Modelling ICT Development in Education

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) [1] is a generic term, which is being used for collecting, storing, editing and passing on information in various forms. Increasingly rapid advances in ICT will have profound impact on way teachers teach and how learners learn in near future. The development of new broadband communication services, convergence of telecommunication with computers, recent developments in the field of communication protocol have fostered numerous proposals for the uses of ICT to support the teaching and learning environment. The integration of computers and communications offer unprecedented opportunities to the education system with its capacity to integrate and interact with each other over a wide geographic distance in a meaningful way to achieve the instructional objectives. The growth of these communication and computer systems, their ease of use, the power and diversity of information transfer allow teachers and students to have access to a world beyond the classroom. It has the potential to transform the nature and process of the learning environment. Interactivity, flexibility and convenience has become the order of the day in the ICT supported environment. Knowing how to use and integrate ICT in teaching and learning is of utmost importance for teachers in their role of creators of pedagogical environments. While literature provides some evidence of the effectiveness of using ICT in education, little is known about which learning strategies should be used for education and training. The present paper illustrates ICT development in education as a continuum approach along which an educational system or institution can be mapped depending on the stages of ICT development. These broad stages have been termed as Emerging, Applying, Infusing and Transforming stages of ICT development. The model is then mapped on the basis of pedagogical usages of ICT along with the stages of ICT development.