Ict in Education

The changes in Education is considerable and could argue has been made easier due to the availability of technology in recent years. ICT has made lessons, way of teaching and learning quicker and easier for teacher and pupil.

Advantages:

White boards have been brought into most classrooms in most schools, replacing black boards. White boards are electronic and can conduct your lesson using your computer projected onto the screen, outlining your points clearer for the student to understand. It is also possible for you to write manually onto the white board, sometimes handy if information is being outlined or added during the lesson.

A followed on feature of the white board could be graphic tablets. Instead of writing on the white board directly, it is a hand device that you write on and it automatically appears on the white board. Somewhat unnecessary but it may help with interaction with the class.

Photoshop and Microsoft software has helped to engage the way teacher and student interact and communicate with one another. Photoshop will encourage more design to be created online, saving paper and time. Plus, within Microsoft, there is PowerPoint which teachers use to teach their classes and students may use to do various presentations as it is easy to use and it is a visual aid. Also, within Microsoft is Publisher and leaflets and booklets have become a lot easier to create and present. Another key point about Microsoft is that students get a discount on purchasing it, another way of encouraging them to buy it and start using what’s available to us now.

Another important advantage is typing skills have been key to all ages. Computers and even some phones now have keyboards and with ICT having a heavy impact on education now, teachers but especially students are becoming very confident with their typing.

Finally, with University being higher education, almost everything will be done using technology as students there should be confident with every aspect of using a laptop and would be silly not to start University without one.

Disadvantages:

The main disadvantage is that students don’t write anymore, meaning quality of handwriting has deteriorated. This is a shame as when I was growing up, there was such an emphasis on handwriting and the way the pen was gripped. Keyboards have taken over now, however.

Alongside this, you could say that spelling and sentence structure isn’t as accurate as it was years ago. Most documents come automatically with spell and grammar check, so any mistakes will be automatically corrected for you without knowledge. These corrections are also not always correct, but by changing it convinces the student it is.

With documents, they can be uploaded and sent where ever they want, which could promote plagiarism. This is a serious matter and would get you in a lot of trouble when it comes to education. Plagiarism means it is not your work and has been copied from someone else.