“Role of ICT in Engineering Education”

Mr.Makarand Bharat Patil

Second Year(Mechanical Engineering)

Tatyasaheb Kore Institute of Engineering &

Technology,Warananagar, Tal.- Panhala
Dist.-Kolhapure- 4116113

Email Id:-makarandpatil1998@gmail.com

Contact No:-8308351737
Abstract:-
Amongst the various open source education
software, the Modular Object Oriented
Developmental Learning Environment
(MOODLE) seems to be the most user
friendly having numerous features. This
paper aims at investigating the usefulness of
digital technologies imparted into blended
learning mode for engineering education.
The role of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) plays a wider role in
teaching-learning activities like, content
creation, administrative, formative-
summative assessments, student’s
performance tracking, trainings, knowledge
management and knowledge organization.
In addition, the technical features of ICT
allow us to customize to meet the demands
of an institute. Technology based virtual
learning approach was aimed at stimulating
student’s interest in learning engineering
curriculum; consequently its effectiveness
was statistically evaluated. Finally, this
research report is aimed at summarizing the
ways in which ICT is used, and how it
creates new learning opportunities both
online and off line.
Keywords:-ICT, scope of ICT, impact of
ICT, solution to negative impact.
Introduction:-
Information and communication
technologies which includes radio and
television, as well as newer digital
technologies such as computers and the
internet have been touted as potentially
powerful enabling tool for educational
change and reform. The effective integration
of ICT into the educational system is a
complex, multifaceted process that involve
not just technology-indeed, given enough
initial capital, getting the technology is the
easiest part-but also curriculum and
pedagogy, institutional readiness, teacher
competencies, and long-term financing,
among others. ICT is now being a leading
source in this world. It is the technology
required for information processing, in
particular, the use of electronics computer,
communication devices and software
application to convert, store, protect,
process, transmit and retrieve information
from anywhere, anytime.
Objectives:-
 To explain the wider applications of
ICT in our daily life.
 To focus on the scope of the ICT in
various fields.
 To introduce blended learning tools.
 To create awareness and to
overcome on negative impacts of
ICT.
Scope of ICT in engineering
education:-
ICT encompasses all those gadgets that deal
with the processing of information for better
and effective communication. In education,
communication process takes place between
teachers, students, management and
administrative personnel which requires
plenty of data to be stored for retrieval as
and when required, to be disseminated or
transmitted in the desired format. The
hardware and software like Television,
Radio, Computers and related software are
used in the educational process. However
ICT today is mostly focused on the use of
computer technology for processing the
data. Advantages of ICT in engineering
education can be listed down as follows:
Quick access to information:-
Information can be accessed in seconds by
connecting to the internet and surfing
through web pages.
Easy availability of updated data:-
Sitting at home or at any comfortable place
the desired information can be accessed
easily. This helps the students to learn the
updated content. Teachers too can keep
themselves abreast of the latest teaching
learning strategies and related technology.
Connecting Geographically
dispersed regions:-
With the advancement of ICT, education
does not remain restricted within four walls
of the education institutions. Students from
different parts of the world can learn
together by using online, offline resources.
This would result in the enriching learning
experience. Such collaborative learning can
result in developing…
 Divergent thinking ability in
students.
 Global perspectives
 Respect for varied nature of human
life and acculturation.
Catering to the individual
difference:-
ICT can contribute in catering to individual
needs of the students as per their capabilities
and interest. Crowded class rooms have
always been a challenge for the teacher to
consider the needs of every student in the
class.
Wider learning opportunities for
pupils:-
Application of latest ICT in education has
provide many options to the learners to opt
for the course of their choices. Many online
courses are available for them to select any
as per their aptitude and interest. Students
can evaluate their own progress through
different quizzes, ready to use online tests.
This can ensure fulfillment of the
employment required in the job market thus
minimizing the problem of unemployment.
It can also provide more efficient and
effective citizens to the society as per the
changing needs. Also various engineering
application like MOODLE is been used on a
large scale.
MOODLE:-
MOODLE is a learning platform designed to
provide educators, administrators and
learners with a single robust, secure and
integrated system to create personalized
learning environment. It provides the most
flexible tool-set to support both blended
learning and 100% online courses.
Committed to safeguarding data security and
user privacy, security controls are constantly
being updated and implemented in
MOODLE development processes and
software to protect against unauthorized
access, data loss and misuse. MOODLE can
be easily deployed on a private secure cloud
or server for complete control. MOODLE is
web-based and so can be accessed from
anywhere in the world.
Blended learning tools:-
In its basic and simplest definition, blended
learning is an instructional methodology, a
teaching and learning approach that
combines face-to-face classroom methods
with computer mediated activities to deliver
instruction. The strengths of this
instructional approach is its combination of
both face-to-face and online teaching
methods into one integrated instructional
approach. Some of the useful web tools for
blended learning are: Teachem, eduCanon,
Expertise.TV.
Impact of ICT in engineering
education:-
ICT play a role on three fundamental aspects
of education: access, quality and cost. It has
advanced knowledge by expanding and
widening access to education, by improving
the quality of education and reducing its cost
while extending the education and reducing
its cost while extending the education to the
remote areas through virtual, E-Learning,
online and distance learning. ICT in
education has provided more employment
opportunities within the educations system
directly and indirectly through academic and
non-academic staff. E-Learning is a
promising tool for expanding and widening
access to tertiary education. Because they
relax space and time constraints, ICTs can
allow new people to participate in tertiary
education by increasing the flexibility of
participation compared to the traditional
face-to-face model: working students and
adults, people living in remote areas, non-
mobile students and even foreign students
could now more easily participate in
education. Online learning allows access to
education to larger number of students. The
constraints of the face-to-face learning
experience, that is, the size of the rooms and
buildings and the students/teacher ratio are
eliminated. With ICT, a lesson can be
reproduced and communicated very cheaply
via different means like the digital
recording. This has widened access to
tertiary education to young people and too
small academic workforce. E-learning has
shown a promising way for improving the
quality and effectiveness of tertiary
education and learning. These promises have
been derived from different characteristics
of ICTs: the flexibility of the learning
experience to students; enhanced access to
information resources for more students;
potential to drive innovative and effective
ways of learning and/or multimedia or
simulation tools.
Negative impacts of ICT in
Education:-
 One of the major impacts of ICT in
education is moral decay. These
include access to inappropriate
material, violation of personal
privacy, and being the recipient of
sexual predation, scams or abusive
materials.
 By use of ICT, students do not learn
the basic mental arithmetic skills
 because they rely on electronic
methods including calculators.
 With ICT, students tends to do much
of copying and pasting instead of
learning and talking their own notes.
This has led to ethical issue such as
plagiarism.
 Reduce personal interaction which
may lead a individual to feel isolated
and unhappy.
 Due to reduced physical activities
user may adopt a more sedentary
lifestyle. This can leads to health
problems such as obesity, heart
disease, and diabetes.
Solutions to negative impacts in
Education:-
The best way to handle this impacts is to
create awareness regarding the various
devices. Certain laws and ethics should be
made to control the negative impacts.
Awareness regarding every technology
should be created in every persons
individual.
 Large range of ICT tools are available
for teaching and learning. Closes the gap
of “Digital Divide”.
 Involvement of teachers and parents is
important.
 Schools and colleges will need funding,
access and training.
References:-
1. Gender and ICT.
2. Information and communication
technology –Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org
3. ICTs for education.
www.ictinedtooklkit.org
4. Blended course design: A synthesis
of best practice. Journal of
asynchronous learning networks.

Conclusion:-

 ICT and E-learning offers opportunity to

raise educational standard in schools.