Digital lessons captivate students

English, mathematics, science and social science come packaged in bytes Students initiated into the world of lessons with a click of the mouse The burden on teachers is lessened to a great deal. In short learning made fun, says this news item in The Hindu.

- Dilip.

________________________________________

Source: The Hindu, 23-06-2006

Digital lessons captivate students

Anasuya Menon

15 schools in Coimbatore have introduced the concept

---

English, mathematics, science and social science come packaged in bytes Students initiated into the world of lessons with a click of the mouse The burden on teachers is lessened to a great deal

---

LEARNING MADE FUN: Students browse through an animated lesson at a digital classroom session at G. Ramasamy Naidu Matriculation Higher Secondary School in the city. - Photo: K. Ananthan

COIMBATORE: Nouns and verbs take on the form of friendly cartoon characters. Numbers and geometrical figures sprout hands and feet as students watch them on screen. In short, study hours are transformed into pure fun.

With a few schools welcoming the concept of digital classrooms, subjects are now taught through computers. English, mathematics, science and social science come packaged in bytes and students are initiated into the world of lessons with a click of the mouse.

Nearly 15 schools in Coimbatore have introduced the concept of digital classrooms. However, the system does not do away with textbooks, blackboard and chalk. Says Seetha Poovaiah, Principal of G. Ramaswamy Naidu Matriculation Higher Secondary School, "it merely supplements the chalk and talk system." Students attend one hour of digital classes in each subject except Hindi and Tamil. Converting the entire system to digital mode involves a lot of investment in terms of infrastructure, she says.

By putting across an idea visually, students are able to retain it better than when it is read out to them from textbooks, says Prakash Kumar, Lead Facilitator of Future Schools, an organisation that lends technical support to schools for implementing the concept of digital classrooms. Also, a classroom has students who have different learning capacities. "Some may be good auditory learners while some others may be better with visual representations. Introducing the system to children right from kindergarten level would improve their grasping power by the time they enter high school," he says.

The burden on teachers is also lessened to a great deal as they can explain the concepts better through the computer animated version of the lessons. "Teachers feel that the time required to teach a subject is reduced considerably through this new method," Ms. Poovaiah says. However, the investment that goes into the implementation of the system remains a hurdle for most schools. Though having an audio-visual facility in each classroom would be ideal, schools could also do with one classroom converted to an audio-visual room with one TV or a 29-inch projector, says Mr. Prakash. Schools that have computer laboratories with ten to 15 systems could also utilise the systems for this purpose, he suggests.