E-learning can
Transform Education
The theorems
of Pythagoras and Apollonius, the histories of the two Wars, the intricate
details of the criss-crossing of the Danube and the Rhine, the Ganga and the
Brahmaputra, the distance in lightyears that separates Jupiter and Mars - these
constitute some of the bulk of the intake of a pupil as they enter the higher
educational institutions of our country. These have their use and value, but it
also bears noticing that an average student would never have seen a tax return,
a voter’s ID, a balance sheet, or a corporate legal document as he or she
prepares to join the workforce or enrol for further technical studies. A
large-scale change needs to take place in the educational sector to make both
the content and method of our institutional learning vocational and
market-oriented. Such a sector-wide change, at a cost that could make learning
available to increasingly larger sections of the masses, could be engendered
only by the rise of E-learning, accompanied by developments in information and
communications technology.
The rising
popularity and spread of online education augurs a transformation in our near
future that is sure to render it categorically different from traditional
learning. But so far, the promising advantages that lie at the hands of online
education haven’t been reaped to full harvest. PPTs and E-books alone do not
fully exhaust these latent possibilities. Mobile and tablet-based learning apps
ensuring ‘learning on the go’, interactive boards, animation and video-based
training, graphic user interface (GUI) programs allowing for critical and
creative engagement of the student with the content, are coming together in
recent times to help institutions cater to the unique potential and learning needs
of the students. Here lies that unopened window of opportunity where this
advanced form of education can join together learning and vocation so indelibly
as to transform, in some degree, the classroom itself into a workplace. The
rise and spread of Virtual Reality simulation technology allied to developments
in Artificial Intelligence technology is sure to place the classroom, the work
itself and the market, all on the student’s desk.
As online
education is not dependent on a fixed number of employees with appointed tasks
and fixed positions, the human material that drives its engine is crowdsourced.
It can draw upon a vast network of resources from all over the world. Time and
place constraints being here obviated, the ideals long dreamt of by John Dewey
in his philosophy of education like one-to-one learning, personal pupil-teacher
interaction, democratic participation of the student, experimental and
practical nature of imparting knowledge, are closest met by an online education
powered by virtual learning environments, video-streaming, webinars and
e-conferencing, and other products of a burgeoning communications technology
capable of connecting people at the farthest ends of the globe.
The Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai almost gave her life to defend the principle that education is a universal human right. The reach of education to the masses without any compromise to its quality, in terms of the teachers and the methods and means of delivery, can only be accomplished by a massive reduction in infrastructural costs. Recorded lectures, educational videos, electronic books and materials that can be repeatedly used and for as long as one wants, contribute in a unique way to a cumulative reduction in costs in the long run. Meaning, the more they are used, the more affordable they become; and the reduction in cost at this level alone can make possible the economizing of the cost that the student is to bear.
The Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai almost gave her life to defend the principle that education is a universal human right. The reach of education to the masses without any compromise to its quality, in terms of the teachers and the methods and means of delivery, can only be accomplished by a massive reduction in infrastructural costs. Recorded lectures, educational videos, electronic books and materials that can be repeatedly used and for as long as one wants, contribute in a unique way to a cumulative reduction in costs in the long run. Meaning, the more they are used, the more affordable they become; and the reduction in cost at this level alone can make possible the economizing of the cost that the student is to bear.
‘Our books
and our pens are the most powerful weapons’, said Malala in her address to the
United Nations Youth Assembly. But the ‘pens’ and ‘books’ here stand as
metaphors and symbols of technologies much more powerful, much more effective,
and, in the long run, much more economical. These ‘Weapons of Mass Instruction’
are what the educational sector needs to arm itself with as it battles for a
world in which education would have achieved the impossible trio of reaching
the largest number, with the best quality, at the lowest price.
Our books
and our pens are the most powerful weapons
- Malala
Source |
Afternoon | 4th April 2018
Regards
Mr. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library & Information Science (NET
Qualified)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge Repository
Khaitan & Co
Mobile @ 9665911593
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