SOCIAL IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION 
138 
It is important to understand that education is being for the mo 
ment, in a transition stage and it will take a while until both 
the instructors and the students are well prepared to efficiently 
face new technology: The first step in student preparation is the 
introduction of courses in information science and other high-tech 
fields at the secondary level of education. A well documented 
report for such student preparation has been published by Becker 
T.W. 1989. The student preparation at secondary level of education 
is being experimented and hopefully it will proceed to take funda 
mental steps in Greece. The instructor preparation, however, to 
face new technology is rather difficult to happen particularly in 
countries like Greece which maintain a tradition of theoretical 
knowledge. Other countries also face the same problem for instruc 
tor preparation by organizing seminars on a regular basis and by 
providing all possible facilities. 
The.problem for the educator and for the society in general, due to 
the intrusion of new technology, is what Dahlberg R.E., and Jensen 
J.R, 1985 refer : challenge and threat. As analyzed earlier in 
this paper, the use of new technology to face regular curriculum 
problems, as well as, problems arising by the intrusion of new 
technology is highly efficient. This is a real challenge to the 
educator to turn the threat into success and provide better 
quality of knowledge. But there is still the problem for the educa 
tor who is excellent in the field that covers but considers new 
technology as a threat. This is a social problem concerning not 
only for educator but for other people too. This problem eventu 
ally will be resolved by the time but meanwhile (the present tran 
sition stage) will be there for a while. 
CONCLUSIONS 
Remote sensing and GIS are dependent on new technology develop 
ments end as such it is important to develop a curriculum which 
provides the bases to implement and understand all components of 
such a system at any depth. The efficient utilization of the 
microcomputer laboratory helps to create alternatives for the best 
preparation of course material and lab assignments. New technol 
ogy provides a big challenge for faculty and students to exper 
iment complicated theories and ideas. It is an ideal tool particu 
larly for courses such as remote sensing and GIS because it per 
mits direct implementation of theoretical developments providing 
immediate solutions to experimental and real problems. 
The goal of curriculum development in remote sensing and GIS in 
the Department of Environmental Studies is to generate quality 
knowledge through a limited number of courses so that the students 
will be able to understand and implement such knowledge in their 
major field and at the same time they will have the potential to 
be smarter than the machine.