Impact of ICT Based Education on the Information Society

Abstract

In the last ten years the continuous growth of internet penetration and the wider palette for spreading ICT tools have changed the availability and quantity of information, communications methods and the learning processes. ICT tools are already extensively used in education and we have reached the turning point when, after the era of PCs and laptops, e-learning based on internet connected tablet PCs is here. This educational model, developed on a radically new basis, poses a number of questions and is going to affect social processes at macroeconomic levels. We analysed the possible future impacts of widespread ICT tools in education by applying the Futures Wheel method. This method gives a base for scenario building. Of the possible impacts of ICT tools, we highlighted two: the aspect of physical, mental and social existence and that of knowledge-searching and sharing. On these grounds, we drew up four scenarios: 1. Healthy, knowledge based net-society, 2. Antisocial impersonal knowledge-society, 3. Lonely ill rebels, 4. Limited information-society.