December 6, 2019

USES AND ADVANTAGES OF IT IN

EDUCATION

SUBMITTED BY: Hania Batool

SUBMITTED TO: Rabia Ikram

ROLL N0: 44
Contents
Information Technology: ................................................................................................................................ 0
Impact of IT on education: ................................................................................................................. 0
IMPACT OF IT ON TEACHERS ............................................................................................................ 1
IT AND MATHEMATICS ....................................................................................................................... 2
E-Learning .............................................................................................................................................. 3
2.6.3 Blended Learning........................................................................................................................ 3
2.6.4 Open Source E Learning ............................................................................................................ 3

USES & ADVANTAGES OF IT IN

EDUCATION
Information Technology:
Information Technology (IT), as defined by the Smart Computing DITionary, is

“A general term used to describe any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store,
communicate, or disseminate information. IT refers to the most expensive, complex computers, with
devices usually dealing with electronic data in binary format. However, these IT machines are not able
to communicate with one another.”

Globally, educational systems are adopting new technologies to integrate IT in the teaching and
learning process, to prepare students with the knowledge and skills they need in their subject matter.
In this way the teaching profession is evolving from teacher-centred to student-cantered learning
environments. “IT integration is understood as the usage of technology seamlessly for
educational processes like transacting curricular content and students working on technology
to do authentic tasks” (Kainth and Kaur). Nowadays IT facilitates not only the delivery of lessons
but also the learning process itself. This includes computer-based technologies, digital imaging, the
internet, file servers, data storage devices, network infrastructure, desktops, laptops and broadcasting
technologies namely radio and television, and telephone which are used as instructional tools at
schools.

Impact of IT on education:
In educational context, IT has the potential to increase access to
education and improve its relevance and quality. IT has a tremendous impact on education in terms of
acquisition and absorption of knowledge to both teachers and students through the promotion of:

 Active learning: IT tools help for the calculation and analysis of information obtained for
examination and also students’ performance report is all being computerised and made easily
available for inquiry. IT promotes learner engagement as learners choose what to learn at their
own pace and work on real life situations’ problems.
 Collaborative and Cooperative learning: IT encourages interaction and cooperation among
students, teachers regardless of distance which is between them. It also provides students the
chance to work with people from different cultures and working together in groups, hence help
students to enhance their communicative skills as well as their global awareness.
 Creative Learning: IT promotes the manipulation of existing information and to create one’s
own knowledge to produce a tangible product or a given instructional purpose.
 Integrative learning: IT promotes an integrative approach to teaching and learning, by
eliminating the synthetic separation between theory and practice unlike in the traditional
classroom where emphasis encloses just a particular aspect.
 Evaluative learning: Use of IT for learning is student-centred and provides useful feedback
through various interactive features. IT allows students to discover and learn through new ways
of teaching and learning which are sustained by constructivist theories of learning rather than
students do memorisation and rote learning.
IMPACT OF IT ON LEARNERS
IT has very strong effect in education and it provides enormous tools for enhancing teaching and
learning. There have been many studies that have highlighted the various ways that IT may support
teaching and learning processes in a range of disciplinary fields such as the construction of new
opportunities for interaction between students and knowledge and accessing information. IT enables
new ways teaching and learning when used appropriately under right conditions such as suitable
resources, training and support. IT also offers the potential to meet the learning needs of individual
students, to promote equal opportunity, to offer learning material, and also promote
interdependence of learning among learners.

The five ways to establish and sustain effective learning environments through IT suggested by the
Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning (2000) are:

1. Real world problems

2. Scaffolding

3. Feedback, reflection and guidance

4. Local and global communities

5. Extending teacher learning. (Newhouse, 2002)

IMPACT OF IT ON TEACHERS
There are five important reasons for teachers to use technology in education:

(1) Motivation;

(2) Distinctive instructional abilities;

(3) Higher productivity of teachers;

(4) Essential skills for the Information Age and

(5) Support for new teaching techniques.

In order to make use of technology in the classroom effectively, educators should have a positive
attitude toward technology and they should be trained in using the modern technologies in their
respective field of education. But at the same time there are many challenges faced by educators as
they consider how best to best incorporate IT tools into their teaching.

