Role of Communication Technology-.com

Questions: 1.What is Information technology? 2.Have Computer made it easier or more difficult to gather true Information? 3.Information Technology in Students learning. Answer: Introduction Information technology can be widely referred to the applications of computers that help in storing, analyzing, retrieving and transmitting information often in context of a business or for personal usages. It basically refers to the use of computers to process electronic data. The study or use of computer and telecommunication systems for storing and processing data is known as information system. The use of information system has revolutionized the way people perform their daily tasks. However, every technology has some positive and negative aspects. This report discusses the effect of computers in peoples life and evaluates whether, it is a source of gathering true information. It further discusses the use of information system in students learning processes (Blackwell et al. 2013). 1.Information technology mainly refers to the use of computers in performing various tasks. It acts as a platform to store, manage and modify various tasks. Information technology has increasing use in different sector of business as it has an ability to view changes in the global market more easily. It has further brought an easy access to the different learning resources, which further helped in improving the teaching skills and learning abilities. Now a days, computers are considered as one of the most important devices that a person can utilize in order to store and process vital information (Lajoie and Derry 2013). Majority of the people rely on information technology for obtaining much vital information and as an important medium of knowledge sharing as well. With the advent of information technology, sharing of data has become a lot easier than it used to be before. Information technology can therefore be defined as a branch of engineering that uses telecommunication and compu ters in storing, retrieving and transmission of the information in this world of technology. It is an important medium of acquisition and retrieval of numerical and textual data that is important for business and learning purposes. Information technology offers a medium of innovation. It incorporates a wide range of areas that include information systems, computer systems, programming languages as so on. It is a platform that can render and provide information, data and different types of perceived knowledge that can be obtained in visual, text or multimedia format. Therefore, it is being considered as an important means of obtaining information that is suitable for business and other sectors due to the assistance it provides. An information technology system is capable of equipping business sectors through core services, as it makes comparatively easier to perform the various functions associated with a business (Abramovich 2012). The learning sector is furthermore benefitted by the technology as it makes it easier for the students to extract information online. The use of information technology as a medium further helps the professors in imparting distant education. Therefore, it can be said that information technology has a huge role to play in terms of knowledge sharing. It automates the various functions and processes making it easier for the users to execute and perform complex tasks. Similar is the case in the field of learning as well. Information technology has largely revolutionized the traditional educational practices. Accessing the learning materials have become considerably easy with the facility of immediacy of information provided by the information technology (Wu et al. 2013). Therefore, it can certainly be said that information technology has largely transformed the way of imparting and receiving education. 2.The internet and the computer considerably help in collecting, organizing and presenting the information globally. Computers are able to store and present a large amount of data and internet helps in sharing that data with the people all over the world. However, computer is not actually a source of information but an information processor. It is used to store and process data as information and can therefore be termed as a storehouse of information. One of the major advantages of computer coupled with internet is that it allows access to a large database of stored information (Fraillon, Schulz and Ainley 2013). Internet is a major source of information that is retrieved with a computer or similar devices. However, it is crucial to evaluate whether the information gathered from an open source is correct and relevant or not. Computers and Internet do provide a platform for retrieving authentic information, however, there are certain sources that can provide with the information that might not be authentic or true. Therefore, it is very difficult to address whether the computer and internet are making is easier to gather true information or making it more difficult for the people to gather the same. Computer and internet can be termed as a secondary source of information and therefore it is important to understand what kind of information people want to gather from internet. Information obtained from the official sites of the companies or learning institution is authentic and genuine and there is no doubt about that (Ali, Haolader and Muhammad 2013). However, information obtained from unrecognized sources may not return an authentic value. This is therefore an area of concern about use of computer and internet in gathering information. Internet is a rich source of information as people