A
RESEARCH PAPER
ON
FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GAP BETWEEN
COMPUTER LITERATE AND COMPUTER ILLITERATE MEMBERS OF CRUTECH COMMUNITY.
WRITTEN BY
NAME: OKOKON GODSWILL EFFIONG
NAME: OHWAHWA O. CHRISTABEL
DEPARTMENT
OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
FACULTY
OF SCIENCE.
SUBMITTED TO
DR. OYO. E. OYO
CENTER OF GENERAL STUDIES
OCTOBER, 2016.
BROAD TOPIC : COMPUTER
KNOWLEDGE.
NARROW-DOWN: The gap between the
computer literate and the
computer
illiterate.
FURTHER NARROW-DOWN: Factors responsible for the
gap between
computer literate
and computer illiterate, members of CRUTECH
community.
THESIS STATEMENT
Several factors overtime
have affected the gap between the computer literate and the computer
illiterate, using members of CRUTECH community as case study.
Working bibliography
Aniedi
I.J, Franca A.I, Joseph E.O.(2010).ICT competence among academic staff in
Universities in Cross River State:
Cross River, Calabar: Francis Group CRS Press.
Archibong
I.A, Effiom D.O.(2009).ICT in University education. usage and challenges
among
academic staff. Ibadan: African Research Review.
Ashcroft
L, Watts C.(2005).ICT skills for information professional in developing
countries.
New Jersey: Journal or research on
computing in universities.
Banfi
I.(2004). ICT and the emerging paradigm for a lifelong learning. Amsterdam:
W.J.Pelgrus.
Furst
J.(2005).An analysis of required computer competencies for University
student
Journal of research on Computing in
education. Liverpool: University of Liverpool
Publishing crew.
Gorretti
E.M.(2013).Influence of computer literacy and subject background on use of
electronic resources by undergraduate
student in Universities in Nigeria.
International Journal of library of
science.
TENTATIVE OUTLINE
1.0
Introduction
1.1
Conceptual definition of the term COMPUTER KNOWELEGE
1.1.1
Computer literacy
1.1.2
Computer illiteracy
1.1.3
I.C.T
1.1.4
I.C.T in Nigeria Universities
2.0
I.C.T in CRUTECH community
3.0
Functions of computer knowledge in
CRUTECH
4.0
Impact of I.C.T in CRUTECH
4.1
Advantages of I.C.T in CRUTECH
4.2
Disadvantages of I.C.T in CRUTECH
5.0
Conclusion and Recommendation
5.1
Summary
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendation
References
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The increase use of computer
by students and academics alike is an important measure of technological
development in academic environment by this measure, a gap is created between
those students that know how to make use of the computer and those that barely
or don’t know anything about computer knowledge. What I am taking about is that
the use of computer is now dominant in all areas of human endeavors more
especially in academic institutions. And yet, not all students are carried
along, some are left behind due to one reason or the other.
Computer literacy is
critical to student success in Universities. Its no less significant as
reading, writing and calculus were in the 19th and 20th
century. Like reading, computer literacy is increasingly widely addressed in
research around the world as well as in CRUTECH. However, despite some
significant research contributions in the area, so far little attention has
been given to yhe impact of personally traits on the computer literacy and its
level.
The lack of both
empirical studies and theoretical works, which analyze computer literacy and
psychological factors affecting its level at the higher institution, is
evident.
The article deals
with the gap between the computer
knowledge of the computer literate and computer illiterate in the CRUTECH
community, comparing the both sides to find out their impact, differences, and
great affecting factors.
1.1 Conceptual definition of the term:
COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE
Computer knowledge is the ability to use computer to
perform a variety of task. It is also refer to the comfort level someone has
with using computer programs and other applications associated with the
computer system.
The concept of
computer literacy or knowledge is best explained as the ability to make use of
the computer system to word process documents, analyze data, develop computer
programmes, browse the internet and install software (idown 2004). Mltra(2008)
perceive computer knowledge as the amount of computer learned skills required
and the length computer usage.
Computer
knowledge covers a broad spectrum of both hardware and software solutions that
enable organizations to gather organize and analyze data that will help achieve
goals.
Its widely defined term that has several meanings
across different sectors. Though, essentially it is used as an umbrella term to
refers to the use of communication devices such as radio and cellular devices,
satellite devices and channels, computers, amongst others. To manage
information one needs to know or learn computer technologies.
