Abstract
This paper describes how technologies can be used to reduce the unequal access in teacher training in the context of an emerging economy like India. Data were collected from the large-scale synchronous distance mode teacher training workshops for engineering college teachers, undertaken by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), under the National Mission on Education through ICT from the year 2009 to 2013. The goal of these synchronous workshops is to improve the quality of teaching in higher education by training a large number of teachers in a short time. Unequal access and inability to improve outreach have remained as major constraints in conventional approach to teacher training, Statistical analysis of data about the beneficiaries and their feedback on training indicate that outreach of these workshops was good in terms of the number of participants, number of cities/towns, and number of states and colleges covered. Also, inclusivity in terms of gender, age group, location and educational qualification were well achieved, which usually is very difficult to achieve in a conventional face-to-face training. We compared the gender, age group, educational qualification and location of participating teachers in three workshops in the area of Computer science and engineering (CS) and three workshops in the area of Mechanical engineering (ME). The results indicate a clear difference in terms of gender, age and educational qualifications in CS and ME workshops. The comparison of results of Database Management System and Thermodynamics workshops after scaling up the number of participants show that there was not much change in the demography of the participants due to scale up. However, we observed that as the number of remote centres increased, the number of participants from rural colleges also increased, thus, reducing the gap between the urban and rural college teachers. Thus, by using technology one can reduce the unequal access in teacher training and teaching material.
This chapter is an extension of the authors’ work “Synchronous Teacher Training in India: A Study of Perceptions and Satisfaction of the Participants” that was published in 2015 in the International Journal of Information and Education Technology (IJIET), Vol. 5, No. 3.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adem, A. E. (2009). Teacher training through distance education: IICBA’s experience. Africa Education Review, 6(1), 174–184.
AICTE. (2012). Annual report 2011–2012. http://www.aicte-india.org. Accessed November 30, 2014.
Arora, G. L., & Pandey, S. (1998). Teachers’ continuing education: Shifting focus on distance mode. Indian Journal of Open Learning, 7(3), 255–265.
AVIEW. (2014). Amrita Virtual Interactive e-learning World—A multimedia e-learning platform. http://www.aview.in. Accessed October 12, 2014.
Berge, Z. L. (2007). Training in the corporate sector. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (2nd ed., pp. 515–529). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bhattacharya, B. (2008). Engineering education in India—The role of ICT. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 45(2), 93–101.
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–339.
Dixit, U. (2009). The use of ICT in teacher training: Nepal’s experience. Paper Presented at 13th UNESCO-APEID International Conference and World Bank-KERIS High Level Seminar on ICT in Education, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, November 15–17, 2009.
EDUSAT. (2013). Educational Satellite launched by ISRO. http://www.isro.gov.in/category-spacecraft/edusat. Accessed October 12, 2013.
IGNOU. (2014). Indira Gandhi National Open University. http://www.ignou.ac.in. Accessed November 10, 2014.
Kannan, K., & Narayanan, K. (2012). ICT-enabled scalable workshops for engineering college teachers in India. In R. Clothey, S. Austin-Li, & J. C. Weidman (Eds.), Post-secondary education and technology—A global perspective on opportunities and obstacles to development (pp. 127–146). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kannan, K., & Narayanan, K. (2015a). A structural equation modelling approach for massive blended synchronous teacher training. Journal of Educational Technology and Society, 18(3), 1–15.
Kannan, K., & Narayanan, K. (2015b). Synchronous teacher training in India: A study of perceptions and satisfaction of the participants. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 5(3), 200–207.
Lidstone, J., & Shield, P. (2010). Virtual reality or virtual real: Blended teaching and learning in a master’s level research method class. In Y. Inoue (Ed.), Cases on online and blended learning technologies in higher education: Concepts and practices, information science reference (pp. 91–111). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Looi, C.-K., Hung, D., Bopry, J., & Koh, T.-S. (2004). Singapore’s learning sciences lab: Seeking transformations in ICT enabled pedagogy. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(4), 91–99.
NMEICT. (2013). National Mission on Education through ICT, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. http://www.sakshat.ac.in. Accessed October 12, 2013.
Norburg, A. (2012). Blended learning and new education logistics in Northern Sweden. In D. Oblinger (Ed.), Game changers: Education and information technologies (pp. 327–330). Boulder, CO: Educause.
NPTEL. (2014) National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning. www.nptel.ac.in. Accessed November 30, 2014.
Pouezevara, S. L., & Khan, R. (2007). Learning communities enabled by mobile technology: A case study of school-based, in-service secondary teacher training in rural Bangladesh, Technical Report ADB TA NO. 6278-REG, Asian Development Bank.
Ramos, A. J., Nangit, G., Range, A. I., & Trinona, J. (2007). ICT-enabled distance education in community development in the Philippines. Distance Education, 28(2), 213–229.
Roseth, C., Akcaoglu, M., & Zellner, A. (2013). Blending synchronous face-to-face and computer supported cooperative learning in a hybrid doctoral seminar. TechTrends, 57(3), 54–59.
Sridhar, S. (2005). E-Government—A proactive participant for e-learning for higher education. Journal of American Academy of Business, 7(1), 258–268.
T10KT. (2014). Website for Train 10000 Teachers Workshop. http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/nmeict/home.html Accessed October 12, 2014.
Taylor, M. (2005). Access and support in the development of a visual language: Arts education and disabled students. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 24(3), 325–333.
Tinio, V. L. (2010). ICT in Education, Technical Report, UNDP. http://www.apdip.net/publication/iespprimes/eprimer-edu.pdf. Accessed March 3, 2012.
UGC. (2011). Higher education in India, strategies and schemes during Eleventh Plan Period (2007–2012) for Universities and Colleges, Technical report, University Grant Commission, New Delhi. www.ugc.ac.in/oldpdf/pub/he/heistategies.pdf. Accessed March 30, 2012.
UNESCO. (2001). Teacher education through distance learning: Technology, curriculum, cost, evaluation, Technical report, UNESCO.
Wang, Y., Chen, N.-S., & Levy, M. (2010). The design and implementation of a holistic training model for language teacher education in a cyber face-to-face learning environment. Computers & Education, 55(2), 777–788.
Wild, M. (2004). Screen or page: Will the use of computer aided instruction improve phonological skills in year 1 classes? Paper Presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Manchester, September 16–18, 2004. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003882.htm. Accessed October 12, 2014.
Williams, P. (2005). Lessons from the future: ICT scenarios and the education of teachers. Journal of Education for Teaching, 31(4), 319–339.
Young, A., & Lewis, C. W. (2008). Teacher education programmes delivered at a distance: An examination of distance student perceptions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(3), 601–609.
Zhang, X., & Hung, S. (2007). Integrating of the high-tech and low-tech in distance teacher training in China: An insight from the case of Jiangsu Radio and Television University. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(1), 1–14.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Prof. D.B. Phatak for allowing them to carry out the survey. The financial support for conducting the workshop was made available by a grant from the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT), Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi. The e-learning software AVIEW, also supported by NMEICT, was provided by the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kollam, Kerala. An earlier version of this paper was presented in a workshop ‘Harnessing Technology for Challenging Inequality’ of Knowledge Forum held at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai on 7 March 2015. We are grateful to Professors. N.S. Siddharthan, Y.S. Rajan, S. Baskaran and Kannan Moudgalya for their useful comments and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kannan, K., Narayanan, K. (2016). Using Technologies to Reduce Unequal Access in Teacher Training. In: Siddharthan, N., Narayanan, K. (eds) Technology. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1684-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1684-4_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-1683-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-1684-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)