FROM SOFTWARE TO MICROCOMPUTERS... FINDING NEW TOOLS FOR TEACHING
By Frederick Noronha
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
INNOVATION is helping educators from across the globe to try out
new solutions to old problems. ICTs (information and
communication technologies) are helping to make classrooms more
interesting, and concepts easier to convey.
>From the UK to India, from software to microcomputers... many
experiments are underway in the classroom. This was reported in a
recent international conference held in Goa, called ICSTME 2001.
It focussed on harnessing science, technology and mathematics
education for human development.
Science Across the World is one innovative example. It is being
called an 'international education programme' that encourages
communication and 'shared learning'. It links up different
societies to look at crucial environmental and social science
issues.
In this project, students use a unique series of resource topics
-- like Keeping Healthy, Drinking Water, biodiversity, and
Chemistry in Our Lives -- in upto 18 languages. Students collect
data, facts and opinions locally.
Some 6000 schools have been registered with Science Across the
World over the past three years. It can be contacted via
www.scienceacross.org On average, 1500 schools with over 2000
teachers and 74000 students aged 12 to 16 in some 45 countries
work with its material at any given time, according to Marianne
Cutler of the Hatfield-UK based Association for Science Education.
On the other hand, computer-based lessons, or CBL, can help to
centre education on learner-activity, argues S.S.Kalbag of the
Pune-based Vigyan Ashram. Kalbag says other advantages of
computer-based lessons include savings in time and money,
eliminating differences between formal and non-formal, rich and
poor, and urban and rural in matters of quality of education.
"India needs to rapidly expand our education network to cover
nearly 25% of the population. We shall need a minimum of 1.5
million computers. And these will have to be financed by the
community, on the basis of minimum results assured. The drop-out
rate must reduce. The consequent savings will make the scheme
self-propelled," argues Kalbag.
Researchers Shakila Thakurpersad and Reshma Sookrajh from South
African's University of Durban-Westville, point to the role of
education in learning. They quote scholars who note that the
World Wide Web is "one of the most effective information and
communication technology (ICT) to provide an integrated open
system of learning". There is a growing trend to use WWW
technologies in education.
Mumbai-based Sangeeta Deokattey, of the Indian Women Scientists'
Association, has undertaken an effort to select Internet sites
and "find out their potential usefulness" in an Indian context.
She points to her findings for searches on three subject areas --
primary health, primary education and appropriate technology.
As Deokattey points out: "Educational resources -- in the form of
textbooks, tool kits, posters, audio-visual presentations, etc --
are in constant demand by adult education and health workers.
Tapping the web potential to supplement existing resources will
be a viable alternative."
"Of all the subjects taught at schools and college level,
mathematics offers probably the most scope for using technology,"
says Douglas Butler of the ICT Training Centre in Peterborough,
UK. He explains how new software and hardware "can combine to
give teachers a wonderful new medium with which to visualise the
basic principles and to improve their personal productivity".
Butler says there is a "rich source" of software types in
mathematics -- including spreadsheets, symbolic algebra and
dynamic geometry packages. Autograph is a new dynamic coordinate
geometry and statistics package.
Butler also points out that teachers can use the Internet at two
levels. Firstly, using the Net to provide "high quality" teaching
resources, graphics, text and data which can be copied off the
Net. But take care: doing this well can be tricky sometimes!
Then, using Web sites in the classroom... there are a growing
number of web resources that "provide good interactive
visualisations".
Technology is also entering the Indian classroom, even if only at
the elite level. For several years, first year Mathematics
students of the IIT B.Tech course in Mumbai were taught using
traditional chalk-board methods. Each class had 80 students in a
division. But, now larger divisions take in about 250 students.
This means, the chalkboard is no longer useful. Instead,
instructional material is being created beforehand, converted
into HTML (webpage) format, and put out on the Web, explains
Sudhir Ghorpade of IIT-Mumbai.
In class, the instructor uses projections onto a large screen
from the relevant webpage. He teaches with a remote mouse in his
hand instead of chalk. This brings up the question: should modern
technology alter the approach and content in teaching 'classical'
subjects like Algebra and Calculus?
Pratibha Jolly and Mallika Verma of the University of Delhi
explain the Science On-Line concept. This uses a low-cost
microcomputer based Physics laboratory as a teaching aid.
"Its objective is to provide hands-on exposure to the tremendous
potential of the micro-computer as a versatile laboratory
instrument for real-time capture of data and control of real-
world devices," they say.
For instance, the printer-port -- which is a part of each
microcomputer -- can be used without extra cost to get a powerful
interface for data-acquisition and the control of real-world devices.
The SOL Package has a multifunction printer-port interface for
generating time-varying voltage signals and measuring upto eight
analog voltage signals, digital input/output application modules,
a range of sensors and transducers and menu-driven software
designed specially for classroom usage.
This can be used to design and setup simple innovative
experiments of direct relevance to a physics classroom. For
instance, measurement of displacement-time graph of a moving
object; velocity of a dynamic cart; acceleration of a falling
body due to gravity; oscillations of a pendulum; angular
frequency of a rotating disk; variations of temperature along a
conducting bar; and resonance frequencies of an acoustic tube.
Researchers like Abhiram Ranade of the IIT-Mumbai are working to
develop an Internet-based textbook for the regional Maharashtra
Board's tenth standard mathematics paper. They want the textbook
to be interactive, have good and attractive graphics, and contain
"substantially more motivational material" than current
textbooks. These books are being planned so that they are
available both in Marathi and English, and to students who are
bright as well as "supposedly less-proficient" in mathematics.
Less hi-tech ideas also also spurring on educators to new
approaches.
Navnirmiti, based alongside Mumbai's IIT, also undertakes the
useful task of designing and producing scientific toys and low-
cast learning material. For instance, its three-dimension 'Jodo'
kits allow young students to experiment and easily construct a
wide variety of polyhedra.
In Assam, the Society for Chemical Education (established 1990)
aims to popularise chemistry among the masses. It set up its
branches in various towns of Assam, and highlighted the
beneficial and harmful effects of chemical substances on the
living world.
In nearby Kerala, science is being popularised through more down-
to-earth means. For instance, the people's science movement
'Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad' publishes magazines. These are
aimed at the general public (Sastragathi), high school students
(Sastrakeralam) and primary school students (Eureka). These have
a circulation of some 100,000 copies!
Roddam Narasimha of the Bangalore-based National Institute of
Advanced Studies stresses the need to change approaches to
education, if a country like India is to make qualitative strides.
Says Narasimha: "The system now in use in India, largely
inherited from colonial times and copied from early 20th century
British models, is unsuitable for the needs of a very diverse and
rapidly transforming civilizational state like India." This
country, it is pointed out, has to be distinguished from the more
homogenous nation states of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. (ENDS)
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| Frederick Noronha, Freelance Journalist |
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