1.2 Education

The impact of ICT in education has been variable, but is destined to grow a great deal over the coming decade as many programmes progress to function or maturity. It has long been recognised that education is now a lifelong activity. Traditionally people went to school and college from the age of 4 to 18 and then perhaps went on to higher education, a person was expected to embark on a career that would last a working life. This is rarely now the case.

There are many people who believe that education should take advantage of new technologies to deliver better lessons, and at a time and place suited to the consumer of the education. The dream is to have their best lectures on video, which can be watched by students all over the country at any time of the day and where ever they are; for software to monitor control totaly induvidualised learning plans for all students; for really high quality resources to be available to all the teachers to aid them in preparing the best possible lessons. This is 'wired-up' education. The UK has gone a long way towards having the infrastructure in place to deliver this. All schools and colleges have some connection to the internet and the world wide web, and msot have high-speed connections. The grid, which is the backbone of the dream, is a reality. Not all students yet have personal, grid based email addresses; but many have access to a virtual learning environment which as potential for delivering some of the benefits of wired up education. There is no common experience as yet in very high quality educational experiences, but there is a clear trend to more and better use of ICT in the curriculum.
One of the more interesting parts of the debate about the future of education concerns the student as a consumer of education. In theory the student will be able to pick and mix 'learning objects' or online blocks of learning to create a curriculum suited to their needs. Although more relevant to adult longlife learners than school-age students, the model can be extended to that of the teacher having control over a variety of learning resources that are mixed and matched to create the perfect individulised learning plan. Typical resources of this are short online videos, short excercises, reading materials, quizzes and tests, access to specialised forums etc.
One of the great benefits of the internet is easy access to unlimited libraries of information. Teachers in primary schools can ask their students where a place is for example they can ask 'Where is timbuktu?' and be confident that the majority will find out using the internet. A student doing a project on the Globe Theatre in London will find access to drawings, history, photographs and much more. A student wanting to learn java script has numerous courses immediately available to them. It is possible to descover almost any subject through the internet.
There are drawbacks to the internet as a source of education information however:

• Some students find it easier copying and pasting large paragraphs of information from the internet, without reading it through and picking out the quotes that are needed for the project. This opens them up to charges of plagiarism, which is one of the greatest academic sins. Universities see this as a big problem as they have invested a great deal of programs to spot such copying.
• As it is so easy to publish on the internet, almost anyone literally can do it. Therefore it is as easy to publish inaccurate, biased or plain incorrect material on the web as it is to publish properly edited and refereed material. The reasons for doing this may be innocent, humorous or wicked, but either way the material is basically misinformation rather than information.
• Another problem that is rapidly growing is that internet providers are finding means of charging for their information that had previously been free. It is now common place to have to join a site and pay a small fee to be able to access information that have been freely accessable in the past. Newspapers and Magazines have started charging for access to many articles encyclopaedias often have extra paid-for content. A number of specialist forums, newsletters, intelligence analysts etc. now charge for information. This is a growing trend on the internet that is not likely to slow down, and therefore it may become harder to gain access to reliable, free information.

The impact of ICT on education has ther potential downsides that should be considered. There are so many potential educational media that is difficult to ensure any form of standerdised quality of experience for students. It is in many ways a pioneering age, with an enthusiasm for novelty and invention that has many positive aspects. At the same time it is not clear whether the claimed advantages of all the new technologies will be sustained. Already a number of highly-funded initiatives, especially in the field of distance learning, have been dropped or totally reorganised. Even where they prove themselves over the longer term, the cost advantages may not be sufficient to justify the changes that are now under way in the long life learning sector.

1.2 communication

communicatons has been a key focus of change in the information age. The way most businesses and young people communicate in the 21st century has changed enormously from the way their parents and grandparents communicated in the middle of the 20th century. Email, chat, sms and digital voice and mobile videophones have rapidly become the way to communicate. We communicate much more, more quickly and more globally. One of the internets kiler applications has been Email. In 2001 it was estimated that 12 thousand million messages were sent daily and by 2003 there were 31 thousand milion sent daily, and by 2005 it has estimated that 75 thousand million messages are sent daily now, the reasons for this is because eamil has massive benefits for induviduals and businesses. One of the major benefits of email is the relatively low cost to the user of sending messages. A consistant theme of the developing internet, however, is that providers are trying to find ways of charging for services that have traditionally been free and email may not always be quite as free as it is at this moment. One of the major drawbacks is spam, or junk mail. Most estimates suggest that between 30 percent and 40 percent of email is junk mail or spam.

1.2 Employment oportunities

The types of jobs people do, where they do them and how they do them have changed dramatically, largely, through not exclusively, as a result of ICT. There are three vital, but related aspects to this: automation,globalisation and flexibility. Particularly hard hit have been the careers of people with specific skills that are capable of being directly or indirectly automated. In the manufacturing sector, some factories have been replaced, either in th UK or overseas, by factories employing CNC, automated machines and robotics.
Shorthand and touch-typing represent the other decntralised end of the spectrum. Most small or large businesses used to employ more than one person in this role. They would take notes, write up letters, memos, reports and invoices, and do any other small volume jobs that require good presentation rather than doing all of this by hand and making it look non-presentable. The advent of office software such as word processing, spreadsheets, databases and presentation software had meant that many administrative and managerial staff can do the work themselves faster than if they involved another person. The demand for shorthand typists has therefore diminished enormously. There is still an active and strong demand for good secretaries, but more at the personal-assistant rather than typist end of the market. At the same time as many jobs have dissappeard as the result ofICT and related economic factors, many jobs have been created, the most obvious area is that of IT itself. There was a vast grow in IT jobs up to the end of the last Millenium, and in internet and e-commerce jobs during the boom of the late 1990's.
One of the most successful instances of the globalisation phenomenon has been the call centre. Modern telecommunications equipment not only allows induviduals to work successfully from home, but also allows centres that can handle calls to be placed in the most economically and socially advantageous position. People phoning their local bank branch, insurance broker or computer helpdesk on a free or local access telephone number these days may be phoning Scotland, Ireland or even India without realising.