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16
Dec, 2015

By MyEdge

Virtual Classrooms – A Revolution In Teaching

Virtual classrooms are revolutionising the sector of eLearning, with more and more teachers taking up this new tool, which can be used for both teaching and learning. After all, these online tools do not just help in providing lessons to students, but also help teachers across the world interact with one another via a common platform, clearing up each other’s doubts. This results in a major increase in efficiency, not just for students, but teachers as well. Administrative processes can also be handled in a streamlined manner.

Organise virtual classes with students from across the globe

Virtual classes make it perfectly possible for a teacher sitting in Delhi to help a student accessing the classroom from New York. Offline classes cannot provide this kind of flexibility.

What’s more – the teacher can choose a time when he/she would be able to teach and ask the students whether all of them can make it then. This ensures efficient usage of time for both the teacher and the students.

Connect with peers to discuss teaching strategies and lesson plans

Virtual classrooms allow teachers connect to their peers in the field and discuss lessons that they are about to teach in classes. This often leads to exchange of knowledge and insights among teachers, which students benefit from, in the long run. For instance, if a teacher is conducting a research, he/she might come across peers interested in similar topics, and receive assistance from them.

What’s more – teachers can also discuss their teaching methods and fix any flaw that might exist in those. This ensures lessons are taught better in class and students can learn faster as well.

Form groups among students to accelerate learning

A virtual classroom also helps teachers group students according to the subject matters that the latter are interested in studying. After all, if a group of students is lagging behind on a particular topic, it makes sense to put them in a separate group and interact with them separately later on, while the rest of the class proceeds with regular lessons. This is like a discussion done after a class, involving students who come up to the teacher with their problems, albeit in a virtual environment.

What’s more – This kind of interaction can help teachers talk to students who constantly lag behind on assignments separately, without embarrassing them while the whole class is listening in. That way, the teacher can find out about the problems the student is facing and provide constructive solutions to those, thus earning the student’s trust.

Share notices and circulars

Virtual classrooms come with virtual noticeboards, which teachers and administrators can use to post notices and circulars. Thus it becomes very easy to share news on any alteration in teaching schedules or methods, with everyone.

What’s more – virtual classrooms usually offer the option to send emails to every member. So, even if a student misses a class, teachers/administrators can inform him/her about exam schedules, upcoming topics to be discussed, and so on.

Virtual classrooms make it possible for students to attend classes without leaving their homes and teachers to provide lessons to students from all corners of the globe whenever they have time in hand. Not only that, study materials can also be provided at a fraction of the price of printed books. These advantages create a win-win situation for everyone, and are the reasons why virtual classrooms are gaining more and more popularity with each passing day.

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30
Oct, 2015

By MyEdge

How To Enable Your Child To Cope With Competition?

Children are breaking new barriers every day. With new technologies, contact with changing patterns of learning, virtual classrooms and new learning mechanisms, a child is no longer getting to learn the traditional way. You might sit back as a parent and wonder whether your child is actually overwhelmed with all this exposure or is it a good thing. The first thing that you need to keep in mind is the fact that despite a dog-eat-dog world, children are evolving fast with coping mechanisms that will spell wonders for them in the long run.

As a parent you can aid this process of self-coping with some handy tips. You can be a mute bystander in all this or simply put be a facilitator in aiding your child’s spectacular development.

