ICT

  ICT stands for "Information and Communication Technologies." ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums.

In the past few decades, information and communication technologies have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities. For example, people can communicate in real-time with others in different countries using technologies such as instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP), and video-conferencing. Social networking websites like Facebook allow users from all over the world to remain in contact and communicate on a regular basis.

Modern information and communication technologies have created a "global village," in which people can communicate with others across the world as if they were living next door. For this reason, ICT is often studied in the context of how modern communication technologies affect society.

      Information and communications technology (ICT) refers to all the technology used to handle telecommunications, broadcast media, intelligent building management systems, audio visual processing and transmission systems, and network-based control and monitoring functions .Although ICT is often considered an extended synonym for information technology (IT), its scope is more broad. ICT has more recently been used to describe the convergence of several technologies and the use of common transmission lines carrying very diverse data and communication types and formats.

General benefits-

1. ·  Greater efficiency throughout the school.
2. ·  Communication channels are increased through email, discussion  groups.
3. ·  Regular use of ICT across different curriculum subjects can have a beneficial           motivational influence on students’ learning.

Benefits for teachers-

1. ·  ICT facilitates sharing of resources, expertise and advice
2. ·  Greater flexibility in when and where tasks are carried out
3. ·  Gains in ICT literacy skills, confidence and enthusiasm.
4. ·  Easier planning and preparation of lessons and designing materials
5. ·  Access to up-to-date pupil and school data, any time and anywhere.
6. ·  Enhancement of professional image projected to colleagues.
7. ·  Students are generally more ‘on task’ and express more positive feelings when they use computers than when they are given other tasks to do.
8.    Computer use during lessons motivated students to continue using learning outside school hours.

Benefits for students-

1. ·   Higher quality lessons through greater collaboration between teachers in               planning and preparing resources .
2. ·   More focused teaching, tailored to students’ strengths and weaknesses,                 through better analysis of attainment data
3. ·   Improved pastoral care and behaviour management through better tracking of       students
4. ·   Gains in understanding and analytical skills, including improvements in reading
5.      Comprehension.
6. ·    Development of writing skills (including spelling, grammar, punctuation,                editing and re-drafting), also fluency, originality and elaboration.
7. ·   Encouragement of independent and active learning, and self-responsibility for       learning.
8. ·   Flexibility of ‘anytime, anywhere’ access.
9. ·   Development of higher level learning styles.
10. ·   Students who used educational technology in school felt more successful in           school, were more motivated to learn and have increased self-confidence and       self-esteem
11. ·  Students found learning in a technology-enhanced setting more stimulating           and student-centred than in a traditional classroom
12. ·  Broadband technology supports the reliable and uninterrupted downloading         of web-hosted educational multimedia resources
13. ·   Opportunities to address their work to an external audience
14. ·   Opportunities to collaborate on assignments with people outside or inside             school.

 Disadvantages of the use of ICT in education -

 Below I list some disadvantages of using ICT in education: ICT can create a partition, digital gap within the classroom, where students are more familiar with ICT and will have more benefits, will learn faster than others unfamiliar to technology; Can remove the attention from the main goal of the learning process to develop ICT skills, which may be a secondary goal in this process; May affect the connection process between teacher and student, as ICT become a communication tool instead of face to face communication, so the distance of the transaction will increase; Also since not all teachers are ICT experts, they may be negligent in updating the content of courses, which can slow down the process of learning to students.Cost of hardware's and software can also be high.