Making satellite lessons attractive
B.R. KUMAR
IT WAS quite interesting to read through the article "Making ICT initiatives in education a success" (Open Page, April 15). The writer has listed the ills confronting the ICT initiatives in a candid manner.
The foremost of the ills is the lack of planning in the production of television programmes telecast through the satellite. There are a number of well equipped TV production studios all over the country, in many universities and Education departments of the State governments.
Lack of trained staff
But the chronic problem they encounter is the lack of trained staff such as qualified producers of TV programmes, cameramen and other staff such as graphic artistes, makeup men, etc. Also these outfits do not have adequate funds to engage themselves in continuous production of programmes. With the result, the camera is just placed in front of a teacher from the university and he is asked to lecture!
This is similar to what happens in the classroom, where the teacher follows the ancient "chalk and talk" method! This is the real drudgery and one has to come out of it. That is why these television classes were planned in our country, which is totally different from the classroom situation. This has been brought out very well in the article on Edusat that appeared on March 11, where the students of Karnataka universities have protested that their own class teacher appears once again on television as a "talking head."
To keep the students glued to TV, one has to produce programmes which are visually articulate and rich and should not depend only on a "talking head." For the production of such programmes, a lot of planning has to be done at the script level, story board level, camera positioning, etc. Even these programmes must include a lot of clippings from outdoor shootings.
A perfect audio is the prime requirement for these programmes. Moreover the voice quality of the presenter must be arresting. Professors and teachers must also be trained to present such programmes.
A lot of training activity is going on all over the country, but it has not fetched any tangible result so far. Why? Because no concerted attempt has been made by the teaching institutions to produce quality programmes. The programmes have to be produced on a continuous basis and they have to be stockpiled for regular use on the satellite channel.
Of course this could be done quite easily, provided there is a will on the part of the educational institutions in the country.
They must come out of their traditional teaching methods and embark upon a new journey through the television.
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