COMPUTER LITERACY: IS IT MUST TO INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGY INTO PRACTICE

Computer literacy is the knowledge and ability to use computers and technology efficiently. The pervasiveness of computers is continuing to grow at an outstanding rate. As companies become ever more dependent on technology, the value a potential employee has may be measured in terms of his or her technological competency. The highest goal of a computer-literate person is to be able to learn and use new computer programs without large amounts of help. Computer literacy gives people of all ages an edge in both their careers and education. 

The precise definition of "computer literacy" can very from group to group. Generally, literate (in the realm of books) connotes one who can read any arbitrary book in their native language [s], looking up new words as they are exposed to them. Likewise, an experienced computer professional may consider the ability to self - tech (i.e. to learn arbitrary new programs or tasks as they are encountered) to be central to computer literacy. In common discourse, however," computer literacy" often connotes little more than the ability to use several very specific applications (usually Microsoft word, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Outlook) for certain very well - defined simple tasks, largely by rote. (This is analogous to a child claiming that they "can read" they have rote - memorized several small  children's books. Real problems can arise when such a "Computer Literate" person encounters a new program for the first time, and  large degrees of "hand holding " will likely be required.) Being "literate" and "functional" are generally taken to mean the same thing.

The pervasiveness of computers continues to grow at an outstanding rate. Computers always change; they become smaller, faster and more powerful. These changes have motivated the modern society to become comfortable with basic computer - related skills.

The level of computer literacy one must achieve to gain an advantage over others depends both  on the  society one is in and one's place in the social hierarchy. Prior to the development of the first computers in the b1950s, the word computer referred to a person who could count, calculate, compute. The fear of some educators today is that computer training in schools will serve only to train data-entry clerks of the next generation, low level workers of the  so called knowledge  industries. On the other hand, some hope that enhanced computer literacy will enable  a new generation of cultural producers to make meanings and circulate those in the public sphere. The wildfire of cultural production associated with sites such as Youtube seems to support this notion.

Different countries have different needs for computer literate  people due to their society standards  and level of technology . The world's digital divide is now an uneven one with knowledge nodes such as India disrupting old North/South dichotomies of knowledge and power.

Computer Literacy is considered to be a very important  skill to possess while in the first world. Employers want their  workers to have basic computer skills because their company becomes ever more dependent on computers. Many companies try to use computers to help run their company faster and cheaper.

Computers are just as common as pen and paper for writing, especially among youth. For many applications - especially communicating- computers are preferred over pen, paper, and typewriters because of their ability to duplicate and retain information and ease of editing.

As personal computers become common place and they become more powerful , the concept of computer literacy is moving beyond basic  functionality to more powerful applications under the heading of literacy.

Of course, arguments about computers being common - place in the first world has equal access to the latest forms of technology. however, there is a pronounced digital divide that separates both physical access to technology and the ability to use that technology effectively. Where computers are widespread, they are also a part of education. Computers are used in schools for many applications such as writing papers or searching the Internet information. Computer skills are also a subject being specifically taught in many schools, especially from adolescence onward - when the ability to make  abstractions forms.

References :

Gateway Education and Welfare Society (Regd.)
(An ISO 9001 Certified Organisation)

 

(http://www.techfluency.org/computer-literacy.htm )

Why Is Computer Literacy Necessary?

There is a good chance that, if you are reading this, you have some hands-on computer experience. However, I do know many people for whom surfing the Web was their first contact with a computer. Many have not gone further than that. This is written for those people.

In most places of business, a computer is standard. In the bank they use computers to look up your account information. They use computers in the auto repair shop to assess your car. You can't find books in the library by looking in a card catalog — you must use a computerized database. Doctors' offices utilize computers to store patient information. The point is this — no matter where you find employment, there is a good chance a computer will be a basic tool you will have to use. It is in your best interests to start off computer literate. It will help you get a job and it will help you advance in your career. Computer literacy does not mean you need to know how use every single piece of software you may encounter. It does not mean you need to know how to write programs or network computers. You just need to know some basics — how to save and open a file, how to use a word processing program, and how to send and receive email — for starters. It means having some sort of level of comfort around computers rather than a look of fear and a feeling of foreboding. 

