THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNITY TECHNOLOGY (ICT) ON TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PHYSICS

This study investigated the impact of information and communication technology on teaching and learning of physics. The respondents used for the study were one hundred and fifty-seven (157) physics students and two (2) physics teachers drawn randomly from two senior secondary schools from each of the five educational districts out of the six educational districts available in Lagos State. Three null hypotheses were postulated and tested at level of significant.

The instruments used for the study were information and communication technology impact on teaching and learning questionnaire (ICTIT LQ). The data collected were analyzed using simple percentage and chi-square. The research findings indicated that ICT have great impact on teaching and learning of physics. Also the introduction of ICT makes learning of physics so interesting for the students. Based on the findings suggestions and recommendations were made.

INTRODUCTION

Ever since ancient times people have devised various techniques for communicating their thoughts, needs and desires to others. In early civilized tines, people tend to congratulate in geographically localized cluster in which communication were adequately achieved through speech and written messages. As civilization spread over larger geographic al areas, a variety of long – distance communication methods were tried such as smoke signals, carrier pigeons etc. one of the earliest known optical links, was the use of fire signal by Greeks in the eight century B.C. for sending alarms, calls for help, or announcement of certain events.

However, because of environmental and technology limitation; it generally turned out to be faster and more efficient to send letter messages by courier over the road network.

The discovery of telegraph by Samuel, F.B. Morse 1938 ushers in a new development in communication that is, the era of electrical telegraphy system were first encoded into strings of binary symbols, and were then manually transmitted and received. The development and implementation of communication systems employing electric signals became increasingly sophisticated leading in turn to the birth of telephone, radar and microwave links. Today, these communication systems have become an integral part of everyday life ‘with circuits spanning the entire world carrying voice, text, pictures and many other types of information. As recent advances integrated circuits to technology have allowed computers to become recognized, less expensive and widely available, which make people to be more interested in connecting them to internet.

Internet is a. computer system that allows millions of computer users around the world to exchange information with the use of the internet, which mad 3 communication easier and faster, many bodies have spring up to assist the use of this technology such as information services (MIS), management it information services (MIS), INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) and many others.

Information technology (IT) is concerned with the use of technology in large organizations .In particular, IT deals with the use of electronic compute] s and computer soft ware to convert, store, protect process, transmit and retrieved information. For that reason, computer professionals are often called IT specialists or Business process consultants and the division of a company or university that deals with soft ware technology is often called the IT department.

In United Kingdom education system, information technology was formally integrated into the school curriculum when the natural curriculum was devised. It was quickly realized that the work covered was useful in all subjects. With the arrival of the internet and the broad band connections to all schools, the application of IT knowledge, skills and understanding in all subjects became a reality. This change in emphasis has resulted in a change of name from information technology to information and communication technology (ICT).

Information and communication technology in education can be understood as the application of digital equipment to all aspects of teaching and learning. It is present in almost all schools in advance countries and is of growing influence.

However, foe the past three (3) decades there is a legitimate concern that developing countries have been slow in terms of facilitation of learning among the majority of citizens. Hubert(2006).

The National Grid for learning, UK government initiatives indicated that teachers must move swiftly to more internet and web based work in schools. According to Busari (2006), the whole world is experiencing the advancement of science and technology. Each nation is either a powerful producer of technology or a consumer of other nation’s technology efforts.

Infact technology has made the whole world a global village and ICT breakthrough has made anew landmark in globalizing education. The use of ICT is fast gaining prominence and becoming one of the most important elements defining the basic competencies of the students.

According to World Bank, ICT consists of the hardware, software, networks, and media for the collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information; The use of ICT falls into four (4) major categories; constructing knowledge and problem solving (through the internet-mail, CD-ROMs, databases, videoconferencing); using process skills; aiding explanation of concepts; and communicating ideas {power point, desktop publishing) (WCEA,2002).

The use ICT in teaching is a relevant and functional way of providing education to learners that will assist in imbibing in them the required capacity for the world of work. Very few jobs today do not required the use of skills in technology, collaboration, teamwork, and information; all of these can be acquired through teaching with ICT. It fundamentally changes the way we live, learn and work. Technology has entered the classroom in a big way to become part of the teaching and learning process.

However, physics as a science oriented course or discipline is know for its abstract nature (having no material existence). Sometimes the physics teacher do not have adequate knowledge, but have to fall on ideas which lead to contradictions with what the physics theory says or meant.

Students are left on their own, even when they are to read on their own, they find no material to read, where it is available most of them are obsolete material. That is, some of these materials include text book, journals, research publications and news papers e.t.c. where these materials are lacking the students are forced to lose interest, motivation and passion; in some cases frustration sets in and students abandon the discipline or subject matter (physics) for another which they can cope with i.e. students leaving science class because of physics to commercial or Art subjects, simply point to the fact that other disciplines are not abstract in nature like that of physics.

However, physics is a unique subject, which promotes the acquisition of specialized science skills and knowledge, which explain the natural phenomena of life in the society. It is a subject that grew up with civilization as man’s quantitative needs increased. It arose out of practical problems and mans need to solve these problems. It has contributed to the development of the sciences and to the development of civilization.

Despite the abstract nature of physics its teaching is to bring about scientific thinking in students; a mind set that requires students to test out, through experimentation.

However, through the use of ICT, whether CD-Rom, power point, e.t.c the teaching and learning of physics is interesting.

According to Osunade (2003) internet is a valuable source of information for students looking for ideas for project and assignments. Supporting this, Agommuoh & Nzewi (2003) believed that secondary students who are exposed to video-based instructions in physics had significantly better results than those who were taught using the conventional method. It is against this background of looking at ICT as a medium 3f instruction in teaching and learning in secondary schools that this study is conceived. Therefore, the study is an attempt to establish through a statistical model the impact of ICT on teaching and learning of physics in secondary schools.