PROMOTING ICT IN EDUCATION: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ROLES TO ENHANCE A BETTER LEARNING

Abstrak Teknologi informasi dan komunikasi memiliki manfaat dan kelemahan untuk siswa di kelas pengajaran bahasa Inggris. Peran teknologi informasi dan komunikasi tidak dapat lepas dari kelemahannya., karena setiap fungsinya tidak hanya dapat membantu, namun juga berbahaya untuk siswa jika mereka menggunakannya untuk hal-hal yang negatif. Untungnya penggunaan teknologi infomasi dan komunikas dalam kelas harus selalu dipromosikan guru Bahasa Inggrsis yang mengharapkan bahwa siswanya akan mendapatkan informasi lebih dan terbaru melalui peralatan seperti internet. Untuk meyakinkannya, guru akan menjadi model dalam menggunakannya. Mereka harus menyajikan cara belajar yang efektif dan modern dengan menggunakan peralatan yang canggih seperti internet, ponsel android,dan jenis lain dari peralatan wireless. Teori harus diikuti oleh praktek yang nyata yang dapat dengan mudah diraih oelh siswa. Lebih banyak praktek yang mereka lakukan, maka mereka akan menjadi lebih baik lagi. Faktanya telah banyak ahli menggunakan teknologi infomasi dan komunikasi dalam bidang pendidikan.


Introduction
The term ICT or Information and Communication Technology is not a new abbreviation for most people in the world. Many kinds of media in ICT have been used either in formal places such as a company, an office, a school, a college or informal spots like at home, cafes, movie theatres, and the like. The use of ICT is not without any reason. There are various functions of ICTs applicable for the people who need some practical and automatic tools to help them clear up their work and duty. Manual tools and media are being left behind as more innovation of ICTs has been used widespread. Such atmosphere is also found in the context of education. Allah SWT says in the holy Qur`an: Nowadays, there is a tendency that both teachers and students prefer automatic and practical tools than manual, but sometimes impractical tools to undertake their works and tasks. Tools of ICTs are considered more reliable as they can be practically used in various situations and functions. Teachers in a modern city tend to use technology to work on their syllabus, materials, learners` tasks, and tests. Otherwise, learners also feel that ICTs are effective as they can do their tasks easily via internet technology.
As a reflection, Reddi 1 istresses upon the following phenomena.
As a parent or an educator, you have seen that many young learners seem to spend a lot of time watching television and the computer. When given some project, they provide information collected from the internet instead of a textbook. Do you think this much exposure to media is useful? Do you think the media are educating the learners?
The above reflection can be both a challenge and a problem faced by every teacher and parent in any place in the world. Similar cases are easily found throughout everyday lives. 125 Children, who are learners in a school or a college, might survive longer in front of a television compared with just looking at a book. They prefer to use internet for hours than quote some phrases out of a printed article. When a teacher asks learners to do a homework or a task, the learners use internet to find some information related to the task and then to copy and paste the information on their paper sheet. The more time spent for tools of ICTs, the worse the learners` minds can work. However, this does not mean that ICTs are useless and are not appropriate for learners` education. There should be a clear description consisting of identification, types, advantages and disadvantages, and functions of the ICT tools. This paper describes basic meaning of ICT, types of ICT, advantages and disadvantages of ICT respectively. Talking about ICTs, it does not mean that we only focus on the latest computer and internet-based technologies, but also to simple audio visual aids such as transparency and slides, tape and cassette recorders and radio; video cassettes and television; and movies. These older and more familiar technologies are referred to under the collective heading of "analogue media" while the newer computer and internet-based technologies are called "digital media".