How Do I Become Computer Literate?

Basic computer courses are offered by most continuing education programs. They are usually reasonably priced and conveniently scheduled. These courses can usually be found in your local school district or community college, on evenings and weekends.

Career retraining programs often offer computer courses for free or at a low fee for those who qualify. Check with your local Labor Department Office for more information on these programs.

There are also online courses and tutorials available. You don't have a computer? Don't worry. Many public libraries allow patrons to use computers with Internet access. Here are two Web sites that offer free online courses. 

Career Planning

 

 

SYNTHESIS :

We need to be computer literate to be able for us to use this technology. Computer is one of the most common used technology nowadays. Even a child knew how to use computer if they are already exposed to it at their younger age. Each schools are required to have their own computer laboratory to be used by the students and to expose them. And some other schools are also having their computer lesson to teach students in the usage of computers. Computer is very important for us. It helps us to gather information. It have many usage to people and so we need to be computer literate. We need to practice the usage of computers so that we not behind to our modern technology.

 

 

IT Enters A New ET

Information technology (IT) is concerned with technology to treat information. The acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications are its main fields.The term in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review, in which authors Leavitt and Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)."Some of the modern and emerging fields of Information technology are next generation web technologies, bioinformatics, cloud computing, global information systems, large scale knowledgebases, etc. Advancements are mainly driven in the field of computer science.  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology)
 

Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources."The term educational technology is often associated with, and encompasses, instructional theory and learning theory. While instructional technology is "the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning," according to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Definitions and Terminology Committee,educational technology includes other systems used in the process of developing human capability. Educational technology includes, but is not limited to, software, hardware, as well as Internet applications, such as wiki's and blogs, and activities. But there is still debate on what these terms mean.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_technology)

Need and Importance of Information Technology in Education

From WikiEducator

Need

• Education is a life long process therefore anytime anywhere access to it is the need
• Information explosion is an ever increasing phenomena therefore there is need to get access to this information
• Education should meet the needs of variety of learners and therefore IT is important in meeting this need
• It is a requirement of the society that the individuals should posses technological literacy
• We need to increase access and bring down the cost of education to meet the challenges of illiteracy and poverty-IT is the answer

Importance

• access to variety of learning resources
• immediacy to information
• anytime learning
• anywhere learning
• collaborative learning
• multimedia approach to education
• authentic and up to date information
• access to online libraries
• teaching of different subjects made interesting
• educational data storage
• distance education
• access to the source of information
• multiple communication channels-e-mail,chat,forum,blogs,etc.
• access to open courseware
• better accesses to children with disabilities
• reduces time on many routine tasks

Information Technology in Education
INTRODUCTION Information Technology in Education, effects of the continuing developments in information technology (IT) on education.
The pace of change brought about by new technologies has had a significant effect on the way people live, work, and play worldwide. New and emerging technologies challenge the traditional process of teaching and learning, and the way education is managed. Information technology, while an important area of study in its own right, is having a major impact across all curriculum areas. Easy worldwide communication provides instant access to a vast array of data, challenging assimilation and assessment skills. Rapid communication, plus increased access to IT in the home, at work, and in educational establishments, could mean that learning becomes a truly lifelong activity—an activity in which the pace of technological change forces constant evaluation of the learning process itself.
Significance of IT in education

• Access to variety of learning resources

In the era of technology. IT aids plenty of resources to enhance the teaching skills and learning ability. With the help of IT now it is easy to provide audio visual education. The learning resources are being widens and widen. Now with this vivid and vast technique as part of the IT curriculum, learners are encouraged to regard computers as tools to be used in all aspects of their studies. In particular, they need to make use of the new multimedia technologies to communicate ideas, describe projects, and order information in their work.

