Abstract
Information and communication technology (ICT) is playing a central role in the development of modern economies and societies. Every young person will need to use ICT in many different ways in their adult lives, in order to participate fully in a modern society. This has profound implications for education, both because ICT can facilitate new forms of learning and because it has become important for young people to master ICT in preparation for adult life. But is ICT living up to its potential in schools and in the lives of young people? To start to answer this question, the extent to which young people are exposed to and making use of such technology and whether those who do so are achieving desirable learning outcomes must be determined. In this article we analyse the impact that the information communications technologies are having on the training of the youths. Also it will be analysed the unequal access to ICT depending on factors such as gender and family origin. To carry out the analysis, the source has been the PISA Report 2005, from the OECD.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Human Capital Technology: It is a new form of human and social capital based on the accumulation of knowledge linked with the new information communications technologies.
Equality Opportunities in ICT Access: It refers to the principles of equality of conditions and accessibility that should inspire the educational, training and social policies of information communications technologies.
Digital Gap: New forms of social inequality derived from the unequal access to the new information communications technologies, by gender, territory, social class, and so forth.
Digital Divide: It refers to effective exclusion from the information revolution. The term “second-order digital divide” is used in order to refer to a related phenomenon where the level of literacy is a key factor in realizing the potential of information technology and the Internet.
ICT Empowerment: Process by means of which the ICT is a fundamental instrument to fight against the social inequalities and to favour the participation of all the citizens in the democratic societies.
Technology Illiteracy: Level of very reduced or nonexistent knowledge on the handling and use of tools, such as basic computer programs, Internet use, and so forth.
Information Society: Denomination by Bell (1978) referring to the new society of knowledge. In this society, the access to the information through new ICT is crucial to explain the social organization of this new society.
Technological Revolution: Process of social change that transformed the social, labour and educational relationships in what has been denominated as the “knowledge and information society.”
Education Technology: Didactic and formative instruments developed to favour the students’ training and qualification in information communications technologies.