The Importance Of Computers In Education And Education

The era of technology has affected human life. Computers, one of the most popular technologies, integrate into almost all human activities. It has been integrated into most school curriculums as a teaching aid; it is helpful to increase education quality. The significances of computers raise the demand of computers need in education every year. Fore example, it has been reported in 2008, the average number of computers in primary, secondary, and special schools in England increases annually.

This technology gives teachers chance to bring creative teaching activities. A teacher, for example, can use computers to collect student’s feedback from questions delivered (Light and Littleton, 1999). Teachers are easy to create and bring an interesting

Internet connection possibly gives opportunity to students to communicate with teachers in a distance-learning format. A teacher can communicate with students wherever the students are around the world as long as they have computers connect to internet in front of them. Anna, a school teacher, explained that her students not only did their researches on the internet, but they also collaborate with other students who were in different places (quoted in Roblyer, 2006). Light and Vivienne (1999) said that the role of computers in education possibly gives students opportunity to interact with their teachers and other students. Computers ignore distance and limit of time between a teacher and students to study, because a teacher and his or her students can do the teaching and learning in anywhere and at anytime with computers. Some teachers are convinced that using computers in a communication or an interaction obviously can be a good way of learning (Light and Littleton, 1999). University teachers have actually applied it to their students since there are several courses provided in a distance-learning format. Among teachers and students or among students themselves interact in distance using computers with internet

Teleconference is one sort of distance interactions that is now being developed in education. An online interactive communication, which is assisted by computers, help students to be able to communicate with their teachers as if the teachers are in front of them. It allows people to talk and to see each other in the interaction (Norton and Sprague, 2001). Indeed, it will be more interesting for students as they are really attracted on the use of computers. Another role of computers in the communication can be seen from the use of "chat" activity. It allows people from all around the world to interact at one time, in many different channels, with many different people (Norton and Sprague, 2001). In addition, chat may also help students, who cannot express their ideas face-to-face to teachers. Computers, as a tool of communication, can also be used to send mail electronically instead of sending it by air post travel that may take days to be received. Computers are able to send and to receive messages instantly known as e-mail (Norton and Sprague, 2001). The use of e-mail allows a teacher talk to students about a topic of discussion privately. Indeed, it has been proved in University of Newcastle in its course, the Computer in Education, which comes in a model of distance learning (Postgraduate Course Information of the Faculty of Education and Arts at University of Newcastle, 2009).