Towards Quality IT Literacy For All

1. Attaining Quality Through IT Literacy Dheeraj Mehrotra City Montessori School & Degree College, Lucknow, INDIA www.cmseducation.org

2. With the accelerating phase of the advent of Information Technology there is an emergence of a new social order. This has made the need for computer literacy among the masses indispensable .

3. Quality education is a universal goal. It is common to hear arguments that instructional technology will be the key to educational quality as we enter the new millenium

4. To match the new realities of today’s sophisticated technology, there is a pressing need to develop new skills to make the most of the new technology that is available to us.

5. The curriculum for all pupils in schools will have to place emphasis on technological change and its implications. Such a curriculum should ensure that all students are able to use technology to communicate effectively with and through the computer as well as appreciate its role.

6. Ignorance about computers will rather render people functionally illiterate as does ignorance of reading, writing and arithmetic. This means that our society will depend heavily on information technology in many areas of work and personal life.

7. A computer literate has an aid to problem solving in a variety of disciplines. This familiarity essentially involves an understanding of the use of facilities such as word processing, screen reading and the effective usage of files and data. It also demands a limited comprehension of keyboard skills.

8. Any country’s social and economic well-being depends entirely on how well equipped its people are for a literacy-intensive technology in order to promote overall quality oriented academic excellence. If computers can assist us in the teaching process then there is a good reason to welcome their appearance. Hence, it is absolutely essential for all those involved in education to become computer literate.

9. CAPES, the Computer aided paperless examination system, offers firing of the multiple questions on the terminal to the candidate on a particular subject, with the questions having been already fed into the machine by the authority concerned for the conduct of the examination .

10. On the other hand, the recent development in this regard is the QUEPS, which is a prototype knowledge based system, for question paper setting. This system also aims at modeling the human expertise, which is perishable, is affected by fatigue and prejudices and lacks ability to duplicate with ease.

11. A point which come to ponder over the introduction of this HI-TECH concept in the field of academics, is of the limitation of its’ being to the objective system only. This again becomes tiresome for the subjective brand of system where every level of the answer is ranked in a different manner independent of any particular answer, which can be fed into the machine.

12. The quality at a workstation is known through the timely declaration of results, regularization of sessions and all in all bringing out overall satisfaction of the students and the parents. This further brings the profitable aspect of the organisation in long run as more and more fame is gathered for the same and the rush of admissions produce more revenue monetarily bringing boon the education industry at large.

13. Now, with the march of time, the very business environment has changed faster than ever before. The increased competition among organisations has led to the reappraisal of accepted business practices for higher efficiency. These are complemented with investment in technology to improve productivity.

14. Making Parents Part of the "In"-volved Crowd Parents can be invaluable partners in their children's education, but many take themselves out of the equation because of mistrust, misunderstanding, the demands of work and home, or other factors. The IT Literacy campaign can not function well without the support of the Parents.

15. The day is not far off, when this very technology would create the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM), applicable to nearly all Academic Arenas .

16. In order to prepare students to put the vast "sea of information" through to good use, teachers, paraprofessionals, library media specialists and other school technology professionals themselves must have quality professional development and ongoing technical assistance. Technology's ability to transcend time and geographical limitations opens vast new opportunities. However, it's important to recognize that teaching in a new format requires vastly different skills, approaches and support systems.

17. Innovation and Change Along comes IT, children seem to handle it with ease, young staff daily illustrate their skills. The principal, even if not technophobic, hasn’t often time to grasp the complexities, let alone see to its successful implementation.

18. Any educational system is in a situation of permanent change. In order to keep up with developments in the world of which it is a part, education must adapt to these changes. Many of the developments result from technology, and the contexts are different because of that technology.

19. While technology-based instruction is capable of inducing learning, it is only one component of a total classroom solution. No doubt, teachers are best at augmenting content in their discipline and providing individualized feedback, while computers provide a factual and conceptual framework and allowing drill, practice, and initial assessment. The essence of the consideration is to delineate and understand the optimal role of computer technology in the classroom.

20. The use of IT as a learning tool by teachers and students cannot be taken for granted. The innovation has taken off and it is too late to stop it. We can do a lot of work to ensure future ‘take offs’ by principals are smoother and the flight is not too bumpy. We owe it to our students now and in the future !!! There has to an initiative by one and all for a complete computer literacy for all.

21. Thank You & Jai Jagat