Issues in ICT & Education

Focus: What issues confront us in the use of ICT for education and how do we respond?
Together with the benefits that may accrue from the application of ICT in education, there are problems and issues to be confronted. Some issues were raised in earlier discussion of positions promoted by the techno-pessimists. However, as for the trends discussed in the previous section, issues associated with ICT in education are prone to rapid change. Hence it is not feasible to attempt a complete treatment of issues and what follows will highlight a few related issues that appear to be significant at the present time.

Digital Divide

It seems that nobody really knows who coined the term digital divide but it was used as early as 1995 by President Bill Clinton (Foster & Borkowski, n.d.). The term is used to refer to the differences in access to ICT experienced by different groups in society. Depending upon the context, the gaps may occur along racial, geographic or socioeconomic lines. Although the term was first used in the context of the USA it has been applied in many other contexts.
For educators, the existence of a digital divide may have a variety of implications. It might affect the experiences and understandings of ICT that children bring with them to school and, depending upon how ICT is treated in the classroom, may provide an immediate source of advantage or disadvantage to some students. It might affect the capacity of learners to access ICT resources outside of school with consequences for homework and other activities completed outside of school. It might mean that students in rural and remote areas have different levels of access to online resources than is available in urban areas with consequent impact on opportunities for learning.
Clearly the possible existence of a digital divide should be considered by educators planning for the use of ICT. Where there is evidence that the digital divide is real, appropriate measures should be employed to minimize any relative disadvantage.

ICT in the home

The impact of home computers has attracted interest from researchers over the past decade. In presenting a conference paper on the subject, Downes (1996) noted that children who researched information for projects from electronic sources and were able to 'cut and paste' text and illustrations into a word processor document were often constrained by a school requirement to present the project handwritten in an exercise book. She described one instance, in which a child prepared and presented a project as video - a format which was appropriate to the task - but the teacher was uncertain how to assess work other than that presented in conventional written form and the ultimate compromise was to mark the script rather than the video.
More recently, Fluck (2003) found that students generally have better access to ICT outside school, including in their homes, than in school. Other studies, noted that both teachers and students made more use of computers at home than in school (Meredyth, et al., 1999). These trends, when viewed alongside the 'digital divide' may have significant implications for education.

Internet safety

From the earliest days of Internet access in schools, teachers have exercised care to minimize the risks of exposure of children to inappropriate material. More recently, as Internet connected computers have become widely available in homes, some significant risks to the safety of children have emerged. Several high profile cases in various parts of the world have demonstrated that there may be physical risks in addition to the problem of inappropriate content.
Teachers and schools need to approach the use of ICT in ways that maximize the educational benefit while minimizing any risk. They may also need to be able to offer sound advice to parents and others responsible for the care of children.
In Australia, the federal government has established NetAlert to provide "independent advice and education on managing access to online content". Similar services have been established elsewhere, for example, Parents Online in the UK.


EDU5472 Computing in Education © University of Southern Queensland
Last updated: 28-Jun-2005 by Peter Albion
view:http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/edu5472/content/mod12.htm