Concept of ICT

Objectives:

After this presentations, the students will be able to

 comprehend the concept of ICT in education

 learn the significant role of ICT in education
 understand the uses of ICT in education
 learn the advantages and challenges of ICT
 grasp the ideas on ICT initiatives in Indian education

Information and communication technology (ICT) is a diverse set of

technological tools and resources used to communicate and to create,
disseminate, store and manage information. Information and communication
technologies (ICTs) are often associated with the most sophisticated and
expensive computer-based technologies.
ICT in education improves engagement and knowledge retention. When ICT is
integrated into lessons, students become more engaged in their work. This is
because technology provides different opportunities to make it more fun and
enjoyable in terms of teaching the same things in different ways.

ICT in Education

Before we understand what is ICT in education, we need to break down the

term to understand it in a broader sense. The full form of ICT is Information
and Communication Technology, which has a significant impact on how well
students learn. It greatly expands educational opportunities while also adding
value to education.
 ROLE OF ICT

ICT performs three major roles in the social sector. These are of knowledge
provider, employment provider and education provider.

1. ICT as knowledge Provider:

ICT has come as a boon to the poor nations and less privileged people
because world-wide, identical information can be accessed within seconds. The
information available on the Internet can be accessed from any part of the
world.

Every aspect of our lives is driven by technology. We are growing more

and more, and rely on new developments as technology advances. It not only
makes our lives simpler but also more efficient. When we are discussing the
role of ICT in our lives, we cannot neglect the transformations that are
happening with the introduction of ICT in education.

ICTs are enablers that optimize student-centered pedagogical methods.

They are used to develop broad, generic skills such as problem solving,
independent and collaborative learning, and communication.

2. ICT as Employment Provider:

ICT has made it possible for people to work from one part of the world to
employees from other parts of the world.
3. ICT as Education Provider:
One of the major implications of ICT is witnessed in the field of
education. Nowadays, learners have started taking courses offered on line.
This means course contents are put on the Internet and learners access the site
and study the course material on their own. Thus, innumerable students learn
new concepts of education even from home and work spot.
 Uses of ICT in Education

Uses of ICT in education which are seen as the most important are following:
1.Better Collaboration
Cloud computing tools and equipments are promoting better collaboration in the
classroom between students and teachers. Tablets which come pre-installed with
learning games, online lessons and access to e-portals give students tools to
solve problems together – whether in the classroom or at home. Cloud based
apps meanwhile allow students to upload their homework, download learning
resources and share thought processes or ideas from wherever they are.

2.Remote access to learning

Internet of Things devices are making education more accessible for students,
whether they are in a classroom or virtual environment. WiFi and cloud access
means that wherever they are students are able to log on and complete work at
their own pace. Plus, tablets and other smart devices minimise the amount of
textbooks and papers that students are carrying around, making it easier to work
on the go.

3.Virtual classrooms

Edtech tools are now allowing the classroom to exist outside of the school
building. In the past, learning has been confined to students listening to lectures
or undertaking reading in the classroom and then working autonomously from
home. Nowadays edtech tools like learning apps and cameras that record
lectures mean that students can watch lessons from home and make use of time
in class to collaborate. This changing learning style can promote self-learning,
give room for creativity and create a sense of teamwork among students through
collaboration.
4.Personalized learning

Educational technology has given opportunities for teachers to create

personalised lesson plans and tasks depending on the needs and abilities of their
students. A customised learning experience promotes strengths, skills and
interests and holds students’ engagement much better, and for longer, than other
traditional teaching methods.

Video content tools that record lectures enable the students to rewind lessons so
that they understand and learn better.

5.Enhanced creativity and interactivity

Edtech tools stimulate the imagination because the interactivity elements found
in e-learning portals, games and in other interactive IoT objects like interactive
whiteboards promote the participatory attitude of the students. The participatory
attitude is involved in the learning process and can be utilised when being
positioned as a protagonist.

6. Time saving automation

Artificial intelligence Edtech tools are helping teachers to automate grading,

removing some of the time-consuming legwork of teaching. The apps utilise
machine learning algorithms to analyse and assess answers which are based
upon specific guidelines in the assignments.

Giving teachers back some of their time gives them more flexibility for lesson
preparation, allows them to experiment with creativity, and gives them ample
opportunities for one-on-one tutoring sessions with gifted or struggling students.

7.Better classroom management

New tools include apps that monitor classroom noise levels and then emit
warnings or alerts on behalf of the teacher, as well as apps that send reminders
to students or parents about projects or homework assignments if the app detects
that the project or assignment has not been accessed or completed by the
student.

This extra pair of hands leaves more room for teachers to get on with what they
do best — teaching — whilst everything else is less chaotically managed around
them.

