Title
The project will focus on IT in education wherein the benefits and disadvantages of such will be given attention. Through such project a better understanding of the relationship of the two will be known, as well as a better understanding of how IT and education can give benefits to each other.
Topic outline
IT has a dramatic effect on both people’s personal and professional lives. IT is also changing the nature of organizations by providing opportunities to make fundamental changes in the way they do business. Many of the opportunities are recognized and understood. Yet a tremendous number of issues and consequences are only vaguely perceived while other questions are just now being raised (Beard, 1996). The technology is changing rapidly, with computing speeds and the number of transistor equivalents available in a given area of a microprocessor chip both doubling approximately every 18 months.
Organizations are acquiring more and more technology systems to assist in everything from manufacturing to the management of information to the provision and improvement of customer service. Harnessing and coordinating this computing power is the challenge. New tools and innovative perspectives with which to examine, interpret, and comprehend these rapidly evolving environments are always needed and sought (Beard, 1996). IT creates changes not only in organizations but in institutions as well it makes jobs easier and it helps in making things be done faster.
Problem theme
The project is focused on determining the benefits and disadvantages of IT in education. As mentioned in the previous part IT can give benefits to companies and institutions. It can create big changes and make life easier at the same time it can be said that IT can cause some negative things and can create problem. Through the study a better understanding of how IT works in education can be initiated. How IT is used in education can also be given attention.
Personal Theory
One problem with IT in education is not all teachers or instructors can easily comprehend or make use of such. A probable solution to the problem is to give additional seminars and conferences to teachers/instructors for them to gain more understanding and knowledge of IT and its uses. The teachers/instructors can also be given hands on training on such so that they can ask questions to the persons giving them added knowledge.
Expected form of answer
The expected form of answer revolves around IT and education. The answer should focus on the benefits of IT on education and also its disadvantages. It should reinforce the need for IT on education and it should strengthen the relationship within the two. Moreover the answer will provide more evidences of the changes IT can do. Through the answer the changes IT can give will be known more and be more visible. Through the answer a better understanding of IT can be done and additional knowledge of IT can be known.
Strategic IT value
The answer can create a strategic business IT outcome that will be valued by business. Through the answer a business engaging in IT will have more reasons to continue developing products and services that can be used in education. The answer will boost the need for continuing in developing the field and creating measures to make it more efficient and useful.
Research Question
The main research question is what are the benefits and disadvantages of using IT in education. Through such question the use of IT towards that specific sector will be known and what problems IT can cause towards the sector will also be known.
Process to collect primary data
To collect primary data the best method to use is interview of people involved in education sector. Through such method a wider perspective and direct knowledge can be accumulated. Interviewing teachers, administrators can give a more frank and direct answers. A structured questionnaire will be prepared. This questionnaire will be given to the perspective respondents for them to give their answers as honestly as they can.
Processing of Collection of Primary Data
As mentioned the interview will be done in a way that participants will be asked for some of their time and then they will be given questionnaires to answer. This questionnaire not only contains the information needed, it will contain the purpose of the study and a statement indicating that all information they will divulge will be made confidential. The participants can ask anything in the questionnaire they can’t understand.
Research Method and Collection Protocol
The research will use the descriptive method to determine the benefits and disadvantage of IT use in education. Descriptive research tries to explore the cause of a particular event or situation. It also wants to present facts concerning the nature and status of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study (Creswell 1994). In addition, such method tries to describe present conditions, events or systems based on the impressions or reactions of the participants of the research.
