ICT(Definitions)

ICT

ICT (information and communications technology - or technologies) is an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application, encompassing: radio, television, cellular phones, computer and network hardware and software, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and applications associated with them, such as videoconferencing and distance learning. ICTs are often spoken of in a particular context, such as ICTs in education, health care, or libraries.

In recent years there has been a groundswell of interest in how computers and the Internet can best be harnessed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education at all levels and in both formal and non-formal settings. But ICTs are more than just these technologies; older technologies such as the telephone, radio and television, although now given less attention, have a longer and richer history as instructional tools. For instance, radio and television have for over forty years been used for open and distance learning, although print remains the cheapest, most accessible and therefore most dominant delivery mechanism in both developed and developing countries. The use of computers and the Internet is still in its infancy in developing countries, if these are used at all, due to limited infrastructure and the attendant high costs of access.

ICT has been emerging from the concepts of IT, meaning basically computers and communication technology, and digital data networks as the latest phase of development, but also TV, satellites, phone, etc. Due to a trend of merging different technologies (all technologies seem to merge together in one way or another), there was a reason to start speaking of ICT as opposed to IT. ICT captures all the latest technologies used for communication, data processing and data storage. However, what I hear in discussions is talk of computers: desktops, laptops, servers that are needed in schools. The internet is referred to, but the discussion is more about rolling out computers in each of the schools, for each of the teachers or for each of the children. 

IT and communication technologies have been used to solve two different problems in education. Computer based learning and teaching was developed to make learning more efficient and more interesting for learners. This addressed the problem of quality of education. A longer tradition of distance education exists. It began with very tangible communication technologies like letters, then it moved to audiovisual materials, TV and radio, and finally e-mail and web based learning. It solved the problem of accessibility to education. It brought education services to people who could not come to schools or educational institutions.

IMPORTANCE IN EDUCATION SECTOR

Nowadays the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), especially internet in the education sector plays an important role, especially in the process of empowering the technology into the educational activities. Education sector can be the most effective sector to anticipate and eliminate the negative impact of ICT. Technology (internet) in another side can be the most effective way to increase the student’s knowledge.
Being aware of the significant role of ICT (internet) in our life, especially in the educational activities, education authorities should be wise enough in implementing the strategies to empower ICT in supporting the teaching and learning process in the classroom. ICT is not just the bloom of the educational activities, but also it will be the secondary option to improve the effective and meaningful educational process.
The main purpose of the Strategy for Information and Communication Technology Implementation in Education is to provide the prospects and trends of integrating information and communication technology (ICT) into the general educational activities.

THERE ARE SOME UNAVOIDABLE FACTS IN THE MODERN EDUCATION; 

First, the ICT has been developing very rapidly nowadays. Therefore, in order to balance it, the whole educational system should be reformed and ICT should be integrated into educational activities.

Second, the influence of ICT, especially internet (open source tool) cannot be ignored in our student’s lives. So, the learning activities should be reoriented and reformulated, from the manual source centered to the open source ones. In this case the widely use of internet access has been an unavoidable policy that should be anticipated by schools authorities.
Third, the presence of multimedia games and online games by internet has been another serious problem that should be wisely handled by the educational institutions. The students cannot be exterminated from this case. They can have and do with it wherever and whenever they want. Schools, as a matter of fact, do not have enough power and time to prevent or stop it after school times. Meanwhile, most parents do not have enough times to accompany and control their children. So, the students have large opportunities to do with multimedia games or online games or browsing the negative and porn sites. Having been addicted, the students will have too little time to study, and even do not want to attend classes.

In such situation, education institutions play an important role to eradicate these problems. One of which is by facilitating the students to do edutainment or educational games. Schools can let their students be familiar with educational games adjusted by their teachers. Besides, they can also support and facilitate their students to have their own blogs in the internet. A lot of WebBlog providers are free to the users, such as WordPress. In their blogs, the students can create and write something, like an article, poem, news, short stories, features, or they can also express their opinion by an online forum provided in the internet. They are able to share experiences throughout their blogs to others from all over the world. I think it will be an interesting activity for them, and it will lessen their time to visit the negative or porn sites existed.
By doing so, I think our young generation will get more and more information and knowledge by browsing in the internet. They can also create innovation in web design that it may be out of the formal curriculum content, but it will be useful for their future.
Fourth, the implementation of ICT in education has not been a priority trend of educational reform and the state paid little attention to it. Therefore, there should be an active participation, initiative and good will of the schools and the government institutions to enhance ICT implementation at school.

Fifth, the teachers should be the main motivator and initiator of the ICT implementation at schools. The teachers should be aware of the social change in their teaching activities. They should be the agent of change from the classical method into the modern one. They must also be the part of the global change in learning and teaching modification.