USES & ADVANTAGES OF IT IN

EDUCATION
IT AND MATHEMATICS
There are many potentials uses for computers in the teaching and learning process of mathematics.
The role of IT in the teaching and learning process of mathematics are as follows:

In terms of teachers, the use of IT: -

 Improves their efficiency

 Reduces their administrative burden since less paperwork
 Releases more time to address students individually
 Provides better records of students’ progress
 Acts as a stimulus to rethinking their approach to their mathematics teaching
 Acts as a stimulus to rethinking their understanding of mathematics
 Acts as a means to communicate with other teachers sharing the common problems.

The use of IT makes students: -

 Engage their attention and motivate them

 Stimulate their curiosity
 Encourage them to develop their problem-solving strategies
 Provide models and images which aid them in concept formation
 Improve their test and examination results since they learn by own pace and learn through
feedback provided to them.

Mathematics lessons are associated with real life situations and increases the relevancy of the lessons
to the real world. The curriculum needs to be updated continually to take account of the technology
prevalent in society. Mathematics has tended to be very abstract while most students tend to operate
on a concrete level. The use of concrete materials in some lessons is useful but often not convenient.
The computer can provide experiences with virtual concrete materials. In approaching problems
associated with remedial and extension students’ computer use can provide appropriate material and
overcome classroom management problems.

In 1995 the National Council for Educational Technology published a leaflet in which are included the
six opportunities students can enhance their mathematics learning through the use of IT:

 Learning from feedback: Fast and reliable feedback is provided which encourages students to
make their own judgements and to test out and work over their ideas.
 Observing patterns: The use of computers and electronic calculators enables students to
practice as many examples as possible when working out mathematical problems. This chains
their study of patterns.
 Seeing connections: With use of IT graphs and related formulae and tables of numbers are
readily linked. Changing one value probes them to see the immediate effects in the other
variables thus helps students to understand the connections between them.

USES & ADVANTAGES OF IT IN

EDUCATION
  Working with dynamic images: Students can make use of IT to manipulate diagrams. This
encourages them to visualise the change of geometry when using the required software and
this develops their reasoning skills.
 Exploring data: With the use of IT students get the opportunity to work with real data which
can be represented in a variety of ways, which supports explanation and analysis.
 Teaching the computer: When students design algorithm to achieve a particular result, they
are required to express their commands clearly and in the correct order thus developing their
thinking skills.

E-Learning:
E-Learning “comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching.” (Wikipedia). It can
use an information network or even no network necessary for the lesson’s delivery and interaction. It
can also be termed as term online learning.

Blended Learning:
Another learning model which is evolving in our educational system is blended learning. This refers to
combining traditional classroom methods with e-learning solutions. For example, students in a
traditional class can be assigned with printed copies and also online materials through an educational
program and even have online monitoring sessions with their teachers through the chat. Blended
learning is a supplement to traditional delivery methods in class to support face-to-face lessons.
Blending learning can be an online or offline process.

Open Source E Learning:

Like any teaching styles, e-learning requires a variety of resources to be run effectively.So there are
many interactive packages which can be of great use and they are free software packages and of
good use to educators since they help to add plain text, images, videos, drawings and other
interactivities to their teaching and also various types of questions are included like:

 true/false
 multiple choice
 matching
 fill in the blank
 calculations

When the student clicks on the submit button, they get their feedback directly and can have
repetition of the work if need.

Thus e-learning can be beneficial to educators in the following ways as described by the University of
Nottingham:

 E-learning is delivered through blended learning to supplement traditional learning methods.

USES & ADVANTAGES OF IT IN

EDUCATION
  E-learning can cover a large or small part of a lesson, having already the necessary materials
that can be converted into e-learning.
 Any use of technology to support the teaching and learning process can be described as e-
learning.
 Help to manage and organise lessons materials in a more effective and efficient way
 Reduction of administrative tasks, for example printed materials and marking tests
 Enable educators to monitor student involvement and progress and offer support and advice
promptly and make effective use of teacher-student contact time
 Widen communication opportunities with students
 Help the change in educators’ role from knowledge provider to learning facilitator
 Encourage the development of flexible learning materials.

USES & ADVANTAGES OF IT IN

EDUCATION