Summary
The project will focus on IT in education wherein the benefits and disadvantages of such will be given attention. IT creates changes not only in organizations but in institutions as well it makes jobs easier and it helps in making things be done faster. Through the study a better understanding of how IT works in education can be initiated. How IT is used in education can also be given attention. To collect primary data the best method to use is interview of people involved in education sector. This acquires answers that can assist in making sure that the goal of the project will be realized. The answer can create a strategic business IT outcome that will be valued by business. The research method used will be descriptive method. Descriptive research tries to explore the cause of a particular event or situation. It also wants to present facts concerning the nature and status of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study
Research question and exploration
Over thirty-five years have passed since academics began speculating on the impact that information technology (IT) would have on organizational structure. The debate is still on-going, and both researchers and managers continue to explore the relationship between IT and organizational structure. This relationship is becoming increasingly complicated by both the rapidly changing nature of IT and the increasing environmental turbulence faced by many organizations. As organizations need to process more information under these uncertain conditions, IT is one possible way for organizations to increase their information processing capability. However, other, more organizational tools are also at their disposal for processing more information. These include task forces, lateral relationships, self-contained work groups, and slack resources. Thus, the relationship between IT and organizational structures is not a simple one (Earl, 1998). IT is transforming the way that business is conducted. Computers prepare invoices, issue checks, keep track of the movement of stock, and store personnel and payroll records. Word processing and personal computers are changing the patterns of office work, and the spread of information technology is affecting the efficiency and competitiveness of business, the structure of the work force, and the overall growth of economic output. This transformation in the way in which information is managed in the economy constitutes a revolution that may have economic consequences as large as those brought about by the industrial revolution (Allen & Morton, 1994).
Many people believe that the primary driving force behind this information revolution is progress in microelectronic technology, particularly in the development of integrated circuits or chips. Thus, the reason that computing power that used to fill a room and cost million now stands on a desk and costs 00 or that pocket calculators that used to cost 00 now cost is that society happens to have benefited from a series of spectacularly successful inventions in the field of electronics. But fewer people understand why the introduction of information technology occurred when it did or took the path that it did, why data processing came before word processing or why computers transformed the office environment before they transformed the factory environment. Because this technology oriented view of the causes of the information revolution offers little guidance to the direction that technological developments have taken thus far, it offers little insight into the direction that they will take in the future (Allen & Morton, 1994).
These reasons and benefits of IT to other sectors make a need to understand the importance of knowing how beneficial and how disadvantageous IT is to the education sector. It can further the importance of IT in people’s lives. The main research question is what are the benefits and disadvantages of using IT in education. Through such question the use of IT towards that specific sector will be known and what problems IT can cause towards the sector will also be known. The answer should focus on the benefits of IT on education and also its disadvantages. It should reinforce the need for IT on education and it should strengthen the relationship within the two. Moreover the answer will provide more evidences of the changes IT can do. Exploration of the benefits and disadvantage of IT to education sector can assist in improving IT and education respectively and in a way cohesively.
Literature review
Literacy is changing. Once it was entirely shaped by the technologies of the printing and publishing industries and their associated cultures. Now, however, in an age of burgeoning new media of communication, information and representation, there are more and different technologies available. These are increasingly deployed in working and playing with texts, in the practice of new and different literacy. Indeed, people are now able to recognize and acknowledge that, for schooling and education, print is simply one of a range of available techno-cultural resources. Accordingly, account needs to be taken of a profound media shift in literacy, schooling and society, a broad-based shift from print to digital electronics as the organizing context for literate-textual practice and for learning and teaching (Teh 1999).Although this does not mean the eclipse of print technologies and cultures, it does mean that people need to employ a rather different, more flexible and comprehensive view of literacy than teachers are used to in both their work and their lives. Print takes a new place within a re-conceptualized understanding of literacy, schooling and technological practice, one which is likely to be beneficial in moving parents, teachers, administrators, their children and students into a new millennium (Teh 1999).
It is estimated that there are over 43 million hosts connected to the Internet worldwide, and somewhere between 40 and 80 million adults in the United States alone have access to around 320 million unique pages of content on arguably one of the most important communication innovations in history. As a nation, Australia is also adopting technology-driven environments with increasing enthusiasm, as computer chips become ever more versatile and pervasive. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in 1999, almost 23% of Australian households were connected to the Internet. Significantly, of these 1.6 million households, almost 71% were located in capital cities, and the heaviest users are the young: more than 74% of 18-24-year-olds accessed the Internet in the 12 months to August 1999 and some 52% of 25-39 year olds (Durrant & Green 2000). For those aged between 40 and 54 years, however, the figure drops to 39% and a mere 13% for persons 55 years and over. Over the next decade, Web usage is expected to increase dramatically. The 1999 Commerce Net/Nielson Internet Demographic Survey suggests that over 90 million Americans are regular users, and this is expected to increase to over 150 million over the next couple of years. Electronic commerce is also predicted to explode. Anderson Consulting predicts that an estimated 200,000 American households are currently purchasing their food and household goods on-line, but by 2007, that number is expected to hit 20 million (Durrant & Green 2000).
