The Impact of Technology

Technology clearly has had, and will continue to have, a major learning, administrative, and business impact on education. Many institution segments are moving transactions and shared information to the online environment, such as the Internet. According to the U.S. Department of Education (1999), the percentage of students using computers in colleges and universities has increased from 55.2 percent in 1994 to 64.7 percent in 1997; and has nearly doubled for students using computers at home for schoolwork from 23.1 percent to 40.8 percent.

Greene, Cattagni and Westat (2001) found that e-mail, the Internet, and Websites are rapidly becoming core components of postsecondary instruction for students in the United States. A fall 1998 survey reported in The Condition of Education 2001 showed that 97 percent of full-time faculty and staff had access to the Internet, 69 percent used e-mail to communicate with students, and 40 percent used a course-specific Website.

The demand for online teaching and learning resources has already reached a significant high; Web-based and Web-enhanced courses are already popular e-learning platforms in higher education today. According to Student Monitor, 90 percent of college students used the Internet and 6 percent were connecting once a day or more. According to Campus Computing, over 53 percent of college courses used e-mail last year, almost 39 percent used Internet resources, and almost 28 percent used Web pages for class materials and resources (Vallone, 2000).

As education and technology continues to fuse and evolve at rapid speed, institutions will find an enormous array of effective solutions to augment their educational offerings and build deeper relationships with current and prospective students, alumni, and administrators (Blackboard® Incorporated, 2001). CMSs are one solution that is modifying the way instructors circulate information. Green (2001) found a growing number of campuses identify CMSs as "very important" in their institutional information technology (IT) planning and approximately one-fifth (20.6 percent) of all college courses now use course management tools, up from 14.7 percent in 2000. In addition, a leading e-Learning industry analyst firm projects that the higher education e-Learning market will grow from $4 billion in 2000 to $11 billion by 2003 (Stokes, 2000).



Computing Information Technology. The Human Side
Computing Information Technology: The Human Side
ISBN: 1931777527
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 186

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