Social Implications of Information Technology - Essay Example

Economically it has changed the way of doing business and improved communication between partners; culturally it has reduced the differences between cultures and improved intercultural communication; politically it provides people with a new type of access to important information, while politicians obtain a new powerful type of lever to affect the voters; and socially it has influenced the communication and learning patters, and created absolutely new systems of relationship between people. Such extensive and diverse influence makes the new informational technologies one of the key forces that shape the present-day society and affect being of virtually each human being.

The recent shift towards intensive use of computer technology in educational practices has already become so powerful that computer-mediated learning is no more perceived as something new. Whether computer laboratories in the primary schools or Internet-equipped computer facilities in the high school, computers have turned into unalienable part of students' life. The tremendous growth of technology has had large and serious impact on virtually every aspect of educational and learning practices.

One of the consequences of the remarkable technological surge was the rapid development of computer-mediated distance learning at the higher education level. The beginning of the third millennium was marked by intensive growth. Institutions of higher education continued to further develop distance learning offerings targeting the populations of working adults who otherwise have limited access to higher education (Smart, and Cappel, 2006; Liaw and Huang, 2002). The online enrollment estimations made in the late 1990s have been exceeded and continues to grow at amazingly high rates.

Thus, the number of online students reached 2.6 million in the fall of 2004 (Allen and Seaman, 2004). Despite the tremendous success of distance technology-mediated learning (this term covers not only fully online courses, but also various blended approaches that integrate online components into traditional classes), experts suggests that it still remains at an early stage of development and has huge potential to grow further (Smart, and Cappel, 2006).Computers are exceptionally useful for students at any level.

Simple word-processing software turns students into independent publishers of ideas and opinions, helps them to eliminate the feeling of isolation, weigh their thoughts and ideas against thought and ideas of other people, while more advanced interactive software make it possible for them to practice the inquiry-based learning (Papert, 1996). This significant advantage of the computer technology is especially important in educational institution of higher learning, where the role of teacher is less important and students learns more on his own.

Traditionally, European and American universities and colleges found themselves under constant pressure to control the costs while improving the quality of instruction, focusing on customer needs, and reacting to the competitive challenges (Horgan, 1998: 1). Higher education professionals used to perceive distance learning as the major tool in addressing the challenges while maintaining cost-effectiveness of universities (Dibiase, 2000). The distance learnin