Literature Revieew

LITERATURE REVIEW

In the of education the 1980s will strand as the decade during which countries throughout the world introduce computers in education on a large scale, the first stage of a technological innovation which is unprecedented in its scope (Plomp et al 1996,p.1). Tjeerd Plomp’s introduction to one of the largest cross-national reviews of ICT in education carries an historical viewpoint as well as a judgement. The historical viewpoint identified the 1980s as the decade in which mainframe computers were supplanted by personal computers on business desks and in home, also making them immediately accessible to school and classroom. It remains to be seen if his judgement was accurate about this being the first stage of highly significant technological innovation in education.

The focus of this literature review is to examine the background of ICT in school, and to see what models of stages of development have been developed and used. The review uses the research questions as a framework looking at policy implementation and practice and teacher professional development before examine existing models that have been use to structure thinking in the field.

The chapter highlight general theories of innovation diffusion, of which the development of ICT in school education is a particular instance. It also analyses the rate of change of technology behind ICT, because this is an important feature of the field. Finding from previews international studies help to establish the current context of the study, and meta-studies focus on the debate that about effectiveness and efficiency of ICT in educational context. The final section includes some other relevant factors influencing the use of ICT in schools.

This reviews examine current argument and debates concerning the impact, real and imagined, of the new information and communication technology in developing society, in particular Africa.

Given the rapid changes in the nature and structure of the...