opinion
Inno-lutions with ICT, Multimedia in Education Multimedia usage can help in standardisation of education across India by reducing the gap in the quality of education in English, Hindi medium schools and regional language schools By Dr Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya, Associate Professor, Japanese Studies, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi
W
ith the ever-increasing popularity and accessibility of the Internet, it is only natural that the educational community should want to make use of this tremendous resource. Use of ICT is leading to significant changes in educational models. Effective exploitation of these changes requires adequate attention to understanding the technology, the educational processes and issues, and student’s characteristics. One of the major uses of ICT and multimedia in education is to find innovative solutions to critical problems related to ‘quality of education’ and ‘access to education for all’ - the two major problems in the education system of India. A fundamental difference between multimedia based and the conventional style of learning is that in the conventional style, the only tools available to a teacher are blackboard, chalk and textbooks where the contents are structured and have limited audio-visual usage. On the other hand, in case of a multimedia classroom, for instance, a science teacher can explain the replication of DNA or a geography teacher can teach about stone formation–all with 3D animations, sound, graphics and voice. The teacher gets complete attention of the class. Every child gets visual input on how it happens and the concepts are well understood and internalised. The conventional classroom style process of teaching and learning has limitation of space and time. A student is expected to attend classes for a specified period of time in a day at a particular location. This system has proved to be disadvantages to students from the economically weaker sections of the society where children are expected to work to support their families, take care of younger siblings, do house-
30
www.digitalLEARNING.in
hold chores, etc. This is the main cause of dropouts and failure or poor academic performance among economically disadvantaged students. If the schools, vocational training institutes etc. are equipped with computer terminals and Internet, the self-guided, self-explanatory and interactive tutorials made possible by using multimedia based databases gives these students access to quality education at their own time and pace.
room, a virtual classroom is a scheduled, online, teacher-led training session where teachers and learners interact together using computers linked via the Internet network. There are professor and fellow learners present with the student who can talk with each other as in the traditional classroom via chat. Similarly presenter uses whiteboard, gives notes/resources, give presentation as given in traditional one. A virtual classroom can be used as a
A virtual classroom makes it possible to bring learners from around the world together online in highly interactive virtual classes while greatly reducing the travel, time, and expense of on-site teaching/training programs The use of multimedia can help in standardisation of education across India by reducing the gap in the quality of education in English and Hindi medium schools or at the sate-level schools where the medium of instruction is in regional languages. This difference in quality of education stems from the fact that the textbooks written in English or Hindi have relatively superior course content than those written in regional languages. As the use of Internet is increasing, traditional classrooms are shifting to elearning. The use of ICT in education has created the possibility of e-classrooms or virtual classrooms where students in different parts of India or world can participate interact and learn from same classrooms without being physically present there. Yet a virtual classroom can provide a learning experience that is similar to a real classroom. As in traditional class-
solution for live delivery and interaction that addresses the entire process of creating and managing the teaching-learning process. It facilitates instructor and student in teaching-learning events, such as a seminar, online discussion or a live training for employees in company. e-Learning in the form of virtual classrooms or e-classrooms can complement the efforts of governments and educators around the world to integrate technology into their classrooms and curricula and to link their schools to the internet in educationally productive ways. It can provide the students with a stimulating, positive and enjoyable environment along with the opportunity to develop skills that are essential in the 21st century: cross-cultural communication, collaboration through teamwork, information technology and website design. \\