Concept Paper: Education in a Digital World

Concept Paper: Education in a Digital World

Introduction

Traditional instruments of education have always been centered on sources such as schools, print media, and teachers. As such, leaners got hold of information sources by the process of enrolling with libraries, teachers, and schools. Before the digital era, information access was hampered with respect to today’s context. Contemporary society has the urge to know the information when and how it happens, as the world is geared towards a knowledge society rather than an information society. As such, education is given the highest priority as well as brainpower to becoming a valuable asset of an organization.

Furthermore, advances in digital technology have opened up many ways to boost learning in the modern world. Ideally, technology has opened up many avenues in the field of education. As such, technological advances have made access to information less tiresome, and as such, ICT has become a more integral part of human life.

Purpose

This paper will explain the concept behind the process of generation, creation, as well as the acquisition of knowledge through technology. Additionally, it will explain how digital technology manages and organizes explicit knowledge. As such, the paper will illustrate how technology is used to access as well as apply such knowledge.

The Digital and Electronic Era

Over a hundred years ago, the electronic era kicked off with the utilization of wireless electronic information. As such, the transmission of telegraph messages and the radio was rendered top notch during this era. Since the technology has improved, from radio waves to recordings, from recordings to television and movies, to computers, and then the Internet (Peters & Araya, 2011). Arguably, technology is one of the effective ways to convey instant messages as they have access to local and international news. Even though it is informal, but it has become necessary as well as a valid form of education (Higgins et al., 2012). As the digital era progressed and computers, which manipulation of text and numbers to interaction through text, voice, pointing devices, graphics, and sound, become an integral part of human life. With the active exchange of communication in this age of technology, educational facilities are now able to exchange textual material into a global resource. Furthermore, the fact that millions of people are now using the Internet for diverse activities banking, shopping, forums, exchanging as well as sharing information, access to digital libraries, and e-learning have made an impact on the society.

Organizing, Accessing and Using of Explicit Knowledge in Education

Education of a field where knowledge is gained. Technology helps people access information and knowledge; as such, digital technology utilizes a relative database management system  (RDMS) and electronic document management system EDMS when it comes to organization and management of explicit knowledge. This aspect of technology plays an important role when it comes to education. First, RDMS was traditionally used for managing text and primitive data such as numbers and dates. This technology has been used in education when it comes to student registration, evaluation results, as well as student performance, are recorded using this technology. It has made it easier and less cumbersome to manage operation data of the educational management system.

Additionally, the use of EDMS is now evolving and can be considered as a way in which organizations can utilize to manage information efficiently. EDMS applications are focusing on aspects such as bitmaps, vector, graphics, color, sound. As an aspect of digital technology, such features are utilized as a form of media for explicit knowledge.

After the organization of explicit knowledge, there is a need to access this knowledge, and as such, the technology that can access this knowledge is the Internet, intranet, search engines, and workflow tools. The Internet provides a cost-efficient global network backbone as it connects users to the web. As such, most educational institutions have published their information on websites as they can be accessed by their respective students as well as other people across the world. Additionally, the use of intranet is essential when it comes to communication and confidential information within an organization as such teachers and administrators can now monitor the overall status of a student and make appropriate actions promptly. The use of search engines has helped researchers, teachers, as well as students to reach information and acquire the needed knowledge (Howard & Massanari, 2007).

After accessing this explicit knowledge, it should be used effectively. As such, technology has provided decision support systems, data mining, and data warehousing for such resolutions. The Decision Support System (DSS) is a software that can transform operational data to important as well as useful information such as trend analysis and statistical models that are crucial management tools when it comes to decision-making (Collins & Halverson, 2010). Furthermore, with advances in data mining and data warehousing, education has improved using these technologies.

Knowledge-Sharing

Knowledge sharing is essential when there is a network of people. As such, communication in the modern-day world can be through e-mail, fax, mobile phones, video calls, video-conferencing, virtual meetings, and so on. Digital technology has played a better part in the educational sector when it comes to knowledge sharing. Case in point, teachers, and students can now use virtual meetings as well as teacher-student portals to communicate with each other. Furthermore, there has been cost-cutting when it comes to document collaboration in the educational sector (McKnight et al., 2016). Additionally, many scientific institutions and universities have opened up websites that provide information to students in their respective institutions; as such, it is now easier to access learning materials in this digital era.

Changes in the System

With available resources online, lecture notes are not a priority of the learning process (Warschauer, 2007). As such, there is a paradigm shift in this digital age as there is a move to the technological era. And education should not be left behind. Better use of technological instruments in sharing knowledge is essential. The paradigm shift in education has already taken place with the introduction of e-learning.

On the other hand, at the classroom level, student’s and teacher’s roles have changed. The teacher’s role has shifted from the “distributor of information” to an “enabler of learning.” On the other hand, the student is now able to access more information with the help of new technologies and the teacher. Furthermore, education is now moving towards testing how students apply knowledge (Sanderson, 2002).

Conclusion

Inevitably, technology is still advancing, and new ways of storing and sharing information are coming up. Learning being a vital action in human development, developing technology should be able to reflect the same and improve the learning process further. Additionally, the world is now a digital hub, and as such, educators should utilize technology as they interact with their students. Technology has made education a better haven.