We are now in a new era in Information Age where the combination of computers and communications has brought about convergence, portability and personalisation. It is pertinent to note some of the challenges involved in these developments and particularly, ICT use In Education. Williams and Sawyer (2005) identified four challenges that threaten to overwhelm people as a result of information explosion. These challenges include how to deal with information overload, strategy for what may be memorised, how to make your “multitasking” efficient and taking care of “smart mobs”. 0977886952
Learn to Deal with Information Overload
They stressed that the volume of available information exceeded the time amount of time needed to absorb it. One has to sort out between what is really needed or what one thinks he really needed.
Have a Strategy for What You May Memorise and What You Do Not Need
People are stressed up about what they have to memorise and what they have to store. Some people store facts like phone numbers, internet addresses and birthdays on a cell phone, handheld computers, etc. They encouraged individual to have alternative saving devices as backup as some of these materials could be misplaced.
Learn how to make your personal “Multitasking” efficient
Multitasking refers to a computer’s ability to run several programmes at once. It is also a popular term for people performing several tasks at once, e.g. studying while eating, listening to music, talking on phones and handling e-mails. It has been discovered that people who do two demanding tasks simultaneously do neither task as well as they do each alone. The result of constantly shifting attention has been seen as a sacrifice in quality for any of the task with which one is engaged. This has some consequences for studying.
Be aware that “Smart Mobs” could also be dumb mobs
They claimed that smart mobile devices could produce groups of people which they called “smart mob” who could cooperate in ways never before possible because of carrying portable technology that possesses both computing and communications capabilities. They equally stressed that the possibility could exist for marketers, corporate bodies and government to transform those devices into weapons against the user. One has to be aware of how security and privacy could be abridged in ways that could transform you from a member of the smart club to that of a “dumb mob”. Other challenges include
Worms and Viruses
Williams and Sawyer described worms and viruses as “forms of high-tech maliciousness”. They claimed that there are about 57,000 known worms and viruses and others not mentioned could affect your computers in future. According to them, researchers say they typically discover between 500 to 800 new ones every month.
A worm is a programme that copies itself repeatedly into a computer memory or into a disk. A virus is a ‘deviant’ programme, stored on a computer floppy drive, hard drive, or CD, that can cause unexpected and often undesirable effects, such as destroying or corrupting data.
These are challenges facing ICT use in education. A lot of good programmes are either corrupted or destroyed. It is advisable that, for protection, you should not open any programme you doubt the source to avoid damage to your programme and your computer. Obtain your antivirus material to protect your machine. Format and update your computer regularly.
Health Matters
The computer is supposed to make people efficient but rather, it has made some workers journalists, postal workers, data entry clerks worse because they suffer repetitive injuries; eyestrain and headache, back and neck pains. The Environmental Protection Agency’s advice is to exercise prudence avoidance, that is, relatively taking easy precautions. Such precautions may include putting some distance between us and a cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor.
Ergonomics
Before, workers had to fit themselves to the job environment but nowadays health and productivity issues have spurred the development of a relatively new field, called ergonomics, which is concerned with fitting the job to the workers.
The purpose ergonomics is to make working conditions and equipment safer and more efficient. It calls for designing hardware and software that are less stressful and more comfortable to use, that blends more smoothly with a person’s body or actions. Examples are tilting display screens, detachable keyboards, etc.
