Internet based Educational Communication

Introduction

The world has witnessed several information revolutions in the past. The first one was 6000 years ago when writing was invented. The second information revolution was in 1300 B.C. when the first written book was published. The third information revolution was triggered by the invention of the printing press in 1455 A.D. Every invention has improved productivity and has enhanced the standard of living of the mankind. We are now witnessing the fourth information revolution - the ICT revolution. Today the globe has shrunk into a tiny village and the entire globe scenario has been brought on to a tiny screen under the click of a mouse button. Literacy in the next century is going to be understood as computer literacy. If knowledge is power, Information Technology provides the means of knowledge:

UNESCO considered Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as "scientific, technological and engineering disciplines and the management techniques used in information handling and processing, their application, computers and their interaction with men and machines, and associated social, economical and cultural matters". The advent of Information Technology has had a profound and commanding global influence on the matrix of Socio-economic activity the world over. It is transforming the way people doc do things - all things.

Industrial and developing countries alike are formulating policies and programmes to accelerate its development, diffusion and empowerment abilities. The world's developed governments are rocketing ahead in formulating, developing and implementing a variety of national policies and synergic government public programmes to exploit the enormous unfathomed benefits, of this Fourth Information Revolution.

Developing countries like India having sensed it, are following at a breakneck velocity for establishing and capitalizing on the enabling capabilities of Information and Communication Technology.

Trends in ICT

ICT is under continuous development. Technological and communication advances hold the promise for a new generation of network applications that can provide qualitative leaps beyond what is possible using today's Internet technology. Trends already in evidence amply demonstrate the potential for powerful new Internet resources and applications to be widely and equitably available and affordable. The December 2000 Report of the Web Based Education Commission in the US (Kerrey, 2000) highlights a number of the more important trends.

The first trend is toward greater broadband access and better data packet handling capabilities, allowing for the transmission of large amounts of data, whether through wire or wirelessly. Broadband access today is fifty to several hundred times more powerful than its precursors, making possible continuous Internet connectivity, more interactive experience and a richer delivery of content than simple text.

Consumer access to broadband Internet connections is expected to show exponential growth over the next couple of years, affording easier access to the Internet. When the infrastructure is in place for widespread broadband access, Internet services will rapidly become a commodity and bandwidth is expected to be virtually free. This is likely to fuel the development of consumer broadband access technologies. By 2007, it is likely that over 70 million US households (80% those online) will access the Internet through a high bandwidth connection.

A second trend identified in the Kerrey Report (2000) is pervasive computing, in which computing, connectivity and communications technologies connect small, multipurpose devices, linking them by wireless technologies. It is much cheaper to build cellular relay stations that lay miles of cable. Wireless solutions may enable underdeveloped and remote areas quickly to take advantage of the web via wireless phones, two-way pages, and handheld devices.

The third trend is digital convergence: merging the capabilities of telephone, radio, television and other interactive devices. The ubiquitous infrastructure of television will be significantly enhanced by conversion to digital transmission. Through this increased capability, stations can offer dramatically enhanced programming by "data casting" a wealth of supplementary information to accompany the regular broadcast. This may include course materials, software and reference guides delivered via text, video, or audio formats. Direct satellite connections to the home offer another pathway for rich content.

A fourth trend is the dramatic drop in the unit cost of bandwidth. Bandwidth will decrease in cost and increase in power. Ubiquitous Internet access can become a viable option for all, rather than for a privileged few.

Other trends observed by the Web Based Education Commission have particular relevance for the education sector. These include the emergence of agreement on technical standards for content development and sharing, which are expected to advance the development of web based learning environments; and the emergence of adaptive technology - technology that combines speech recognition, gesture recognition, text to speech conversion, language translation and sensory immersion to change the very substance of network enhanced human communication.

Emerging New Roles in the Indian Educational Scenario

Thanks to Information Technology, new roles are emerging in the educational scenario of the current context. Information Technology literacy is becoming essential for the new educator, who has to deal with a new student, in a new school, using new media, namely the Internet in a new learning environment with free access to a large amount of information resources.
Realizing this importance of Information Technology, the ICT education in India is being incorporated as a part of the academic curriculum in schools, colleges and universities. At the school level, the basics of Information Technology and Training on computer usage are focused upon to make the school outgoing children ICT literate. At the college and University levels, the study of ICT applications in all disciplines is focused.

