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.

I grew up at a time when school teachers seemed distant figures, who were happy to be distant. That notion went right out of the window on the very day I wrote my last board examination. On that day, a group of us, elated students, visited our rather awe-inspiring teacher of mathematics to give her a gift. She treated us to cake and said thank you with tears in her eyes. She told us that she knew we were a mischievous lot who probably had fun at her expense in class every time her back was turned. She knew exactly which one of us was a mimic and who was the prankster.

At university, I had the good fortune to be taught by Russian teachers, who kept the doors to their homes open for their students. I have eaten meals with my teachers in Russia, I have heard exquisite poetry in their living rooms. From my American teachers I learned that you could be on first names with your professors and line up for a sandwich with them at lunch time, and keep your learning opportunities open throughout.

When I became a teacher, I am sure that those experiences shaped some of my beliefs about my role in my students’ lives. I know that I have consciously tried to develop a personal rapport with every student in every class I have taught. I know also that I am hardly unique in finding ways to build a personal connection with students.

School teachers are a sensitive and insightful lot. The best of them never stop working, and I don’t mean that in the limited way of marking notebooks or preparing for the next day’s lesson, although, that work really never does end. Teachers think about the students in their class long after the day’s work is done. From learning their names in the first days of a new term, a teacher begins to develop a sense of who each person is in the class. In schools where parents have an active role, a teacher’s knowledge of pupils becomes wider, thanks to opportunities to interact with their families of students.

Teachers, not unlike their colleagues in other community-oriented professions, are quick to utilize new and emerging channels for communication. I have personally experienced the impact of the electronic modes of communication which energize contact between teachers, students, and parents. It is not that email and social networks are better or more efficient than, say, the telephone or the handwritten note, but it is simply that new modes of communication offer unique features that expand a teacher’s mechanisms to establish and remain in regular contact with students.

When, some 10 plus years ago, I first began to use the email, including group mails to talk to my students, many people – among them my colleagues – thought that it was just a technology driven fad. Without exaggeration, it is clear to all today that millions of teachers the world over would find it difficult to do without the email to stay in touch with their class. Sending instructions about homework via the email means that I communicate clearly and precisely. I like having my copy of the mail on record for as long as I wish, which is usually for the duration of the term or semester. Filing things away is a lot less cumbersome on the computer, with the added benefit of being able to check who among your recipients hasn’t opened the given piece of mail. And, using the calendar built into many mail programs facilitates reminders, where necessary.

Innovations in technology have made a significant impact on the way we communicate. Take as an example a social networking medium such as the Facebook. I use it regularly to keep in touch with friends and, more importantly, to have an idea of what’s going on in the day-to-day lives of my circle of Facebook friends. Without describing the various functions available to a user, I would say that the Facebook, in some of its uses is way ahead of the email as we know it in facilitating casual communication within a community.

I see Facebook like a virtual block of college dorms in the evening, when the work day is done. People are mingling, running into one another in corridors, knocking on people’s doors looking for company, crashing into a party for a quick round of hellos, or sitting in one’s own room, just looking out of the window, watching the world go by, hearing laughter from a room above, noticing a friend at a study desk in a room across the courtyard. Privacy is for you to define in those spaces inhabited by the young. The ambience is informal, conversations are fleeting, meetings are chance, and opportunities for being passive in a bustling crowd scene plentiful.

For me, keeping in touch with past students has become increasingly pleasant through Facebook. You have access to your friends’ pages at all times and you can have a quick glimpse of their life as it is being lived. There’s something relaxed and easy about knowing that your friends can visit your page – as they would your dorm room – and get a sense of your state of mind, your preoccupation at that moment, and your friend can decide to walk in or pass by. From a word in greeting to quick chats about career decisions, my past students use the Facebook to tell their circle of friends (including me) about things going on in their lives.

I know some readers out there worry about confidentiality, inappropriate use of personal information, and the sheer amount of time one could potentially spend in the virtual world. Facebook users are as varied as students in an undergraduate dorm, where some party endlessly, some are reckless, but all are generally in it to exploit the opportunity to enjoy the unique life of a student life.

