The world we live in today is very different from what it was a century, even a few
decades ago. This transformation has been driven in part by rapid technological
innovation. While the 19th century saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution, with steampowered
machines intensifying and expanding human productive power, the 20th century
was characterized by the birth of machine-powered flight and the emergence of
broadcasting and computer technologies that extended the reach of human creativity even
more and made possible new ways by which humans could live and work together.
In the past fifty years, especially, technology has made information, once a scarce
resource, abundant. With computers and Internet technologies in particular, more people
can now have access to more information more quickly than ever before. Moreover, the
exponential growth in access to information has led to a corresponding exponential
growth in the production of new information, and this has forced us to rethink our notions
of what we need to learn and how we should learn it.
Educational institutions acknowledge that they must move apace with the technologydrivenchanges in society and economy. In today’s knowledge society, not only must
schools ensure that learners possess the competencies to wield these new information and
communication tools productively, they must equip learners with the critical and analytic
tools necessary to live and flourish in an information-saturated environment. Mastery of
facts has become less important than the ability to contextualize these facts and derive
their meaning within specific contexts. Thus, learners must develop three foundational
skills: “1) how to find information; 2) how to determine if what is found is relevant to the
task at hand; 3) how to determine if the relevant information is accurate.”1
Acquisition of these three foundational skills sets the parameters for the use of ICT in
schools. The tools that in part created the demand for information literacy skills in the
first place can, if used effectively, be the best tools to help learners meet these demands.
The integration of ICT in the teaching and learning process is, potentially, one of the
most viable interventions towards educational reform. The models of effective ICT use,
however, cannot be constructed overnight. A variety of technological, curricular,
pedagogical, institutional, cultural, and financial issues need to be addressed, and the
complex interaction among these various factors means that constructing the best practice
models would involve much “thought, experimentation, and a willingness to spend the
time to develop and refine strategies until they are proven to be effective.
By: Ria A. Cortez | Teacher II | Limay National High School | Limay, Bataan
