digitalLEARNING-Jan-2011-[42-43]-ICT in Education-Need of the Hour

higher education

ICT in Education

Need of the Hour ICT enabled education is not only an answer to the growing demands for enrolments in education, but is also in tune with the mindset of the present day students and helps meet the challenges in the growth of knowledge

By Prof Ashok Kumar Bakhshi

I

n this information age, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has fundamentally changed the way we live now. But in India, our education system has not changed significantly in the light of the technological advances around the world. The most fundamental cause seems to have been the deep-seated belief that teaching is an art or at best an imperfect science with no role of technology in the design or delivery of instruction. Realisation seems to have dawned on the teaching community

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that ICT is primarily to empower them and not to replace them.

In order to use technology to help achieve the goals of education in a better and more effective way, one has to be first of all clear about what our expectations are from the education system, what and how do we want our students to learn and what type of individuals our classrooms should produce – rote learners or those with an analytical mind having an in-depth understanding of the subject? After all education is what remains with you after you have

forgotten everything. In this technological era, the role of the teacher is changing into that of a mentor.

ICT enabled education is not only an answer to the growing demands for enrolments in education, but is also in tune with the mindset of the present day students and helps meet the challenges in the growth of knowledge. ICT can help students acquire 21st century skills like digital literacy, innovative thinking, creativity, sound reasoning and effective communication.

India has the third largest system of

education in the world, next only to USA and China, with more than 500 universities and around 25000 colleges. To introduce ICT-enabled education in such a large system one needs to have high quality multi-media enriched content in different disciplines for various courses including its multilingual conversion, capacity building of teachers and students in ICT skills and state-of-the-art infrastructure along with broadband connectivity for disseminating the content so that it reaches the doorsteps of the learners. The launch of National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) in 2009 is a major initiative of the Government of India in this direction with an aim to leverage the potential of ICT in providing high quality personalised and interactive content, free of cost, to all the learners in Higher Education Institutions in anytime – anywhere mode.

Delhi University’s Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL) was set up with an aim to integrate ICT with education and is presently engaged in the development of high quality multi-media enriched content in the form of e-Lessons, e-Quizzes, e-Labs and e-Lectures.

While e-Lessons provide quality content with multi-media enriched value additions such as common misconceptions, points to ponder, interesting facts, did you know? etc., e-Quizzes in the form of MCQs of different difficulty levels provide the student a mechanism for self-learning and assessment through a complete, logical reasoning of the correct as well as incorrect answers. The concept of e Lectures or live lectures enables best faculty members to reach out to students across various DU colleges,

thereby not only connecting classrooms but also giving students quality learning material as well. Multi-media enables us to provide a way by which learners can experience their subject in a profound way.

However, the development and increasing use of ICT in education is accompanied with a bitter contradiction– the digital divide, a term in usage since 1990s, which refers to the digital gap between people with effective access to ICT and those with limited or no access at all. This gap includes the imbalances in physical access to ICT (whether at home, college, work place or cyber café) and the resources and skills needed effectively to use the capabilities of ICT to the fullest.

One can transform this digital divide into a digital opportunity by giving top priority to the development of ICT and telecommunication infrastructure (computers with internet access and broadband connectivity) in order to provide universal and affordable access to information to people and institutions in all geographical areas of the country.

To promote computer literacy and build capacity in ICT skills, ICT courses should be integrated to curricula from the school level itself. Computer literacy classes in public libraries can also be used as a means of promoting and propagating ICT awareness. Since most of the time our computing facilities remain underutilized (about 30% of their potential), use upcoming technologies such as cloud computing facility etc. should be encouraged in order to harness the full potential of our computing resources.

Realisation seems to have dawned on the teaching community that ICT is primarily to empower them and not to replace them The concept of cloud computing is crudely analogous to the centralised supply of electricity. Just as centralized supply of electricity is far more efficient and cheaper rather than everyone having their own generator, similarly if all the PCs of the world were taken and gathered in a single place, they would generate enough computing power for the needs of the entire world. This could obviate the problem of physical access and connectivity. Lastly, the duplication of content should be avoided. Once content has been developed, it should rather be standardised in the light of suggestions/feedback from users and experts.\\ About the Author

Prof. A K Bakhshi Former Director, Institute of Lifelong Learning, and Presently, Head, Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi.

digital LEARNING

JANUARY 2011

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