Today, with technology, we have the opportunity to belong to a variety of communities, where we can be active or passive members. As a teacher, I have always been surrounded by people much younger than myself, and the age gap has only widened, as the years have gone by. That’s been a singular advantage for me, as my students have invited me to experience their fresh worlds in many ways, including their world of social interaction through virtual spaces, using the technology of the internet. In our days as students, we didn’t really invite our teachers to learn our slang or hang out with us, even if they opened their homes to us. Today’s youth appear to be unencumbered by barriers we didn’t know to break. I am happy to be invited into their world of strange acronyms and short-hand slang, their nifty video clips and the ever growing semantics of the smiley face. Keeping friends has never been easier.

Dr. Kamakshi Balasubramanian is an educator and writer with significant experience.

Just over 60 years ago, in August 1949, a 15-year-old blind boy, Ved Mehta, moved to the United States of America to acquire an education. This was because his country of birth, India, offered no educational facilities to blind people. As a result, the blind had next to no employment opportunities back then (blind people worked as beggars, or lived on charity, or owned paan shops). Thus, the combined strength of negative social attitudes and structural barriers (lack of schools for blind children, lack of access to public transit, etc.) meant that most blind (like other disabled) people led lives mired in poverty and misery.

I speak here about the education of the blind because I am a student who happens to be visually impaired. For me, technology means access to education and employment opportunities, contact with the larger world, and, entertainment. Both the radio and computer technology have played a major role in my life. As Ved Mehta writes in Sound-Shadows of the New World (1986), the fifth in his memoir cycle, the Continents of Exile series, while he was studying at the Arkansas School for the Blind in Little Rock, Arkansas, the radio allowed him to stay in touch with the outside world and helped him to conceive the idea of pursuing a journalistic career (he went on to have a long stint with The New Yorker as a staff writer). So, technology helped launch him on a writing career, and 60 years later, technology is integral to my life and career as well.

When it was time for me to start my schooling, my parents sent me to the local school for “normal” children. Hence I did not learn Braille, which other blind children are taught at schools for the blind. My mother read aloud to me all kinds of books – school books, children’s literature, novels – right from early childhood till the completion of my undergraduation. She used to copy school notes and read them to me. I prepared for my examinations in this manner. Now I perform these activities with the help of my laptop.

When I entered high school, my maternal grandfather introduced me to the habit of listening to the radio, specifically to the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). I quickly became an avid listener. This was fortunate, for it helped to broaden my horizons dramatically. Every day for seven years, I used to listen to broadcasts by the BBC and other radio stations starting early in the morning and after returning home from school and later, college. Programmes on the arts, sciences, current affairs, in-depth analyses of international political events, and so on kept me riveted to the radio. I even participated in an international radio-play writing competition hosted by the BBC.

Early in this decade, when we bought a desktop computer, I was not able to use it. We were not aware of any assistive technology that would enable me to operate the computer on my own. However, this was to change soon. One day in 2002, my mother read an article in the magazine, India Today, about a screen reading software called JAWS for Windows, where the acronym JAWS expands to Job Access With Speech. This software has been developed by Freedom Scientific (www.freedomscientific.com), a company specializing in developing technology-based products to help the blind and people with learning disabilities to have equal access to information and computing, thus enabling them to improve their lives. Excited by the prospect of my achieving proficiency in using the computer, my parents bought this software. The purchase involved a considerable expense but looking back now, it seems entirely worth it.

I learned to operate the computer independently with the help of JAWS for Windows and was soon busy surfing the Net and being amazed at the whole new world that was opening up before me. I even set up a personal email account.

In June 2005, I wrote the entrance test to the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL, now known as The English and Foreign Languages University, or EFLU) in Hyderabad and secured a seat. I was eager to do my M.A. there because their prospectus and website informed me that they offered special facilities for visually impaired students. These included computers complete with screen reading softwares like JAWS for Windows, and Kurzweil. This meant that I could be self-reliant in my studies. However, during my first semester at the institute, I did find it difficult to keep up with my assignments and other academic work, because it was not easy to find the required reading material in digital format. My professors and friends were very understanding and did their utmost in helping me with my education.

