What is Information Technology?
• Statement of issue. What is remarkable about information technology is both how pervasive it has become and how recent is its history. As Albert Borgmann reminds us, the contemporary use of the word information emerged only in the middle of the twentieth century. Prior to this information as a concept lived an obscure bookish life. With the rise of mechanistic and reductionist explanations of the function of the world as promulgated by physical, natural and social scientists, it became necessary to provide order to the world, to get “from atoms and molecules to patterns of landmarks that would order and guide our lives (Borgmann 1999, p. 10). In the formal theories described by originators such as Claude Shannon, and later in the elaborate and elusive theories of thinkers such as Kantor (1977), the semantic and syntactic structures of energy and material flows were described as a kind of communication. All information has a central structure: The relation of a sign, a thing and a per
Information technology, as defined by the Information Technology Association of America
(ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." Encompassing the computer and information systems industries, information technology is the capability to electronically input, process, store, output, transmit, and receive data and information, including text, graphics, sound, and video, as well as the ability to control machines of all kinds electronically.
Information technology is comprised of computers, networks, satellite communications, robotics, cable television, electronic mail ("e-mail"), electronic games, and automated office equipment. The information industry consists of all computer, communications, and electronics-related organizations, including hardware, software, and services. Completing tasks using information technology results in rapid processing and information mobility, as well as improved reliability and integrity of processed information.
Information Technology (IT) is everyday technology used to acquire, store, manipulate or transmit information; such as telephones and telecommunications products, video equipment, websites, message systems, computer hardware, and more. Accessible IT (AIT) is information technology designed with special features and properties built-in that make it more useable for people with a variety of disabilities. Examples of Accessible Information Technology include: • Computer software that works with text-to-speech software • Web pages with resizable fonts • Desktop computers with front-mounted audio and USB ports • Printers and copiers with simple layouts and easy-to-reach controls • Message systems with text captioning options In schools AIT allows students with awide range of abilities and disabilities to participate in the same curriculumtogether, and reduces the time and money technology specialists and administrators spend on maintaining adapted and separate technology. For More informati
In the 1960s and 1970s, the term information technology (IT) was a little known phrase that was used by those who worked in places like banks and hospitals to describe the processes they used to store information. There was no such thing as a college degree in IT, for example. Software development and computer programming were best left to the computer scientists and mathematical engineers, due to their complicated nature. Over the next several years, with the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s and its everyday use in the home and the workplace, the world has evolved into the information age. With the paradigm shift to computing technology and paperless workplaces, information technology has come to be a household phrase. It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information. By the early 21st century, nearly every child in the Western world and many in oth
