Preamble
With advances in technology and ease of access to good tools of ICT, teachers are gradually accepting the use of ICT tools to make the teaching more effective in the classrooms. Various factors influence the usage of ICT tools for its effectiveness in making the classes more interesting and reaching to the student community. Nevertheless, the teaching skills of a teacher without any special aid of ICT tool is always highly appreciated. Many teachers still resort to the blackboard teaching and make the classes mesmerising to the students with the natural instinct of taking the students into the fantastic journey of topic being taught. The articulation, effective usage of blackboard, body language, eye to eye contact, personal attire and attitude of a teacher sometime supersede the need of ICT tool in a classroom.
ICT in Teaching Pedagogy during Covid Pandemic
The Covid Pandemic and related lockdown taught many lessons to the mankind. The unimaginable changes were observed during the lockdown. Thanks to the availability of good mobile network and internet facility across the country especially in urban areas, many institutions resorted to online teaching within very little time of adoption. Teachers had to invariably learn and use this technology to reach the students through online mode. Happy to note that even the primary school teachers also got familiarised with the online teaching using mobile phones. Students also got used to the new normal. The changes in social behaviour of students due to online teaching is a different topic altogether for discussion. But the notable point is the general acceptance of the public and educationists for the online classes using relevant technology. Many new software for online classes were made available for free usage and on commercial basis with added features as required by the user. The growth and transformation of online communication changed from stiff ‘Skype’ to flexible ‘Google meet’ and many more.
New Normal of Offline Classes
Now the offline classes are back into practice, and students and faculty members are again getting adjusted into direct face-to-face teaching. The changes are also visible in the general trend wherein the teachers are more inclined to adopt ICT tools even during the offline direct classes. The more commonly used tools are the PowerPoint presentation and effective Learning Management System (LMS). Only few are using the advanced features of LMS for collecting quick feedback by the students in the class, conducting quizzes, assignment evaluation, sharing the teaching material and also assessment of learning. Not many are into it though.
Limitations of use of ICT Tools in a Creative Class
The common ICT tool being a PowerPoint presentation, the teachers are sometimes using the same slides repeatedly without bothering to the effective usage of this facility. Few sections of lessons include derivation of scientific formulae, solving the numerical problems for which the usage of blackboard seems to be more effective compared to simply projecting the slides. PowerPoint presentations would become more effective when it is used to play the animation, videos and show few trends using tools such as Microsoft Excel. But these may not be effective in bringing in the connectivity for the students during problem solving and a few types of derivations of scientific formulae. More challenges are faced in classes like fine-art. Drawing a picture on board or canvas with face-to-face interaction would be more effective in the class rather simply playing a video of such creative art works.
This raises the question, “How Much of ICT Component in a Classroom would be Effective?” The answer depends on the faculty member using the tools and the topic being taught. Of course the new techniques and technologies are being introduced by several ed-tech companies to make any of such classes more interesting and involved. Again, the effective usage by the faculty member alone can reap the benefit of such technological advances in ICT tools.
About the Author
Dr. S.N. Sridhara is an educationist and education-administrator having rich experience in pedagogy, education policies and reforms. He has given counselling sessions to the students and parents through TV channels related to career guidance. He is also a popular writer of articles related to higher education.