Information And Communication Technology In Teaching And Learning Essay

Activities relating to teaching and learning in universities across the globe have been greatly modernized through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in university education. This modernization can be attributed to the large quantity of information that is available in every field of knowledge, which made the use of modern technologies for the purpose of communication, interaction, teaching, and learning to be unavoidable in order to meet up with the global demands in tertiary education. Traditionally, teaching and learning in the university take place in a classroom, where lecturers and students interact to exchange knowledge and ideas. However, in the present century, various ICT tools are being used to enhance the
Although, this is more evident in developed nations; however, educational institutions in developing countries are trying out various means of implementing ICT for teaching and learning, despite the economic challenges. This phenomenon can be attributed to the notable importance of these technologies in fast-tracking the process of teaching and learning. Adewale et al (2012) aver that the global use of technology for teaching and learning presents a number of benefits, which include “learning program flexibility, increased accessibility to study materials, quick feedback process, and improved communication between students and teachers.” A similar submission was made by Ekenna and Mabawonku (2013) that students in various institutions can now easily retrieve and use information resources electronically due to ICT advancements in the past decade. Thus, the use of ICT facilities, such as the internet, intranets, databases, social media and so on, make several organizations to perform more dynamically in a collaborative and information-centric environment that will move such organization towards achieving its goals and
Although, the central goal of such application has always been to facilitate teaching, learning, and research, each institution however bases its ICT application on internal regulations and modus operandi. Ala and Abdu (2012) noted that ICT application in universities can be used to teach large class, provide teaching aid (that is, computer-assisted instruction), and also to expose the students and teachers to these technologies in order to capacitate them to meet up with the advancements of the contemporary world. Such exposure is important because the advancements in ICTs, which paved the way for the use of electronic resources for teaching and learning, have a reliable potential to “improve the flow of information to research and academic communities” (Okiki and Mabawonku, 2013). Thus, it is important that in the present world, lecturers in universities make use of ICT in their schedule of duty, even if it is just to provide the syllabus on the