ICT in Education: Possibilities and Challenges

In the inaugural lesson for the academic year 2004-2005, the author reflects on the role of information and communications technology in education. He raises some fundamental issues and questions whether ICT is suited to transmitting knowledge, particularly to students who are not already highly motivated to learn or well versed in the art of using and interpreting information. For his analysis, he takes as a point of reference the world of business and offers a brief look at the changes brought to the sector by ICT. To date, the main application of ICT in the business sector has focused on aiding access and processing of large quantities of information for employees and management with the principal aim of increasing productivity. In the case of education, however, little or no information is being used to improve student performance, mainly because education managers are largely illiterate in information management tools. Likewise, despite schools having more and more access to ICT, new technologies are still scarcely used as part of the teaching methodology. Once again, it is the lack of training that creates difficulties: many teachers do not have the necessary IT skills and feel uncomfortable, nor do they have the specific training needed to be able to use the new resources in the classroom. In the university sector, ICT has already made an important impact, whether in terms of teaching, research or administration; however, despite some exceptions, there are few real examples with educational models that are based on this technology and there is still an important social preference for traditional educational models.