ICT Applications available in learning  teaching   process of school

Advantages

  Higher quality lessons through greater collaboration between teachers in planning and preparing resources .

·         More focused teaching, tailored to students’ strengths and weaknesses, through better analysis of attainment data

• ·         Improved pastoral care and behaviour management through better tracking of students
  ·         Gains in understanding and analytical skills, including improvements in reading
  ·         Comprehension.
  ·         Development of writing skills (including spelling, grammar, punctuation, editing and re-drafting), also fluency, originality and elaboration.
  ·         Encouragement of independent and active learning, and self-responsibility for learning.
  ·         Flexibility of ‘anytime, anywhere’ access (Jacobsen and Kremer, 2000)
  ·         Development of higher level learning styles.
  ·         Students who used educational technology in school felt more successful in school, were more motivated to learn and have increased self-confidence and self-esteem
  ·         Students found learning in a technology-enhanced setting more stimulating and student-centred than in a traditional classroom
  ·         Broadband technology supports the reliable and uninterrupted downloading of web-hosted educational multimedia resources
  ·         Opportunities to address their work to an external audience
  ·         Opportunities to collaborate on assignments with people outside or inside school

Disavantages

 One of the major barriers for the cause of ICT not reaching its full potential in the foundation stage is teacher’s attitude. According to Hara (2004), within the early years education attitudes towards ICT can vary considerably. Some see it as a potential tool to aid learning whereas others seem to disagree with the use of technology in early year settings. Blatchford and Whitebread (2003:16), suggests that the use of ICT in the foundation stage is “unhealthy and hinders learning”. Other early years educators who are opposed to offering ICT experiences within the educational settings take a less extreme view than this and suggest that ICT is fine, but there are other more vital experiences that young children will benefit from, (Blatchford and Whitebread, 2003). In theory some people may have the opinion that the teachers who had not experienced ICT throughout their learning tend to have a negative attitude towards it, as they may lack the training in that area of the curriculum.

              Another important drawback to using ICT in schools is the fact that computers are expensive. According to the IT learning exchange (2001), in most schools ICT will be the single largest curriculum budget cost. This may be seen as a good thing but on the other hand there will be little money left over for other significant costs.

Problems

Solutions

Future trends