Free Sample: Technology And Higher Education Essay paper example for writing essay

Technology And Higher Education Essay - Essay Example

Sophisticated technology is making the human life more simple, efficient, effective, accurate and time saving. It has a huge impact on Higher Education as well and plays a major role in enhancing the education system. According to the survey of the Economist Intelligence Unit 2008, almost two -thirds (63%) of survey respondents from the public and private sector says that technological innovation will have a major impact on teaching methodologies over the next five years. Technology allows students to become much more engaged in constructing their own knowledge, and cognitive studies show that ability is key to learning success,” says New York City- eased Queens College vice-president of institutional advancement, Susan Henderson. There has been a massive increase in online degree programmed and distance learning in the universities around the world. The role technology has a major impact on the university campuses which is making it essential and also globalization it.

The overseas universities and universities in the US are depending on advanced technology to make education accessible to more individuals around the world. Over the past few years there has been an increase in the number of universities across the globe, and the existing ones have expanded across borders. This shows that there has been a demand for the higher education sector in terms of business. In a business view there is opportunity for new competitors to enter the market. This cycle of demand in turn creates more employment and the growth in the service sector, which leads to the growth of the economy.

Countries like United Kingdom, USA, Australia and Canada are well known for higher education and the fact that many foreign students prefer these countries for their higher education is not only because of their excellent education system, but also because of the fact that they re collaborating technology with education system, not only in terms of learning and teaching practices but also as a key strategic elements throughout all of the service components of students life cycle. According to “Proto, S. (n. D. ).

The Impact of Disruptive Technology-Based Innovations in Higher Education” , some of the trends like open educational resources, mobile technologies, Massive Open Online Courses (Mooch) and analytics are now part of the everyday news concerning in the development and delivery of education in at all levels. The rise of new technologies is also affecting few other areas of campus administration. Social networking tools such as Twitter, Faceable and others are helping to build connections and other support service and career activities. Libraries are evolving; it is not Just a place of physical books anymore.

With the help of technology the rise of e-books and the way we gather information is much more flexible and accessible than ever before. The term online learning is not new anymore, as it is fast spreading across the globe and is becoming a primary source of education. According to an academic survey states hat, more than two-thirds offer online courses in their in their institutions. There is an eager audience among working professionals, employers and students for the customization, specialization and convenience that distance education affords.

Many public service academic institutions consider online learning key to reaching post- graduate education to the people who are not able to access it and also the key to advancing their mission. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit 2008, recently named the top wired university in the US by PC Magazine, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign offers a case in point. As Scott D Johnson, CIO and associate dean for online learning in the College of Education, observes, “As a public, land-grant university, our mission is grounded on the premise of education for all. The University marked a significant leap forward in January 2008 in what had already been a long history in distance education, the University of Illinois Global Campus was launched. It was created at the university’s residential campuses, an integrated online programmer created in collaboration with the colleges and academic departments. There is a huge scope for online learning and distance education which will reach to wider people who want to gain knowledge and will share their ideas through technology and education.

ADVANTAGES Some of the positive impacts of technology over higher education are: Access to use of e-resources. Technology enables people to access and gather resources and information across the world at our finger tip, which makes learning more, easier and helpful Technology helps in providing better student services such as feedback and complaints, general advising, registration, prior learning assessments, career advisement, remedial instructions, community involvement as well as faculty support functions.

The methods of teaching, and organizing has been changed with the help of projectors and smart classes which have replaced by black boards and chalks. This kind of technology helps the teachers to teach in a different way and also helps students understand better. It makes the lectures more interesting and enjoyable as modern equipment helps to teach in form of visuals and pictures and others forms as well which makes the class room environment more interactive and alive. These days, virtual classes are preferred all over the world.

As more and e-books are taking over traditional paper books, this rates potential for lower text book prices and also the burden of carrying books. Technology also helps in protecting the environment indirectly. As there are thousands of higher education institutes all over the world, so we could imagine how many billions of paper can be used to publish text books and copies. But due to technology many higher education universities and institutions have switched to the use of computers and e-books for their lectures and libraries.

If used thoughtfully it can save time and money as well. There is also a potential for lower tuition prices in he field of higher education, as technology is replacing people and making the whole process of education much simpler. Due to the effect of technology, the field of higher education has expanded and there are more complex subjects and areas which are being taught and studied. Importance of higher education has increased over the past few years. Many people view higher education as compulsory compared to the past.

And it is also being more competitive as more and more people want to pursue their higher education. More complex subjects can be taught more easily with the help of technology. It creates easiness in teaching and helps in peeping an eye on students’ progress. Moreover wide-screen televisions, audio visual-presentation and projectors can be used for improving the delivery of instructions to actually improve learning and increasing the comprehension level among the students. DISADVANTAGES There can be a few drawbacks of technology over higher education.

Some of them are as follows: New technology means adapting to it and knowing how to use it. If technology upgrades every time then many users like professors, students and lecturers will need re-training on how to apply the technology, each time it gets upgraded. As there has been an increase of piracy and is inevitable, it is difficult to protect intellectual property ownership. It has the potential to diminish the experience of in-person education and diminishes the overall value of education.

It also decreases the aspect of colonization and interaction between students and professors and creates a gap between them. Makes more of a one side communication as well. It may frustrate students because of lack of communication or miscommunication, for the students who are struggling with the course material. Some students may find it challenging because of lack of face-to-face interaction and en-on-one instructions. With increasing number of cyber-crimes and hacking across the world there is a possible threat of information leak or hacking of data.

There could also be technical issues such of crashing of servers or intervention between them which can cause major damage like miss use or loss of data and information. Cost can be a major constraint for higher education. Modern technology is expensive as it needs to be maintained or replaced with time. Most of the universities spend major on technology to stay upgraded. CONCLUSION As we all know technology is an ever growing factor in our life and it is not possible to top it from upgrading, I can conclude that it has more positive side on the higher education with respect to its drawbacks which are limited.