ICT and its Impact on Classroom Learning

1. ICT and its Impact on Classroom Learning Alexander Dawoody Marywood University Samuel Shelton Troy University

2. Abstract • We live in the information age. • Information and communication technology (ICT) not only impacts our daily work and social lives but also impacts classroom dynamics. • In turning both the student and teacher into global participant-observer, ICT is becoming a catalyst for a new form of learning that is open, transcending, rich, and interconnected. • Yet, ICT poses challenges to classroom teaching, especially to traditional forms in learning through information-overload, duplicity of information, and problems of accuracy, authenticity, and proper research. • This paper addresses both the strengths and challenges of ICT as a new medium in classroom teaching and how best utilizing it for effective teaching method.

3. Introduction • The global participant-observer (GPO) as the expression of a universal and autonomous citizen capable of changing the observation-participation dynamics into a new form of interconnected global information network. • The Learner GPO (LGPO) interacts with the information and communication technology (ICT) systems. • LGPO infuses changes not only in classroom teaching and force institutional response, but will also change h/herself.

4. Characteristics of the LGPO • Exchange dynamic between the LGPO and ICT. • Phase one in the process is self-discovery. • Phase two in the processes is the induce-effect of the LGPO-ICT interchange on the epistemological and emotional state of the global citizen. • This process upgrades localized events to global dimensions. • The consequence of change in epistemological and emotional state leads the LGPO to a shift in morphing from an individual observation-participation to proper public sphere. • The shift is capable of filtering and synthesizing information within specific opinion bundles. • Changing in these opinions leads to feedback mechanism in the overall social capital network.

5. Characteristics of the LGPO(continued) • The acquired knowledge, identity, and associations lead the LGPO to have an immediate impact on civic engagement and participatory process by continually reinventing itself throughout the process. • The process, as such, is circulatory, resulting in continuous self-organizing. • Self-discovery is irreversible forward-moving trajectories. • Feedback learned and accumulated cannot regress backward to correct an error in the overall movement.

6. LGPO Feedback Input (by LGPO) Output (by ICT) Induced Effects (on the LGPO) Multiple-Effects (on learning)

7. The LGPO • Observes the world subjectively. • Interconnecting with other GPO around the world through circular and autonomous operational networks. • Utilizes ICT through the process of fusion and corresponding effects. • Injects local initiatives into the global arena. • The resulting triangulated association between the LGPO, governance, and local/global orientation is innovative and new archetype in global participatory process.

8. Contrasting between LGPO and Online Education • Onlineeducation is organized, planned, regulated, formative, official, coordinated, hierarchical, and take place within traditional organizational settings with assigned tasks. • LGPOis unplanned, uncoordinated, informative, unofficial, spontaneous, flat, horizontal, non-hierarchal, seeking loops and networks, and lacks traditional organizational settings. • Onlineeducation is a response measure by learning institutions utilizing ICT to seek effectiveness and efficiency. • LGPOnot geared toward improving a particular educational model. LGPOis an activist utilizing ICT in order to seek favorable responses from the learning environment. LGPOis oriented toward demanding more transparency and accountability. • Online education is allopoietic. • LGPO is autopoietic .

9. Challenges to LGPO • Dependence on ICT. • Use of the same ICT by older models. • Deliberate educational institutional maneuvers to circumvent LGPO’ demands through restrictive measures. • Examples, avoidance of issues posed by the LGPO, marginalization of institutional response to pressing issues, or the slowness in answering demands. • Saturation of information in ICT that cause confusion and difficulty in establishing accuracy. • Problems of information overload, digital divide, fragmentation of attention and discourse. • Marginalization of educational environments that do not utilize ICT. • Reduction in traditional learning interactions of face-to-face communication. • Lack strategy, organization, and common ground to interpret conflicting values.