Digital Education to open new avenues and channels of learning

Digital Education is all about empowering, enhancing, enabling and extending learning through technology.

By Tanushree Nagori

Technology will make learning more student centric as compared to instructor centric. The digitization of education can provide the access to good teachers to each and everyone and it no longer is a privilege for only those people who stay in big cities. As of today the learning lives with the classroom or the campus. But with endeavors such as Khan Academy or doubtnut education can live anywhere.

MOOCs such as Khan Academy have gained a lot of popularity in the last few years. It is a model to deliver content to any person at any time.  Now there are options that provide asynchronous learning choices that students can complete at their own pace and time with some synchronous events such as web conferencing which can be recorded.

For the K-12 level, when the students are still young a form of blended learning can be used where the best faculty casts videos from main centers and at the remote centers students have the local teachers who can provide the requisite help.

One of the biggest problems that remain today is that education is following a “one size fits all” approach. Even though India has such a huge scale we are not being able to segregate students and customize the pace and complexity of learning.  It is a loss for the students at both ends of the spectra because of it not being optimum for either. Technology in form of regular individualized online assessments can help reduce the turn-around time and can inform if and when the pace and the pedagogy needs to be adjusted.

Technology can help create a study group which is almost non-existent. These friends will be a mix of people who know more than you and less than you and will give help and take help. They can also be instrumental in providing feedback through social platforms.  This really increases collaboration and cross-cultural communication.

In India, most of the problem solving is based on age old problems. Technology can introduce real life problems into the curriculum and learning activities can be based on that. This makes the students more employable than ever before.

Students are more empowered to challenge the instructor as they will also have access to the sources from which they are taught.

Digitization of books and content make these accessible at any place and at any time on the devices. For instance, the online downloadable copies of NCERT Books have reduced the need to buy those. One can carry just one device and is able to access the NCERT Books of all grades and subjects. The books that you buy or download remain with you forever.

Game Based Learning uses our competitive drive and the kick that one gets from reaching a goal. Pagamo is one such example of massive online gaming platform by a Taiwanese start-up. This has led to a tremendous increase in learning outcomes as students want to spend more and more time doing homework as they acquire more wealth and territories in the Pagamo World.

With about 140 million smart phones and 2 million tablets, India is the second largest smartphone market. Given that, it would be prudent to develop a Bring Your Own Device Environment. These devices such as laptops, phones, tablets can be leveraged for activities such as live polling, lecture tweeting, checking the facts, sharing and streaming content.

In India- currently it is considered incorrect for people to bring and use their devices in the class. Such mindset is regressive and heavily curtails the environment of learning. We should rather devise ways to impress upon students to embrace mobile-based learning by effectively utilising the plethora of resources available on world wide web.

Devices and apps can also be useful for vocational courses such as learning languages. The app Hello English from the company CultureAlley is one of the number one English Learning and Speaking App on India Google PlayStore. The platform teaches the language through games and quizzes.

Digital Education provides many important tools to teachers as well in form of classroom management systems and quick turn-around tools for formative assessments. Teachers can use tools such as Remind to provide real time communication bout homework and school events. Teachers can leverage technology to assign online lectures specifically tailored for students and augment their teaching.

Note taking makes classroom lectures very ineffective. Cloud based note sharing techniques such as Ever note removes the need to take heaps and heaps of notes. This makes the notes accessible on the go at any time.

With the digitization of education as the teachers are further away from the students, students will have to take a bigger responsibility to drive their learning.

Throughout our existence, what differentiates humans from other creatures is language – the ability to communicate. In today’s world the most important language is coding. It is the literacy of today. It needs to be introduced in the curriculum from the formative years itself as it helps practicing skills such as problem solving and logical thinking. Coding Education is turning out to be one of the most important pillars of digital education.

It is ironical that the educators and education have been most resistant to the use of technology. Embracing it should no longer be optional but compulsory. Digitization in education is bound to open new avenues and channels of learning for the students and the teachers alike.

The writer is co-founder of Class21A. Views are personal.