Introduction
The emergence and rapid development of computer technology have brought significant changes in almost all spheres of human life from everyday activities to science and medicine and has also changed people’s ideas about common notions. Education is not an exception as students and teachers use technology every day to find, transfer, or learn new information. Moreover, education has become one of the areas that new technologies and the Internet have influenced to the greatest extent since almost all learning processes today are conducted by devices.
According to Chiemeke and Daodu, education is a “form of learning, in which the knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training and research” (294). Consequently, essence, person, and way of teaching are features that change over time in any culture. Currently, education has acquired new features, including changed content, the altered role of teachers, and new forms of teaching and learning processes, which are caused by the use of the Internet and digital technologies.
Main body
One of the new features of education due to the advent of the Internet is the change of its content. Centuries ago, knowledge was transferred from teacher to student directly during classes orally. After the invention of printing and replication techniques, information has become more accessible but in a limited amount due to the inability to find and transmit it quickly over long distances. Today, education is a combination of diverse sources from around the world in various fields of knowledge that are accessible to everyone via the Internet. In other words, the Internet has developed educational and scientific content because of the ability to access virtually any data in minutes.
For example, students are no longer limited to often outdated or incomplete information that is available to them in a university or city library, since they can find relevant studies and answers to all questions online. This fact also improves the quality of the scientific base, since the creators of textbooks and research rely on more extensive data for writing their works. Thus, the quality of the content and its quantity is developing and becoming more accessible for education.
Another change that occurred in the educational processes is the perception of the teacher, which significantly affected the students’ expectations. Students no longer associate the process of acquiring knowledge with the personality of an educator, since millennial expect teacher’s behavior that match with secularities of technology-driven world in which these students were born (Hashim 2).
The availability of information allows them to master their skills through online textbooks, videos, and tutorials, so they can avoid interpersonal contact with teacher if they do not need any assistance. An educator is a mentor and instructor who helps students to choose the most optimal ways to gain knowledge and structure the amounts of data provided by the Internet through different channels of information distribution.
For example, a teacher cannot impose his or her opinion about a particular phenomenon or event; however, he or she can guides students and makes their learning more organize by providing information about the choice of quality sources. A teacher can also offer a list of literature for study, which will help the student avoid a long search and doubt about sources’ selection. Compiling curricula, assignments, and tests is also an organizational measure conducive to learning opportunities. Thus, students perceive a teacher as a mentor and assistant in organizing and mastering knowledge but not as their source.
Moreover, the teaching and learning processes include new techniques technological methods that expanded the opportunities for education. These methods have shifted the focus of interaction from teacher and student to computer and student. For example, E-learning allows people to use approaches inaccessible to offline classes, such as the Internet of Things, which enables effective data exchange and attributes to creativity, research opportunities, self-learning, and hyper-connectivity for educational purposes (Abbasi and Quesada 914-916). Consequently, students more effectively master knowledge at home and use class time for issues that require the assistance of a teacher.
This form of learning is associated with such a method as the flipped classroom, which focuses on the pre-class study of material that allows the student to benefit more from discussion with peers and the teacher (Green 180-181).
Besides, the very idea of online education enhances opportunities for both teachers to provide information and students to obtain it. For instance, an art history teacher has to demonstrate visual examples of artworks so he or she can create and download a video online. In addition, people have different abilities and capabilities to receive information. One student needs only to watch the video once to memorize the information, and the other must read the explanation of the material several times. Therefore, technology has made education more individual, high-quality, and made learning possible without interpersonal interaction.
Conclusion
In conclusion, education in the modem digital world driven by the Internet is a process of search, analyzing, and processing the information about knowledge and skills generated by others and spread online. The teachers are exposed to altered roles of being instructors more than educators since they need to guide students in an endless flow of information. The learners benefit from online education and other technology-driven forms of knowledge and skill acquisition.
These forms of learning help students to choose the most convenient and understandable way for them to receive, understand and remember information. In addition, the quality and quantity of content have developed significantly, which allows anyone to study issues inaccessible even several decades ago. Thus, every element of the educational process shifts to individual and customized work with information due to the technological development of the modern world.
Works Cited
Abbasy, Molid Bayani, and Enrique Vilchez Quesada. “Predictable Infuence of loT (Internet of Things) in the Higher Education.” International Journal of Information and Education Technology, vol. 7, no. 12, 2017, pp. 914-920.
Chiemeke, S. C., and S. S. Daodu. “Re-Defining Education through E-Technology.” Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies, vol. 6, no, 4, 2015, pp. 293-299.
Green, Teogan. “Flipped Classrooms: An Agenda for Innovative Marketing Education in the Digital Era.” Marketing Education Review, vol. 25, no. 3, 2015, pp. 179-191.
Hashim, Harwati, “Application of Technology in the Digital Era Education.” International Journal of Research in Counselling and Education, vol. 2, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1-5.