THE FOLLOWINGS ARE THE AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF ICT IMPLEMENTATION IN EDUCATION:

1. To implement the principle of life-long learning / education.
2. To increase a variety of educational services and medium / method.
3. To promote equal opportunities to obtain education and information.
4. To develop a system of collecting and disseminating educational information.
5. To promote technology literacy of all citizens, especially for students.
6. To develop distance education with national contents.
7. To promote the culture of learning at school (development of learning skills, expansion of optional education, open source of education, etc.)
8. To support schools in sharing experience and information with others

ICT INTEGRATION IN EDUCATION 

Historically ICT has been emerging from the concepts of IT, meaning basically computers and communication technology, and digital data networks as the latest phase of development, but also TV, satellites, phone, etc. Due to a trend of merging different technologies (all technologies seem to merge together in one way or another), there was a reason to start speaking of ICT as opposed to IT . ICT captures all the latest technologies used for communication, data processing and data storage. However, what I hear in discussions is talk of computers: desktops, laptops, servers that are needed in schools. The internet is referred to, but the discussion is more about rolling out computers in each of the schools, for each of the teachers or for each of the children. So, what happened to ICTs?

IT and communication technologies have been used to solve two different problems in education. Computer based learning and teaching was developed to make learning more efficient and more interesting for learners. This addressed the problem of quality of education. A longer tradition of distance education exists. It began with very tangible communication technologies like letters, then it moved to audiovisual materials, TV and radio, and finally e-mail and web based learning. It solved

 the problem of accessibility to education. It brought education services to people who could not come to schools or educational institutions. However, it seems to me that in most of the discussions related to ICT integration in education the default meaning is computer based learning. This is quite problematic because one of the main problems globally is still accessibility to education. In ICT integration discussions we seldom refer to this problem. In the last OECD meeting the OECD researchers who were trying to explain the impact of ICT in Education in the light of recent research, did not refer to the issue of at all. They tried only to find out if the learning outcomes are different in ICT based education compared to the non ICT environment (in OECD countries). Isn’t it a pity, that even the research does not see the other impacts of ICT in education? Isn’t it a pity that in development discussions on ICT4E we rarely consider how we can create really inclusive education systems by using ICT? All we seem to think about and to discuss is how we can integrate ICT in classroom teaching and learning. Why are OLPCs, and those famous XOs (that so many claim help children to learn alone without a teacher) not sent to children that are unable to attend school? Instead, the idea seems to be to give an XO to every school child that already has a teacher.

Historically technology has been used to learn and to teach technology. We call it technology education. As we read in the previous paragraph, technology can be used also to learn other things. It seems to me that a lot of energy in discussions is used to debate and to promote one or another as a goal. Why can’t these two live together? At least theoretically speaking, the skills provided through a proper technology education seem to be those same skills that are provided through proper learning with ICT. They both include concepts of problem solving and innovation as well as collaboration. What also populates the ICT integration discussions is the concept of content in the form of digitalized books. It seems to me that the default concept of learning in ICT integration is when a learner learns by reading books from the screen of a computer, and then sits a test that demonstrates how MUCH she/he actually has learned. Isn’t it a shame that we are investing so much money and other resources in repeating the problems of face-to-face education, denoted by book-based memorizing for centuries? How much could we actually achieve, if we invested first in teachers, who actually are in a position to use ICT and other resources that may be available in creative and innovative ways? If children only read books from the computer screen there is no doubt that the OECD recommendation will be that there is no measurable difference between ICT based and face-to-face education.

AUDIO

The radio has been around for a long time and has been used in educational classrooms. Recent technologies have allowed classroom teachers to stream audio over the internet. There are also webcasts and podcasts available over the internet for students and teachers to download. For example, iTunes has various podcasts available on a variety of subjects that can be downloaded for free.

VIDEO

Videos may allow teachers to reach students who are visual learners and tend to learn best by seeing the material rather than hearing or reading about it. Teachers can access video clips through the internet instead of relying on DVDs or VHS tapes. Websites like YouTube are used by many teachers. Teachers can use messaging programs such as Skype, or webcams, to interact with guest speakers and other experts. Interactive video games are being integrated in the curriculum at both K-12 and higher education institutions.

Research on the use of video in lessons is preliminary, but early results show an increased retention and better results when video is used in a lesson. Creating a systematic video development method holds promise for creating video models that positively impact student learning.

COMPUTERS, TABLETS AND MOBILE DEVICES

Computers and tablets allow students and teachers access to websites and other programs, such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, PDF files, and images. Many mobile devices support m-learning.

