characteristics of educational technology

Electronic data processing Main article:  Data storage device  ... Electronic data processing.. Early electronic computers such as  Colossus  made use of  punched tape , a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete. [14]  Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of  delay line memory  was developed to remove the clutter from  radar  signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line. [15]  The first  random-access  digital storage device was the  Williams tube , based on a standard  cathode ray tube , [16]  but the information stored in it and delay line memory was volatile in that it had to be continuously refreshed, and thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the  magnetic drum , invented in 1932 [17]  and used in the  Ferranti Mark 1 , the world's first commercially available general-purpose

 1   WHAT IS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Information technology  ( IT ) is the use of  computers  to store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate  data [1]  or  information . IT is typically used within the context of  business operations  as opposed to personal or entertainment technologies. [2]  IT is considered to be a subset of  information and communications technology  (ICT). An  information technology system  ( IT system ) is generally an  information system , a  communications system  or, more specifically speaking, a  computer system  – including all  hardware ,  software  and  peripheral  equipment – operated by a limited group of users. Humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, and communicating information since the  Sumerians  in  Mesopotamia  developed  writing  in about 3000 BC, [3]  but the term  information technology  in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the  Harvard Business Review ; authors  Harold J. Leavitt  and Thomas L. Whisler com