IT & Trends in Global Education in the 21st Century Sherif Kamel Regional Information Technology Institute E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract The transfer of knowledge globally has always been the cornerstone of development across different eras. In today’s global environment, countries are focusing their efforts in investing in people’s professional and educational development as a strategic investment in their present and their future as individuals, organisations and nations. This will lead to the formulation of communities and societies that can keep pace with the continuous innovations and developments taking place globally. This paper reflects a research project investigating the use of IT as a tool to leverage education and learning processes to present to the global community means for innovative societal learning and education in the 21st century. The paper introduces the basic elements of the research that is currently underway. The research targets the development of a new learning model for the 21st century that is free from limitations of space and time. The outcome of the research and the learning model is expected to appear in future publications. Overview The recent innovations in IT are changing our society in terms of business, economic and social changes. This has led to the emergence of the global information society that is more competitive, more democratic, less centralized and addressing individual needs. The information society impacts has changed the way people work, learn, and govern. It led to the information evolution that is reflecting on human knowledge and capacities development enabling the processing, storing, retrieving and communication of information in whatever form, unconstrained by distance, time or volume adding unprecedented capacities to human intelligence changing the way people work together and live together. Survival in the new information age will be bound to massive education and training leading to the creation of more employment opportunities and providing better future prospects. Within the context of rapid technological changes and shifting market conditions, the educational and learning processes worldwide are challenged with providing increased educational
opportunities without increased expenses. Recently, the solution has been the development of distance learning programs. These programs can provide adults with a second chance education, reach those disadvantaged by limited time, distance or physical disability and update the knowledge base of workers at remote locations. With the innovation of the technology, a vital issue remains unanswered: whether distant students learn as much as students receiving traditional face-to-face instruction. Surveys and research studies indicate that distance and traditional education could be as effective if the methods and technologies used are appropriate and when there is student-to-student interaction and timely teacher-to-student feedback. Although IT plays a key role in the delivery of distance learning, educators must remain focused on instructional outcomes, not the technology of delivery. The key to effective distance learning is focusing on the needs of the learners, the requirements of the content and the constraints faced by the teacher. Thus, successful distance learning relies on the consistent and integrated efforts of its key players; students, faculty and administrators. A vehicle such as the Internet is beginning to establish itself as a global medium for accessing information of all kinds. Thus, today's students must be educated while capitalizing on the capacities of the Internet introducing them to an on-line society. The Internet promises to meet this need by offering access to in-depth information from around the world at our fingertips. It is perceived that it is a matter of time until the Internet will help create a new form of multimedia learning environment that supports various issues related to learning and enables students to communicate with their fellow peers worldwide. The amount of information available on the Internet for learning purposes is growing by the day and in the coming few years there will be an increasing pool of on-line resources providing in-depth information on education. IT: “The Platform for Global Education”
The IT tools represent a mean to enhance communication with students positively affecting their learning process and providing a medium for knowledge acquisition. The role of IT could be felt through the Internet with a computer and network connection, or access to classrooms and labs where students and faculty can use technology easily, or access to word processing and distributed printing and copying, or access to supercomputer centers. It is important to note that although IT might differ in capacities from one institution to the other, it should be provided to allow exploration of the world of knowledge globally. New IT-oriented generations will not accept lectures that fail to draw upon the knowledge resources on the Internet. Respectively, institutions that will not provide their faculty with classrooms where multimedia is easily used will be unable to attract good faculty and good students. The widespread use of e-mail, WWW, home computing and internetworking have set the future course for education institutions and helped demonstrate the fact that IT is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. The challenge would be for each institution to use IT in specific ways to realize maximum benefit. However, the essence is to know how to use it and whether it is affordable. There are a number of elements that relate to the cost factor. This includes the lack of good productivity measures and the ratio of network versus traditional delivery of instruction. There is a need to compare the expenses involved in each mode of delivery. It is perceived that over time, a network infrastructure will be demonstrably less expensive than building and maintaining a traditional campus with all its facilities. However, the main focus should be directed towards two major constituencies: students and faculty. If their productivity is improved through more efficient uses of their time that alone may be reason enough to make technological investments.
With the rapid changes occurring worldwide, business, industry, and government alike will find it increasingly more difficult to keep their productive work forces competitive. Hence, it is important to note that the training that workers receive will become obsolete shortly after receiving it and that workers newly entering the market will be less skilled than ever before. Thus, to stem the anticipated shortages in skills and qualified personnel, traditional approaches to training will have to be reengineered to keep pace with the rate of change projected for the future. Additionally, the time and distance constraints on workers will create a strong demand for more efficient and expedient ways to distribute necessary knowledge. Respectively, the call will be for innovative technological methods that can reach great numbers of people with vast amounts of knowledge. Introducing Change through Distance Education Today, the need to introduce and manage change is a key element facing the world of learning. How to bring about that change and how to deliver learning and training programs are key issues. Corporate training as well as academic institutions are suffering from the continuous changes that shape their businesses and institutions including; the need to increase global competitiveness, ensure that employees and students keep with rapidly changing technology and cope with major changes in the nature of the work force. With the decreasing resources, fewer students are entering colleges and universities. Thus, institutions are looking for creative ways to increase enrollments as well as to develop ways to distribute knowledge to non-resident students in multiple sites through remote campuses, to government and business institutions and directly to learners in their households. From that perspective, distance learning is becoming widely recognized as the key to meeting the challenge of delivering more training to more people on more subjects with higher impact and
effectiveness, in a much more cost effective way. The decision to implement distance learning can be a powerful step toward achieving value-added benefits in knowledge dissemination. Organizations that have successfully implemented distance learning have realized a number of benefits such as:
Realizing greater cost effectiveness represented in training more people. Increasing impact represented in real time updates and just-in-time knowledge, learning at the work site Introducing interactive programs with multiple sites networked for group learning. Yielding higher quality represented in having more choices of programs, accessing remote experts and realizing multiple student and teacher interaction opportunities.
The continuous advances in the global information and internetworking infrastructure have set the stage for a major evolution in many aspects of human life. The removal of the distance barrier allows for a global base of knowledge presenting learners and trainees with great opportunities and challenges. As we approach the dawn of the 21st century, there is an urgent need to capitalize on the emerging technologies in a way to best serve the global society. Such technologies offer unlimited opportunities for developing countries to leapfrog and leverage their developmental progress using cutting-edge information and communication technologies. Respectively, countries world wide must exploit new and innovative ways for the optimal mobilization of existing resources towards global human resource development in an attempt to convert all challenges into opportunities to fully benefit from the newly innovative technologies and the opportunities they hold for the global information society. Conclusion The information and internetworking technologies provide a unique opportunity for promoting new ways of learning and human resource development. They create many great challenges and opportunities for growth in the near future. With the information management needs of society growing at unprecedented rates, integrated technology solutions will enable
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