Information Technology Development Promotes Educational Equity

In the previous article, we started from both domestic and international perspectives and talked about the importance and scarcity of education, as well as the uneven distribution of educational resources which caused by the gap between the rich and the poor, and regional differences. Under the background of the rapid development of information technology, this article will talk about the contribution of information technology to the popularization of quality education.

1. Social Change Drives Education Progress

First of all, the third scientific and technological revolution is another major leap forward in the field of science and technology after the steam technology revolution and the power technology revolution in the history of human civilization. The third scientific and technological revolution was marked by the invention and application of atomic energy, electronic computers, space technology, and bioengineering, involving fields such as information technology, new energy technology, new material technology, biotechnology, space technology, and marine technology. It is not difficult to see that emerging technologies have penetrated into all areas of society and have promoted the continuous development of society as a whole. Social reforms and developments directly increase the demand for talents, thereby forcing the education industry to increase its own efficiency and transform its traditional model to meet the needs of today’s society.

2. Information Technology Development Alleviates the Scarcity of Educational Resources

The most direct manifestation of the scarcity of educational resources is the scarcity of talents. Especially in some underdeveloped areas, there is not enough attraction to attract talents. However, nowadays, the development of Internet technology makes talents no longer an essential element of education. It also changed the teaching model centered on a professor in the traditional sense. At the same time it also provides information carriers other than books. For example, the popular online course MOOC(massive online course) has become popular in recent years. It has now attracted the participation of more than 190 countries, the registration of more than 5.9 million learners, the joining of more than 80 universities, the sharing of more than 400 courses, and the investment of more than $350 million. Perhaps in the future, any places with networks can enjoy high quality higher education.

3. Development of Information Technology Promotes the Development of Disciplines

Firstly, the development of information technology provides a richer source of information and research tools for the study of various disciplines. For example, supercomputer center, various simulation tools and so on. This is obvious and will not be discussed in detail in this article. On top of this, as the depth of development of various disciplines continues to deepen, the exploration speed of human intelligence becomes slower and slower. The simultaneous emergence of artificial intelligence technology has given this issue a new solution. Today, using artificial intelligence to explore the laws of nature has become a new research direction. Machine intelligence can simulate the human perception and analysis process, and use its own advantages to explore the areas that human intelligence is difficult to reach.

4. The emergence of the digital divide

The science fiction writer William Gibson once said: The future has already emerged, but it has not been evenly distributed. Although the development of information technology can solve the problem of distribution of educational resources from various angles. But not everyone can enjoy Internet resources. In Africa and other backward areas without internet resources, will information technology strengthen the social inequality? This concern is not unreasonable, even in the distant future, even if the Internet is universal. IoT, intelligent teaching and other information technologies are bound to be the same as the economic situation, and differentiation are increasing.

In a word, information technology can solve the problem of popularization of quality education to some extent. The common development of economy, culture and infrastructure is the fundamental solution to this problem.

Quality Education

This picture was took when I worked as a volunteer teacher in Henan Province.

What is education? A kind of resource, a kind of product, a right that everyone is born with. In different situations, the answers are different. No one can deny the fact that education is important for every individual and every human civilization, but at the same time it is also a kind of scarce resources (defined by sociological research) that only few people can have.

1.The Significance of Education

Every country, every human civilization’s development depends on education. Firstly, youth people are the future and the driving force of development of a society. Secondly, the level of higher education determines the level of science and technology. It is the first proposition for productivity development that the harmonious interaction between natural science and social science commonly constructs the social productivity development. Imperial examination system which is sometime seemed as the fifth important invention of China was invented in Sui Dynasty. This system not only provided a channel for the rise of talent but also guided the orientation and content of education with examination content. The progressiveness of this system made the success of later Tang Dynasty. And Imperial examination system was abolished in Qing Dynasty which was also seemed as one important reason for the perdition of Qing dynasty. What’s more the problem that tradition Chinese education concept ignored the study of science and technology also led to the difficulty of industrial revolution in China. As a result of that, China has suffered several times of aggressions in modern times.

2.The Problems of Educational Resources 

2.1.Scarcity

In China the Gross enrolment rate (Proportion of students to the proportion of the corresponding school age population) of higher education of 1977 (the time of restoration of the college entrance examination) was only 1.56%. And in 2016 this number has increased to 42.7%. But there are still more than half number of youth can’t get higher education. What’s more, coastal areas have absolute advantages in higher education access opportunities. Ethnic areas in the west also have comparative advantages. The central provinces have large population, but lack of high-quality education resources. Uneven distribution of resources problem is severe.

