Reshaping the Indian Education System with technology as the tool

Reshaping the Indian Education System with technology as the tool

Last Updated Mar - 17 - 2022, 01:06 AM | Source : | Visitors : 50

Technology subjugated every aspect of the social order and is now the life and blood of modern society and will be for a long time to come. It will re-develop again and again to cater to the new needs of changing culture. The iGen – those born in or after 1995, cannot imagine life without technology.
With the advent of technological innovations across industries, the education sector turns out to be the most influenced. Technology has been playing a prominent role at the forefront of education ever since learning and development came into being, right from carving symbols and figures on walls of caves, to Gurukul education where the students were taught the use of the technology prevailing then, to using of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR).
Modern technology has completely reshaped the entire education system. The digitally empowered classrooms over the internet have made education available to everyone who wants to learn worldwide, anytime, any subject. There is no limit to the strength of the classroom. Unlike physical classrooms limited to a maximum of sixty students, any number of students can access the virtual classrooms. An unlimited amount of knowledge is available at no cost to an economically viable price for learning.
Traditional teaching versus Virtual teaching
Marc Prensky [Educational Author 2001] noticed that an average student spends less than five thousand hours reading in his entire life but more than ten thousand hours playing digital and online games. He also stated that the present students are no longer the ones our traditional education system was designed to teach.
Other researchers such as Pucel and Stertz [2005], Crowe [2004], Lu and Gordon [2009] have recognized that technological education methods is needed than traditional education. The National School Boards Association [2007] recognized technical proficiency as an essential learning tool of the twenty-first century. A remarkable statement of John Dewey, "If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow" (Agnello, White, & Fryer, 2006), sums up the importance of technology in the education system.
Challenges in implementing technology in the schools and collages
Jung pointed out the challenges the traditional classroom teachers have to face due to the rapid shift and use of technological methods in the classroom and the expansion of the knowledge base available. Gressard and Loyd (1985) said that the attitude of teachers towards technology and technical gadgets is the main factor in implementing Information technology in the education system. They also pointed out that not all teachers are keen on technological methods.
Another point is that they must be trained to upgrade themselves to align with upcoming technology. Most of the teachers from GenX feel that it is hard to learn the complicated technology, and blackboards are much simple. They believe classroom education involves dynamic binding that helps in being good humans. Though not new to technology, the teachers of millennials are busy and lack time to upgrade themselves. The other barriers are lack of resources, limited access, low expertise, limited support and lack of time. Butler and Sellbom (2002) and Chizmar & Williams (2001) stress reliability and hardware compatibility and internet issues. Technology is growing exponentially faster, which means a gadget bought today may become less valuable or not in three months—upgrading those needs money, time and expertise.
Many believe that technology in the education sector would make students more attached to machines and less socially able. We can see that the children of iGen spend more time with cell phones and other gadgets. Even a baby less than a year becomes calm and is more attracted to the cell phone display. Studies are going on as to how it would affect the brain, but artificially intelligent machines are in a significant role now.
The excellent part is kids get easily adapted to technology. Software programming is becoming a favourite subject for kids these days. They could learn, analyze and create a software program even before turning into teens. This proves that the brain is slowly evolving from its present state to a higher state of understanding machine language. There are also a lot of social groups online related to every field where the students interact with others with the same mindset. Group discussions and knowledge-sharing blogs are increasing, so it is incorrect to say that society is becoming less socially able. It is only that the medium of communication has taken a different platform.
A good learning technological media can be easily accessible in any place. It should be easy to use by an average person with limited knowledge of computers. It should be highly interactive, fun and work on low bandwidth and should not take lots of time to load, and should be able to upgrade itself from time to time.
 

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