The importance of ICT in the educational and learning setting cannot be over stressed. The utilization of ICT in contemporary learning environment involves slice use of computers in practical areas and online learning experience which promotes and advances learners’ intellectual and learning behavior (Balanskat, 2006). The role of technology in teaching and learning is rapidly becoming one of the most important and widely discussed issues in contemporary education policy (Akubuigwo & Maria, 2013). Most experts in the field of education agree that, when properly used, Information Communication Technology holds great promises to improve teaching and learning in addition to shaping workforce opportunities. This has actually gingered a new and strong desire to equip schools with computer facilities and qualified personnel necessary to produce technologically proficient and efficient students’ in developed countries of the world. Computer can aid the instructional process and facilitate students’ learning.
ICT motivate teachers and students. There seems to be some agreement that teachers and students feel that ICT utilization in the class significantly contributes to learners’ motivation for and engagement in learning. Majority (86%) of the teachers consent that learners are motivated and attentive if computers and the Internet are utilized in class. Therefore, ICT has a powerful motivational and positive impact on students’ learning behavior, communication as well as process skills (Balanskat, 2006).
2.0 The Reasons for Using ICT in EducationThe use of ICT in realizing educational goals and the involvement of higher learning institutions cannot be over stressed as number of ICT projects are done these institutions. The reasons of using ICT is realized in many areas like improved access to learning via creation of a conducive learning environment, gender equality knowledge delivery, expanded secondary and post-secondary education, and reduction of expenditure on training among many others (Ansari, 2006).
This is the benefit of advances in ICT that has varied ways of communication in education, learning as well as delivery of knowledge to the society. Some new delivery technologies using like electronic learning in virtual programs, internet courses delivery strategies, and audio and video communications have altered and challenged the means of knowledge delivery in education sector (Harris & Kington, 2002).
According to Becker (2002) teachers are getting new and better skills of teaching from the internet hence improving their abilities of teaching. Students are challenged by the technology and they are capable of learning efficiently for they acquire knowledge and skills from the internet. Some of the students who did not complete their school and are in need of gaining higher and more knowledge, they are given a chance by technology to continue their education. Technology has proof how efficient it is giving knowledge to most of the student who are learning.
Morgan and Ritter (2002) articulate that since most of the students believe that there are some of the difficult subjects and with technology, students have changed their attitude towards all subjects. Becker (2002) indicates that student pay more attention since the modern technology was introduced hence better understanding and positive attitude towards the subjects’ as well giving students more self-assured. Therefore, technology in education has proofed the improvement of high performance in all subjects. The computer is highly motivating and engaging students, writing leading to producing lengthily and qualitative work particularly at the inferior level.
2.1 ICT and Students’ MotivationThe last few years have seen ICT prolific development. Content delivery through ICT components can be more efficient in motivating learners to learn than that which is offered in traditional classrooms (Abdous & Yoshimura, 2010). ICT can stimulate, motivate as well as spark learners’ appetite to learning, and assists in creating a culture of success. This can be demonstrated via their growing commitment to the learning task, their improved enjoyment, interest and achievement in learning when utilizing ICT, and their improved self-esteem.
Also, ICT increases motivation by offering a context for the student that is challenging and stimulates curiosity. Activities that are internally motivating carry other significant advantages like personal satisfaction, challenge, relevance, as well as promotion of a positive view on lifelong learning. Moreover, ICT, as opposed to learner-controlled, can get in the way of the student by requiring them to study all of the given subject matter in place of the only elements the learners’ need (Mayer, 2007). Additionally, ICT makes it possible for the students to make certain choices in an activity and to impact learning outcomes.
Cox (2007) argues that regular use of ICT across in diverse curriculum subjects may have a beneficial motivational impact on students’ learning. Online learning interests de-motivated and disaffected learners fully in subject matter. Passey (2000) further notes that ICT use among learners improves confidence, motivation as well as self-esteem especially for students with special educational needs along with disaffected students. Learners who use educational technology in school feel more successful in school and are more motivated to learn and have progressed self-confidence and self-esteem.
According to Van Daal and Reitsma (2002), the amount of non-directed behavior decrease during computer and classroom session, after the use of multimedia programs for reading as well as spelling. Laptops motivate learners to work longer and harder with growing pride in their work. Using a computer networked learning environment support discovery-based, student-centered learning via a range of collaborative and individualized activities. Van Daal and Reitsma (2002) asserts those students with online access and who have more frequent use of computers and grow an intellectual learning experience.
