'SWAYAM' and eLearning – Digital learning

Part of: GS-II- Education (PT-MAINS-PERSONALITY TEST)

Human Resource Development held a detailed review of the National online education platform SWAYAM and the 32 DTH Television Education Channels SWAYAM PRABHA. During the meeting, a brief presentation of the progress of these schemes was made. In the lockdown condition there has been a tremendous increase in demand and the usage of SWAYAM Courses and SWAYAM PRABHA videos. The Ministry in a statement said that 1902 courses are available currently in SWAYAM, which have been offered to 1.56 crore students since launch.

It was decided that all the 1900 SWAYAM Courses and 60 thousand SWAYAM PRABHA videos would be translated into ten regional languages and made available to the students so that more benefit can be derived from the same. The more popular content, and for engineering courses taught in first year shall, however, be prioritized for translation. The whole project will be started immediately and completed in a time bound manner. It said, UGC has been asked to prepare guidelines regarding online and Distance learning guidelines to increase Gross Enrolment Ratio.

On SWAYAM PRABHA, the Ministry said that is a group of 32 DTH channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programmes on 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite. It said that possibility of redistribution of channels to match available content, and viewership will be explored. It was also decided to enrich the content in SWAYAM PRABHA by collecting content from who so ever willing to contribute the same under Vidya Daan Programme. Subject expert committees shall be formed to approve the content received, before getting it uploaded on SWAYAM Prabha.

About Vidya Daan

CBSE is leveraging DIKSHA to launch ‘Vidya Daan’- A program to enable contributions to improve teaching & learning. Vidya Daan is an effort to encourage the sharing of high quality, curated, relevant & curriculum linked digital content. Teaching and Learning content in Vidya Daan have been contributed by teachers and schools across India.

This program attempts to synergize countrywide developments in the field of education by providing schools all over India, from the Metro cities to the smallest villages with good quality e-content that can be used by them anytime, anywhere at no cost. The aim of this program is to empower each school, teacher, and student and improve learning.

Several schools in India have participated in the program to contribute curriculum linked digital content for multiple resources required by the teacher.

DIGITAL EDUCATION

Digital education making way into education sysytem

Gone are the days when classroom training was restricted to textbook learning, teachers using the blackboard to students writing notes in copies. Its more chalk and talk in most schools. Digital education is making its way into the education system of India and is taking the place of the traditional classroom training.

Distance education beyond boundaries

Technology has made it possible for students who fall off the traditional path to jump back on and finish what they spent most of their childhood working towards. This may be in the form of taking remote classes from home, remedial classes in on-campus computer labs or even by enrolling in full-time online schools, public or private.

Flexible learning environment

A student who needs extra help on a particular topic need not hold up the entire class, or feel embarrassed asking for that help, when there are computer modules and tablet apps available for individual learning experiences.

Teachers who spot a trouble area with a particular student can gear that teen towards more exercises to master the topic. Of course, technology is not the magic wand to fix all problems, but it does allow for more flexibility of the learning process.

Many schools now come with a TV or a projector attached to their whiteboard where it is easy to shift from a normal classroom session to an interactive digital session. This can make students pay more attention as we are now in the digital era where Google is our go-to place.

Field trips turned to Online Webinars

If a school does not have the resources to send students on field trips, they can opt for web seminars related to their course work. Conducting online seminars and webinars, enabling all students to engage in commenting and participating in questionnaires can help them stay alert. It is very vital that students engage in seminars and the lectures involve two-way communication.

NASA is known to offer a program for students wherein they can talk to astronauts in space using such web seminars. This hybrid, collaborative online learning experience is broadly changing the aspects of education in India.

Usage of VR and AR for learning

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are already buzzwords in the technology space. Their advent in e-learning has massively impacted the efficiency with which it is offered to students and the way it assesses their performance.VR allows students using e-learning platforms on mobile devices to directly interact with study material. This keeps their engagement levels high and motivates them.

Globalized learning, maximized exposure

With the internet, it has become possible for students to communicate with students from other parts of the world. This makes it really easy to learn foreign languages and expand the exposure of young minds. Video conferencing is a boon to students who want to communicate or meet with their global counterparts.

Today, India is one of the world's top destinations for education. Where the pedagogy is all about the smartboards where teachers can drag and drop shapes, bring in online calculators on the board, measure with AR tools and voice out the text they want to see on the board.It is time to collaborate teaching methodology with technology and make education and classroom sessions livelier and more interesting!

The key e-Learning Projects being run by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) are as follows:

• ICT in Education Curricula for School system:

ICT in Education Curricula for students, teachers and teacher educators has been developed at the national level and being implemented across the country. 805 MRPs/ KRPs of thirty six States/UTs were oriented on ICT curriculum for students and teachers and their roll out in respective states. Guidelines for teacher, student and schools on cyber safety and security have been published.

• e-pathshala:

e-pathshala has been developed by NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and Training) for showcasing and disseminating all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials. So far, 3444 audios and videos, 698 e-books (e-pubs) and 504 flip books have been made available on the portal and mobile app.

• Shagun portal:

A web portal called ShaGun (from the words Shaala and Gunvatta) which has two parts, one of which is a Repository of good practices, photographs, videos, studies, newspaper articles etc on school education, State /UT wise has been developed which is in public domain. Its purpose is to showcase success stories and also to provide a platform for all stakeholders to learn from each other. This also instills a positive competitive spirit among all the States and UTs.

• National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) –

The National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) is an initiative to bring together all digital and digitisable resources across all stages of school education and teacher education. So far, 13635 files including 401 collections, 2722 documents, 565 interactive, 1664 audios, 2581 images and 6105 videos have been made available over the portal. State/ UTs are motivated to contribute resources on NROER and create OERs for their own State/ UT.

• SWAYAM:

The ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’ (SWAYAM) an integrated platform for online courses, using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and covering school (9^th to 12^th) to Post Graduate Level. SWAYAM provides one integrated platform and portal for online courses, using information and communication technology (ICT) and covering all higher education subjects and skill sector courses to ensure that the every student in the country has access to the best quality higher education at affordable cost. It also offers online courses for students, teachers and teacher educators. It may be accessed on swayam.gov.in. Besides, National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) is promoting education through e-learning methods by providing courses on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the portal. There are 44 courses of NIOS offered on SWAYAM platform – 14 at secondary level, 16 at senior secondary level, 4 vocational courses and 10 courses of Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed.).

• SWAYAM PRABHA:-

A programme for utilization of satellite communication technologies for transmission of educational e-contents through 32 National Channels i.e. SWAYAM PRABHA DTH-TV has been launched. CIET-NCERT is the national coordinator for one DTH TV channel i.e., Kishore Manch (#31) and has started feeding a 24×7 educational TV channel w.e.f. 09.07.2018.

Everyday four hour fresh slot is telecast and repeated 5 more times in 24 hours to provide learning opportunities for the stake holders, as per their convenience. Besides, NIOS is running 5 channels for teachers, for secondary and senior secondary levels and for sign language.

• National Digital Library (NDL):-

The National Digital Library of India (NDL) is a project to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility.

NOTE: For SWOT analysis of eLearning

https://www.aspireias.com/daily-news-analysis/Ethics/COVID-19-eLearning-SWOT-analysis