The average Gross enrollment rate of the world is 22.9%, and in development countries this number is 10.4%, in Africa this number is only 2.5%. At the beginning of 21th century, there were no more than 300 higher education institutions in Africa. Some countries did not even had one university. The education systems in some countries was even paralyzed by the war. A survey of the world bank shows that nowadays 40 million children fail to go to school in Sub-Saharan Africa.

2.2.Geographically Uneven Distribution

Education is not an independent aspect of a society, but a reflation of economic, culture, geographical conditions and so on, especially under the background of globalization. The more developed countries with better condition are more attractive for talents. For instance, America is the world academic plateau. But some scholars believe that American basic education is not that advanced. The reason of its higher education success is the influx of talents from Russia and India after Cold War. In recent years China becomes another source of talents for America. That is why Chinese government starts Thousand Talents program, 111 program and so many relative programs to attract talent backflow. In Asia the financial centers are Japan, Singapore and China. The chart below shows the numbers of foreign students in different year. Education becomes a kind of product in nowadays world.

2.3.Uneven Distribution Caused by Social Stratification

According to some Sociological scholars, the society can be divided into three classes: upper class, middle class, bottom class. Although governments are keep trying to break class curing. But each class has built some “walls” to prevent themselves from being replaced. The “walls” of upper class is blood relationship, and the “walls” between middle class and bottom class is education. It can be seen that the distribution of educational resources is unfair to the people of different classes. In capitalist society higher class has more power to pay the tuition fee. In China higher class also with more choices for their children, studying abroad can be used as a backup option for the failure of the college entrance examination.

3.Some Attempts of Reform

3.1.Increased Enrollment

In China increased enrollment policy has successfully increased the Gross enrolment rate from 1.56% to 42.7%. But this has led to the devaluation of graduate degree. Firstly, because of that it is difficult for today’s learning resources to support such a large number of students. Secondly, because of the mismatching between the number of jobs and the number of graduates.

3.2.Government Support

No can deny the effect and power of government support. For instance, in China 985 project and 211 project has successfully increased the higher education level. But on the other hand this breaks the market competition of education, and leads to the polarization of universities because the support power of government is limited and can only concentrate on several colleges and Universities. The strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.

3.3.Investment Help

For instance, as a global partner of the UN Millennium Development Goals, the world bank made a commitment to increase $750 million investment in basic education of the weakest countries, to help developing countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of Education: universal primary education and gender equality, especially in the Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

All in all, quality education is still a common problem in the world. The government of each country has never stop to try to solve these problems. And the development of information technology provides some new ways and new methods to solve these problems, such as MOOCs. And I will discuss these in detail in my next blog.

Epistemology and Our Society

“Don’t be afraid that knowledge is infinite, every step forward will bring more scenery (怕什么真理无穷，进一寸有一寸的欢喜)”. As we discussed in class, Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge and knowing, which also referred to as “theory of knowledge”. With the development of science and technology, the influence of Epistemology to our society and disciplines development is getting more and more far-reaching.

1.The Original Mode of Knowing

According to the original study in 1960, people’s cognition level of knowledge can be divided into four stages. At the beginning, people hold the view that knowledge can be only right and wrong. In the second stage, people can awake to the diversity and uncertainty of different views. Knowing that every people’s view have rationality in specific condition. In the third stage, people start to realize that some views is more reasonable than others. In the last stage, people’s cognition skill become mature. When analyzing things, individuals have their own standpoints and views. They can stick to the established positions and make flexible adjustments.

2.More Exploration of Epistemology

With the further research of individuals. A new mode from another perspective emerge. In this mode, people’s cognition level of knowledge is also divided into four stages. At the beginning, people hold the view that authority knows all the truths. In the second stage, people can awake to the uncertainty of knowledge and realize that they can’t get all truths from authority. When come to third stage, independent knowers begin to doubt that authority is the only source of knowledge, and realize that the views they own are equally valid. In the highest stage, contextual knowers construct their personal views by judging the situation evidence, and thinks that experts should also be evaluated. Knowledge is developing, and knowledge is constantly reconstructed according to new evidence and new situations. Just like the view of ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle: Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

3.Epistemology and Big Data

The 21st century which is also called the century of information. The development of information engineering, especially big data technology gives Epistemology a new definition.

In the traditional sense, the subjects of epistemology mainly refers to human beings. But now, the understanding of the subject extends the instrument as the extension, and the computer is the extension of the brain. In order to analyze big data, Cloud computing can also be seen as the extension of the brain.

