Learning on the web front

NO ONE needs telephone when face-to-face talk is possible. The question of investigating psychological advantages of telephone over direct face-to-face talk is irrelevant. If attempted, it is like comparing persons with and without eyes. What telephone enables is the direct communication between two persons distant and apart. Persons without telephone cannot do this. Recently, the bank manager refused to give my bank balance details over the phone. The telephonic talk cannot be authentic, as the caller cannot be seen, and one cannot be sure of the voice.

Today, computers, telemedia and cyberspace are in the centre of the controversy. Being able to use computers has been even termed Fourth R. The National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development termed it as IT literacy. It has prescribed IT literacy as an essential requirement for all future government and public sector employment.

The Greek word `kybernetes' means steersman. Norbert Wieners built the field of cybernetics. Like the `robot' of Isaac Asimov, the coinage `cyberspace' has immortalised the novelist William Gibson! `Cyberspace' will rule the next century. Computer based communications media have added new and improved attributes for handling presentation. They have increased accuracy and speed. They have amazing memory, and increased reach. They have made possible, addition of third dimension to our perception. The user can give desired colour, sound and motion. Using computers, we can visualise objects with prescribed specifications, and also induce animation.

Two-way interaction is now possible. The teacher and the student can be distant and apart, yet they can communicate. Education through cyberspace permits repetition sans fatigue, enabling trial and error simulation even with long sequence of operations. Deciding over the best by verification of foresight is possible and also altered strategies can be tried fast. Search for and comparing information is possible on a worldwide basis. More than anything else, the user controls his own path and pace. The cyberspace gives enormous freedom to download information. Likewise, it enables equal facility for sending information to others worldwide. The currency and coins might disappear, making it digital and invisible. E-commerce and e-business are already popular terms today. The cyber market will always be open. The cyber media will have a toll on the society on the whole. There will be cyber-criminals and cyber-police too.

Giving a lecture, conducting an experiment or learning to drive or even playing a musical instrument may be carried out in cyberspace. Learning at home will be the most preferred means of education. Testing in real life contexts will follow all these. The next century will begin with cyber illiteracy of international magnitude. The transformation will be great, inescapable and irreversible.

In India, educational research chose, at times, wrong and outdated premises. The market for software is faster. The effectiveness studies trail. Media technology and the market demand have dictated the type of the software. The commercially made software have focussed on using the new attributes mechanically. For example, if a person dials a out-dated telephone number, a pre-recorded voice tells him that the number has changed and asks him to contact the exchange. This system is useless and only kills time. In such a situation, the software used for the purpose should be able to scan the data and give the new number instantly.

Cyberspace can provide education for everyone everywhere at all times! Commercial users will pay high for their cyber sites. For example, they do so for television advertisement. Public education through cyberspace will become a zero-cost venture.

The latest media and educational technology enables bypassing several earlier stages in our path of development at once! It ends dichotomies in our society. The rich and the poor, and reachable and unreachable will be on par in getting information. The hurdles in our educational effort in India are of poverty, distance, time, number, and cost! education technology enables us to overcome them all.

This is precisely what is needed in India. The 108 point IT action plan proposes computers and Internet services coverage to all educational institutions and hospitals by 2003. Establishing `smart schools' on an experimental basis in all states is another provision. The smart schools will give IT based futuristic education.

Making IT course module compulsory for all degree courses, pairing universities with international centres of excellence in IT, and starting virtual institutions are all welcome steps towards human resource base for the next century.

Psychological principles of learning have always been sidelined in software development or even ignored. For example, learning contexts and tests in market-made software have been very mechanical. They should take the exact semantic difficulties that prompted the error.

The test item should change randomly every time. It should maintain equivalence amidst change. It should have a variety of responding situations. The reinforcement should not be uniform and mechanical. There should be variety.

The effectiveness of educational software should be judged from three angles. They are objective content of learning, the provided learning context and operational or real life competence.

The software should be efficient in terms of student time. Instructional material development should be the first step. Managing learner-content interaction by objectives is the key. Integrating cyber attributes in software is the next. It is time now that the educational technology wings of the univer

sity departments have to provide leadership. Educational technology offers technical weaponry.

It uses systems approach. Within this approach, it employs psychological principles, embraces scientific method, and employs cyber media.

Creating effective software is the need of the hour. Using the available psychological principles should take centre stage amidst the new attributes of cyberspace.

There should be fair and open competition. Market survival cannot however be ignored. Opportunity for market survival decides the fate. Let us set the direction, as there is no option.

K. RAMACHANDRACHAR

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