Integrating ICT in Education: A Challenge for Teacher Educators and Teachers

In the last decades, the world has begun to undergo a new technologically –driven revolution known as “the information age”. This revolution is part of the long-term development of electronic communication technologies that includes the 19^th and 20^th century technologies but the last two decades have seen an explosive and unprecedented growth in these commonly called ‘information and communication technologies’. What is remarkable about the current ‘information technology’ is the extraordinary rapidity of change it encapsulates. For despite all the utopian dreams, the information age has so far touched only a tiny minority of India's population. If only a small percentage of India's population of 100 crores has gained access of the information age, the question is how and whether the information age can improve the condition of life for the majority of the population. The question suddenly began to be asked with increasing urgency as the question of ‘digital divide’ became an important concern for developing countries like India wherein digital divide tends to separate the information-rich and poor, that is the division between those included in and excluded from the information age. With focusing on the causes resulting in digital divides, the paper then shifts its focus on how ICT's help bridge the digital divide faced by teacher educators and teachers, how in developing country like India ICT can increase equity and promote diversity. What is required ‘technological’ decision – making, a critical task if this digital divide is to be bridged? The paper concludes with the thought that ICT can reduce the digital divide if only we commit to that goal with the same intelligence and imagination that has gone into creating the technologies themselves.