What is the main purpose of information and communication technology?

Global communication is accelerating at breakneck speed as a result of proliferating Information Communications and Technology (ICT) - the hardware and software used to send and receive information. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, computers, phones and tablets make up the term ICT. Over the past few years, the ICT sector has grown substantially with a lot of new companies releasing new gadgets and creative technologies to enhance communication. Fun examples include Apple's iPhone X's animated emojis, interactive Apple Maps and talking Google Assistant.

Explore this article

  • Utilitarian Objectives
  • Social Aims
  • Cultural Objectives
  • Personal Objectives

1 Utilitarian Objectives

One of the main aims of ICT is to help students to become competent and confident users who can use the basic knowledge and skills acquired to assist them in their daily lives. It is also supposed to prepare students for the world of tomorrow. It aims to help learners to have an open and flexible mind. This will help them to adjust to the inevitable future changes. One example is the integration of ICT across the curriculum. At a very young age, children are introducted to basic programming, modelling and software applications to create appreciation of technology in everyday life.

2 Social Aims

It aims to equip learners with the appropriate social skills required to cooperate with fellow ICT learners for a more productive learning experience. It empowers students who are unable to use this technology outside the school premises by ensuring sufficient access to those students. Through this, it will also ensure equity among all learners, as they will all have the same opportunities to use the ICT facilities in school. Another social objective of ICT is to facilitate good communication between the students, thus promoting better social understanding.

3 Cultural Objectives

ICT aims to assist students to appreciate the beauty and diversity of culture. It also aims to help students become well-cultured citizens of the modern world. It achieves this as it facilitates the discovery and appreciation of various cultural heritages of different countries around the world. Global citizenship is fostered through worldwide networks that make it possible for people to take diverse classes, conduct business or socialize in real time, regardless of location. Geographical barriers are easily transcended, which expands awareness of the other societies and distant places.

4 Personal Objectives

ICT aims to assist students to grow personally by facilitating different methods of learning. Distance-learning programs are now provided by most colleges and universities. Many people are using these programs to get degrees that they would not have been able to receive without ICT. It also aims to allow the public to easily access the necessary information over the Internet.

references

  • 1 King's College: University Networks
  • 2 USA Today: The Top Tech Innovations of 2017

About the Author

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Loise Kinyanjui has been writing since 2009. She works as a features writer with Kitabu Publishers and has contributed news articles to various magazines and newspapers including "Weekly Citizen" and the "Kenyan Times." Kinyanjui holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature from Baraton University.

The integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into every sphere of contemporary life has had profound implications for how people learn in school, solve practical problems, and function in the workplace. Networked computing and communications technologies and media have become essential tools of practically every profession and trade, including those of lawyers, doctors, artists, historians, electricians, mechanics, and salespersons. These devices make it possible to redistribute learning and work experiences over time and space. Tools employed in various professions and trades, such as word processors, spreadsheets, audio, video, and photo editing tools, models, visualizations, and mobile wireless devices, are, in turn, being put to work in the study of core school subjects. Students are able to connect, access, and communicate with the wider world in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago and that are continually changing. Particularly relevant for this framework is the fact that virtually all efforts to improve or create new technologies involve the use of ICT tools. And for many years to come, such novel technologies, computer-based and otherwise, will continue to bring about new approaches to education, work, entertainment, and daily life.

As the term is used in this framework, ICT includes a wide variety of technologies, including computers and software learning tools, networking systems and protocols, hand-held digital devices, digital cameras and camcorders, and other technologies, including those not yet developed, for accessing, managing, creating, and communicating information.

Although ICT is just one among many different types of technologies, it has achieved a special prominence in technology and engineering literacy because familiarity and facility with ICT is essential in virtually every profession in modern society, and its importance is expected to grow over the coming decades. A wide variety of ICT tools are routinely used in schools, the workplace, and homes. Rapidly evolving learning tools such as computers, online media, telecommunications, and networked technologies are becoming powerful supports for communities of learning and practice. Moving far beyond traditional text-based communication methods, the common language of global information sources and communication has broadened to include vast collections of images, music, video, and other media. Computers, networks, telecommunications, and media support collaboration, expression, and dissemination ranging from data organization and analysis, research, scholarship, and the arts to peer interactions. Ever-shrinking computer chips are put to work in a collection of devices that seems to be growing exponentially and that, at present, includes cellphones, digital assistants, media players, and geographical information systems, among a host of other devices.

Students should be aware of these devices and know how and when to use them. They must have mastered a wide range of ICT tools in common use, and they must have the confidence and capability to learn to use new ICT tools as they become available. Although students are not expected to understand the inner workings of these devices, they should have enough of an understanding of the principles underlying them to appreciate the basics of how they work. Five subareas of ICT literacy have been identified for assessment:

  1. Construction and Exchange of Ideas and Solutions;
  2. Information Research;
  3. Investigation of Problems;
  4. Acknowledgement of Ideas and Information; and
  5. Selection and Use of Digital Tools.

Each of the above subareas relates to one of the broad categories included in the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS•S), and standards and frameworks developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the American Association of School Librarians, and the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association. The link between these subareas and the NETS•S and the Framework for 21st Century Learning is outlined in Appendix E.

What is the purpose of Information and Communication Technology?

Information and communication technologies (ICT) is defined as a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to transmit, store, create, share or exchange information.

What is the main purpose of ICT in education?

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can impact student learning when teachers are digitally literate and understand how to integrate it into curriculum. Schools use a diverse set of ICT tools to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information.

What is the main importance of information technology?

Information Technology (IT) plays a vital role in today's personal, commercial, and not-for-profit uses. In its simplest terms, IT is the application of computers and other electronic equipment to receive, store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data.