2.2 ICT and Students’ Retention of Subject MatterThe objective of education is to help students learn, and to measure this learning, assessments are commonly used. Students who use ICT devices score higher (Barrow & Markman, 2009). Therefore, ICT has assisted accomplish by enhancing higher level thinking skills, making difficult subject less of a memorization task, especially in relation to high complicated mathematical formulae, creating links between abstract as well as non-abstract concepts.
ICT grows learners’ interest in task and increases the internal logic as well as organization of the material (Barrow & Markman, 2009) Emerging information can be easily integrated into existing schema if a learners’ name or other familiar contexts appear in an issue. The animation of objects in the explanation of a certain idea, for instance, Newton’s law of motion, grows learning by declining the cognitive load on the students’ memory thus allowing them to perform search and recognition processes and to develop more informational relationships.
Where each learner are at an individual workstation in a network, those needing assistance with an assignment can send a message to the instructor, or to other students, without disrupting others in the group specifically with the help of electronic system scanning the display screens of a certain class member, or the entire class in turns. The teacher can assess learner’s progress, and give feedback immediately, quietly as well as privately without disrupting the class where assistance, encouragement, or even discipline is required (White & Frederiksen, 2005). The feedback can be given by conveying a message to the learner or by interviewing directly in the students’ program to create suggestions, use illustrative examples, and offer online counseling. The instructor can broadcast students’ display screen to all other workstation in the network when he/she is working on a program or an issue that may be of interest to the rest of the class. Thus, ICT increases the extent of learners’ learning process, memory retention, classical and cognitive response as well as teacher-student relationship.
Audio-visual aids as elements of ICT play a vital significance in retention of subject matter. Its most common characteristic is its visual as well as audio aspect. Humans intuitively get the power of images to pass meaning, as can be viewed in the old age that values a picture more than words. Research in the last twenty years has proven what one intuitively knows the brains deal with images and sounds diversely than print (White & Frederiksen, 2005). Words are handled in the neo-cortex an area where the higher thinking capability of the brain exists. However, pictures, are handled in the limbic area of the brain, fast, and trigger instinct, emotion, as well as impulse (Wheeler, 2010). Since the brains are programmed to recall experiences that have an emotional element, visual systems like televisions and projectors have a powerful capability to relay experience via the emotions evoked by images. Viewing and seeing are interactive processes between the learner and medium instead of a process in which the former is captured by the later. Additionally, responding to what learners see from the screen brings their own experiences as well as expectations to what they view on screen (Anderson & Lorch, 2003).
2.3 ICT and Students’ Engagement in TaskThe benefits in relation to the impact of ICT on learners’ learning process include increased collaboration, significant engagement in task process and persistence, on-task behavior as well as better conceptual understanding (Condie & Munro, 2007).
In assessing learner’s engagement to ICT, perceptions from the learners themselves have been minimal than teachers’ report, and objective forms of assessment as a way of measuring engagement. Learners mostly report positive experiences in engagement in the classroom while using ICT. Kay (2007) indicates that learners benefit and engage more in task if computers are utilized as an instructional device. He further asserts that ICT that use a visual dimension such as digital video, photography and video conferencing that are found to be engaging for learners. The utilization of ICT in classrooms offers a stimulus for collaborative working, discussion amongst fellow learners and teachers that allow the students to control of their learning process (Condie & Munro, 2007).
The students can browse through e-books, sample examination papers, previous year papers and can have easy accessibility to mentors, experts, researchers, and peers across the world. This flexibility has grown the availability of just-in-time learning and offered learning opportunities for many learners who previously were challenged by other commitments (Rockman, 2003). ICT offers opportunities to access an abundance of data using multiple information resources as well as viewing information from many perspectives, thereby fostering the authenticity of learning environments (Alexander, 2008).
With the utilization of ICT like blended classroom environment, learners can get information online even when the instructor is not in the classroom to direct the students. Moreover, students stay more focused on the task when using ICT devices as source of learning material. This grows students’ engagement in tasks thus decreasing students’ absenteeism and also creates students’ cognitive and psychomotor idea thereby enabling them to integrate classroom ideas with home experience.
3.0 ConclusionThe world is migrating to digital world where technology will be daily part and parcel of each and every human being. With the release of the millennium goals education has moved with the pace and has adopted technology to educate. The government should move in to subsidize the prices of software and equipment to boost technology use. The programmers should also increase their speed in developing software and ensuring quality across all the discipline
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