Seeing the world online
Use
of the Internet for the first time—and that too in villages and remote
areas—has been throwing absolutely unimaginable outcomes
A
few months ago, children in Mungaska village in Alwar district of Rajasthan
started using Google Images to travel around the country. Aman, one of the
children there, who studies in Class V, had been reading about Qutub Minar in
his school textbooks.
He
had seen pictures but he didn’t know much about the structure other than who
built it and when—the usual things that you read in school history books. So
one day after he returned from school, he went to a local Community Information
Resource Centre (CIRC) near his house and Googled ‘Qutub Minar’. He was amazed
to find pictures which were not limited to the minaret and the garden around
it. He could see the arches in the monument complex and the ruins too. CIRCs
are community-oriented digital centres established to create
information-empowered, equitable communities across the country.
Each
CIRC, manned by a centre coordinator and a trainer, is equipped with computers,
laptops, digital camera, scanner, printer and any other necessary digital tool
that locals can learn to use and access. At these centres, a community member
can enrol for digital literacy classes for a one-time registration fee of Rs.150, and avail digital services such as photocopying
and scanning for Rs.1 per page.
At
Roza Ka Baas, another village in Alwar district, a 13-year-old boy named Sahil
has memorised the entire map of the Taj Mahal by simply looking at 3D images of
the monument. When he was asked what made him ‘Google’ the Taj specifically, he
said that people from all over the world come to India just to see that one
monument and he wanted to know why. “But I can’t travel to Agra; it’s very far.
So I am looking it up on Google,” he said.
With
their knowledge of operating computers and access to the Internet, children all
across the country are exploring places they may not have a chance to see physically.
When
we had a little sit-down session with Sahil, he showed us at least 10 different
pictures of the Taj Mahal that he had saved on the computer. Each picture was
from a different angle, and focused on a different part of the complex.
After
he had finished giving us an almost virtual tour of the Taj Mahal, many other
children too chimed in wanting to show us their favourite places using Google.
While somebody had virtually travelled to Jaipur and another to Hyderabad, one
child had opted to explore Kolkata because her father had worked there as a
young boy. Yet another child was happy to look around the streets of Alwar
through Google Images.
There
was one boy, who even “travelled” to the US through Google on the
recommendation of an American citizen who was travelling with us to Alwar, but
he did not enjoy it much. Instead he found Red Fort in Delhi much more
engaging.
Use
of the Internet for the first time—and that too in villages and remote
areas—has been throwing absolutely unimaginable outcomes.
We
are learning about some unique social and behavioural experiences, especially
among children who are accessing computers and the Internet for the first time
in their lives. In fact, school-going children always form the biggest group of
people coming to receive digital literacy. But these children are not always
excited about it from the perspective of receiving “education”.
A
lot of them are actually only enrolled because their parents see a bright
future for them. Many others come because they are allowed to play video games
or watch YouTube videos after an hour of working on Microsoft Office.
Of
late, Google Search has become extremely popular among children because of its
interactive features and as it allows users unrestricted access to unlimited information
in different media formats.
From
games, entertainment and education video clips to notes for classroom
examinations, everything is available at the click of a button for the
children.
Over
the last few months, I’ve travelled to a lot of places from Saidanpur in
Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh, Sohagpur in Hoshangabad district of Madhya
Pradesh, Bhim in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan, Musiri in Trichy district of
Tamil Nadu and the village of Vaidikuppam in Puducherry—everywhere I see an interest
among children to look up places on Google Search or watch ‘edutaining’
(educational + entertainment) videos on YouTube.
It’s
interesting and heartening to see these children discover different places,
people, geographies, food, culture and tradition on their own. People who had
never stepped out of their villages are now travelling virtually throughout
India.
Children
are curious, and the schools in India are not always the best places to
encourage such curiosity in children. Because of the skewed teacher-student
ratio in almost every Indian classroom, the most innocent but important
questions are often ignored; or worse, they are not even given a chance to ask.
Access
to the Internet is bridging this divide. Online access to content is not trying
to replace traditional mainstream classroom education. It is, in fact,
complementing mainstream education and giving children more than one platform
to find answers to their questions.
The
idea of using Google Images to travel the world gives us a new perspective on
how our digital centres are contributing to the society and making an impact.
Digital literacy has never been only about knowing how to work on Excel sheets
or writing your name on Word, but exploring so much more.
In
fact, there is no end to what one can do with computers and the Internet. I
think it’s an achievement for us as well that our digital centres have helped
children and adults to look at education in a non-traditional manner.
Source | Mint | 1 June 2016
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
Best
Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on
Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23,
2016. The title of the paper is “Removing
Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”
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