On the advice of Dr. Rajiv C Krishnan, one of my lecturers, I purchased a laptop early in my second semester. He said that it would be of great help in my studies. Looking back, I think it was the best thing I could have done. From then on, I did all my academic work on my laptop. My teachers gave me the required readings in digital format and allowed me to take all exams using my computer.

A friend who uses JAWS for Windows for his professional work once told me that the software would enable blind people to perform all computer-related work as well as (if not better than) sighted people. I know that he is right. But I am aware that all blind people do not have access to technology-based products because of the costs involved in procuring and using them. I know of visually impaired students who were not able to do well in their studies solely due to this reason. So in our country, I think it is the responsibility of institutions devoted to imparting education to make sure that visually impaired and other disabled students gain access to technology at the right times, thus enabling them to build their careers with greater success.

Thus, like Braille, which was a great innovation, technology-based products have the capability to improve the lives of blind people. This is certainly true in my case. After finishing my M.A. in English literature, I am now on the verge of completing my M.Phil from EFL University. My research work was made possible by the online library, questia.com. I have been able to gain higher education due to computer technology.

And now, I listen to BBC radio on the Net.

The author is an M.Phil student at the English and Foreign Languages University. He can be reached at aravind.ciefl@gmail.com.

If technology comes, can libraries be far behind? What should a school library do to show the way to teachers and management in the realm of technology? This was the question that I faced way back in 1997 as a librarian at Centre for Learning in Bangalore. We had an open library and a lively and interactive user community. Shouldn’t we leave things well alone? But there was the lure and the thrill of the possibilities of computerisation. Users from ages 5 to 55 functioning independently at the computer – to borrow, return, reserve, and search for whatever their strange hearts desired; and for the librarian? Liberation from catalogue cards, borrower cards, accession registers…. in brief, no more paper-work! That was a consummation devoutly to be wished. After a frustrating exploration of existing software; too cumbersome, too complicated, too expensive – a computer-crazy older student at the school came up with a programme that we worked on together. MERLIN he called it and magical it was. Children took to it effortlessly, adults with a little more hesitation but after a trial run, we knew we were going to create a record of sorts. One of the first school libraries to be fully computerized!

But magical though the effects were, a lot of hard work came first. Putting in all the data for 4500 books took two summer breaks and more. But looking back, it was all worth it. This was an invaluable add-on to the openness of the library. Each user (student and teacher) has an account through which they borrow books, journals, CDS, etc. They can also find out whether the library has a particular item and if so, where it is located. On the shelf, or with someone else? If the latter, then a polite message is sent asking the person to return it as soon as possible. As you can see, this programme has been created with a co-operative and user-friendly perspective. Now the computer is a familiar friend and children go to it for all their needs with the greatest confidence that it can do the trick! Every user has total independence and there is implicit trust that they will use it in the right spirit. The few blips that have occurred are dealt with through dialogue and discussion. For the librarian, information on the borrowing habits and patterns of every user is available at a click!

When we opened the doors to a computerized system, we also enabled the entry of many other technological aids. Reference work is done both with the physical material as well as through CDs and CD-Roms. On-line access is available to students with an adult’s knowledge and guidance. As a librarian, I show them how a preliminary search through books and CDs prepares them better to search and find the right and relevant information on the Net. They see the truth of this when they find themselves entangled in a web of information over-kill! Young students who discover the heady possibility of lifting essays from the Net and do a cut and paste are soon dispirited to find that they have very little knowledge of the topic and that the teacher is not fooled either! Another activity I have initiated is to have an open discussion about Google and Wikipedia with senior students. In their dialogue they come to a certain reality check about all such search engines. They see the challenges and the pitfalls of going to a single source for all their information, opinions, and data.

