Mysuru: Stressing on the importance of technology in learning, National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) New Delhi Director H K Senapaty said that making use of technology in learning has become imperative, failing which the children of today will never be able to match up to their contemporaries from developed countries.
Speaking after inaugurating three-day national conference on ‘Information and communication Technology (ICT) in Education organized by the Regional Institute of Education, Mysuru at its premise here on Wednesday he said that several international-level studies have pointed at a disheartening fact that Indian students lag behind when compared to students from developed countries as far as technology is concerned. The studies had also pointed that the Indian students had more of textbook-oriented knowledge, strongly hinting at the stagnant classroom and teaching conditions.
“The developed countries have been imbibing drastic changes in classrooms especially with the hep of technologies,” he said adding that technology can be used a a major tool to develop children’s creativity, communication, effective collaboration and social interaction.
Talking abut changing definitions of learning, Senapaty said that if one goes to history, the definition of learning was more of a ‘stimulus-response theory’, but during 1950s-70s the definition changed as knowledge acquisition. During the 80s and the 90s the definition changed to knowledge construction.
“Our objective is not just to prepare our children for examinations. Our objective is to develop children’s inner potential,” added Senapaty. Rajaram Sharma, Joint Director of Central Institute Of Educational Technology (CIET) briefed about importance of technology and also called upon the participants to go through pros and cons of technology.
The objectives of the conference are to showcase the innovative best practices of ICT integration in education, explore various current and emerging ICT tools and services and discuss the implication of these on educational practices, discuss the means of enhancing efficiency of assessment and administration practices through technology integration, explore the implications of ICT trends on instructional designing and pedagogical practices, discuss the challenges in integrating ICT in education and measures to overcome these challenges. During the three day conference about 140 delegates from not only across the country but also from other countries are participating as paper presenters, invited speakers and chairpersons of various sessions. As part of the conference poster presentations, book exhibition, workshops as well as display of technology solutions have also been arranged. RIEM Principal DGRao, Dean of Instructions S Ramaa and others were present.
