Bridging the digital divide with IT in classrooms

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Programmes are now being launched to bring technology in underprivileged classrooms and rural areas to promote alternative learning systems.

Classrooms are now getting connected.

The advent of the “Digital Era” is being propelled largely by initiatives that aim to connect and utilise emerging technologies to enhance our quality of life. From smart cities, smart enterprises and smart homes, technology is now entering the classrooms.
Samsung has recently experimented in-classroom video conferencing with students at Daeyanam Elementary School in Gunsan, Korea and students at Vidigueira Elementary School in Vidigueira, Portugal.
In its pilot project, Samsung’s Smart School programme connected Portuguese students who sang “Cante Alentejano”, a treasured Portuguese song to a classroom full of Korean students some eight time zones away. The Korean students, in turn demonstrated their taekwondo skills.

In India, Educational researcher Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall experiment, which involved leaving children in the rural slums of India – most of who have never seen a computer before, to learn how to use a computer on their own in the absence of adult supervision. Within six months, the neighborhood children learned how to operate the computer, open and clsoe programmes and download games and videos. When asked by the research team on how they learned to navigate the functions of the computer, they unanimously replied that they taught themselves.

This experiment suggested that Minimally Invasive Education (MIE), a form of learning wherein children operate in unsupervised environments can lead to create a child-driven education or self-promoted learning wherein technology plays an vital role.