Topic 9

Teaching a new literacy

in a di gital environment
 Digital environment
The Communications Sector informs, inspires and supports all people in Qatar to gain the skills,
knowledge and understanding they need to use ICT effectively and safely so that they can engage in the
countrys economic and cultural life and to support the development of a vibrant and capable ICT vocational
and professional workforce in Qatar. We are keen on enhancing ICT readiness and usage of all members
of society and businesses so that everyone can participate in building Qatars information-based economy.

Specifically, Digital Society aims to ensure all people in Qatar have the skills and capabilities to use
ICTs in an effective and safe way. The divisions programs work to bridge the digital divide in the country by
creating opportunities for the population at risk of digital exclusion to safely access, effectively use, and fully
benefit from ICTs. Alongside that, Digital Society works with strategic partners to enhance ICT education
and students capabilities and skills as well as carrying out studies to measure the impact of information
and communication technologies on the Qatari society; measuring changes over time.

Digital Society Programs:

Digital Inclusion: The program targets segments of society that are at the risk of digital exclusion
by creating opportunities for access, learning and effective use of technology.

Digital Literacy: A program aiming to raise awareness and foster a healthy cyber culture in which
all Qatars population has the knowledge and critical understanding necessary to engage in safe online
opportunities.

ICT Skills: Aims at raising awareness and inspiring take-up of a wide array of possible ICT
careers, in addition to developing a highly skilled and well-qualified ICT workforce to enrich Qatars
knowledge-based economy.

Digital Impact and Emerging Technologies: Better known as the Rassed research program, this
area of Digital Society focuses on studying the effects of ICT and the Internet on society, and enabling a
better understanding of emerging digital technologies and their potential.

What Is ICT Education and Why Is It Important?

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) education is basically our societys efforts to
teach its current and emerging citizens valuable knowledge and skills around computing and
communications devices, software that operates them, applications that run on them and systems that
are built with them.

What are these things? How do they work? How do you use them productively? How are they
deployed, assembled, managed and maintained to create productive systems? How they are used in
specific business and industry settings? What are the underlying science and technologies behind
them and how might those be developed to advance ICT fields?

ICT is complex and quickly changing, and it is confusing for many people. It is so pervasive in the
modern world that everyone has some understanding of it, but those understandings are often wildly
divergent.

There are many important dimensions to ICT education, including:

ICT/Digital Literacy Today, everyone needs a basic understanding of ICT and how to make
productive use of it, just to be good students, workers and citizens. Teaching people how to
be competent basic users of ICT technologies is an important role of ICT education, so they
will be successful in their academic and work careers, and so they can efficiently participate in
modern technical society. As part of its study validating U.S. Department of Labor IT
Competency model content in California, MPICT determined with 99% confidence California
employer agreement with the following statements regarding Digital Literacy:

o Information and communication technologies (ICT) competencies are increasingly

important for most of our employers, regardless of role. If there was an agreed-upon
standard for "digital literacy", or ICT competencies expected of all workers,
regardless of workplace role, my organization would value a credential based on that
standard as a way of validating ICT skills for non-ICT workers. (70.5% agree or very
much agree)

o In the 21st century, an ability to work with information and communication

technologies is becoming as essential to education, life and workplace success as
"reading, writing and arithmetic". ICT Digital Literacy should be considered a basic
skill by educational systems, something taught to and assessed for all students.
(85.2% agree or very much agree)

o This study details 49 competencies for ICT User level knowledge and skills, as an
actionable, teachable and assessable definition of what people need to know and be
able to do to be digitally literate.

ICT Infrastructure and Support Applied Technologists Beyond a basic user competency,
our society also needs more knowledgeable and capable technical people to deploy, manage
and maintain ICT equipment, software and systems, so they work well for users. In all
industries, these people manage computer and communications hardware, software and
applications; networked systems; online information sharing, communication and commerce
systems; business processes making use of these systems; and user support.