Another interesting angle to this computerization is the incentive it gives students to take on projects like creation of bibliographies, compilation of statistical data about the library collection and use, and analyzing information gathered from surveys. At CFL every group takes on library related projects, some of which I have listed already. The ease with which they can get required information encourages them to take on useful and challenging projects. Once they have the data, the presentation is theirs to do artistically, colourfully and even graphically. These visual charts are kept on file in the library for information and inspiration to the next-generation of learners! Other projects created on the computer include a visitors’ guide to the library, a messaging service alerting users to new arrivals relating to their specific interests, a reminder service regarding overdue books and an outreach out system for old students.

Every book has a borrowing record and on it you may find comments by each reader. Every user too has a borrowing record so if you wish to recollect your reading interests and perhaps refresh your memories, there you go. The value in this for the librarian is intangible. Many times it happens that children respond to suggestions if they come from older students. Without bothering anyone, the librarian can invite a resistant child to take note of an older student’s reading interest at their age and hey presto, the job is done. Slower readers appreciate books on audio. Some groups might like to see a film of a well-loved book or the other way around. In the library is an audio-video corner which can be used individually or in a group. For all this to be used wisely and well, the librarian is an initiator and a friend.

So let us visualize a scene in 2084 where the librarian-robot is an attachment to the computer and is whizzing around the library. A student comes along with a query. The librarian anticipates the need and in micro seconds, an answer flashes on the screen. The student beams that across to the teacher for the project or exam or assignment. The first part is not so different. A good librarian is always available and ready to respond to queries and uses the computer to assist her in her job. But here is the big difference, she makes sure that after she has helped the student find the source, the rest of the exploration and the output is a result of the student’s own curiosity, hard work and scholarship. This is a very important aspect that must not be lost in the quest for technology. A large number of CD-Roms and DVDs are available to help children learn concepts in various subjects. These are very carefully designed and do attract the child to access information and knowledge. But true discovery and tactile exploration where one’s senses are in play cannot be replaced. Therefore it is the responsibility of every school library not only to keep abreast of technological advances, but also to continue to nurture the child’s senses, create opportunities for leisure and the possibility of reflection, and provide the contact with human resources for learning.

How can technology be used to help, point and make known, thereby giving space for creativity, innovation and insight? Especially in a school library can we keep this in mind and not be dazzled by dreams of digitisation, while at the same time making the young users aware of the myriad possibilities and developments of the cyber world? A tightrope walk, but we must do it.

The author is a school library facilitator. She can be reached at usha.mukunda@gmail.com.

Learning to use new technology is not easy; especially for a middle-aged teacher. They say that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. But when push came to shove, this old dog forced himself to learn several new tricks to survive the world of academia at the University of Georgia.

The day that I plodded along East Campus Road in Athens, Georgia, for my first class in Instructional Technology, the air was heavy and woolly, and the sky was growling pessimistic prophecies. In retrospect, I should perhaps have heeded the celestial warnings; instead, I entered the classroom on the 6th floor with naïve enthusiasm. The moment I breezed into the room, I knew that something was wrong: there was only one other student in class. On seeing me, the instructor’s face melted into a delicious smile of welcome; as if on cue, twenty odd students trooped in. God, I thought, was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

The feeling of effervescence lasted till the first set of assignments started rolling off the assembly line. One didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to complete the tasks, and I was confident that I would be able to do them without unduly exerting the old grey cells. It was while I was mentally patting myself on the back that the professor casually added: ‘Oh by the way, I would like you to use the Eudora software for your assignments, and Eudora is available only on Mac.’

The word ‘Mac’ set off a chain reaction. The heart parted from its moorings, the smile that had been splitting my face vanished, sweat oozed from every pore in my body, the stomach complained like a door that hadn’t been oiled in several years, and the jaw drooped like the proverbial lily. The reason for this spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings was fairly simple: no, it was not because I was an admirer of that potty poet Wordsworth. I had never used the Macintosh computer in my life! In fact, I had never used a computer till I became a graduate student in the University of Georgia in the fall of 1994. And for six months, I worked enthusiastically delving into the mysteries of the IBM PC. During this period of learning, I had shunned the Mac, treated it as some sort of pariah, and now, it was striking back.

