Today many countries are fighting against amidst COVID-19, which has highlighted a paradigm shift in mode of learning through use of technology or IT tools i.e. educational technology, to make learning engaging and involving.
In the wake of COVID-19, as per UNESCO Report 29 countries have seen closure of school, colleges and MNCs affecting education of 391.5 million children. Today virtual and online learning has emerged as a good alternative to regular ways of learning. In India many start-ups have emerged in the last few years, with Byju’s, Unacadmey, Vedantu, providing wonderful platforms for many. Byju’s itself has seen a surge of 150% of students getting enrolled from metros and non–metros areas.
Even work from home has been preferred by many MNCs, with various applications emerging to facilitate employees to cope up with their assignments for example GUVI made by IIT madras so to help engineers to learn Python, Java, machine and corporate to adopt virtual and digital learning.
So this raise a question “Why is Ed-Tech preferred mode of learning for many?”
Accessibility
With increase in usage of mobile phone, internet and due to the emergence of YouTube, various educational platforms with accessibility to the best faculty provides quality education. Also these can be accessed from any location and any time as per ones convenience and reach to online sources at reasonable price. Platforms like e-Pathshala and NPTEL are portals which provide institutional level of education.
As in India, many central government employees get transferred to different places affecting their children’s education which is again addressed by Ed-Tech.
Technology
It is an era of technology, with improvement in communication, giving birth to Artificial Intelligence and gamification technology has changed the educational landscape of the world. Software like Zoom, Webex, Microsoft are providing the best video call conferencing service which has made interaction very constructive. A good service provided by Samsung flip 2 to synchronize personal devices with class like feeling with six digital lock systems is making learning more realistic and secure.
Traffic
In a globalised world where everything is so connected, Corporates now preferring to hire employees to work from home indeed reduce maintenance of offices and all in all reduce traffic related issues to get the best out of their employees by increasing working hours and productivity. Also they are able to access the best talents from far reach areas. This model is adopted by many companies and they look at it as a better alternative.
Besides these reasons for its acceptance on wide scale, it has some of the limitation as if for now, like vulnerable and economically weaker section society are not able to access due to financial issues, lack of interaction between teacher and students, India’s digital divide, i.e. ,still large section do not have digital literacy.
Conclusion
Though Ed Tech has some temporary limitations but its relevance is far beyond. As per the survey of two teacher of UGC on viability of digital learning and addressed deep rooted Indian educational thinking, i.e., classroom teaching is inevitable in higher education, viewed as distance learning and teaching is all about content, but success and failure of online learning is dependent on course design and learning outcome created. Not only the chapter can be learnt but the interesting presentation with insertion of graphics, animation make it far more entertaining and do not allow the students to become monotonous and boring at any point of time.
It is known that the audio and visual effect is retained in the brain for longer duration with clear and better conceptual clarity. The applications like Zoom, Microsoft Team, Google Meet, Skype facilitate the student teacher interaction, forgoing the need of classroom query solving sessions. Therefore in my opinion it should be hybrid both online and classroom based learning allowing anytime, anywhere and multiple-time watch of the same lecture, is far more better learning experience. Ed-Tech is the future of learning and that is why it is preferred by many.
AUTHOR- VIVEK SINGH
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