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ICT: Benefits and Issues

In 2005, the Children’s Partnership’s “Measuring Digital Opportunity for America's Children” reported that more than half of American children aged 7-17 use home computers to complete schoolwork. Public schools in the United States are almost universally connected to the Internet and these schools’ access to the benefits of the Internet is limitless!

Below is a list of benefits that students and teachers can enjoy through ICT:

Learning benefits

  1. Quick access to a lot of information
  2. Students are given the freedom to work at their own pace
  3. Remedial and extended lessons can be given in the same lesson
  4. Lessons can be given in different languages
  5. Quality material can be accessed despite geographical location
  6. Interaction with peers and experts from outside the city or country
  7. Different intelligences can be catered to and stimulated

Teaching benefits

  1. Multimedia ICT can enrich learning experience of students
  2. Efficient tracking of students’ progress and skill proficiency
  3. Focus is more on the process than the product
  4. Easy identification of learning trends and problems
  5. Can be of crucial help to the creation of a student’s portfolio due to opportunities in the Web

With enough training from the government and the community, the benefits to be reaped by teachers and students are tenfold. As seen above, ICT increases productivity, allows for professional presentation of students’ work, and enriches the learning environment.

However, no matter how good the benefits sound, in the Philippines, the largest limitation to ICT access has always been cost, hardware, software, licensing and broadband transmission.

Below are the other ICT-related issues that the country must face:

  1. curricula of educational systems is not keeping pace with ICT innovation
  2. ICT’s needs for monetary resources causes sacrifices to be made in other areas of developments
  3. Technical issues overwhelms the average teacher
  4. Not enough teacher training on how to best use ICT for teaching

Investment in ICT has to be paired with visionary pedagogical insight. New teachers have to be equipped with skills in using new technology. And there has to be realistic expectations from schools venturing into ICT.

Only when these issues are overcome that our students and teachers can truly maximize the benefits from ICT.

Sources:

McComb, Bruce. “Editorial: Want to Improve High Schools? Put Computers in the Homes.” Retrieved June 17, 2008 from http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=469
“The Role of ICT in Learning.” Retrieved June 17, 2008 from
http://www.icponline.org/content/view/86/47/

(Published 23 June 2008, Smart Communications, Inc.)