrictions, Canada set up its own program for young Canadians -
NetCorps Canada International (http://www.netcorps-cyberjeunes.org). These internships are open to Canadian
citizens or landed immigrants between the ages of 19 and 30, who are unemployed or underemployed,
and with the appropriate information and communication technologies skills. http://www.go2002.ca/ is the site for
their current recruitment campaign.
At the GKII meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 2000, there was a big call for other governments to set up
similar programs. In particular, many African youth stated that they would like a similar program
to be able to go to other countries in their region to practice what they've learned locally and to
meet their peers.
So far... not much progress. But, I think it is something that we should continue to raise as an
issue throughout the WSIS and UN ICT taskforce processes.
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