What ICT Project would you like to do that will enhance your ICT ability, can share what you have learned, and can be part of a good social change for the future of the youth?

Information and communication technologies are currently being used in education to assist students to learn more effectively by providing teachers with access to a wide range of new pedagogy. These technologies are also being used to enable teachers to do administrative tasks more efficiently. This paper outlines a new use for information and communication technologies that offers something different. This new use enables students to show teachers how to improve teaching and, in doing this, it enables students to have more informed and more profitable access to teachers' knowledge and skills. The paper suggests that, although problematic in application, this approach may represent a 'quantum leap' in educational effectiveness.

It is generally believed that ICTs can empower teachers and learners, promote change and foster the development of ‘21st century skills, but data to support these beliefs are still limited

There is widespread belief that ICTs can and will empower teachers and learners, transforming teaching and learning processes from being highly teacher-dominated to student-centered, and that this transformation will result in increased learning gains for students, creating and allowing for opportunities for learners to develop their creativity, problem-solving abilities, informational reasoning skills, communication skills, and other higher-order thinking skills. However, there are currently very limited, unequivocally compelling data to support this belief.

ICTs are very rarely seen as central to the overall learning process

Even in the most advanced schools in OECD countries, ICTs are generally not considered central to the teaching and learning process. Many ICT in education initiatives in LDCs seek (at least in their rhetoric) to place ICTs as central to teaching and learning.

An enduring problem: putting technology before education

One of the enduring difficulties of technology use in education is that educational planners and technology advocates think of the technology first and then investigate the educational applications of this technology only later.

Impact on student achievement

The positive impact of ICT use in education has not been proven In general, and despite thousands of impact studies, the impact of ICT use on student achievement remains difficult to measure and open to much reasonable debate.

Positive impact more likely when linked to pedagogy It is believed that specific uses of ICT can have positive effects on student achievement when ICTs are used appropriately to complement a teacher’s existing pedagogical philosophies.

‘Computer Aided Instruction’ has been seen to slightly improve student performance on multiple choice, standardized testing in some areas

Computer Aided (or Assisted) Instruction (CAI), which refers generally to student self-study or tutorials on PCs, has been shown to slightly improve student test scores on some reading and math skills, although whether such improvement correlates to real improvement in student learning is debatable.