CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
ICT‟ role in learning is simplification of reality, often with exaggerated cause-effect linkages which can be very effective in a teaching context (Garson 1987). Reid & Rushton (1985) recognise that there is little room for scepticisms over the growing importance of ICT in education. Useful as teaching resources are, they cannot replace the teacher (Twoli et al. 2007); and the computer is one such resource. However, a lot depends on the availability and utilization of ICT in the classroom.
According to Shue (2009), ICT were introduced in American schools in 1965 and were mostly used for administrative purpose. Molnar (1997) explained that ICT were not widely accepted in American schools during the 1950s and 1960s because it was difficult and expensive to house the huge machines that they were during that period of time. However, Apple II ICT found widespread acceptance in education around the year 1983 (Murdock &Desburg
1994). David (1991) in her report presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association described a research and development collaboration among public schools, universities and research agencies that Apple – the Computer Company – initiated in 1985 and sustained through 1995 with outstanding results. It was named the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT). Its goal was to examine how the routine use of technology especially the computer-related technologies by teachers and students would change teaching and learning.
Virtually, no modern public or private school could exist in the United States of America without a computer lab and computer instructions in the 90s (Murdock &Desburg 1994). The assumption that computer technology has become an essential part of the basic school curriculum was summed up in the report of the United States Department of Education (1996); the report referred to ICT in the classroom as “the „new basic‟ of American education,” and to the Internet as “the blackboard of the future”. Murdock &Desberg (1994) says that in 1985, California Legislature passed a senate bill that established a technology component in the state‟s teaching credential requirements for California teachers. Emphasis was on computer based technology; thus an organization called the Association of State Technology Using Teacher Educators (ASTUTE) was formed and became an instrumental force in helping improve the way teachers were taught to use educational technology.