Reveiew on two journals - Essay Example

Impact of ICT in school: Introduction: The two journals analyze the impacts of adoption of technology in schools, this paper focuses on the tensions and the problems that may arise as a result of adoption of technology in learning, the other part discusses the opportunities that will arise as a result of this adoption. According to a government publication in March 2005 the adoption of technology in learning has four main objectives namely the transformation of learning, engaging learners who are hard to reach, improving on the current system that will be open and accessible which will help in improving the support and choice of learners and finally achievement of great efficiency and effectiveness in learning.

The current situation and the BECTA future vision:There are some tensions and problems that will arise as a result of adoption of these technology and they are summarized below:Adoption:Late adoption may arise due to various reasons, some schools may lag behind due to various reasons and this will create inequality in the society, according to the BECTA report adult and offender education face required infrastructure problems where they may lack resources to implement these facilities, support services and quality of equipment used by schools will highly depend on the resources.

Some institutions may not realize the benefits of adoption of technology in learning and this may lead to late adoption of technology in learning, also in most institutions digital learning is taken as optional and therefore there is need to set standards and requirements across all schools. From the study by BECTA it was evident that despite the flexibility of the system there has been rare adoption of technology.Challenges will also arise where not all learners will have access to sustainable and reliable infrastructure and this will be due to lack of efficient management, lack of technical support, lack of funds and limited value.

Expectations:The learners expectations may not be met whereby the expectations by learners regarding the adoption of technology in learning, some of the equipments may be affordable and their money value will not meet the learners expectations, according to the research undertaken it was evident that learners were not impressed with laptops and preferred smaller equipments and therefore it is evident that there may be problems in adopting this system without considering what the students expect.

The study also showed that Games aimed at educating the young did not have much credibility among the learners, this shows that technology may not have much impact on the performance of learners as expected.Inequality:Technology adoption in learning may lead to inequality, from the journals thre may be the problem of digital divide where some students may have internet saccess at home while others may not have access, also there may also be the problem where gender, ethnicity and social economic class may lead to further inequality among learners.

From the case study it was also evident that adoption of technology in learning only proved helpful in a number of courses wher some of the courses where technology played a major role in improving efficiency include mathematics, history, geography and foreign languages and this shows that others will benefit more than others.Funding:Transformation of learning will require the adoption of high quality hardware, software, networking and staff development which will be very expensive to providers, this may turn to waste if there is inappropriate management and effective support services, for this reason there may be rare adoption of technology in learning due to lack of funds and the lack of a clear understanding of the importance of adopting technology.

Opportunities and benefits:Despite the many problems that may face technology adoption in the future there are still some benefits that will be realized and they include personalized learning, personal assessment, empowering of learners and flexible learning systems. Teachers roles will change and the teachers will now act to facilitate and support the learning process. Sharing will be encouraged between schools and also between learners and this will help motivate learners.References:Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008-2014, available at http://publications.becta.org.

uk/download.cfm?resID=37348 The Impact of ICT in Schools, available at http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/impact_ict_schools.pdf