• Immediacy to information

IT has provided immediacy to education. Now in the year of computers and web networks the pace of imparting knowledge is very very fast and one can be educated anywhere at any time. New IT has often been introduced into well-established patterns of working and living without radically altering them. For example, the traditional office, with secretaries working at keyboards and notes being written on paper and manually exchanged, has remained remarkably stable, even if personal computers have replaced typewriters.

• Any time learning

Now in the year of computers and web networks the pace of imparting knowledge is very very fast and one can be educated .One can study whenever he wills irrespective of whether it is day or night and irrespective of being in India or in US because of the boom in IT.

• Collaborative learning

Now IT has made it easy to study as well as teach in groups or in clusters. With online we can be unite together to do the desired task. Efficient postal systems, the telephone (fixed and mobile), and various recording and playback systems based on computer technology all have a part to play in educational broadcasting in the new millennium. The Internet and its Web sites are now familiar to many children in developed countries and among educational elites elsewhere, but it remains of little significance to very many more, who lack the most basic means for subsistence.

• Multimedia approach to education

Audio-Visual Education, planning, preparation, and use of devices and materials that involve sight, sound, or both, for educational purposes. Among the devices used are still and motion pictures, filmstrips, television, transparencies, audiotapes, records, teaching machines, computers, and videodiscs. The growth of audio-visual education has reflected developments in both technology and learning theory.
Studies in the psychology of learning suggest that the use of audio-visuals in education has several advantages. All learning is based on perception, the process by which the senses gain information from the environment. The higher processes of memory and concept formation cannot occur without prior perception. People can attend to only a limited amount of information at a time; their selection and perception of information is influenced by past experiences. Researchers have found that, other conditions being equal, more information is taken in if it is received simultaneously in two modalities (vision and hearing, for example) rather than in a single modality. Furthermore, learning is enhanced when material is organized and that organization is evident to the student.
These findings suggest the value of audio-visuals in the educational process. They can facilitate perception of the most important features, can be carefully organized, and can require the student to use more than one modality.

• Authentic and up to date information

The information and data which are available on the net is purely correct and up to date.
Internet, a collection of computer networks that operate to common standards and enable the computers and the programs they run to communicate directly provides true and correct information.

• Online library

Internets support thousands of different kinds of operational and experimental services one of which is online library. We can get plenty of data on this online library.
As part of the IT curriculum, learners are encouraged to regard computers as tools to be used in all aspects of their studies. In particular, they need to make use of the new multimedia technologies to communicate ideas, describe projects, and order information in their work. This requires them to select the medium best suited to conveying their message, to structure information in a hierarchical manner, and to link together information to produce a multidimensional document.

• Distance learning

Distance Learning, method of learning at a distance rather than in a classroom. Late 20th-century communications technologies, in their most recent phases multimedia and interactive, open up new possibilities, both individual and institutional, for an unprecedented expansion of home-based learning, much of it part-time. The term distance learning was coined within the context of a continuing communications revolution, largely replacing a hitherto confusing mixed nomenclature—home study, independent study, external study, and, most common, though restricted in pedagogic means, correspondence study. The convergence of increased demand for access to educational facilities and innovative communications technology has been increasingly exploited in face of criticisms that distance learning is an inadequate substitute for learning alongside others in formal institutions. A powerful incentive has been reduced costs per student. At the same time, students studying at home themselves save on travel time and other costs.
Whatever the reasoning, distance learning widens access for students unable for whatever reason (course availability, geographical remoteness, family circumstances, individual disability) to study alongside others. At the same time, it appeals to students who prefer learning at home. In addition, it appeals to organizers of professional and business education, providing an incentive to rethink the most effective way of communicating vital information.

