By Thenmoli Rajantran, Lecturer, School of Communication & Design
Students of the past and present are well acquainted with the many flaws of learning in an average classroom setting, be it unengaging textbooks or simply classes that are too long that it makes eternity seem like temporary when combined with a flurry of seemingly unending texts.
However, that isn’t always the case in current times, with educators utilizing newer forms of media as part of their teaching process. Especially the internet as it is an endless stream of valuable information and it can be accessed with almost any device currently. Google is everyone’s best friend and that is still true especially in the classroom; for instance, if you’re unsure about your answers, just search on google to make sure of. Not sure how to spell “rambunctious”? Ask Google. Yes, it does make the students rely on the internet a little too much but repetitive searches on the same theory concepts or word spelling are still considered learning, as Zig Ziglar (book author and motivational speaker) once said, “Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment”.
Some video streaming sites like Dailymotion and Youtube are extremely valuable when it comes to the classroom setting as they contain educational videos and some of the materials available are uploaded by other professional educators, therefore, different perspectives on any topic are readily available through them. Some convoluted concepts are also simplified for effective learning in these videos and we’ve all been in that situation where something basic and simple might seem complex but in actuality, it’s as rudimentary as basic arithmetic.
The usage of media in classrooms is definitely the right approach by the educators as it not only helps their students to expand their way of thinking by exposing them to different and new lines of ideas from different sources but it also helps to cement and solidify existing knowledge in them.