Information means facts we learn about something. Communication means sharing information between two or more people. Technology means the scientific methods and machines we use to do a task. Putting these together, Information and Communication Technology, or ICT, is the short name for the tools and methods we use to create, show, store, send, and exchange information.
What counts as an ICT tool?
Look around your home, school, and the nearby office. A radio, a television, a newspaper, a telephone, a computer, a laptop, a projector, a printer, a scanner, a camera, a smartphone, and an e-book reader are all examples of ICT tools. Each one helps us with information in its own way: some let us create it, some let us display it, some let us store it, and some let us send it to someone else.
So is every machine an ICT tool?
No, and this is worth getting clear early. A bicycle is a machine, and a very useful one, but it does nothing with information. It moves a person from one place to another. A rice cooker is also a machine, and it does nothing with information either, it cooks. Neither is an ICT tool. A radio, on the other hand, does almost nothing physical for you. What it does is take information that exists far away and put it into your ears. That is the test. Ask what the machine actually handles. If the answer is information, it is an ICT tool. If the answer is people, food, water, or cloth, it is not.
One-way and two-way tools
ICT tools can be grouped by how they let us communicate.
One-way tools
A radio, a television, and a newspaper let us receive information, but we cannot reply through the same tool right away. These are one-way communication tools.
Two-way tools
A telephone, a mobile, and a computer let us receive information and reply straight away, having a back-and-forth conversation. These are two-way communication tools.
Sorting three tools, step by step
The quickest way to sort any tool is to ask one question: can I reply through this same tool, right now? Watch it work on three examples.
A newspaper. You read an article you disagree with. Can you reply through the newspaper itself, right now? No. The paper was printed yesterday and it cannot hear you. You could write a letter to the editor, but that is a different tool and a different day. So a newspaper is a one-way tool.
A telephone. Someone tells you something you disagree with. Can you reply through the telephone, right now? Obviously yes, you simply speak. The information travels in both directions along the same line. So a telephone is a two-way tool.
A radio. This one traps people. A radio programme may invite listeners to phone in, so it feels two-way. But look carefully at what is doing the replying. It is not the radio. The radio has no way of sending your voice anywhere, and it never did. You reply using a telephone. The radio by itself remains a one-way tool, and it is worth being strict about that, because the test asks about this same tool, not about any tool nearby.
| Tool | What it is used for | One-way or two-way |
|---|---|---|
| Radio | Listening to songs, news, and programmes | One-way |
| Newspaper | Reading news and articles already printed | One-way |
| Telephone | Talking with people who are far away | Two-way |
| Computer | Creating, storing, and sharing documents and photos | Two-way |
| Printer and scanner | Turning digital files into paper, and paper into digital files | Neither, it only changes the form |
How communication got faster
It helps to see where these tools came from. Not so long ago, sending news from Kathmandu to a village in the hills meant giving a letter to someone walking that way, and waiting days or weeks for a reply. The postal service made that more reliable but not much faster. The telephone changed things completely, because for the first time a reply could come back in the same minute rather than the same month. The internet then did something different again: it let one person send the same information to thousands of people at once, and let anyone reply.
Notice that each step did not simply make the old way quicker. It changed what was possible. A letter could never have reached a thousand people. A telephone call cannot be read by someone in ten years time, but a printed newspaper can. This is why we still use old tools alongside new ones, rather than throwing them away.
A quick way to sort any ICT tool is to ask one question: can I reply through this same tool right now? If yes, it is a two-way tool. If no, it is a one-way tool. The words this same tool are the important part, because a nearby phone does not make the radio two-way.
Many students answer that a television is two-way, because you can change the channel or press buttons on a remote. Pressing buttons is not replying. Changing the channel only chooses which information you receive, it sends nothing back to the people who made the programme. A television stays a one-way tool.
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