TE year1sourcebook/Topics of Study in the Unit
The topics of study in Unit 1 are
Understanding ICT – a brief history
Through the course of history, there have been discoveries and inventions that have changed social processes and structures greatly. The agricultural revolution and industrial revolution created the agrarian and industrial societies respectively. We are now in another such age, brought on by Information Communication Technologies (ICT). With information creation, access, processing and sharing becoming quicker and simpler, society is now being shaped these processes, so much so that, the term Information Society is used to describe society today. Participating in this society requires the development of new skills as well as an understanding of how these processes are affecting society. It is the responsibility of the education system to respond to this by helping students develop an understanding of ICT, its impact on society and the possibilities for learning through ICT. The education system also has to support the building of skills in students that will make them capable of functioning in, and be responsive to a society shaped by ICT.
Most of you student teachers must be using a cell phone to communicate, which even ten years ago would not have been the case with most students. A cell phone is a digital information and communication device, a part of the recent ICT revolution. Yet ICTs are perhaps nearly as old as humanity itself, as human beings needed to communicate with one another, beginning with symbolic (non verbal) ways, before language was invented. Language could be seen as first 'ICT', it enabled (oral) communication amongst human beings. Yet oral communication had the limitation of space and time, meaning that the speaker and the listener had to be in the same space and time.
Script was the next ICT, invented around 5,000 years ago, which enabled information to be held distinct from the communicator and be made available beyond the limitation of space and time that oral communication imposed. (You would be learning more about the processes of speaking and listening (comprising oral communication) and reading and writing (comprising written communication) in your courses on language learning. Writing also enabled easier recording of human history and thus the invention of script was a landmark in the history of ICTs. Invention of printing technologies scaled up the 'writing' process and enabled mass production of books. The invention of radio and television created the 'mass media' in which simultaneously the same message could be transmitted to thousands of people. Each ICT invention enabled the processes of information creation, sharing, storing and communicating to be easier, quicker, more efficient (reaching more people) etc. Each invention was a significant event in the evolution of human communication processes and in the explosion in the availability of information.
ICT refers to those set of technologies that help us create information, access information, analyze information and communicate with one another. Human beings have always accessed information and communicated, but what makes these present technologies special is their digital nature.
Digital ICT
We are now perhaps in the middle of the next epochal movement in the history of ICTs, the use of digital methods of accessing, creating, modifying sharing, storing information as well as for communication. Most of you would have been born after the beginning of the mass use of cell phones (the second generation or 2G cell phone technology was available for mass use from 1991), towards the end of the first millennium, while many teacher educators would have been born before this period!
This phenomenon creates an interesting inversion in the school environment, in almost all other areas, the teacher (teacher educator) is more familiar than the learner (student teacher), while in case of ICTs (more specifically in the skill of using ICT devices and methods), it can often be the opposite! Research also
suggests that younger people are quicker to pick up a technology than older people. Hence this course may require the student teacher to help the teacher educators to acquire some of the skills covered and support 'collaborative learning amongst student teachers and teacher educators! On the other hand, the experience and insights of teacher educators can help student teachers to develop a critical perspective towards digital ICTs, which is essential, since digital ICTs have huge potential for doing good as well as harm. One point to note is that, one technology does not replace the earlier one, rather the earlier technologies tend to continue, thus creating a richer environment of multiple ICTs.
History of ICT
| Knowledge model / Basis | Method | Storage | Sharing | Publishing (mass sharing) | Features |
| Oral / Language | Oral | Human memory | Speaking - Hearing | Not possible | Requires synchronicity of space and time |
| Written / Script | Text | Books | Physical | Not possible | Share knowledge across space and time, but in limited manner |
| Print / Printing | Text | Books | Physical | Books | Explosion |
| Mass Media/ Radio, TV | Analogue -Audio, video | Cassettes and similar analog devices | Physical | Over broadcast media | Mass reach across space and time |
| Digital (ICT) | Digital methods (text / audio / video editors) | Digital storage like hard disks | Websites, blogs, Wikis – 'desktop publishing' | Information spreads fast and wide1. Much easier construction and much Wider possibilities – text, audio, video |
Huge impact of ICT (digital ICT)
If you look around you, you can make a big list of things that have digital technologies involved in them! Starting from the computers in your lab, television, movies, videos and other materials for subject learning, mobile communication, Aadhar card, land records, bank accounts, pension accounts and so many more things, ICT have become integrated into society in many ways.
ICT can help connect and communicate
The internet, a product of digital ICT, has changed the way we think of communicating. Talking to a friend through whatsapp or telegram chats, emailing or making a video call are just some of the ways in which the internet has changed the way we communicate with others. With the internet, you can connect to any computer in the world and access information. You can join other friends, form groups to learn about many things. Internet is also allowing new methods of learning through online courses and resource repositories. Unit 1 will help you learn how you can use ICT to connect and learn.
ICT can help create
You can use ICT to create information in different formats - maps, audio, video, text, numeric data. How we learn and what is to be learnt have changed. For example, we no longer need to learn about a cash withdrawal slip, we need to know how to use the ATM. In this program, you are listening to class talks to deepen your understanding on many issues, across subjects. In Unit 2, you will learn how you can use ICT to create resources, organise these in your own personal digital library, and learn.