Among the many discrepancies that Mexico has had and has not found a way to calm down, it corresponds to the technological advance that is becoming more and more overwhelming and requires the IT professional to keep up with the development and updates of the same.
Because it is one of the disciplines that are currently applied to all disciplines and even at home, that is why the IT professional must progressively improve, and even more so in a country as technologically retarded as Mexico is. Within the evolution of man, his most faithful companion have been tools, to perform tasks with more ease and skill, but in a globalized and industrialized world full of machines and machinery where man had to participate to make them work, but now in the last decades after the invention of the computer and its subsequent development, it replaced the functionality of man in acting in labor fields, and mainly in industries.
That is why it is worth mentioning that sometimes it has been said that the use of computers and computers have caused displacement and unemployment that is therefore caused by this tool that is very useful, but is interpreted as if it were something counterproductive, when it should be taken with open arms towards development, where it is applied towards the different applications, and that is where unemployment occurs due to technological change.
The development of information technology:
This information technology has been idealized as the interrelation and integration of microelectronics, data processing and, of course, telecommunications, where it is mainly composed of: Human favor, information content, material infrastructure, equipment, software and mechanisms for the electronic exchange of information, elements of policy and regularities and financial resources. So that leads us to ask ourselves a big question:
Is information between computers, comprehensive networks of digital services, satellite transmission and the flow of cross-border data a global problem for humanity and a serious political issue of unpredictable social and economic consciousness?
If we carefully observe and analyze all these components, we will realize that they are the main protagonists of the development of information technologies, towards society, for their development and for their application, it should also be mentioned that these technologies typical of the IT professional, constitute the central nucleus of a multidimensional transformation experienced by the same economy and society, and from here we start to corroborate how important it is to study and control the influences imposed by the human being and that its repercussions are bilateral as a social entity, since that tends to modify not just behavior patterns. But even his way of thinking.
Among the key factors consist of:
- Microelectronics that have made possible the huge and potential advance in computing capacity and within computers Telecommunications that have caused an explosion in the use of great local and global coverage The accelerated development in the creation of programs and applications that are generalized, through easy communication interfaces, which are accessible to the use of multimedia techniques.
Therefore, these factors mean that each day costs are reduced more and therefore it is easier to access and expand the use of these means in other sectors, in the business sector, in health, education, homes and leisure.
This sector worldwide concentrates the majority investments, and there are even theories of sociological trends, with an idealistic approach, which they considered as the "miraculous element", catalyst to the solution of economic-social problems.
These computer and information technologies today act as an important engine of growth, due to their bidirectional interconnected nature, which allows transmission and in general the advantages between different regions and environments.
This new technological revolution is not only indifferent to the barriers of time and space because we can enjoy these services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and anywhere on the planet.
Having access to large knowledge bases that only Universities and libraries could contain, distance learning, collaborations with research centers or employment, Telemedicine or as many more examples of the practically infinite universe of possibilities that these technologies can offer. and that today, it is already part of humanity.
Although it is contradictory, because currently, there are many satellite service providers where their channels are lucratively covered, such as digital television, however none makes social services available even though the exploitation of these technologies could save human lives.
As examples we would have:
- The fully bi-directional channel rental costs around USD 2,000 per month, and with such an infrastructure, multiple telemedicine applications could be implemented, thus saving human lives in poor or geographically remote locations. Satellite technology enables telephone communication from the most remote locations. isolated with commercial rates ranging from $ 3 to $ 1 per minute serving this infrastructure for telephones, fax and data, how many lives could have been saved in Central America in the past natural disaster caused by the hurricane if these technologies had been used?
Contrasts of computing in society
As we have already mentioned and given approach on the scenario of computing and computer science, as a pure source of solutions and not additional problems. Over the years we have verified that progress can be a "double-edged sword", associated with collateral effects, and constant concern for good men.
Today there is a ruthless battle carried out by large companies, for control of the market and digital television, and this has caused a wave of mergers and acquisitions with the consequent appearance of gigantic technology consortiums, with so much influence on society as in the governments themselves and that threaten to become the manipulators of the individual's conscience.
While it continues to grow by leaps and bounds, the "Cyberspace" for development is also becoming a space for pernicious and lucrative actions of all kinds. Scourges such as drug trafficking, child prostitution, neo-fascist and terrorist propaganda, robberies, constant attacks by "hackers" or the very evasion of laws and more aspects belonging to the "dark side"
More than a century ago Frederic Engels raised; "We must not boast of all our victories over nature (…..) Although it is true that the first consequences of this victory are as foreseen, very different secondary consequences can appear, totally unforeseen that not infrequently cancel the first ones".
