Disadvantages of Using ICT in Education

The use of the Internet for education is not without problems. Therefore, one should expect the problems to be encountered in using the Internet in teaching to be evolving as well.

There are some disadvantage of using ICT for teaching and learning :

a)          Plagiarism.

Apart from Web sites that claim to help students write term papers, there are numerous cases of students downloading information from the Net and turning them in for grades. We can minimize this problem by requiring students to cite research sources. There is an online service, Plagiarism.org at http://www.plagiarism.org/, which can assist us in minimizing cases of plagiarism in the class. This service claims to prevent plagiarism by determining if a term paper has been copied from the Internet or not.

b)          Student Privacy.

Criminals, marketers, and other persons can easily get information from students when they are online. These could post danger to students’ lives or may even lead to litigation against the school. To avoid this problem, students should be educated on the dangers of giving information to people online. Parents and teachers need to supervise students’ online activities.

c)           Low Income Groups.

According to the US Department of Education, over 50% of public schools with a high minority enrollment had a lower rate of Internet access than public schools with a low minority enrollment in 1997. The same was true of instructional rooms in those schools. In addition, students from low-income families may not have computers at home or may have computers at home with no access to the Internet. Consequently, students in low-income communities may be disadvantaged. To reduce the effect that social or economic status may have, we should give Internet assignments that students can easily complete while in school. If necessary, schools may need to keep computer labs open for longer and/or odd hours. The use of computers at public libraries should also be encouraged.

d)          Preparation Time.

It takes a lot of preparation time to effectively use the Net for education. In addition to designing Internet based lesson plans, we may have to surf the Internet to download lesson plans and adapt them to support the curriculum objectives or visit sites to select those appropriate for classes. We have no choice but prepare in order to help your students become responsible user of the Internet.

New Administrative Responsibilities.

Teaching using the Internet brings to bear a new set of administrative demands on the teacher and the school administration. These include development and implementation of acceptable use policy, training, developing new evaluation criteria as needed, and addressing parents’ concerns.

Conclusion

In sum, not all lessons can be incorporated into the Internet. In teaching using the Net, we have to convince that using the Net adds something new, some real value to our teaching. But also, students should be trained to use the available technology efficiently. We should collaborate with other teachers in the school and in the system, because cooperation and mutual understanding is very important especially when the school has few Internet accounts. Through the net, the student can communicate or collaborate with other students or experts in the field across geographically boundaries. Moreover, they can join a news group on a particular topic of interest.

What is most interesting about the Net, as far as communication is concerned, is that it is race, age, national origin, and gender blind. The Net also enables students to publish projects’ findings to be seen by their peers around the world. This might give some students the motivation they need to complete their work on time, to be mindful of their language. Therefore, every student can benefit from a Net communication project.

http://miraesiwinaya.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-using-ict-for-teaching-and-learning/

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