Specialized Business and Industry Uses of ICT As enabling technologies, ICT is used
strategically in almost all businesses and industries. Many have developed specialized
 systems and uses of ICT, and many have specialized legal and regulatory requirements;
quality control systems; integrations with production and research equipment and systems;
security requirements; and software applications. For example:

o Bioscience industries rely on specialized ICT systems and applications to conduct

research, analyze organic materials, produce biotech products and do required
reporting;

o Financial services industries rely on ICT to maintain customer records, do business,

conduct trades, do financial reporting, secure proprietary information and comply with
regulations;

o Manufacturing industries use specialized computer controlled systems and robotics to

design, produce and test products.

o Property management operations use ICT to network and control heating and
cooling, lighting and building access systems.

o Electric utilities use ICT to monitor and manage electricity distribution, customer
billing and smart metering systems.

o Telecommunications, cable TV and other entertainment industries use ICT to store

content, manage customers and deliver their services.

We need to develop a competent workforce that understands not only relevant technologies,
but also specialized business and industry environments and operations, to meet these
specialized needs.

ICT Research and Development Scientists ICT fields themselves are under constant
pressure to evolve and improve. We need people who deeply understand the science and
technologies underlying ICT and who can work to advance the fields.
In virtually all modern businesses and industries, and in modern society in general, ICT has key
strategic roles. It is strategically important to develop citizens and workers who can competently and
efficiently operate and add value in these systems and environments.

http://www.mpict.org/ict_education_defined_importance.html
 Advantage of ICT
ICT refers to the devices used to communicate between computers. Information communication
technology (ICT) has greatly impacted and enhanced global socialisation and interactions.

In fact information technology has taken over nearly every aspect of our daily lives from commerce (buying
and selling) to leisure and even culture. Today, mobile phones, desktop computers, hand held devices,
emails and the use of Internet has become a central part of our culture and society. These technologies
play a vital role in our day to day operations.

ICT has made global social and cultural interaction very easy. We now live in an interdependent global
society, where people can interact and communicate swiftly and efficiently. News and information can now
be transmitted in minutes. Individuals can easily stay in contact with members of their families who reside in
other countries or make new friends across the world.

Examples of information and communication technology (ICT) tools used for these purposes are emails,
instant messaging (IM), Chat rooms and social networking websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, Skype,
iPhones, cellular phones and similar applications.

ICT made a major contribution towards the elimination of language barriers - people speaking different
languages can connect and socialise or trade in real time via the Internet. This is made possible with the
use of language translators.

There are many advantages of the new ICT technology:

Processing of data is much faster on a computer.

Example : Calculating an annual budget on a spreadsheet is instantaneous, doing the calculations by hand
would take some time.

Repetitive processing can be better done using computerised machinery.

Example : Humans get tired, lose concentration and generally fed up if they have to repeat the same task
over and over again. Robotic machinery will perform the same task repeatedly with consistent quality and
never need a break, or software programs can be written to process all the records in a database.

Searching for data is much faster.

Example : Finding a patient's record in a doctor's surgery can be done in seconds on a computerised
database system, whereas it would take a receptionist some minutes to locate a folder in a paper filing
system.

Data storage capacity is almost limitless in a computer system.

Example : Large quantities of data can be stored on hard discs or media such as CDs or DVDs instead of
needing enormous quantities of paper and many large filing cabinets. Eg. In a national driving licence
database.

Data communications are fast and accurate. Data transmitted over a network will arrive at its
destination anywhere in the world in just a few seconds.

Example : A computer user can place an order for an item on an Internet website and it will be received
immediately - posting an order in the mail would take a day or two to arrive.

Data can be output on a computer in a variety of different formats.

Example : Annual sales figures for a retail business can be printed as a spreadsheet, displayed as a graph,
or as a multimedia presentation involving text, sound, graphics and animations.

In as much as the advantages of IT are numerous, it is important to mention some of its major
disadvantages to the society.

A significant disadvantage is that older generations find it difficult to catch up with the ever changing and
numerous technologies available to day. Fear of change, resistance to change and inability to catch up with
rapid technology evolution are areas to note.

The issue of digital divide can not be ignored. In the world today, there are people in the society who are
not in the position to take advantage of available technology. This may be due to poverty or geographical
location. For example, access to technology can be said to be limited in many developing countries and
these may result in lesser opportunities for economical and social development.

http://blognyasaya-oq.blogspot.com/2011/01/advantages-of-ict.html