Basics of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
However, nowadays, along with the increased convergence or blending of the engineering designs and with the coming together of the satellite and the computer, the dividing lines between these different media are becoming blurred and consequently, the way people define and refer to ICTs is also getting blurred 3 . 3 It is the effect of many types of technologies that are produced and blended between old and new ones. The effect has also decreased the gap between people`s views that focus laptop or wireless as new ones, while radio and telephones are the old ones. People can use both new and old simultaneously by combining them into a more advanced technological system which finally create new blended technologies without any tendency to one type of ICTs.
Livingstone stated that the notion of "new" can either be seen with reference to the "newness of technology" or in the context of "what`s new for society" about these media 4 . 4 Her further states that what is new for western world is not necessarily so for the rest of the world. Within a social context, the introduction of radio or television may be as "new" as the introduction of internet. While there is much euphoria about the ICTs, after more than half a century of research, social scientists are still sceptical about tall and ill defined claims about potential societal changes that may follow a technological innovation. The means that "new" cannot merely defined either in terms of time and time scales or in terms of the technology innovation.

Types of ICTs in Education
There are various types of ICTs used in EFL classrooms. The types are adapted based on a need of learning goals. Commonly, ICTs media are divided into synchronous and asynchronous media. Synchronous media require all students to gather together at the same time though in different locations. Asynchronous media of ICTs allow for students in the learning process to be at "different times" and "different places." Such groups of ICT media are categorized under the term "delivery system," which is based upon their characteristics.
Look at the following table. g) Uniform quality: If content is well produced and is of good quality, the same quality can be delivered to the rich and the ppor, the urban and the rural equally and at the same low cost.

Synchronous Media Asynchronous Media
The advantages arise because of its nature. It is used for pleasure, entertainment, study and work purposes. Besides using it for pleasure and entertainment, we also use it for study and work purposes 6 . 6 ICT encourages learning; it motivates the individual and at the same time gives him (or her) the capability to do certain activities. Besides that, its presence betters the learning environment and enriches the learning experience. 7 Punie claims that ICT enables the students to process the learning content in an entertaining and interesting way 88 , while Markovac and Rogulya have proved that the usage of ICT also develops the child"s competences. ICT is not only an educational tool, but also a supporting one, because it helps to develop children with special needs and behavioral problems. 9 Besides that, it lays the foundation for long life learning and personal development, because among other things it also develops the digital competence and technical competences, which are needed for employment, education, self-development, and general activeness in the modern society.
However, there are also disadvantages of ICTs that can disturb teaching and learning process, 10 as follows: 1) High infrastructure and start up costs: It costs money to build ICT systems and to maintain them.
2) Tend toward centralized uniform content in economies of scale: The larger the numbers, the lower the cost. This means that sometime we try to reach large numbers so we make content common, not taking into account individual differences.
3) Are not ideally location and problem sensitive: Address problems in a general way, but cannot, without special effort, solve local and culturally sensitive problems. In one of their studies, Newhouse 1313 and Oliver 1414 divided the dangers and disadvantages of ICT usage into three major categories. The first category includes dangers and disadvantaged of ICT usage for the child"s socio-cultural development. The writers found out that ICT supposedly endangers the child"s social development, because children spend less time playing with their peers and are mostly isolated; ICT is supposedly to offer virtual experiences from "the second hand" and not realistic experiences from "the first hand"; besides that the marketing of ICT is in our society very intense and prays on vulnerable children, which represent the biggest part of its target group. The second category includes the dangers and disadvantages of ICT usage for the child"s cognitive development. ICT is supposedly to endanger the child"s intellectual development, the development of imagination (it stimulates passivity and not activity), and the development of language (lack of communication with peers). The last category includes dangers and disadvantages of ICT usage for the child"s wellbeing. Children are supposedly to spent more time in enclosed spaces and not outdoors, the child"s health is also endangered (sitting usage, which increases the risk of obesity), the usage of ICT supposedly leads to addiction with technology and exposure to inappropriate content., besides all that the chances of child interacting with family members are also decreased, what is supposedly to lead towards decreasing of child"s emotional development.

Conclusions
All these dangers and disadvantages of ICT usage are mostly connected with the amount of ICT usage, its content and the degree of parent control. Today, children can through ICT more easily access various contents than ever before. Adults do not have control over this access, because the media environment has changed so drastically that a complete control over the child"s usage of ICT is today practically impossible 15 .1 5