The beneficial effect of science and technology is determined, fundamentally, by the men who control its development and use, so that to make the progress and well-being that they can offer a reality, a social organization is required first. capable of subordinating the fruit of human activity to the vital interests of society as a whole, and not to that of a group eager for profit and power.
Today the statistics referring to this contrast state:
- 62% of the telephone lines installed worldwide are concentrated in only the 23 richest countries, which represent less than 15% of the world's population. 60% of the total population of underdeveloped countries lives in rural areas However, more than 80% of its scarce telephone lines are located in urban areas Global distribution of new types of networks and services with the following behavior in developed or dominant countries: 84% of subscribers to the cellular mobile service, 91% of all fax machines, 92% of Internet servers and in the entire African continent, there are fewer cell phones than in Thailand, in the world there are 1,466 million households, only a third of them, 500 million, have telephone services,representing 34% of all households in the world, the International Telecommunications Union itself recognizes that today half of humanity is more than two hours away from a telephone, 20% of the world's telephone lines and 90% of mobile phone subscribers are in the 24 most industrialized countries (16% of the world's population), 90% of satellite channels are destined for North-North communication, and calling from south to north it costs 5 to 10 times more than the other way around, only 2% of Latin Americans have access to the INTERNET, in the US itself, while 75% of its inhabitants have access to the Internet, another 21% are functionally illiterate.the International Telecommunications Union itself recognizes that today half of humanity is more than two hours away from a telephone, 20% of the world's telephone lines and 90% of mobile phone subscribers are in the In the 24 most industrialized countries (16% of the world population), 90% of satellite channels are destined for North-North communication, and calling from south to north costs 5 to 10 times more than the other way around, only 2% of Latin Americans have access to the INTERNET, in the US itself, while 75% of its inhabitants have access to the Internet, another 21% are functionally illiterate.the International Telecommunications Union itself recognizes that today half of humanity is more than two hours away from a telephone, 20% of the world's telephone lines and 90% of mobile phone subscribers are in the In the 24 most industrialized countries (16% of the world population), 90% of satellite channels are destined for North-North communication, and calling from south to north costs 5 to 10 times more than the other way around, only 2% of Latin Americans have access to the INTERNET, in the US itself, while 75% of its inhabitants have access to the Internet, another 21% are functionally illiterate.20% of the world's telephone lines and 90% of mobile phone subscribers are in the 24 most industrialized countries (16% of the world's population), 90% of satellite channels are destined for North-North communication, and calling by phone from south to north costs 5 to 10 times more than the other way around, only 2% of Latin Americans have access to the INTERNET, in the US itself while 75% of its inhabitants have access to the network, another 21% are functionally illiterate.20% of the world's telephone lines and 90% of mobile phone subscribers are in the 24 most industrialized countries (16% of the world's population), 90% of satellite channels are destined for North-North communication, and calling by phone from south to north costs 5 to 10 times more than the other way around, only 2% of Latin Americans have access to the INTERNET, in the US itself while 75% of its inhabitants have access to the network, another 21% are functionally illiterate.another 21% are functionally illiterate.another 21% are functionally illiterate.
And as Karl Marx would say: Once again the presence of how the new Industrial Revolution (information age) has multipliedly become the legendary gap between exploited and exploiters, between rich and poor.
Statistics from the UN UNESCO and the ITU suggest that underdeveloped countries barely have: 2% of satellites, 3% of mail, 5% of computers, 5% of Television stations 6% of telephone lines, None of databases or the 10,000 integrated systems of digital networks operating worldwide.
How to achieve this goal is the challenge that third world societies have to adopt? How to face new technologies? What policy to assume to achieve, at least, insertion in the current globalization of information?
The first challenge for Latin America to take on modernization processes is not the market strategies of transnational corporations or technology transfer, but rather the development of coherent public policies that value telecommunications as a factor for socioeconomic development.
These policies should not only stimulate national and regional production, but also take into account political, cultural and educational phenomena to preserve identity and sovereignty.
In these regions, new technologies tend to present serious contradictions: they entered the continent about twenty years ago, associated with the transnational banking and airline companies, and not as an element of infrastructural transformation in industrial production and basic services.
