Essay Development and Evolution of the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in a classroom

Essay

Development and Evolution of the ICT (Information and Communications Technology)

 in a classroom

For nearly 30 years, personal computers as we have known them have been the drivers of the technology engine. From Intel to Microsoft to Dell to HP  - our way of work, communication, education and studies were based on the PC. But the rise of mobile computing is upending technology, and is simultaneously redefining what a personal computer is and how we use it. Today the PC are slowly being replaced by new technology such as the smart phones and tablets that are well on their way to becoming the defining personal computing platforms for the early 21st Century. Technology has provoked many changes in all aspects of life but especially within the educational environment. It has changed the way one teaches and the way one learns into a more attractive, effective and interactive method.

             The PC era begins in the 1980’s, when computers were being accessible and affordable to the public in contrast to the first business, scientific or engineering-oriented computers of the time.  The PC’s from that time were big and bulky. Their most common use was for playing video games but it also offered the first opportunity to learn to program. Throughout the years it has since changed. With this new revolution it has offered the opportunity to expand the technology globally having a tremendous impact in our lives on how we socialize, communicate and learn. In the educational environment, for example, in a traditional classroom there would be desks, seats and a blackboard, but today’s classroom a white board or a digital board would replace the blackboard and computers and infocus or projectors would be included into the scene. Now students have unlimited access to information and a communication tool that wasn’t present before. Today’s students are more attracted to these new technologies and its making the learning process more effective on the students. 
            ICT  (Information and Communications Technology) is a term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals), computers, software, storage- and audio-visual systems, which enable users to create, access, store, transmit, and manipulate information. The term originates when information and communication are merged together through a single unified linked system.  It is an indispensible tool that forms a major part of human society and economy.

 ICT is also an essential and indispensible tool for teachers. For one it provides new pedagogical tools since it is a means of communication and expression, it supports collaborative work, and is a source of information and knowledge. Secondly, as mentioned before, ICT has change the educational scene and provide new means of educational equipment, not just limiting to books only but an infinite source of information. Third, it has provided new educational programs. Not only does it provide but because of the new technology it has also changed our educational perspective. It has changed the educational process and objectives, didactic contents, educational centers, and pedagogical training. We as teachers have to upgrade with technology to be able to facilitate the learning process to the students.

With ICT, new educational softwares were developed as a tool to help with the teaching or self learning process. These educational softwares can be used to support the experience of content learning in many educational focuses. These softwares usually have a lot of multimedia graphics and sounds to appeal to the students and to make learning fun and easy. CD-ROMs became the preferred method for content delivery. With the spread of the internet in the second half of the 1990s, new methods of educational software delivery appeared. In the history of virtual learning environments, the 1990s were a time of growth for educational software systems. These new softwares  have evolutionalized a collaborative learning and these virtual learning environments  provide greater accessibility to learners.

The era of the web, started shortly after the PC era, beginning in the 1990’s which has progressed with time and with the demand of the people. Web 1 was the first generation of the Internet, the conceptual evolution of the World Wide Web, developed during 1990 to 2000. Socially, users can only view webpages but cannot reflect on the content of the webpages. Technically, web 1.0 webpage’s information is closed to external editing. Thus, information is not dynamic and updated only once in a while by the webmaster. Technologically, web 1.0 is concentrated on presenting, not creating. Web 2 was the second generation of the Internet, known as information sharing, developed during 2000 to 2010. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services and web applications.Web 3, also known as the semantic web is the current web we are using today 2010 till 2020. The main purpose of the Semantic Web is driving the evolution of the current Web by enabling users to find, share, and combine information more easily. Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as reserving a library book, and searching for the lowest price for a DVD. However, machines cannot accomplish all of these tasks without human direction, because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that can be readily interpreted by machines, so machines can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, combining, and acting upon information on the web. The Semantic Web, as originally envisioned, is a system that enables machines to "understand" and respond to complex human requests based on their meaning. Such an "understanding" requires that the relevant information sources be semantically structured, a challenging task. Finally, for the future, between 2020 and 2010, the Web 4 is trying to be under construction. It’s an artificial intelligent web based where technology and humans become one.

            In conclusion, technology today has progressed and is of great importance in a class room. As educators it opens opportunities to enrich the learning process, to communicate with others, research easier, extend the students knowledge and attend the individual needs of our students. ICT is a great tool that facilitates the learning process and has demonstrated positive results in the student’s academic efforts. Educators today have to adjust their way of teaching and incorporate the use of ICT into their daily plans and put aside the pencil, paper and books.