BLOGGING

Blogs allow students and teachers to post their thoughts, ideas, and comments on a website. Blogging allows students and instructors to share their thoughts and comments on the thoughts of others which could create an interactive learning environment.

WEBCAMS

Video cameras that allow you can connect to the internet and see other internet users. Allows students to become engaging and be able to see who everyone is.

WHITEBOARDS

Interactive whiteboards ("smartboards") allow teachers and students to write on the touch screen, so learning becomes interactive and engaging.

SKYPE, FACETIME, AND GOOGLE HANGOUTS ARE BEING USED TO BRING ONLINE GUESTS AND STUDENTS INTO THE BRICK-AND-MORTAR CLASSROOM.

The Internet is making the world a smaller place for everyone, and teachers are discovering how to use the latest video chat applications to break down classroom walls. From hosting guest speakers to creating opportunities for homebound students to have an online education, emerging tech is changing how schools approach learning.

Three of the hottest video chat apps are Skype, FaceTime and Google Hangouts, and here’s a few ways that schools are putting them to use.

SKYPE

As an early VOIP (voice over IP) provider, Skype has become one of the most popular ways to talk for free over the Internet. Created by Europeandevelopers in 2003, the app was acquired by Microsoft in 2011.

Skype is free to download and calls to other Skype accounts are free as well. The company operates a Skype in the Classroom website which offers more than 2,700 Skype lesson plans and nearly 800 resources created by teachers as well as organizations including NASA Digital Learning Network, Penguin Books and the British Council.

Teachers can also use Skype to connect with other teachers and classrooms. For example, Herrick Park Elementary School in Tecumseh, Mich. has used the app to help students make global connections. Last year, the second grade class skyped with a class in Chile while third graders used the app to talk with students at a Haitian orphanage.

“Both classes sang songs while on Skype and were able to ask questions to each other,” said parent Jennifer Cornish, who had a son participate in each chat. “It was a great learning experience for my boys and the whole class.”

FACETIME

FaceTime could be described as Apple’s answer to Skype. It is a video chat app that is compatible with Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Newer devices may come preloaded with FaceTime but for those who need to download the app, it costs a mere 99 cents.

While FaceTime does not offer centralized resources like Skype in the Classroom, teacher forums, blogs and wikis are full of stories regarding how the app is being put to use in the classroom. Examples include allowing parents to remotely view student presentations and bringing in video guest speakers.

Danbury Elementary School in Lakeside-Marblehead, Ohio is taking use of the app one step further. According to the Peninsula News, the school arranged to use FaceTime to allow a preschooler with a rare autoimmune disease to participate in class.

Using an iPad hooked to a SmartBoard, the preschooler can see her classmates and they can see her as they participate together in activities such as singing songs and attending school assemblies. During learning stations, an aide carries the iPad around the class as the stations rotate. In addition to working on school tasks at home, the preschooler uses FaceTime for social interactions to talk with her friends and share details about favorite toys and activities.

GOOGLE HANGOUTS

A relatively new addition to the world of social applications is Google Hangouts. Like Skype and FaceTime, Hangouts offer a free way to video chat, but the service comes with one big advantage. The other services are limited to two participants, but Hangouts allow multiple people to talk at once.

Attached to the social media service Google+, Hangouts were originally envisioned as a way for groups of up to 10 friends to chat together. However, schools quickly saw the potential of Hangouts to facilitate study groups, remote seminars and teacher office hours. In response, Google expanded the number of participants allowed in school sponsored Hangouts to 15.

Hangouts also have an advantage over other videoconferencing options in that they can be broadcast using the Hangouts On Air option. In addition, chat sessions can be uploaded to YouTube to be accessed by other students at a later date.

Perhaps because participants need a Google+ account to access Hangouts, their use seems to be concentrated at the college level. Last fall, Google Students posted a video of Ghetto Film School using the service for its master classes. A subsequent discussion of the video found, among other uses, Hangouts were also being used by geography classes at the University of Alabama to let distance learners sit in on classes. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan reports on its website it has engineering instructors who use the app to hold virtual office hours.

The latest apps are doing more than allowing family and friends to connect with one another. They are also opening up new educational opportunities for students at every level and giving the term online schools a whole new meaning.

TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

There are various types of technologies currently used in traditional classrooms. Among these are:

·    COMPUTER IN THE CLASSROOM:

 Having a computer in the classroom is an asset to any teacher. With a computer in the classroom, teachers are able to demonstrate a new lesson, present new material, illustrate how to use new programs, and show new websites.

