CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1        Background to the study

As the saying goes “Technology is the bedrock of any national development”. Education can be viewed as the tool or vehicle that can hasten up the development as well as the achievement of any programme and activity of any nation that has focus. This implies that any country devoid of education and especially not having a solid back up of a useful and functional technology may become backward, redundant, under developed and as such achieve no goals.

According to ED report on “the cost and effectiveness of educational technology”, it was stated that ‘through the use of advanced computing and telecommunications technology, learning can also be qualitatively different. The process of learning in the classroom can become significantly richer as students have access to new and different types of information, can manipulate it on the computer through graphic displays or controlled experiments in ways never before possible, and can communicate their results and conclusions in a variety of media to their teachers, students in the next classroom, or students around the world. For example, using technology, students can collect and graph real-time weather, environmental, and population’s data from their community use that data to create colour maps and graphs, and then compare these maps to others created by students in other communities. Similarly, instead of reading

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about the human circulatory system and seeing textbook pictures depicting blood flow, students can use technology to see blood moving through veins and arteries, watch the process of oxygen entering the bloodstream, and experiment to understand the effects of increased pulse or cholesterol – filled on blood flow”

“We know now – based on decades of use in schools, on findings of hundreds of research studies, and on the everyday experiences of educators students, and their families – that, properly used, technology can enhance the achievement of all students, increase families involvement in their children’s schooling , improve teachers skills and knowledge and improve school administration and management.

Evidently the research so far has checked on how technology affects the school learning systems which can be related to student, teachers and so to say the entire management of the school system but not categorically stating the impact it made in developing the educational system which is now the major focus of this research work.

1.2     Statement of problem

The aim of this research work is to examine the impact of technology on educational development, therefore it is designed to find solution to questions such as

i.             Is technology making impact on education?

ii.            How does technology enhance student achievement

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iii.           How will students and teachers be impacted with the implementation of new technology?

iv.           What will the community get out of technology changes?

v.            Technology and education, what is the achievement so far?

1.3        Purpose of the study

As it has been earlier stated in the background study, it is a clear statement that education can not be separated from technology, they seems to go hand in hand to enhance any useful development. But as the saying goes “that the use is not clearly understood abuse is inevitable”. That makes this research work to focus to focus on the tope “Impact of Technology on educational development” so as to point the mind of people to the fact that it is never a waste using technology in education.

1.4     Significance of the study

With the daily changes sin the trend of technology which to some extent is making education a but complicated (so to say) and to some people some how expensive, it will not be appreciated by the populace if there’s no research works to bring out the value and worth of the contributions of technology to the developmental process of the entire educational system. With a better light shown on the contributions of technology on better education, the readers of this research work will understood and appreciate the fact that the better the advancement and the use of technology in our education system, the better the

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development and the achievement of the goals of the entire educational system and the practices.

1.5        Scope of the study

The research work will cover work both inside as well as outside this country to back up the findings of the impact of technology on education. Focussing on Nigeria alone may not really give a broader view of what the research work seeks, since Nigeria seems not to have fully utilizes some of this technology as it ought to be with much light being shed on the impact of technology on education it may help the nation to take up the challenges of increasing the involvement of technology in our education system.

1.6        Methodology and data analysis.

The major method for collection of data for this long essay is through internet research and references to work done so for by other people.

1.7        Definition of terms

To remove ambiguities which may eventually leads to the misunderstanding of this research work, some terms as regard to this work will be defined as appropriate.

1.            IMPACT – The effect or impression of one thing on another. The power of making a strong immediate impression. (www.free dictionary)

2.            EDUCATION – Process of imparting or obtaining knowledge attitudes, skills or socially valued qualities of character or behaviour (www. Education)

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