Recent moves in international education policies confirm that governments the world over are becoming more and more committed to a technology-saturated future. In 1998, the United Kingdom spent 220 million (pounds sterling) on technology in education. In Singapore around billion was set aside to be spent over five years along similar lines. The US government also approved in 1998 a five-year, billion program called the Technology Challenge Literacy Fund; its primary purposes being to encourage `computer literacy’ and to connect schools to the Internet by the year 2000. In Australia, which is second only to the United States in its per-household use of personal computers, state governments are equally intent on ensuring that Australian students of the twenty-first century are given every opportunity of participating in and benefiting from this bright new world that will demand technologically-skilled workforces if countries and nations are both to keep pace with change and position themselves favorably in an increasingly global economy (Durrant & Green 2000).
In 1998, the Victorian government committed .4m for access to computers, the Internet, on-line curriculum materials, and technology training for teachers. Similarly, over four years the Western Australian government pledged 0 m to similar projects. Tasmanian students living outside metropolitan areas are soon to be supplied with access to on-line training and education, while the Northern Territory is set to install PCs in all schools and throughout their Department. In New South Wales (NSW), 4 m is being spent over four years on computer and information technology in schools, including a number of new modes of delivery for development and training of teachers, like CD-ROM, Web-based training, email support and video conferencing. It is rather unusual to hear of such large sums of money being thrown at education, particularly for such specific goals, but technology seems to have been taken on board the education band-wagon. Time will tell if the hype has substance; but in the meantime, the notions of literacy are undergoing dramatic changes as people struggle to keep up with the digital revolution (Durrant & Green 2000).
People can do many things better than computers. Foremost among them are being a human being, understanding human values and what it is like to be a human being, posing problems that humans want to answer, and interpreting the results that are produced as attempts are made to solve the problems. On the other hand, computers can do a steadily increasing number of things better than humans. Educators are faced with the problem of how to educate children for adult life in a world in which computer capabilities will continue to grow very rapidly and already exceed humans in many areas. The educational system needs to develop and use authentic assessment methods to measure its success in addressing different problems (Moursund, D 2001).
A non-authentic test of information retrieval skills would be to send a person to a conventional, hard copy library and ask that person to solve a computer chess information retrieval problem. Without a significant amount of training in the use of the various types of indexes available in a library, the person might well fail to find the needed information. Of course, even if that person succeeded, it would have taken him/her a huge amount of time relative to what actually expended while sitting at home using the computer (Moursund, D 2001).
Education and Computers can go very well. They can assist each other in solving problems and make a better living for people. The literature above shows how beneficial computers and technology is to education. Without it different problems may occur and things cannot be done accordingly and efficiently. To be able to work hand in hand with changing world education should be modernized and IT should be used towards it for a better future. The example above showed what will happen if there technology is not used towards education.
References
Allen, TJ & Morton, MS (eds.) 1994, Information technology
and the corporation of the 1990s: research studies,
Oxford University Press, New York.
Beard, JW (ed.) 1996, Impression management and information
technology, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.
Creswell, JW 1994, Research design. Qualitative and
quantitative approaches, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.
Durrant, C & Green, B 2000, ‘Literacy and the new
technologies in school education: meeting the literacy
challenge?’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy,
vol. 23, no.1, p.89.
Earl, MJ (ed.) 1998, Information management: the
organizational dimension, Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
Moursund, D 2001, ‘Roles of IT in improving our
educational system’, Learning & Leading with Technology,
vol.28, no.6, p. 4.
Teh, GP 1999,’ Assessing student perceptions of Internet-
based online learning environments’, International Journal
of Instructional Media, vol.26, no.4, p.397.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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