·    CLASS WEBSITE: 

An easy way to display your student's work is to create a web page designed for your class. Once a web page is designed, teachers can post homework assignments, student work, famous quotes, trivia games, and so much more. In today's society, children know how to use the computer and navigate their way through a website, so why not give them one where they can be a published author. Just be careful as most districts maintain strong policies to manage official websites for a school or classroom. Also, most school districts provide teacher webpages that can easily be viewed through the school district's website.

·    CLASS BLOGS AND WIKIS: 

There are a variety of Web 2.0 tools that are currently being implemented in the classroom. Blogs allow for students to maintain a running dialogue, such as a journal, thoughts, ideas, and assignments that also provide for student comment and reflection. Wikis are more group focused to allow multiple members of the group to edit a single document and create a truly collaborative and carefully edited finished product.

Blogs allow the student to express their knowledge of the information learned in a way that they like. Blogging is something that students do for fun sometimes, so when they are assigned an assignment to do a blog they are eager to do it! If you are a teacher and need to find a way to get your students eager to learn, create, and inspire assign them a blog. They will love it.

     WIRELESS CLASSROOM MICROPHONES:

 Noisy classrooms are a daily occurrence, and with the help of microphones, students are able to hear their teachers more clearly. Children learn better when they hear the teacher clearly. The benefit for teachers is that they no longer lose their voices at the end of the day.

MOBILE DEVICES: Mobile devices such as clickers or smartphone can be used to enhance the experience in the classroom by providing the possibility for professors to get feedback.^[42] See also MLearning.

INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS: An interactive whiteboard that provides touch control of computer applications. These enhance the experience in the classroom by showing anything that can be on a computer screen. This not only aids in visual learning, but it is interactive so the students can draw, write, or manipulate images on the interactive whiteboard.

·    DIGITAL VIDEO-ON-DEMAND: Replacement of hard copy videos (DVD, VHS) with digital video accessed from a central server (e.g. SAFARI Montage). Digital video eliminates the need for in-classroom hardware (players) and allows teachers and students to access video clips immediately by not utilizing the public Internet.

·     ONLINE MEDIA: Streamed video websites can be used to enhance a classroom lesson (e.g. United Streaming, Teacher Tube, etc.)

·    ONLINE STUDY TOOLS: Tools that motivate studying by making studying more fun or individualized for the student (e.g. Study Cocoa)

·     DIGITAL GAMES: The field of educational games and serious games has been growing significantly over the last few years. The digital games are being provided as tools for the classroom and have a lot of positive feedback including higher motivation for students.

There are many other tools being used depending on the local school board and funds available. These may include: digital cameras, video cameras, interactive whiteboard tools, document cameras, or LCD projectors.

 PODCASTS: Podcasting is a relatively new invention that allows anybody to publish files to the Internet where individuals can subscribe and receive new files from people by a subscription. The primary benefit of podcasting for educators is quite simple. It enables teachers to reach students through a medium that is both "cool" and a part of their daily lives. For a technology that only requires a computer, microphone and internet connection, podcasting has the capacity of advancing a student’s education beyond the classroom. When students listen to the podcasts of other students as well as their own, they can quickly demonstrate their capacities to identify and define "quality." This can be a great tool for learning and developing literacy inside and outside the classroom. Podcasting can help sharpen students’ vocabulary, writing, editing, public speaking, and presentation skills. Students will also learn skills that will be valuable in the working world, such as communication, time management, and problem-solving.

Although podcasts are a new phenomenon in classrooms, especially on college campuses, studies have shown the differences in effectiveness between a live lecture versus podcast are minor in terms of the education of the student. 

USING ICT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING MAY BE APPROACHED IN THREE WAYS:

LEARNING ABOUT ICT:

Teachers and Children develop skills and knowledge in the potential uses of ICT to support learning.

LEARNING WITH ICT: 

Teachers and Children use ICT resources to support the classroom curriculum.

LEARNING THROUGH ICT:

Teachers and children use ICT to transform the process of teaching and learning, learning in new ways.

The use of ICT in teaching and learning in such ways, does not follow a continuum, rather, these functions are inter-related and mutually supportive. Much of children’s learning about ICT will develop as an integral part of learning with ICT.

At the same time, it is acknowledged that learning about ICT will be necessary in order to successfully use ICT tools to support the curricular objectives, and to learn in new ways.

                Learning through ICT, which supports the general aim of ICT use in the Primary School Curriculum, places a greater emphasis on the recognition of individual difference, and the use of varied approaches and methodologies in teaching

The Primary School Curriculum advocates a range of approaches and methodologies for teaching and learning. This section describes ways in which ICT can enhance these approaches and methodologies and provide teachers and children with a powerful learning resource.