Need and Importance of Information

Technology in Education
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Need

 Education is a life long process therefore anytime anywhere access to it is the need
 Information explosion is an ever increasing phenomena therefore there is need to get
access to this information
 Education should meet the needs of variety of learners and therefore IT is important in
meeting this need
 It is a requirement of the society that the individuals should posses technological literacy
 We need to increase access and bring down the cost of education to meet the challenges
of illiteracy and poverty-IT is the answer

Importance

 access to variety of learning resources

 immediacy to information
 anytime learning
 anywhere learning
 collaborative learning
 multimedia approach to education
 authentic and up to date information
 access to online libraries
 teaching of different subjects made interesting
 educational data storage
 distance education
 access to the source of information
 multiple communication channels-e-mail,chat,forum,blogs,etc.
 access to open courseware
 better accesses to children with disabilities
 reduces time on many routine tasks

Information Technology in Education

INTRODUCTION Information Technology in Education, effects of the continuing developments

in information technology (IT) on education.
The pace of change brought about by new technologies has had a significant effect on the way
people live, work, and play worldwide. New and emerging technologies challenge the traditional
process of teaching and learning, and the way education is managed. Information technology,
while an important area of study in its own right, is having a major impact across all curriculum
areas. Easy worldwide communication provides instant access to a vast array of data, challenging
assimilation and assessment skills. Rapid communication, plus increased access to IT in the
home, at work, and in educational establishments, could mean that learning becomes a truly
lifelong activity—an activity in which the pace of technological change forces constant
evaluation of the learning process itself.

Significance of IT in education

 Access to variety of learning resources

In the era of technology. IT aids plenty of resources to enhance the teaching skills and learning
ability. With the help of IT now it is easy to provide audio visual education. The learning
resources are being widens and widen. Now with this vivid and vast technique as part of the IT
curriculum, learners are encouraged to regard computers as tools to be used in all aspects of their
studies. In particular, they need to make use of the new multimedia technologies to communicate
ideas, describe projects, and order information in their work.

 Immediacy to information

IT has provided immediacy to education. Now in the year of computers and web networks the
pace of imparting knowledge is very very fast and one can be educated anywhere at any time.
New IT has often been introduced into well-established patterns of working and living without
radically altering them. For example, the traditional office, with secretaries working at keyboards
and notes being written on paper and manually exchanged, has remained remarkably stable, even
if personal computers have replaced typewriters.

 Any time learning

Now in the year of computers and web networks the pace of imparting knowledge is very very
fast and one can be educated .One can study whenever he wills irrespective of whether it is day
or night and irrespective of being in India or in US because of the boom in IT.

 Collaborative learning

Now IT has made it easy to study as well as teach in groups or in clusters. With online we can be
unite together to do the desired task. Efficient postal systems, the telephone (fixed and mobile),
and various recording and playback systems based on computer technology all have a part to
play in educational broadcasting in the new millennium. The Internet and its Web sites are now
familiar to many children in developed countries and among educational elites elsewhere, but it
remains of little significance to very many more, who lack the most basic means for subsistence.

 Multimedia approach to education

Audio-Visual Education, planning, preparation, and use of devices and materials that involve
sight, sound, or both, for educational purposes. Among the devices used are still and motion
pictures, filmstrips, television, transparencies, audiotapes, records, teaching machines,
computers, and videodiscs. The growth of audio-visual education has reflected developments in
both technology and learning theory.

Studies in the psychology of learning suggest that the use of audio-visuals in education has
several advantages. All learning is based on perception, the process by which the senses gain
information from the environment. The higher processes of memory and concept formation
cannot occur without prior perception. People can attend to only a limited amount of information
at a time; their selection and perception of information is influenced by past experiences.
Researchers have found that, other conditions being equal, more information is taken in if it is
received simultaneously in two modalities (vision and hearing, for example) rather than in a
single modality. Furthermore, learning is enhanced when material is organized and that
organization is evident to the student.

These findings suggest the value of audio-visuals in the educational process. They can facilitate
perception of the most important features, can be carefully organized, and can require the student
to use more than one modality.

 Authentic and up to date information

The information and data which are available on the net is purely correct and up to date.

Internet, a collection of computer networks that operate to common standards and enable the
computers and the programs they run to communicate directly provides true and correct
information.