• Better accesses to children with disabilities

Information technology has brought drastic changes in the life of disabled children. IT provides various software and technique to educate these poor peoples. Unless provided early with special training, people profoundly deaf from birth are incapable of learning to speak. Deafness from birth causes severe sensory deprivation, which can seriously affect a person's intellectual capacity or ability to learn. A child who sustains a hearing loss early in life may lack the language stimulation experienced by children who can hear. The critical period for neurological plasticity is up to age seven. Failure of acoustic sensory input during this period results in failure of formation of synaptic connections and, possibly, an irremediable situation for the child. A delay in learning language may cause a deaf child's academic progress to be slower than that of hearing children. The academic lag tends to be cumulative, so that a deaf adolescent may be four or more academic years behind his or her hearing peers. Deaf children who receive early language stimulation through sign language, however, generally achieve academically alongside their hearing peers.
The integration of information technology in teaching is a central matter in ensuring quality in the educational system. There are two equally important reasons for integrating information technology in teaching. Pupils must become familiar with the use of information technology, since all jobs in the society of the future will be dependent on it, and information technology must be used in teaching in order to improve its quality and make it more effective.

INTRODUCTION

The information society challenges the education system. In recent years, the speedy, effective and global communication of knowledge has created a new foundation for co-operation and teamwork, both nationally and internationally. The increasing role played by information technology in the development of society calls for an active reaction to the challenges of the information society.
Already, new and greater demands are being made as to the core qualifications of individuals, as well as to their understanding and knowledge of the consequences of the introduction of information technology for the work and organisation of a company. Companies are no longer forced to gather all their functions in one place. The knowledge-intensive functions such as development and marketing can be sited in countries where the labour market can supply highly educated employees, whilst production itself can be moved to low wage countries. The result is the efficient handling, processing, co-ordination and administration of company resources, which is decisive for the competitiveness of the company.In a society which is becoming increasingly dependent on information and the processing of knowledge, great demands are therefore made that the individual should have a solid and broad educational foundation on which to build. Educational policy in the information society must ensure that:

1. IT qualifications are developed by means of their integration in all activities in the education sector and
2. The individual citizen must have an active and critical attitude to developments and not passively allow technological development to set the pace.

IT educational policy must ensure:

• Up-to-date qualifications in the information society
• Up-to-date qualifications gained against the background of a high general level of education in the population will be decisive if Denmark is to maintain competitiveness and its share of the global labour market in the information society. IT skills and IT understanding are thus central prerequisites for the individual, both now and especially in the future.

The advantage of using information technology is that time-consuming work routines can increasingly be performed by means of this technology and time can thus be devoted instead to communicating and informing, to the processing of information and the production of knowledge.

(http://wikieducator.org/Need_and_Importance_of_Information_Technology_in_Education)

(This page was last modified on 28 August 2009, at 07:02.)

SYNTHESIS :

We all knew that we are in our modern world nowadays. There are many technologies were introduced to us through globalization.These technologies are very useful to us to make our work more easier and faster.

Information technology gives us information for us to understand the lesson. Through educational technology we are able to understand thing. Educational technologies make our learning more easier and faster as well as it is the accesible way of scattering information. These are the modern information tranfer of our generation today. Teachers and students are usually using those technologies because these are more effective in teaching-learning process.

We must be thankful that we already have these technologies because it makes our learning more  elaborative and effective. We can use these technologies through self learning and assessing to our own difficulties.

 

BROKENSHIRIANS

Hi,
I am Jul Mae Faustino, 19years old, living at Davao City Philippines. I am a 3rd year College student right now taking up Education major in English. I am the 3rd sibling among the 5 siblings in the family. We are living in a happy family.
About me, well .. I am a simple girl with high dreams. As of now, I am working and studying to have my own income in my own effort. I can buy what I want through my salary. My father supported me in all decisions I have and he helped me in paying my tuition fee.
You can easily get along with me as long as u have a kind heart. I can be a trusted friend as long as you can also be trusted.
And I do believed in the saying that " Marry the man who loves you most and you will live like a princess." " Marry the man you loved most and you will live like hell."