1.1.1 Computer literacy
The term literacy can
be defined as the ability to read or understanding of something, having
knowledge in a particular thing or topic.
Computer literacy is the
knowledge and ability to use computers and technology efficiently.
In Nigeria today,
computer technology has become so important that students who do not have
access to computers and internet are likely to get further behind their peers
who did have such access. It must be noted that many Universities which
examinations are conducted using the computer technology. The National open
University which was opened to cater for those who could not get direct
admission in the regular Universities now write their examinations using the
computer, most Universities have also adopted the use of the computer in conducting examination for the post unified matriculation examination.
For example, one of those Universities is CRUTECH , Cross River University of
Technology.
So, it
becomes imperative that student should be computer literate with digital
knowledge competencies to be able to function effectively in the changing world
of today.
That is to
say that computer literacy is of essence for every CRUTECH STUDENT or any
University student who wants to excel in almost all or every level of education
in this 21th century.
1.1.2 Computer Illiteracy
The concept of computer literacy can
be said as the inability to properly make use of computer system or application
or devices.
Despite the fact that the world is
fast becoming digital, they are yet still some people are still left behind in
the fast movement of the world due to one or more factors affecting them.
Increasingly some student fall
under this group of person. According to the study, 10 percent of the sample
which undergo some experiment was found to be computer literate while a
swelling 90 percent were not literate in the use of computer many student
lacked a functional computer literacy foundation upon which to build new
technology and skills.
Furthermore, the study revealed
the gender, academic experience and secondary school had a significant
relationship with familiarity to computer technology in CRUTECH community as
case of study. More specifically, more male students than female students were
found to be familiar with some types of computer technologies.
This is more so because, in a
study carried out by Hepworth(1999), students in some developing countries had
been found to have limited skill in the area of information literacy and skill.
1.1.3
I.C.T
Information and
communication technology (ICT) encompasses the effective use of equipment and
program to access, retrieve, convert, store, organize, manipulate and present
data and information. Thus, computer is one of the most predominant ICT tools
that greatly perform these functions and plays critical role in the life of
students.
Therefore, computer
is an electronic device that can follow instructions to accept data as input
process the data and produce information as output (Unagha, 2008). It’s also an
electronic device that accepts data as input, process and manipulates data to
produce meaningful result as an output. The most prominent among the
information technologies is the computer which functions as an embracing
mechanism and also an effective electronic device that is capable of accepting,
storing retrieving and processing data based on predefined instructions
(Owoyemi, 2001).
Today, it
performs manipulation of non-mathematical nature such as sorting, inter-filling
searching, deleting, updating, designing, reproducing and printing. These
non-mathematical operation of the computer are the ones most required by
libraries and information centers (Imermba, 2005). The computer is the primary
tool with which this change can be affected. Electronic mail, computer based
testing, computer aided instruction, digital textbooks and images along with
valuable resources on the internet are now essential to learning and coping tools for students.
1.1.4I.C.T in Nigeria Universities
The extent to which
electronic resources are utilized by undergraduate students will depend largely
on some factors pertaining to the users, especially computer literacy and
subject background. Therefore, the study investigated in the influence computer
literacy and subject background on the use of electronic resources by
undergraduate students in CRUTECH community
The survey research design was to look and investigate
to know the gap between the computer literate and the computer illiterate and
the factors behind it.
The survey research
design was also to examine ICT competence and challenges to ICT usage among
academic students in CRUTECH community but here, I am going to broaden the
topic more by including Nigeria universities in general the results
show that majority at public cyber cafe are own by students which implies that
a number of student have laptops access to internet was mainly at public cyber
café majority (53.3%) rated their ICT competence as low. Inadequate ICT
facilities, excess work load and funding were identified as major challenges to
ICT usage among academic students in the Nigerian universities.
Integrating ICT culture into
educational institution is a change which ringle and updegrove (1998) advised
that the approach should be carried out by incorporating the socio-economic and
pragmatic or technical dimension. This is so because studies in the management
of change and innovation (fullam1993) have shown that the process of change is
a complex one.
If ICT can
be more greatly accepted and taught well to impact all Nigerian universities,
Nigeria will definitely be a changed nation and rich through ICT economic impartation.
2.0 I.C.T in CRUTECH community
ICT in Cross River
university of technology community is a needed tool for modern-day educational
institutions especially at the tertiary educational level.
