Information technology in education: Recent developments in higher education

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of recent developments of Information Technologies in Education (ITE), particularly in higher education, to answer students and teacher´s needs, according to the real time rapidity characteristics of the process of learning and teaching. The internet, mobile computing, social networks and many other advances in human communications have become essential to promote and boost education, technology and industry [1]. In this sense, the learning and the teaching process have to take such developments into account. As a consequence the teaching profession is evolving from an emphasis on delivering information to an emphasis on creating learning environments [2]. Indeed, the new challenges related with the integration of ITE into all aspects of the learning process require revising the traditional educational paradigms that have been prevailed for last years. Thus, on the one hand, the theoretical framework of this paper is based on literature about information technologies, in general, and information technologies in higher education, in particular. On the other hand, the empirical framework reflects the best practices in this field used in the Polytechnic Institute of Guarda (IPG, Portugal). The results of the paper show that the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are facing new challenges, not only to promote an adequate education in each field of study to the students, but, also, to develop them with skills and knowledge required to leverage information technology effectively to the workplace on firms.