Friday, August 13, 2010

Education System And Technology

Gone are the days when students have to read and remember those mundane pages of the books handover to them as text books.

Technology is changing at fast pace. Why to have those same education structure when we can utilize the technology to make education a fun.

Geography and History are the subjects that feel more mundane than others to majority of public. My opinion is Geography and History are the subjects that goes hand in hand as they have some linkage in between them. Now consider the Basic Science, some students find it mundane because they can't see any relation to the real world with what they are learning. Can we design syllabus which has audio/video study material? As we know the things that we see we understand quickly and easy to remember and we don't have to mug up those things.

Everything is going global. Yes I agree that we have universities that have presence across the globe and some of the colleges have their presence and some curriculum that have international exposure. But how many colleges in India have syllabus that is of global standard. Cert percent sure that not every middle class or majority of students can't afford these courses.

Is there any work around for this?

Yes in this era of Internet, everything and every bit of knowledge is available to anyone and everywhere. So why not to use Internet to gather the knowledge and keep our self on the same page as others.

There are lots of videos available over the Internet which are posted by the universities across the globe. We can use these videos and can get access to the lectures delivered by world class professors, Nobel Laureates, business leaders and many more.

Students will be able to watch what other students from other universities are doing , there will be sharing of knowledge , ideas, concerns. Students from the town colleges could be get the resolution to their queries from the forums and meet ups. They can form meet up groups to discuss and share their knowledge and research. They can get help from the professor who is expert and sitting in US, UK or Singapore or anywhere in the world for their research work. And if they have new idea they can get ground to play upon and international exposure. There are websites like www.ted.com and www.udemy.com which believes in spreading ideas which are sponsored by big companies like IBM and giants in technologies and areas.

For school education:

Every school has computer now however most of them are unused as teachers themselves are not comfortable handling them no matter how much training they will be going through. Can we use these existing computers and using cheap plans from the Internet service providers, can we make students aware of the huge knowledge base available on the Internet? If many schools come together and ask the Internet service providers to provide them a Internet connection with reasonable speed and reasonable rate then what can be better than this. Even government may take a step forward providing specific funds for this to every school. I know this may lead to one more way to corruption as the government might spent on it still school can remain without Internet facility. Why not school take it as their own responsibility? Don't tell me that this is not affordable to them. They can spent a small amount on this. But if you look at the advantages it will provide, will always overcome the cost that is going to incurred in this facility.

For Graduation:

I have come across students who are graduates but never used emails and Internet. They are totally unaware of what is going on in the world. Television news are mostly flooded with political news. Agree that students are the integral part of the society rather should be more aware but to be frank should not be flooded by which politician said what. They should be aware of what are the current trends in their subject of interest.

Ideas and their implementation plays a major role here.

The main goal here is to increase the horizon of thinking. To let students be aware and think at the global level. This is the need of time. This has been already started and we should be glad to join this, to make difference to the world, to invoke a new thread in thinking, to add values not only for the namesake but to make this world a better place to live in.

While writing this post I searched Internet to check whether this type of thoughts are already getting implemented or not. I found that there are few companies which are trying to implement “education as a fun” concept but those all are for the students with rich parents. The concept I am talking about “awareness among students/teachers/parents about education as a fun” should be implemented on non-profit basis because to my belief education is for the improvement of society is the responsibility and not a business.

Best Regards,

Yugandhar

2 comments:

  1. Agreed.
    Have you ever got a chance to listen to Sir Ken Robinson, he also has some interesting/very importants thought to share on current education system and future of education system. Here are the few of his lectures which I like most, they might sound funny at the first glance, but there is point he make in every statement.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJAL21IE9fY

    -Amit

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for these links Amit. I downloaded and watched them all. I liked them.

    ReplyDelete