PERCEIVED IMPACT OF ICT ON CHILDREN'S LEARNING

Perceived Impact of ICT on Children's Learning

Perceived Impact of ICT on Children's Learning



Introduction

The Internet has become such a part of popular culture that it often affects the entertainment industry and the format for entertainment itself. For example, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Avenue Q, includes a song in which a kindergarten teacher lectures her young students on the power of the Internet. People can enjoy operas online from the Metropolitan Opera or watch broadcasts of their favorite television programs (Corno, Mandinach, 2005). Individuals no longer have to wait for the next televised news broadcast as the latest, breaking news, weather, and sports can be received on many different media any time and any place. Downloading music from iTunes has replaced CDs and records. With today's trends, the youngest students are well versed or even more facile than many adults in Internet navigation (Flores, Flores, 2003).

In addition to the changing entertainment, the Internet is changing many other aspects of society, including the way business is conducted. People do not have to leave their homes to shop. They have almost any type of store at their fingertips and can easily search for specific items and compare prices. This is particularly useful for individuals who live in remote areas, where there are few stores. People can buy and sell on eBay and arrange for all sorts of services from home, such as grocery delivery, laundry and dry cleaning, home repairs, and shipping. Businesses rely on the dissemination of information via Web sites and compete for spots in search engines, which have come to replace the Yellow Pages (Honey, Fasca, Gersick, Mandinach, Sinha, 2005).

An individual can buy a lacquer table in China and have it delivered halfway around the world, bid on a grand piano on eBay, sell a car, all without leaving the keyboard. The Internet has also changed the service industry. People no longer have to spend hours at the motor vehicles department renewing their licenses or registrations. All you need is a computer and a credit card. There are fewer and fewer physical boundaries (Inoue, 2007).

Discussion

Technology also has had a tremendous impact on education at all levels, K-16, and provides a plethora of opportunities for both formal and informal learning. Lectures can be delivered via podcasts or entire courses delivered virtually. Remote learners can access information from the Outback of Australia, a one-room school house in Siberia, or from a rural New Mexico town where formal education must be supplemented by online learning because there aren't enough qualified teachers. Access to the Internet is possible and opens up vast possibilities for learning and accessing information.

Academic libraries are also changing in fundamental ways. Due to the Internet and other technologies, libraries are buying fewer books and journals in favor of electronic copies, and reconfiguring space into electronic workstations for users. The reference librarian's job has evolved into an on-call, electronic consultancy; eliminating the need to physically enter the ...