Educational informatics: An era in education

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become, within a very short time, one of the basic building blocks of modern society. Many countries now regard understanding ICT and mastering the basic skills and concepts of ICT as part of the core of education, alongside reading, writing and numeracy. ICT applications in education, whether it be in educational management, administration, teaching, learning, evaluation of educational outcomes, instructional design, counseling, distance education, research etc., fall within the purview of educational informatics. New technologies, especially but not only ICT, should be used as much as possible to reduce costs, enable more effective use of resources, and provide wider exposure to students and teachers. The use of ICT as a teaching and learning device needs to be more firmly incorporated into the classroom. Both teachers and students need to be far more familiar with ICT, and get practical experience of web based research. Therefore ICT should be made more accessible to teachers, students and administration for learning, training, research, administration, management, monitoring etc. This requires the provision of more facilities such as computers as well as connectivity and broadband facilities. Computer-aided learning also requires training of teachers and other staff in order to make the best use of the technology. With the onset and proliferation of (Information and Communication Technology) (ICT), there is a growing demand that it be included in school education. It has become more of a fashion statement to have computers or multimedia in schools, the result being that in spite of its potential to make learning liberative, its implementation is often not more than cosmetic. It is often also touted as a panacea for shortage of teachers. These are detrimental to the learning of the child. Teacher education needs to orient and sensitize the teacher to distinguish between developmentally appropriate and detrimenta- uses of ICT. It needs to also equip teachers with competence to use ICT for their own professional development. In higher education, the situation is comparatively simple regarding the use of ICT in education. With mature learners with developed social skill, emotional skill, and learning skill, greater autonomy in learning is possible. Hence use of ICT in the core and non-core aspects of education is not controversial, except for ethical and economic reasons, where ever applicable. Obviously at both levels: in school education and in higher education, the worth of ICT application should be measured in terms of the value addition that it can make in learning and not merely on the peripheral aspects which might be more visible. This issue is closely related with exploitation of the computer as a new media with special capabilities, not available in traditional and pre-computer electronic media. The use of ICT in and for education is now seen worldwide as both a necessity and an opportunity. Therefore, the Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India is currently developing a National Policy on ICT in Education.