8.Paperless classrooms

Saving the environment is big on everyone’s minds in the twenty-first century,

and education has its role to play. Trees are wasted each year due to being cut
down to provide paper and to make textbooks which are looked at once a term
and then never again.

Digital classrooms prevent all that. They cut down on needless deforestation
and provide a much more efficient way for students to work and teachers to
grade.

9.Easier student assessment

In the past, teachers have spent endless hours attempting to guess the skills or
areas of improvement of a student. Edtech is taking manual labour and non-
accuracy out of that, too. New tools which are based upon datasets constantly
assess and analyse the students’ skills, suggest needs, and relay that data in a
handy report to the teacher. Thus ICT Provides easier student assessment.

Often teachers cannot identify harmful studying trends, but some e-learning
platforms that use real-time data can show a teacher how a student is learning
outside of the classroom, once again providing proactive opportunities for swift
intervention and improvement.
Apps that measure the overall aptitude of students also make a teacher’s lesson
planning much smoother when they can craft specialized plans and tasks in
accordance to a student’s strengths and weaknesses, or even attempt to put in a
framework to negate negative learning outcomes.

ADVANTAGES OF ICT IN EDUCATION

1. Enhances interaction and increases students’ engagement

When integrated effectively allowed into a classroom environment,
there’s no question that technology can increase students’ engagement and
encourage interaction.
2. Learning is accessible any time, any place
The uber-connectivity of smart devices and the emergence of cloud
technology means that students have access to their educational tools wherever
and whenever they like. Academic development doesn’t have to stop in the
classroom and collaborative projects can be worked on in real-time through
applications and virtual student dashboards.
3. Offers new learning techniques as classroom tools are constantly
evolving
Technology is never one to stand still; it’s in a constant state of
advancement and evolution. Developers are forever releasing apps and tweaking
software to improve the digital learning experience in classrooms —which can
only benefit both students and teachers.
4. Decreases teacher paperwork improving work-life balance.
With the sheer abundance of online resources available to teachers, no
longer are their lesson plans bound exclusively to reams of paperwork and
printed handouts. By utilizing trusted apps and technology, educators can steer
away from traditional methods and embrace digital media. Virtual lesson plans,
grading software and online assessments are all available to the teachers and can
save them valuable time. Time which can be spent focusing on one-to-one
interactions with students—particularly those who might need additional help.

5. Improves parent-teacher interaction.

It’s not just teachers and students that can benefit from the integration
of technology into the education system. Parents, too, can establish healthy
contact with teachers.
Parents can message teachers, arrange appointments with virtual calendars, and
even host video conferences. Teachers understand how important a parent's role
is in the educational growth of a child, and technology can help and facilitate in
this regard.
6. Improves and enhances peer support and collaboration between students
ICT encourages collaboration among students and facilitates them
working collectively. Students can hone their powers of teamwork by
immersing themselves in various online activities. Projects can be worked on
conjointly using forums or by exchanging documents in their virtual learning
environments.
7. Enables teachers to differentiate their teaching.
ICT ensures that educators are given the tools to focus specific resources
and delivery systems to suit individual learning levels and styles. ICT helps the
teachers to make their teaching lively.
8. Teaches new life skills and prepares pupils for future workplaces
Students can learn valuable life skills through exposure to ICT; skills that
they might not learn in a traditional learning environment and ones that will
become invaluable to them in later life.
As mobiles and tablets become an increasingly common feature in the
workplace, a student who is fluent using smart devices will stand a much better
chance of securing employment in the digital landscape. Technological
advances move at break-neck speed, and students who can synchronise and
adapt with this constant evolution are more likely to find success in their future
workplace.

9. Allows students to learn at their own pace and encourages individual

learning styles
No student is the same; their abilities and learning speeds can vary
dramatically, which can present challenges to educators in a traditional
analogue classroom setting. Technology in education enables children to adjust
to their own pace of learning.
10. Helps children with special needs or disabilities with greater access to
more focussed learning resources
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that technology can assist children
in overcoming their communication and physical difficulties in the classroom.
Interactive computer-based systems allow teachers to customize lesson plans to
include those with learning difficulties. These processes can be tailored
specifically to fit the individual child’s needs, interests, and particular learning
styles.
Importantly, students who might otherwise have been excluded from the
learning experience through traditional methods, can flourish thanks to a
healthy combination of teaching support and ICT. Educators can use technology
to meet these challenges and deliver the same lesson in different ways.

Challenges of ICT

1.Lack of qualified teachers to teach ICT in schools; The demand for ICT
learning has been tremendous and the number of teachers who are trained to
teach ICT cannot meet the demand.
2. Lack of computers: There still remains a big percentage of the schools unable
to purchase computers for use by their students. This becomes a big challenge

3. Lack of electricity: Many schools are still not yet connected to electricity. So,
those schools that fall under such areas are left handicapped and they may not
be able to offer computer studies.

