As Review by: Hartmann,
Werner
The possibilities created by information and communication
technologies, and in particular by the Internet and the Web, have often been
hailed as revolutionary with regards to education. In May 2004, Steve Jones, a
professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, conducted
a survey among more than 2300 professors in the US on the impact of the
Internet and the Web on education.
Three major findings of the survey are summarized as follows: “When asked
whether the Internet has changed the quality of student work, 42% of professors
in a recent survey said they had seen a decline, while only 22% said they had
seen improvement. But a majority of 67% of the respondents said the Internet
had improved their communication with students.” Plagiarism was cited as a
major problem. Almost half of the respondents in the survey observe an
increasing “Google and Copy” way of working by their students. Only about a
quarter of the respondents has no qualms with unauthorized copying of source
materials. Two thirds systematically use tools to check for plagiarism.
Many respondents also point out changes in the writing abilities of their students. They believe that the use of software such as spell checkers and automated translation services has a negative impact on the quality of writing. For example, expressions which are used only rarely are often rejected by such tools, and students replace them with simpler, more common expressions which are accepted by the tools. As a result, the students’ texts are less rich in expression and become less individual.
More than 80% of the respondents say they use the Internet a resource of information for their daily business and cannot imagine education which does not include the use of the Internet. About 40% say they are online 20 hours or more per week. However, as the survey was done online, these numbers may be skewed in favor of power-user professors.
Almost all respondents use email for communication with their students, which makes email the most used Internet service, by a large margin, among the respondents. On the negative side, respondents noted students’ expectation that they be online 24h on 7 days.
Only 16% of the respondents have experience with online courses, and half of those note that the time for preparation for such courses is much higher than for more traditional forms of education such as lectures.
The study ends by noting that at institutions of higher education, there is still much uncertainty about the efficient and effective use of information and communication technologies for education. The authors recommend more further education for professors which focuses less on the use of the technologies in general, but rather more on the use for teaching particular subjects.
People may think it is a luxury and times are hard, but the times are changing and the next generation need to know how to use the latest technology.