ICT development programme
among students in CRUTECH is faced by numbers of obstacles. prominent among
them is the lack of training opportunities for students. Acquiring ICT technical know-how is just the first level,
beyond which many training programmes . gulbahor (2008) in his study found that
although per-service teacher are willing to use technology but this rarely
occurred because of the inadequacy of lesson to facilitate them with necessary
skills to be technology competent.
For a successful
implementation of ICT programmes in CRUTECH
·
Provision of training on baseline
technical skill for students.
·
Provision of good technology infrastructure
including computer access and network connectivity for students.
·
Challenging teacher education
institution to integrate ICT into their teacher education programmes.
·
Establishment of centers for
learning technology in student education institutions to support the system
integration of ICT for education purpose.
·
Stimulation, socialization and
funding of projects on ICT for education purpose.
3.0 Functions of
computer knowledge in CRUTECH
·
It is generally believed that ICT
can be empower teachers and learners, promote change and learner, promote
change and foster the development of 21st century skills, but data
to support these beliefs are still limited.
·
ICTs are very rarely seen as
central to the overall learning process.
·
An enduring problem: putting
technology before education is one of the enduring difficulties of technology
use in education is that educational planners and technology advocates think of
the technology first and then investing the educational applications of this
technology only later.
4.0 Impacts of ICT in
CRUTECH
- The positive impact of ICT use in education has not been proven in general and despite thousands of impact studies, the impact of ICT use on student achievement remains difficult to measure and open to much reasonable debate.
- Positive impact more likely when linked to pedagogy: it is believed that specific uses of ICT can have positive effects on student achievement when ICTs are used appropriately to complement a teacher’s existing pedagogical philosophies
- Computer aided instruction has been seen to slightly improve student performance on multiple choice, standardized testing in some areas.
- Need for great goals: ICTs are seen to be less effective (or ineffective) when the goals for their use are not clear
- There is an important tension between traditional versus ‘new’ pedagogies and standardized testing.
- ICTs are used differently in different subjects
- Access outside of school affects impact
- CRUTECH students if asked, believe that ICTs make a positive difference
- ICTs can promote learner autonomy.
Overall, the report concluded that ICTs
could improve the situation, reinforcing positive effects in the environment or
there could worsen the situation. This suggests that environmental policies
have to be designed to ensure that ICT applications make a beneficial
contribution to environmental rebound
effects.
4.1 Advantages of ICT
in CRUTECH
- Improve business performance, productivity and profitability through improved system performance, availability and security.
- Reduce administrative and back-office operational cost though the convergence of voice, data and video over IP
- Enable and improve the quality, quantity and access services from any location by allowing remote access, monitoring and management of systems and applications.
- Improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and service through the safe and secure deployment of customer facing solutions.
- Enhance collaboration and networking among employees, customers and partners by removing the barriers to real-time communication and effective information sharing.
- Ensure enterprise security and compliance more efficient at less cost.
- Enable the mobile workforce.
- Improve work/life balance for students.
4.2 Disadvantages of
ICT in CRUTECH
- Insufficient of ICT equipment and high cost maintance of ICT equipment.
- Can remote the attention from the main goal of the learning process to develop ICT skills, which may be a secondary goal in this process.
- ICT create a partition digital gap within the classroom where students are move familiar with ICT and will have more benefit will learn faster than others who are unfamiliar to the technology.
- Reduces communication with student in CRUTECH who have difficulties in using ICT.
5.0
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1
Summary
As written above, the gap
caused by ICT between the computer literate and the computer illiterate is
quite vast by with recent advancement in technology and digital age is silently
closing that gap, especially in the CRUTECH community.
5.2
Conclusion
The influence of computer literacy in
education promotes students performance in CRUTECH community.
In CRUTECH, many students consider
ICT tools very helpful in that it helps them to do many of their academic work.
Even though the computer illiterate tend to partake from some of these
activities.
From the findings of this
research, it was concluded that ICT skill development undertaken by academic
staff was mainly self-funded. Majority of the academic staff in this study
rated ICT competence as low.
5.3
Recommendation
Based on the findings and the conclusions
drawn this study, its hereby recommended that the university management should
fund the ICT training of students of CRUTECH community. Furthermore, provision
should be made for continuous retraining of staff on ICT since development in
technology is dynamic and the staff need to keep abreast with current trends.
Again, CRUTECH management
should make training in ICT mandatory for all academic staff as this will
propel the uninterested or unwilling ones to undertake the training.
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