Importance of Information Communication Technology in Technical Education

IMPACT OF THE USE OF INTERNET ON TECHNICAL COLLEGE VOCATIONAL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA ABSTRACT This study is designed to determine the impact of the use of internet on technical college vocational students’ academic performance in Ogun State, Nigeria.

The purpose of the study among other things focuses on identifying the attitudes of students toward the use of internet; to determine the purpose of internet usage by students; to find out the intensity of internet usage by students and to find out whether the use of internet improves the academic performance of students or not. Survey method was adopted the research. Data were collected from one hundred and forty (140) technical college students in seven (7) technical colleges Ogun State, Nigeria. Means and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions.

Interviews were also conducted with students to compliment the data collected The findings of the study reveals that most of the secondary school students access computer connected to the internet through the use of the cyber cafe or settings open to the public; the students spend more of their time outside the school and their homes to use the internet; female students are more disposed to the use of the internet for social networking than their male counterparts; most of the special sites students visit on the internet are not for academic engagements or school work; most of the devices used are connected to the internet through the use of modem and the use of internet technology show significant relationship with students academic achievement and it motivates the students to get along with schoolwork. The study however recommended that technology should be embraced in all technical colleges in Ogun State, Nigeria.

KEYWORDS: World Wide Web, Internet, Technology, Modem, and Devices INTRODUCTION Technical colleges of today have come of age in this new information revolution. From the time they started elementary school, the World Wide Web existed. Many of them were using the Web early in their school careers. Technology is now used throughout the world for gathering information, keeping records, distance learning, and global collaboration for lifelong learning and work. Its pervasive use cut across almost all aspects of modern life including business, industry, communication and entertainment warrants continued efforts on the part of educators to positively prepare students for participation in a technological world.

The Internet is one of the greatest recent advancement in the world of information technology and has become a useful instrument that has fostered the process of making the world a global village. The internet provides several opportunities for the academia. It is a mechanism for information dissemination and a medium for collaborative interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic limitation of space. The word Internet is derived from two words: “international” and “network”. The Internet therefore can be defined as an international computer network of information available to the public through modem links so internet is a worldwide system of linked computers networks.

The Internet is the world’s largest and most widely used network. It is an international network of networks that is a collection of hundreds of thousands of private and public networks all over the world. There are rich and varied learning experiences available on the Internet that would have been inconceivable just a short while ago. The investigators observed that research reports and articles on the effectiveness of technology in the student-learning environment reflect a variety of opinions and conclusions. On one end of the continuum, supporters cite research studies showing the positive impact of technology on student learning. On the other end, critics present