Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in ... - ADEA

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in Africa: an overview 19 ‘educational technology’ interchangeably or even as a single, composite term. The most obvious problem with this is that it is simply an illogical inference. Educational technologies are used regularly in contact educational environments, whether they be ‘old’ technologies like print or whiteboards or ‘new’ technologies like data projectors or personal computers. More importantly, though the use of distance education and educational technology as interchangeable or composite phrases introduces a blurring conflation of the terms, which—at least in many developing world educational interventions—has led to poor quality strategic planning. In many ways, it is similar to the conceptual integration of open learning and distance education in the United Kingdom and Australia—open and distance learning—which created a real misperception that distance education was intrinsically ‘open’. In the same way, many people harnessing educational technologies think they are harnessing the benefits of good quality distance education, when, in most cases, they are simply finding technologically clever (and often not so clever) ways of replicating traditional, face-to-face educational models. Many of these attempts have blazed a sad trail of failed educational technology projects (most notably in applications of broadcasting technologies to transmit lecture-style programming), wasting huge amounts of time and money. On the positive side, these experiences have provided valuable lessons for education planners in developing countries, so there is no reason to continue repeating many of these costly mistakes. The key point here again is that each education intervention should be planned, implemented, and reviewed on its own merits, rather than forced into simplistic, dichotomous categories (such as ‘distance education’ or ‘face-to-face education’), which set arbitrary and unhelpful constraints. Leading on from this, attempts by educators to harness the potential of different technologies to support their educational interventions should not automatically be regarded as distance education interventions. Technologies can be applied in a range of ways, to support an almost limitless variety of teaching and learning strategies, and it is essential to keep options as open as possible. 2. Definition of Terms
20 Working Group on Distance Education and Open Learning 2.2 A Definition of ICT 2.2.1 Information Technology Understanding the term ‘information and communication technologies’ (or its acronym ICT) needs to begin with how the term technology itself is used. As Williams notes, this term derives from the 17th-century use of the word to describe ‘systematic study…or the terminology of a particular art’. Over time, the word came to be increasingly associated with ‘practical arts’, finally leading to a ‘familiar modern distinction between knowledge (science) and its practical application (technology), within the selected field’ (Williams, 1983, p315). This modern distinction still holds, but has taken on a very specific (some would argue overly narrow) application in most circles when integrated into the composite term ‘information technology’. Most definitions of this phrase make specific reference to electronics and computers, and this certainly holds for most people’s understanding of the term. We do not wish to debate the merits of this reference, instead choosing to present a definition of information technology that we believe is useful for the purposes of this policy paper: Electronic technologies for collecting, storing, processing, and communicating information. They can be separated into two main categories: (1) those which process information, such as computer systems, and (2) those which disseminate information, such as telecommunications systems. (Gunton, 1993, p150) Thus, this document does not seek to cover all technology in terms of its educational application, although many of the comments made will be applicable to all technology. Instead, we aim to focus explicitly on those technologies described by the above definition. 2. Definition of Terms The definition above would appear to cover both information and communication technologies, raising the question of why the additional composite term has grown in use recently. Although there may be many reasons for this, it is no doubt, in part at least, to make more explicit that the term does actually also cover those technologies covered by category (2) above, a point often missed by people using the term ‘information technology’. In addition, though, we believe that this new
Page 1 and 2: Technological Infrastructure and Us
Page 3 and 4: 2 Working Group on Distance Educati
Page 5 and 6: 4 Working Group on Distance Educati
Page 70 and 71:
Technological Infrastructure and Us
Page 72 and 73:
Page 74 and 75:
Page 76 and 77:
Page 78 and 79:
Page 80 and 81:
Page 82 and 83:
Page 84 and 85:
Page 86 and 87:
Page 88 and 89:
Page 90 and 91:
Page 92 and 93:
Page 94 and 95:
Page 96 and 97:
Page 98 and 99:
Page 100 and 101:
Page 102 and 103:
Page 104 and 105:
Page 106 and 107:
Page 108 and 109:
Page 110 and 111:
Page 112 and 113:
Page 114 and 115:
Page 116 and 117:
Page 118 and 119:
Page 120 and 121:
Page 122 and 123:
Page 124 and 125:
Page 126 and 127:
Page 128 and 129:
Page 130 and 131:
Page 132 and 133:
Page 134 and 135:
Page 136 and 137:
Page 138 and 139:
Page 140 and 141:
Page 142 and 143:
show all

Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in ... - ADEA

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?