get to know what is happening around the world by sitting at their home with the help of internet. Many sources of information available over the internet can be accessed or modified by the people using it, which is an advantage and a disadvantage of the internet usage as a source of information at the same time. It helps in creating awareness among the people and at the same time make them addicted to the virtual world. Therefore, it can be said that computer and internet are a major source of information gathering; however, it cannot surpass the books and manual sources of information in providing authentic solutions. Computer definitely made it easier to gather information but it cannot guarantee the authenticity of the information (O'Malley 2012). It is therefore possible that the computers are drifting people away from the true sources of information. 3.Computers have largely transformed the learning procedures for students. The concept of e-learning and distant education has been possible only because of the advent of computers and internet. E-learning expands the option for teaching by making use of the technology. The successful use of information technology in fetching and gathering information have now inextricably linked with the institutions imparting higher education offering an option of e learning. The absence of direct guidance of the instructor used to be a major hurdle of students in taking up distant education. This problem is eliminated with the advent of information technology. The online learning facility has made it easier for students to have an expert guidance 24*7. Furthermore, the internet acts as a rich source of information thus making the process of learning even easier. It provides an electronic platform, which is designed to provide augment learning and a more comprehensive learning experience. Information Technology plays a significant role in the education by enhancing the process of learning. It helps in improving the process of how students achieve knowledge. It further helps in improving the teaching skills of the professors and learning abilities of the students (Fu 2013). It allows the increasing use of audio visual education that considerably makes the learning procedure even more easy. The emerging technologies challenge the traditional methods of learning. Furthermore, presence of internet widens the learning resources and its availability as well. Knowledge can be easily gained with the help of information technology and therefore it is considerably being implemented and adopted in different universities for enhancing the learning procedures for the students (Livingstone 2012). Researches prove that the use of information and communication technology considerably helps in improving the quality of education. With the advent of information technology in education, the students are able to get involved in different skill oriented activities as they get to share and interact with the fellow learners without any geographical barrier. Therefore, it can be said that the information technology era has considerably transformed students learning (Sarkar 2012). Conclusion Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be said that information technology has transformed the way people do work. The report discusses in brief, whether advent of computers and internet have made it easier to collect true information or making it difficult. Information technology is definitely helping people to gather more information than it could be possible to collect by manual methods, however, it is difficult to say whether people are getting hold of authentic information or not. Information technology has considerably revolutionized the traditional learning procedures and practices. Use of information technology has made is easier for the students to obtain knowledge irrespective of any geographic and time barrier. This is the reason; different universities are adopting different information technology tools for enhancing the learning processes. Therefore, it can be concluded that information technology is an inseparable part of the modern world and is capable of revolut ionizing the way people do their work References Abramovich, S., 2012.Computers in education. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.. Ali, G., Haolader, F.A. and Muhammad, K., 2013. The role of ICT to make teaching-learning effective in higher institutions of learning in Uganda.International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology,2(8), pp.4061-4073. Blackwell, C.K., Lauricella, A.R., Wartella, E., Robb, M. and Schomburg, R., 2013. Adoption and use of technology in early education: The interplay of extrinsic barriers and teacher attitudes.Computers Education,69, pp.310-319. Fraillon, J., Schulz, W. and Ainley, J., 2013. International computer and information literacy study: Assessment framework. Fu, J.S., 2013. ICT in education: A critical literature review and its implications.International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology,9(1), p.112. Lajoie, S.P. and Derry, S.J. eds., 2013.Computers as cognitive tools. Routledge. Livingstone, S., 2012. Critical reflections on the benefits of ICT in education.Oxford review of education,38(1), pp.9-24. O'Malley, C. ed., 2012.Computer supported collaborative learning(Vol. 128). Springer Science Business Media. Sarkar, S., 2012. The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in higher education for the 21st century.Science,1(1), pp.30-41. Wu, H.K., Lee, S.W.Y., Chang, H.Y. and Liang, J.C., 2013. Current status, opportunities and challenges of augmented reality in education.Computers Education,62, pp.41-49.