THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ON TEACHING AND LEARNING IN GOMBE STATE TECHNICAL COLLEGES
ICT plays complementary roles in teaching learning situation, the application of ICT has the advantages of heightening the motivation, helping recall previous learning, providing new instructional stimuli activating the learners. This paper therefore sought to examine the impact of ICT in teaching and learning in technical colleges in Gombe state. ICT enhances response providing systematic and steady feedback, facilitating appropriate practice, sequencing learning information for enhanced learning teacher who are trained with the system of instructional strategy would be able to kindle in the heart of the learners a desirable attitude towards information technology tools in their entire ways of life. The paper also addresses the mission of teacher's education Nigeria among other things the production of professional who can combine the use of conventional teaching strategies and the unfolding information and communication technology (ICT) in the generation and imparting the knowledge, attitude and skills. The paper highlights the prospect found in the use of ICT for teaching and learning process in VTE programme, problems of utilization of ICT in teaching and learning and the need for VTE teachers to fully equip themselves with the required knowledge of ICT. The paper stressed the importance of computer that offers the teachers improvement in techniques of research, to cumbersome exercise of searching by though library's card catalogue or periodical indexes can be made easier by typing few key words in to a computer. Introduction Every nation that is determined to have suitable economic and technological strength must have to give a great concern and serious attention to Technical and vocational Education (VTE) .While recognizing the role of TVE towards Nation building the federal Government of Nigeria in her National policy on Education (NPE) (2004) has stressed the need for the establishment of vocational and technical schools in the country. However, on the objectives of vocational and technical Education it has been found in the policy document "provision of trained man power in applied science, technology and business particularly at craft, advance craft, and technical level provide the technical knowledge and vocational skills, necessary for agriculture commercial and economic development FGN (2004) To successfully meet the above objective of VTE, sound and qualitative teaching and learning task must be obtainable particularly getting the required competent teachers that could handle the VTE courses very well, as it is in line with statement of Kochair (2010) Which states that every teacher and educationist of experience knows that even the best curriculum and the most perfect syllabus remain dead unless put into life by the right method and right kind of teachers. According to John (2006) there are two major problems facing teaching and learning process in technical schools namely: the storage of equipment's and qualified teaching staff in Nigeria. However in another observation made by Daniel (2006) stated that it is quite obvious that a decades after independents of Nigeria the achievement in technology is not satisfying technology was almost non existence. In the light of the above, the Nigeria technical schools being the grassroots institution of producing manpower for the nation in terms of technology and economic development, as such institutions deserved to be reformed particularly in trends of globalization. In an attempt to examine documents concerning Education reform, it has been found in the text of Okebukola (2006) that the global reforms in Educations particularly in response to the effects of globalization demand that any nation desirous of being a key player must be in the fore front in the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to all its educational plans and progress, he went further to say Educational Institutions around the globe are under increasing pressure to use Information Technology (IT) to teach their students the knowledge and skills they required to be key player in the highly competitive 21st century. However, there is need to understand first what ICT is all about. Kayode (2010) define Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a process of collecting, storing, editing, retrieving and transfer of information in various forms particularly through communication devices such as computers, mobile phones, MP3/MP4 storage device, satellite, World Wide Web (www) etc. for various purposes. Although Information and Communication Technology is not a new agenda to Education to itself, hence the use of Educational technology via audiovisual facilities has been in existence long before the coming of new ICT. According to Adamu (2010) educational devices are classified in to three (3) parts. a. TV, language laboratory and other audio visual resources. b. Feedback devices include teaching machines c. Reprographic equipment like computer programmed leaving materials. In this regard, information and communication technology and Educational technology could be said to have interrelated in terms of using electronic and media or audio visuals towards facilitating teaching and learning process and by virtue of technological changes ICT has come to modify some of the Educational Technology facilities, such as the use of computer power point projector with the old overhead projector. Stressing the need for integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching and learning process, Adamu (2010) also said, mental fatigue is attributed to boredom and lack of interest in the subject, poor teaching method etc. the remedy is to change the method of teaching. And he went further saying the use of teaching. And he went further saying the use of audio visual aids makes teaching and learning process more concrete, more realistic and more dynamic, such devices include computer, television, Radio, filmstrip, Graphics audio cassettes etc. Over the years it is evident that the use of ICT in the classroom activities has made teaching and learning better. Afabu (2009) explained "through the chalk board text book, radio/television and firm have being used for educational process like computer, to them television and film impacted only on the audio visual facilities of user, the computer is capable of activating the senses of sight, hearing and touching of the users. The need for marrying information and communication Technology to vocational and Technical Education has become necessary as most of the activities taking place in our companies and industries are now becoming computerized also the same thing to technical tools and machines as Daniel (2006) stressed that in this Era of information technology computer literacy is needed to stay on the information highway village, he added that vocational Education which trains people for work need this literacy since most work environments are now computerized, most industries use robots controlled by computers to perform operations and as precision jobs. While responding to the challenges of ICT in Nigeria, Technical Colleges in Gombe state are among the thirty five schools benefiting from school net initiative encoding school net (2005) the aim of establishing school net, Nigeria was to assist the Nigeria Education system in the promotion of ICT development in teaching and learning process enabling Nigeria schools child to compete in the world of ICT. Also in the same school net documents (2003) same states were among the thirty five (35) schools selected, by the school net Nigeria equip with ICT facilities thus Government science technical College Gombe and Government Science technical college Kumo. In addition the document further explain that school net Nigeria was launched in September 2001 with the support of Federal ministries of education, Telecommunications, science and Technology and Education tax fund (ETF) school net embodies a partnership between a diverse range of public and private sector in Nigeria. As the technical colleges in Gombe state were opportune to be benefiting from school net facilities in their teaching and learning activities. However, this will be a welcome development particularly for Nigeria to meet the challenges of manpower development necessary for human, materials, economic and technological development especially in the trends of Globalization. Educational institution around the globe are under pressure to use Information Technology (IT) to teach their students the knowledge and the skills required to be key player in the highly competitive 21st century Okebukola (2006) Proceedings of the Multi disciplinary Academic Conference on Sustainable Development Vol. 2 No. 1 July 10 11, 2014, M.L. Audu Auditorium, Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, Nigeria Diraso (2000) said that the introduction of computer and numerically controlled equipments in our industries call for competent staff to handle such sophisticated equipments. It then implies that the nation's technological advancement will in turn affected since the system of teaching and learning is not meeting the challenges of world of ICT. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in VTE Programme. According to Kayode (2010) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is being defined as a process of collecting storing, editing, retrieving and transfer of information in various forms particularly through communication devices such as; computer, mobile phones, MP3/MP4 storage devices, satellite, world wide web (www) etc. for various purposes. VTE in the other hand has been defined as comprehensive term referring to those aspects of educational process involving in addition to general education, the study of technologies and related sciences and acquisition of practical skills, attitude understanding and knowledge relating to occupation in various sectors of economics and social life (NPE 2004) However in addition t