Secondly, in the traditional sense the main purpose of human exploration of the world is to satisfy the curiosity. Nowadays, the development of science and technology is increasingly influenced by social demands and capital.

Thirdly, the emerging of social networking site has changed the essence of social sciences. Traditionally, individual behavior and activity rules are extremely complex. It is difficult to use rigorous computation and logical reasoning to do research, mostly based on group investigation and analysis. But using social networking sites, individual behaviors and activities can be quantified and can be calculated based on a large amount of behavioral data. In the past, we dealt with scattered and structured data. Now, more is to deal with the mass of unstructured data in mixed states. This give social science a new identity. And from a certain point of view, this makes social science more like a rigorous natural science.

4.The Social Influence of Epistemology Based on Big Data

Every technology is a double-edged sword. Just like the force in the movie “Star Wars”, the bright side of force are always be with the dark side.

No wonder big data has changed our social in lots of parts. For instance, The Alibaba company provides credit services for small and micro companies, rather than meeting, they prefer to view customer’s data. Thus infer the credibility of the customer. According an American scholar, if you know a person’s past social data, it is expected that the accuracy of forecasting its future behavior will be 93%.

But on the contrary, sometime before data mining, we even don’t know what kind of result we will get. So the privacy problems become more and more severe. On top of that, big data becomes a new kind of resource which can only control by government and huge internet companies. As a normal person, it is nearly impossible to use this kind of resource. To a certain extent, this Increases the power of the ruling class once again. Just like when capitalism was just born.

All in all, Epistemology directs the development of society. At the same time, the achievements of social development also change the essence of Epistemology.

 

 

What is information and what does it mean to us

The word “Information” can be said to be the most widely used, most extensive and frequently used word in contemporary society. And one of the most overflowing words. It is not only widely used in all aspects of human social life, but also widely used in the study of life phenomena and non life phenomena in nature.

In the early days, people’s understanding of information was very superficial. The evolution of information concept has gone through three stages: ontology, information theory, epistemology.

1. The Three Stages of Information Concept Development

1.1 Ontology

From the point of view of ontology, Information can be defined as the form of the existence of things and the form of the state of motion. The “things” here refer to all possible objects that exist in our society, thinking and nature. “existence of things”  refers to the internal structure of things and its connection with outside world. “motion” refers to changes in all aspects, including mechanical, physical, chemical, biological, thinking, and social movements. And “state of motion” refers to the  features, trends and laws of things. In the field of Library and information this concept is widely used.

1.2 Information Theory

The earliest study of information as a scientific object is the field of communication, And this leads to the birth of information theory. In this area, information is the name of the content we exchange with the external world in the process of adapting to the external world and also in the process of adapting this adaptation to the external world. The process of receiving and using information is the process of adapting to the contingency of the external environment. One of the most important concept in information theory is entropy. Just as entropy is the measure of the degree of chaos, the information contained in a message set is the measure of the degree of order. Here, information is seen as the measure of the degree of order.

Above is the definition of the Shannon entropy H.

Above is the definition of the joint entropy.

1.3 Epistemology

In this layer information is defined as the way and the state of motion that the subject perceives or expresses. Here, the subject perceives the information that the external world inputs to the subject. And “expresses” refer to the information that the subject outputs to the external world. In this layer information is mainly used to assist people’s decision making. This leads to the birth of Game Theory which is widely used in economics, politics, military science, information science, engineering cybernetics, decision making, management, forecasting, accounting, statistics, business management social psychology and lots of other areas.

2. The Connection Between Theory and Reality

As the above article says, ontology provides us a scientific method of understanding things. Information theory is to solve the communication problem of information, such as information expression, transmission, conversion, storage and so on. Epistemology is to solve people’s behavior decision problems, that is, we should make correct choices and guide actions based on understanding. The theories that are related to information have many close connections with the physical world.

2.1 The Application of Information Theory in Economics

The basic concepts of economic theory such as information entropy, information efficiency, encoding and decoding, are transferred from the information theory. The role of economic information is to eliminate the uncertainty of the economic system. The amount of information is equal to the reduction of entropy. Several decades ago, the Japanese made accurate inferences about the situation of Daqing oilfield through the combination of information and economy and published newspapers and periodicals in China. In recent years, the rise of online shopping has even promoted the economic growth of the whole country. And this just proved that: Information is the increase in certainty.

As a student who majored in information engineering, one of our responsibilities is to apply the theory to different projects, to different areas. And from my point of view the essence of engineering is to set up a connection between science theory and human needs.