B Nagalakshmi

My grandfather was the first headmaster of the primary school attached to the Teachers’ Training College in Saidapet, Madras. This was in the 1940s, or probably even earlier. As a teacher in those times, he had designed “cinema boxes” for use in the classroom. The box was a regular cube made by the local carpenter. It had a glass door. Two thin wooden cylinders – like the belan we use to roll out chapathis – were fixed at the top and bottom. These could be rolled up or down by a handle fixed outside the box. A long strip of white cloth – his old dhotis folded and stitched, I suspect – was fixed and wound on both the top and bottom cylinders.

He drew, collected pictures, photographs or newspaper articles and stuck them on this piece of cloth. Subject-wise and topic-wise, he had made these ‘newsreels’ to teach history or science to young learners. He had retired decades before I was born, but he was at work in his room creating more material for these boxes, and as a child in the early 1970s I remember helping him sew or paste pictures to complete his project. As children we sometimes rotated only the top cylinder nonstop, so that the cloth screen-base was unwound and fell in a heap at the bottom!

This long nostalgic introduction is to contrast the difference technology has made in education today. Surely much more needs to be done to take the benefits across the country to all children, irrespective of class, caste or language. However, what is available – even though mostly to schools located in cities – is still significant.

The only resource that was available in my school days was the textbook. We had not even seen the four-colour versions then, and they made an appearance in the mid-1980s or so. The real changes influenced by technological advancement began a few years ago when we saw CDs enter the education sector. In the beginning, these CDs did not make a big impact, as the cost of producing them was quite high, and they had to be therefore priced higher than the textbook itself. With the costs of CDs coming down in recent times to affordable levels, the investment in production of the master copy is a fixed cost that publishers are increasingly willing to absorb. Originally the CDs were introduced for ‘knowledge’ subjects like science. They had visuals of experiments being carried out with a voice-over explaining the concepts behind them. Animation was in its nascent stage, and the images moved only when necessary. In the language CDs – usually English – the stories and poems were read out, and offered help to those teachers who wanted to pronounce the words right. These CDs now use multimedia and are interactive as well, helping students answer questions and assess their performance. Hopefully soon History and Geography – hitherto dismissed as ‘other subjects’ – will also see the availability of these to enthuse the teacher and the learner.

From an educational publisher’s point of view, technology has indeed quickened the process of making the textbook. Gone are the days when a manuscript was delivered hand-written or at best typed – as the contract said, ‘on one-side only, using double spacing’! Nobody in the right frame of mind would accept either today. Typescripts are submitted as soft copy, and corrections are made using ‘track changes’ and these in turn are immediately sorted out between author and editor. Not only time, but also paper – read trees – is saved in this process, unless one is obsessive-compulsive about having a printout to file!

I have witnessed the effect technology has on teacher training as well. As publishers of textbooks, we conduct workshops throughout India to help teachers teach effectively. A decade ago, these workshops had typed and photocopied handouts, which the resource person distributed to the teacher participants during the course of the day. Today we use an LCD projector instead of an overhead one, and have dispensed with making slides on transparencies. I have also seen the impact of ideas presented using power point. It has a greater effect on participants than a printed handout. I have copied an entire workshop for a techno-friendly teacher who brought a pen-drive with her!

Audio-visual aids available today make language learning more effective. Language labs are being established in many schools, where pupils listen to pre-recorded material. These tapes and CDs have people conversing using everyday language in natural contexts. Pupils listening to these are able to engage with the language, and follow speech patterns and functions. Thus, learning is not divorced from reality.

Even in higher education, the changes are amazing. Medical students today have the luxury of listening to all their lectures in the college library, so that a student who has either missed a class or needs to clarify doubts is able to listen to them at any time. Students are also able to watch their dissections on a giant screen, even as they cut! The teacher need not waste time inside the classroom drawing diagrams. These are all available on CDs and are distributed by teachers to the students as well. Engineering students work on their laptops in classrooms, and keep their pace with technology.

Technology has therefore made a huge difference in education, just as it has changed our lives in general. Still, how it is put to use is equally important. It cannot be used as a gimmick in lieu of preparation. Even technology will not come to the aid of someone who hasn’t put in hard work before entering a classroom! Similarly, no technology can substitute an understanding and effective teacher!

The author is Chief Editor (ELT), Ratna Sagar P Ltd, New Delhi. She can be reached at
nagalakshmi.bala@gmail.com.