The modernization of electronic networks also allowed more than eighty billion dollars to flow in less than a week from Mexico to North America in 1982, when the release of the dollar was decreed, thus generating a sharp drop in the purchasing power of the currency. national.
Does computerization eliminate or sharpen the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries?
The consequences of the so-called "computerization of society" have been manifested for more than a decade in the endemic and growing structural unemployment of industrialized countries, the global deployment of large corporations, in unequal commercial exchange, the acceleration of financial operations and stocks, the sharp fluctuation of bank interest rates, etc. In fact, all these technological changes become one of the aggravating elements of the unpayable foreign debt that overwhelms the underdeveloped countries.
Informatics will not suppress social inequalities, class struggles or ideological conflicts. On the contrary, due to its socioeconomic impact in countries with a market structure, it will accentuate disparities, force confrontations, and promote radical changes and alternatives.
Advances in automated telecommunication, microelectronic technologies, and as a result of these, informatics - applicable to any type of sequence or logical process - make traditional systems obsolete, erode acquired skills, and synthesize or eliminate functions. It is in this sense that states and governments are obliged to consider a review of their development strategies, including the reorganization of their educational systems and the reevaluation of their aims and objectives from primary to postgraduate level.
What policy to assume to achieve, at least, insertion in the current globalization of information?
It is true, all human activity has positive and negative aspects, consequences and development, or perhaps development can be "disguised" as progress when it really is a setback, those and many more very well argued speculations as both positive and negative, but if really we want to get to the truth we must place ourselves in the middle, neither for nor against, although computing is really a really effective tool, it should not be left aside because its scope and potential should not be underestimated.
The rational use of computer science brings to man a higher quality in his standard of living by facilitating his work by dedicating more of his time to more creative tasks with protection for his life by using computer simulations.
Advances in computer science in communications allow full access to information and communication with everyone.
If information technology and communications were used for the full well-being of humanity, the benefit it brings to man is indisputable, but if they still exist: 800 million adults continue to be illiterate, 130 million schoolchildren grow up without having access to basic education With 800 million people chronically hungry and lacking access to health services, the external debt of the third world has risen from 500 billion dollars in 1981 to 2.1 billion in 2000.
How to talk about advanced techniques where you have to make significant capital investments if there is this situation in the world?
- The Gross National Product (GNP) per capita in developed countries was 8 thousand 20 dollars in 1978; 20 years later in 1998 it amounted to $ 25,870. Unemployed: 1,103 million in 1981, 1,600 million in 2000. The richest 20% of the population makes 86% of total spending on private consumption while 20% more The poor made 1.3%. According to the UN in 1960, 20% of the world's population living in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest nations. In 1997 this ratio was 74.
The gap between developed and underdeveloped countries with Computerization is not eliminated and it is becoming more acute because:
- 50% of the world's population has never called by phone. In May, the INTERNET had 390 million users and the United States has the largest number of users. 71% of articles on the INTERNET are in English. THE INTERNET has begun to transform in an instrument of private commercialization and political propaganda and in some cases of aggression and it is increasingly moving away from the scientific, investigative and educational exchange activities, which have so far made sense of this global network.
What policy to assume to achieve, at least, insertion in the current globalization of information?
Each country must draw up its own strategy to achieve the introduction of the benefits that these technologies bring to society.
These aspects were initiated in the IV Summit of Non-Aligned Countries (Algiers 1973) where the project of a new international order of computerization and communications was born, the third world was not motivated by the events and did not foresee the transformation in progress.
The cause of this situation was: the modular nature of the technology itself, the lack of timely disclosure, the crisis of national policies in Latin America, tendencies towards financial super concentration, progressive advance of the privatization policy.
The main component of the changes is the deregulation and privatization of the norms, goods and resources of nations, both industrialized and underdeveloped.
An example of how to achieve this is our country, where since the 70s we have been working in this direction
The end of the century in particular has been marked by a hitherto independent technological convergence. This convergence experienced by Electronics, Informatics and Telecommunications, has its greatest exponent in the vertiginous growth achieved by the Internet and even more so in the project carried out by 130 North American universities and which has been called Internet 2.0.
As a result of this confluence, new concepts such as: "Information Technology", "Knowledge Society", "Information Age" or "Telematics" begin to become general.
Taking into account all this development that if we analyze it has a behavior in geometric progression, we intend in our work to provide information that has been collected to answer these questions that constitute the objectives of our work, such as:
Is information between computers, comprehensive digital service networks, satellite transmission and cross-border data flow a global problem for humanity and a serious political issue with unpredictable social and economic consequences?
