Technology is a term that refers to the application of scientific knowledge in practical situations. It increases the utility of products and services, and contributes to value creation.
It can be applied to both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones like software. It also includes the processes, systems and architectures used to create, deploy, maintain and manage these technologies.
Social and economic forces play a significant role in what technologies are undertaken, paid attention to, invested in, or used. Those influences include government policy, local and national regulations, consumer acceptance, risk capital, economic competition, tax incentives, and scientific discoveries.
Often, these choices are made by reaching a compromise among different types of constraints: absolute physical laws and properties (such as energy conservation or flexibility), economic, political, social, ecological, and ethical. The optimum design takes all these factors into account and strikes a balance among them that maximizes the usefulness of the new technology without adversely affecting those who will use it.
Advantages of Technology in Education
In the classroom, students now have access to a huge variety of learning materials online on their laptops or mobile devices. These include scientific articles, journals, research papers, educational videos, tutorials/guidebooks, informational websites, online databases, and blogs of educators/authors.
Aside from the benefits that students receive from technology, the technology is saving our environment by eliminating the usage of paper books and other learning resources. It is also helping teachers and students save on costs, thereby making learning easier.