 Online library

Internets support thousands of different kinds of operational and experimental services one of
which is online library. We can get plenty of data on this online library.

As part of the IT curriculum, learners are encouraged to regard computers as tools to be used in
all aspects of their studies. In particular, they need to make use of the new multimedia
technologies to communicate ideas, describe projects, and order information in their work. This
requires them to select the medium best suited to conveying their message, to structure
information in a hierarchical manner, and to link together information to produce a
multidimensional document.

 Distance learning

Distance Learning, method of learning at a distance rather than in a classroom. Late 20th-century
communications technologies, in their most recent phases multimedia and interactive, open up
new possibilities, both individual and institutional, for an unprecedented expansion of home-
based learning, much of it part-time. The term distance learning was coined within the context of
a continuing communications revolution, largely replacing a hitherto confusing mixed
nomenclature—home study, independent study, external study, and, most common, though
restricted in pedagogic means, correspondence study. The convergence of increased demand for
access to educational facilities and innovative communications technology has been increasingly
exploited in face of criticisms that distance learning is an inadequate substitute for learning
alongside others in formal institutions. A powerful incentive has been reduced costs per student.
At the same time, students studying at home themselves save on travel time and other costs.

Whatever the reasoning, distance learning widens access for students unable for whatever reason
(course availability, geographical remoteness, family circumstances, individual disability) to
study alongside others. At the same time, it appeals to students who prefer learning at home. In
addition, it appeals to organizers of professional and business education, providing an incentive
to rethink the most effective way of communicating vital information.

 Better accesses to children with disabilities

Information technology has brought drastic changes in the life of disabled children. IT provides
various software and technique to educate these poor peoples. Unless provided early with special
training, people profoundly deaf from birth are incapable of learning to speak. Deafness from
birth causes severe sensory deprivation, which can seriously affect a person's intellectual
capacity or ability to learn. A child who sustains a hearing loss early in life may lack the
language stimulation experienced by children who can hear. The critical period for neurological
plasticity is up to age seven. Failure of acoustic sensory input during this period results in failure
of formation of synaptic connections and, possibly, an irremediable situation for the child. A
delay in learning language may cause a deaf child's academic progress to be slower than that of
hearing children. The academic lag tends to be cumulative, so that a deaf adolescent may be four
or more academic years behind his or her hearing peers. Deaf children who receive early
language stimulation through sign language, however, generally achieve academically alongside
their hearing peers.

The integration of information technology in teaching is a central matter in ensuring quality in

the educational system. There are two equally important reasons for integrating information
technology in teaching. Pupils must become familiar with the use of information technology,
since all jobs in the society of the future will be dependent on it, and information technology
must be used in teaching in order to improve its quality and make it more effective.

INTRODUCTION
The information society challenges the education system. In recent years, the speedy, effective
and global communication of knowledge has created a new foundation for co-operation and
teamwork, both nationally and internationally. The increasing role played by information
technology in the development of society calls for an active reaction to the challenges of the
information society.
Already, new and greater demands are being made as to the core qualifications of individuals, as
well as to their understanding and knowledge of the consequences of the introduction of
information technology for the work and organisation of a company. Companies are no longer
forced to gather all their functions in one place. The knowledge-intensive functions such as
development and marketing can be sited in countries where the labour market can supply highly
educated employees, whilst production itself can be moved to low wage countries. The result is
the efficient handling, processing, co-ordination and administration of company resources, which
is decisive for the competitiveness of the company.In a society which is becoming increasingly
dependent on information and the processing of knowledge, great demands are therefore made
that the individual should have a solid and broad educational foundation on which to build.
Educational policy in the information society must ensure that:

1. IT qualifications are developed by means of their integration in all activities in the

education sector and
2. The individual citizen must have an active and critical attitude to developments and not
passively allow technological development to set the pace.

IT educational policy must ensure:

 Up-to-date qualifications in the information society

 Up-to-date qualifications gained against the background of a high general level of
education in the population will be decisive if Denmark is to maintain competitiveness
and its share of the global labour market in the information society. IT skills and IT
understanding are thus central prerequisites for the individual, both now and especially in
the future.

The advantage of using information technology is that time-consuming work routines can
increasingly be performed by means of this technology and time can thus be devoted instead to
communicating and informing, to the processing of information and the production of
knowledge.

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