4. Broken down computers: while a good number of schools have benefited

from donated used computers, they have not been adequately equipped with the
same on maintenance and repair, hence its very common to see a school’s
computer lab full of broken down computers, some repairable and some not.

5. Burglary; the fact that computers are still very expensive, makes them a
target for thieves who usually have ready markets to another party at a much
less figure. This has made many schools to incur extra expenses trying to
burglar proof the computer rooms. This extra expense makes some schools shy
away from purchasing computers for their students.

6.Fear by other teacher: the non ICT compliant teacher may fear being rendered
irrelevant by the introduction of computers in his/her class. The ‘feel’ that the
teacher still remains an authority and a ‘know it all’ in class is something that
most teachers cherish, and anything that makes them otherwise is deemed an
enemy of the classroom.

7. Lack of internet or slow connectivity: Most schools are not able to connect to
the World Wide Web, due to the high costs involved in the connectivity. This is
yet another challenges.

8. Increased moral degradation – Addiction to social networks such as

Facebook, internet pornography, cyber bullying and other anti-social behaviours
is a worrying emerging problem.
 ICT Initiatives in Indian Education

1. SWAYAM On-line Courses:

https://storage.eooeleapis.com/uniquecourses/online.html provides
access to best teaching learning resources which were earlier
delivered on the SWAYAM Platform may be now viewed by any
learner free of cost without any registration.

2. UG/PG MOOCs: hptt://ugcmoocs.inflibnet ac.in/ugcmoocs/moocs

3. courses.php hostslearning material of the SWAYAM UG and PG

(Non-Technology) archived courses.

4. e-PG Pathshala epgp. infiibnet.ac.in hosts high quality,

curriculum-based, interactive e- content containing 23,000
modules ( e-text and video) in 70 Post Graduate disciplines of
social sciences, arts, fine arts and humanities, natural &
mathematical sciences.,

5. e-Content courseware in UG subjects : e-content in 87

Undergraduate courses with about 24,110 e-content modules is
available on the CEC website at http://cec.nic.in/

6. SWAYAMPRABHA: htt0s://www.swavamprabha.eov.in/ is a
group of 32 DTH channels providing high quality educational
curriculum based course contents covering diverse disciplines
such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences
and humanities subjects, engineering, technology, law, medicine,
agriculture etc to all teachers, students and citizens across the
country interested in lifelong learning. These channels are free to
air and can also be accessed through cable operator. The
telecasted videos/lectures are also as archived videos on the
Swayamprabha portal.
7. CEC-UGC YouTube channel:
httos://www.voutube.com/user/cecedusat provides access to
unlimited educational curriculum based lectures absolutely free.

8. National Digital Library: httns://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/ is a digital

repository of a vast amount of academic content in different formats
and provides interface support for leading Indian languages for all
academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all
disciplines, all popular form of access devices and differently-
abled learners.

9. Shodhganga : https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/ is a digital

repository platform of 2,60,000 Indian Electronic Theses and
Dissertations for research students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and
make it available to the entire scholarly community in open access.

10. e-Shodh Sindbii https://ess.inf1ibnet.ac.in/ provides current

as well as archival access to more than 15,000 core and peer-
reviewed journals and a number of bibliographic, citation and
factual databases in different disciplines from a large number of
publishers and aggregators to its member institutions including
centrally-funded technical institutions, universities and colleges that
are covered under 12(B) and 2(f) Sections of the UGC Act.

11. Vidwan : https://vidwan.infiibnet.ac.in/ is a database of

experts which provides information about experts to peers,
prospective collaborators, funding agencies policy makers and research
scholar in the country. Faculty members are requested to register on
the Vidwan portal to help expand the database of experts.
Multiple Choice Questions:

1. The Objective of ICT is

A) the establishment of smart schools

B) to increase the capacity of teachers

C) both (1) and (2)

D) none of the above.

Answer: C.Both (1) and (2)

2. The Purpose of ICT use in education is to

A) attract students.

B) make teaching interesting.

C) optimize learning outcomes.

D) promote technology culture in teaching.

Answer: C) optimize learning outcomes

3. Use of educational technology is advantageous over many other methods

because:

A). It allows time for thinking.

B). It provides a wider range of sensory involvement.

C). It allows proper guidance.

D). It provides scope for understanding.

Answer: B). It provides a wider range of sensory involvement.

4. Most world wide web pages contain commands in the language

A) NIH

B) URL

C) HTML

D) IRC

Answer: C. HTML

5. Ph.D. Thesis digital repository is ----------------

A). Sodhganga

B). Vidwan.

C). SWAYAM

D). MOOC

Answer: A). Shodhganga