Does Computerization eliminate or exacerbate the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries?
What policy to assume to achieve, at least, insertion in the current globalization of information?
It is also intended to show the policy assumed by our country to face this development for the good of the Mexican Society.
The enrollment of students at the computer science degree level already exceeds 70,000 students. This represents 6.56% of the total enrollment of bachelor's degrees in the country and places computer science programs in fourth place, in terms of enrollment, after accounting, law and administration programs. For its part, enrollment in computer technician training programs has grown exponentially, to such an extent that in 1993 it already exceeded 170,000 students.
Despite how shocking these numbers could be, it is important to note that the training of human resources specialized in computing is still incipient. The vast majority of existing programs are aimed at training computer users and not at preparing professionals who can innovate in this field. Without passing a severe judgment on the educational institutions that offer this type of program, the Informatics Consultative Group recently created by INEGI considers that there are less than 10 institutions with the possibility of developing in-depth human resources specialization programs. This is a consequence of the needs of teachers and necessary instructional material, which are growing day by day due to the vertiginous evolution of information technologies.
The foregoing is evident when reviewing the relationship between computer science research and postgraduate programs in this discipline. Although enrollment has grown to just over 1,500 students, they only represent 2% of undergraduate enrollment. Likewise, the number of researchers in this field is very small, reaching only 270. On the other hand, salary levels in industry and business are significantly higher than those of universities and research centers, for which many of they abandon their academic activities.
The results of a survey on computer science research projects applied by INEGI to 38 research centers, including universities, companies, and research laboratories, show that in our country only 57 computer research projects are being developed. of which only 17.5% refer to basic research. In addition, only three of these projects have a budget of more than $ 200,000, which shows the short-term vision of promoting research in this field.
Additionally, it should be noted that there are no academic programs that closely link computer science with the other disciplines in the same study plan. The lack of this type of program reinforces the unfortunate conception of the computer scientist as a technologist in a white coat who only knows about technologies per se, but who does not have knowledge about the applicability of these technologies in other disciplines. If we agree that information technology can help reinvent the way an organization operates, it is important to create new hybrid programs that give professionals a not only technological but more universal vision.
Having commented on the role of informatics as a fundamental discipline in the scientific and technological development of a society, and presented a summary of the situation of education and research in informatics in our country, it is necessary to proceed to make some reflections and recommendations in relation to the educational process.
In a broad sense, education should not be conceived as a mechanism for acquiring knowledge but as a process, in permanent improvement, which affects all facets of an individual's global personality. The new educational models of the 20th century have proposed a more enriching vision of this process. The theories of Decroly and Freinet on an active education based on teamwork, as well as those of Neill and his disciples on anti-authoritarian education demonstrated the importance of conceiving the learner as an individual with personality, interests, context and qualities own.
Of course, these reflections and recommendations are not intended to be exhaustive. In such an exciting topic as education, there are surely multiple aspects to learn and discuss. Hands, brains and hearts at work.
The previous reflections lead us to a more comprehensive conception of the educational process, which seems fundamental to me. A professional without imagination and inventiveness, without adequate knowledge or without love for what he does, is not a complete professional. The graduate or computer engineer must be creative to find new solutions, to identify opportunities for improvement and to take advantage of their knowledge in the use of information technologies. In this sense, the permanent updating of the study plans, the incorporation of laboratories that allow students to play with state-of-the-art technology and that stimulate the invention of new devices or applications, as well as the participation of students in research activities together with the teachers,are some elements that should always be present in the training of professionals in this area.
On the other hand, creativity and invention need to be stimulated from an early age. It is impossible to pretend to awaken these skills with only four years of undergraduate training. As already mentioned, there are a good number of researchers working in this field, and it will be necessary to be open to analyze the pedagogical alternatives that they propose.
In summary, and based on the aforementioned reflections, some recommendations can be made on the education of information technologies in our country:
It is necessary to conceive education in general, and computer science education in particular, with a broad and comprehensive approach that considers all aspects related to the person and their context.
The curriculum of computer science study programs must be flexible, dynamic and appropriate to the social context where it will be applied. Likewise, the characteristics of the learner must be considered within the planning of the methodologies and contents, which is particularly important in adult education programs.
Of course, these reflections and recommendations are not intended to be exhaustive. In such an exciting topic as education, there are surely multiple aspects to learn and discuss. Hands, brains and hearts at work.
