ELITE 2009: e-learning Session by Prof. N J Rao

 

Prof N .J Rao conducted an extensive session on e-learning. The session covered basic tenets of e-learning.  One of advantage of teaching is that it once learning resources such as class notes are available in digital format it allows faculty to make incremental improvements in his class notes and secondly it can be made available to large number of students. However whenever faculty simply transfer his paper-based class notes and other learning resources into digital format – in toto – he may not be gaining all the advantages potentially possible with new technology.

 

E-learning is a very useful tool for enhancing both effectiveness of teaching and as well as productivity of a teacher. E-learning tools support all kinds of instructional methods- lecture, demo, tutoring, simulations, discussions etc and allow teacher to combine them in customized manner. E-learning tools provide consistent teaching delivery systems that dose not depend on such thing as mood of a teacher and other exogenous factors. In addition instructional methods such as tutoring – can be very time consuming. E-learning tools help teacher to overcome this. By means of automating certain tasks such a conducting assessment tests- e-learning tools relieve teachers from the drudgery of routine tasks.

 

However e-learning paradigm has its own requirements. A choice of e-learning method must be justified thoroughly and must respect "human learning process". Secondly e-learning approaches being student-centric make " student responsible for deciding the pace " of learning. Simulation tools such as mathlab are part of e-learning repository. E-learning tools when combined with the finding from cognitive field can overcome many of challenges faced by teaching community today