"Technology and Us"
School of Technology
Centennial Symposium
An Extended Celebration

Spring Semester 2003

Information technology
and educational process: A review
William J. Gibbs, Ph.D.

Information technology has had a significant impact on education. Miniaturization, increasing sophistication, and decreasing costs, among other things, have foster varied and pervasive utilization of emerging technologies in educational settings. Attempts to use technology to enhance student learning, and to manage instructional and educational processes have been a driving force in education for several decades. It is by no means a new phenomenon. According to a survey done in 1984, the number of schools using microcomputers had, in some cases, quintupled from 1981 to 1983 (Market Data Retrieval, 1985, p.5). Accordingly, a 1988 study conducted in Virginia schools indicated that computers were the "...most numerous piece of instructional equipment in elementary and secondary schools." (Heinich, Molenda & Russell, 1993, p.19). In the 1980's, such trends were not restricted to education. The Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census found that by 1989, approximately one third of the United States population used a computer in one form or another (Kominski, 1991). More recently in the past five to seven years, there has been rapid and significant growth in the number of Internet-based distance education courses offered by colleges and universities. A survey by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES, 1999) found that from 1994-95 to 1997-98 the number of distance education programs using a variety of technologies increased by 72 percent. The survey also indicated that 58 percent of all distance education courses provided by institutions of higher education in 1997-98 used asynchronous Internet instruction as their primary mode of instructional delivery. Institutions that offered distance education courses in 1997-98 or that planned to offer distance education in 1999-01 reported that they intended to start using or increase the use of Internet-based technologies and two-way interactive video more than any other type of technology.
Without a doubt, technology and its assimilation into educational processes have been important issues in education for some time. This chapter presents a review of trends in higher education that have resulted from computing and information technologies. It discusses applications of technology for teaching and learning and examines several technology-based learning approaches that have evolved and contributed to the field of education. In addition, the chapter discusses recent and emerging applications of globally networked technologies that serve to enrich and redefine the educational experience for learners and provide them increased access to educational opportunities despite geographic location. From this perspective, the chapter provides an overview of distance learning and discusses methods and technologies that characterize it. Relevant research about the effectiveness of distance learning is also reported.