Comparison of ICT and Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Comparison of ICT and Education - Essay Example The interest in information and communications technology (ICT) swept the latter part of the twentieth century when technological advances grew at a massive rate. It is not, therefore, surprising that institutions like education have rushed towards technologies with open arms, and sometimes unprepared for it (Murphy, Walker and Webb, 2001). It is only until recently that challenges related to implementing ICT in education have caught the attention of researchers and academics. Studies, albeit seemingly retrospective in nature, remain promising in how it may be able to successfully make use of ICT in education. Is ICT in education effective, and if so, what makes it effective? These are the two primary questions that Skyler et al (2005) and McCarthy (2009) endeavored to answer in their research studies. The former team of researchers sought to find out if there are significant differences in student responses on a special education class that was delivered in three ways: traditional classroom, online classroom, and class-in-a-box using multimedia CD-ROMs (Skyler et al, 2005). McCarthy (2009), on the other hand, evaluated the use of WebCT in e-learning using Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy is often used for evaluation of students’ learning in traditional classrooms, and McCarthy (2009) applied this concept in e-learning. Generally, both articles examine the usefulness and effectiveness of ICT in education, but this is achieved through differences in the focus of the studies, which consequently direct the type of methodology used and the data collected. It would be go od to note that Skyler’s (2005) study in 2005 was used, among others, as a springboard for the McCarthy’s study in 2009. The 2005 study by Skyler et al. used pre-test, post-test and survey questionnaires to gather to examine if there were significant changes in the achievements and satisfaction of students taught in the three different settings mentioned above.