The following week, the professor took us to the Macintosh computer lab, and I boldly went where at least this Upendran had never gone before. I saw the Apple logo on the computer screen, and unlike Eve I had no desire to taste the forbidden fruit. (You must remember that in January 1995, Microsoft had not started marketing Windows. To be able to operate a PC, you needed to know how to work with the keyboard. The Macintosh, on the other hand, made use of a graphic user interface, which required you to be adept in the use of the mouse.) For the next two hours the professor proceeded to provide us with a breathless summary of the working of the Macintosh computer. In a short space of one hundred and twenty minutes, he took us from the world of ‘Word’, to E-mail. Galin, Eric, World Wide Web and Netscape. And while he was busy telling us how to access the information highway, I was busy trying to unravel the mysteries of the numerous windows on the screen. ‘Click on gopher, pull down message and type in….’ went on the professor. The only thing that I wished to do was to click on ‘menu’, order a pizza, become a gopher and bury myself in some big hole. The lecture delivered at a frenetic pace totally disorganized my nervous system, and as I caught my reflection on the screen, an enigmatic expression on my face was there for all to behold. Had Leonardo Da Vinci seen me as I walked out of the lab, it would be my portrait, not the Mona Lisa’s that would be hanging in the Louvre today!

I doused the impulse to run home to India where the recommended means of doing one’s assignment is to use the ‘portable handheld communications inscriber’ (U. S Army jargon for a pen or pencil!). On returning to my apartment, my wife asked me to cheer up and proceeded to fortify me with a spicy dinner. I purred with satisfaction, and as it usually happens when one has a full tank, a grim determination crept in: I was going to master the Macintosh come what may. The next day, I began the onerous task of ‘attaching’ a document to an email message. Like all Taureans, I had planned well ahead as to how I would tackle the problem, and by the time I reached the computer lab, my fear of the Mac had all but dissipated. But as the saying goes, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. No sooner had I sat down to follow the procedure I had so carefully laid out, a classmate struck up a conversation during the course of which he informed me as to how he had succeeded in attaching a document. Being the computer novice that I was, I was more than willing to follow his instructions. I promptly retrieved a document on Bilingual Education from cyberspace, and sent it off to the professor. The following week I was told that I had merely succeeded in ‘pasting’ the document, and not in ‘attaching’ it. Lesser mortals, of course, would have been crushed. But I stood in total amazement, for yours truly had become the first member of his clan to ‘paste’ a document. History had been made!

I tackled the problem of ‘attaching’ the document once again, and this time it was a solo performance. I carefully followed the instructions that I had planned on using earlier, and it was with a sense of reverence that I clicked on the ‘Send’ button. But when the professor informed me the following week that he hadn’t received the message, a shadow began to fall on my earlier optimism. I had met a formidable enemy, and I decided that it was time to declare war on the Macintosh computer. I realized the only way to master the beastly machine was to have an in-depth knowledge of how its devious mind worked. For the next two weeks, I spent four to five hours every day working with the machine. It continued its non-cooperation movement, and did its utmost to drive me up the wall. But I didn’t roll my eyeballs and throw my hands into the air. I was made of sterner stuff; after all, I had been married for nearly 9 years. I wasn’t going to give in to a computer without a real fight. What was required was patience, and I had tons of it!

In the course of the next two months, I made it a point to park myself in the Macintosh lab whenever I found the time. Through all the grumblings, mumblings and a liberal sprinkling of juicy adjectives, a number of things happened. I began to have a healthy respect for the Macintosh, and it began to see me as someone who could not be easily ‘shooed away’. We began to tolerate each other, and didn’t go out of our way to burst each other’s bubble. I plodded on, struggled with my assignments, and strangely enough began to look forward to my sessions with ‘Mac’. By the time the semester came to an end, and I had successfully completed the assignments to my professor’s satisfaction, I realized I still hadn’t unlocked all the mysteries of this strange computer. I did what most men do when they don’t understand something. I fell in love with it. So much so, when I had saved enough money to buy a computer of my own, I bought myself a Macintosh!

The author teaches at The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He can be reached at supendran@gmail.com.