The unprecedented advances in ICT and its widespread application to education and training have signaled a paradigm shift in the field of education, besides changing the venues and hours of teaching and learning. The world is witnessing the presence of three different types of educational institutions today viz., the brick institutions, the click institutions and the brick and click institutions, though it is early to predict which one will stand the test of time. As common sense dictates, the brick and click institutions are likely to have an edge over the other two, as it is a combination of them. Whatever is the case, the success of ICT enabled teaching and leaning largely depends on the application of appropriate pedagogical principles. In this context, the following observation of Vladimir Kinelev, the Director of UNESCO Institute of Information Technologies in Education needs attention, “ICTs have not eliminated the most pressing of problems that education systems face. Attempts to improve education through ICTs suffer from the absence of sound education paradigms that could support genuine renewal”.

In the process of development of pedagogy and technology for the ‘new’ learner in the ‘new’ environment, learning ‘new’ things using ‘new’ technologies, the first issue to be addressed is the content. E-content development or Knowledge Packaging in electronic forms is a major task before the teachers and content developers, which calls for the coming together of the technologists and educationists. While planning for e-content development, the differences in the learners, their learning environments, their styles of leaning are the most important factors to be seriously considered, as other factors of interaction could be standardized, to some extent. Knowledge Packaging has always been there from the days of Gurukula to the present day in different forms, conversations, lectures, songs, stories, manuscripts, print, audio, video and what not. Now, there is a need for digital convergence of these forms of Knowledge Packaging has become imperative to provide quality education to greater quantities of learners in the changed scenario of teaching and learning. At this juncture, as India stands on the threshold of developing e-content for the learning of not only the current generation of learners but also the posterity, it is imperative that all involved in this mission take a panoramic view of the whole system for planning and look into every aspect of e-content through the microscope at the development and deliver stages.

ICT based Educational Communication

Internet based Educational Communication is a preferred made to others for a variety of reasons. ICT dissolves the barriers of time and place and it throws open to possibility to initiative any human activity. The choice of ICT for educational communication is due to its user friendliness, speed, accuracy high degree of reliability, high storage capacity, integrity, consistency, logicality, diligence, versatility, low failure rate, durability and probability; above all, it has a special characteristic of ‘interactivity which gives the total control to the learner. Hence, with internet based educational communication, the receiver of the message decides when, where and how much of content to receive and for how much of time. The student takes more or less time for learning different concepts depending on his/ her ability to group, understand and internet. In short, it promotes learner autonomy. Thus, the paradigm shift the field of education triggered by Grey Revolution is matched by real life teaching learning situations. The whole game of education becomes learner – centric and learning centric. To be in tune with the paradigm shift that the world of education has witnessed, any teacher at any level of education must “adapt their relationship with learners, switching roles from ‘soloist’ to ‘accompanist’ and shifting the emphasis from dispensing information to helping learners seek, organize and manage knowledge, guiding them rather than molding item”. (Delor’s Commission Report).

It is time for all teachers of the present day world to play two roles – both pivotal to education; one that of a use of the plethora of materials and services available on the net for effective teaching and that of a developer of e-content and e-resources for the learning of the student community of the present and the future. As users the day teachers have access to a lot of services like search engines, e-mail, chat, e-libraries and digital libraries, e-zines and e-journals, e-books, e-dictionaries and digital dictionaries, e-forum, e-learning portal, downloadable software, online storage and preservation and many move. If a teacher wants to evolve into an e-content developer he/she can make use of authoring tools, integrating tools, dissemination tools and on-line storage and preservation tools of the myriad services available on the net for the teachers to choose from the following three are not my quite useful but who easy to use.
1. Blogging
2. Pod casting
3. Applets

Blogging

In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basic. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what’s new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Since Blogger was launched, almost five years ago, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics and education, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have voice and connect with others.

Podcasting

“Podcasting” is a compound word coined in 2004, that combined two words: “iPod” and “broadcasting”. Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like ‘radio’, can mean both the content and the method of deliver. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Podcasters’ web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their files.

Applets

An applet is a program written in the Java Programming language that can be included in an HTML page, much in the same way an image is included in a page.

Though the internet offers many, many such useful and easy to use technologies in the form of services and software, what is required today is a change in the mindset of the teaching community to embrace these new technologies and make the best of it not only for the larger benefit of the learning community but also for professional and personal enrichment. For, “it is true that technology cannot replace a teacher, but it is also true that a teacher who does not use technology will be replaced by the we who uses”.