  1. Try and understand the personality type of your child: If you are sending your child to school to compete with other kids, you need to know where your kid stands in comparison. Remember your support will matter only when you know how and what your child is like. Understanding how and what makes your child tick is crucial in the ages of 7-15 years. You should make sure that your child competes with himself before he sets goals in beating others.
  2. The Self comes first: In the competitive spectrum, where your child is with his peers, it makes good sense to understand who your child is. What makes your child successful is not to be confused with what makes him or her comfortable. Help your child find that space and then egg him or her on. Discovering the “self” may be fraught with challenges but that should not be a deterrent.
  3. Watch out for signs of stress: If there is a niggling discontent that may damage his self confidence in the long run. You should help the child cope rather than criticize him. Children in the age groups of 7- 16 years will not talk about their stress levels openly. Some may even not own up to it. Learn to sit with your kids and discuss their day in particular. Listening to your child is crucial. Understand and steer him, don’t bog him down.
  4. Understand that losing is not all that bad: Competition is not a rat race that should demoralize your child. It should be about performance and beating personal bests. If that is ingrained in your child he will automatically develop the zeal and vigor to fight out future competitions in academics and sports.
  5. Never own your child’s challenges: Finally, never ever, take up the challenges of your child and make them your own. The same applies vice versa. Children perform the best when left on their own. Your support should be mental and emotional. Tell them and show them respect. That should be enough. Help your child with the necessary tools to fight their own battles. Never interfere and create a situation where you are mingling with his coach or even shooting off emails to his teacher. If your child picked up a fight in the school bus, do not be tensed just listen and advise, not act on his behalf!
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05
Mar, 2015

By MyEdge

Online Learning is as good if not better than Traditional Education

More than 9.1 mn students around the world are currently enrolled in an online course/program. This trend despite its recent massive popularity is not being given its due recognition by conventional educationists, who still believe that the most effective way of learning is the traditional face to face classroom environment. But recent studies carried out by eminent global research organizations and institutions reveal a startling fact, to the surprise of such academicians.  The popularity of online courses has picked up substantially in the last 3 years mainly due to a number of merits (convenience, affordability, seamless, quality etc) over traditional education system, though it is highly unlikely that online education would be able to completely replace traditional system of learning. It is pertinent to note that online learning is a way to enhance one’s knowledge and can be utilized effectively to supplement formal traditional physical classroom based education.

“A number of well-known educators have said that there isn’t going to be much learning in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs),” said a professor at MIT. He added “if not, it is very helpful to already educated people, who want to learn but do not have time for it”.

Online courses are dependent on online libraries, real time teacher assistance, virtual classrooms and study groups.

Online libraries in contrast to traditional libraries are better suited to the needs of a modern day student who wants to refer from various sources. Very few online libraries offer high priced books at very affordable charges through an online subscription based model. A student can download as many eBooks as he/she wants and can make notes, create reports or read for pleasure.

But the real revolution in the field of education has to be virtual classrooms. It has replaced the old fashioned exchange programs run by schools and universities around the world. Now students can interact with teachers and professors in real time from the comfort of their homes.

Similarly, a student has the freedom to create study groups, exchange notes and interact with students from other parts of the world. Innovative platforms have been designed to make all this possible, all you need is a portable device and an internet connection.

Students from all over the world are finding these platforms extremely useful as it helps them in learning new concepts & network with people with similar interests. On the other hand, traditional education system is not as flexible as the online learning system.

Clearly, online education scores over traditional education on many fronts. Like any other system of education has its flaws too, but a blended system, where traditional education system is in sync with online learning is what is needed. Neither of the two can be ignored. Thus our education system should accommodate both.

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19
Feb, 2015

By MyEdge

7 Alarming Facts that’ll Change Your Perspective about Education in India

It is known to everyone that India is the second most populated country in the world after China. However, very few people know that more than 50 % of Indian children in the age group of 6-17 years, about 200 million in total, do not attend any school. Sad but true. The present Indian education system does not encourage children, especially from semi-urban and rural background; to take up studies further our ambitious government policies reap no positive results either.

We thought of making some facts available to you on Indian education system to ponder upon, in this blog.

Let’s start

  • The Central Government is not keeping its promise to spend the allocated budget for furthering education interests across the country. To improve the current situation, it should ideally be spending as much as 6% of GDP on education; it is actually spending only 3.3%. We know that blaming the government won’t solve anything but we as the citizens of the country & the world should take note if the primary tasks are not being performed by the elected members of the parliament.
  • 50% of the total population of children is completely devoid of schooling. Rate of drop-outs from schools is constantly increasing due to lack of academic infrastructure, poor & inconsistent faculty availability, consistent pressure to support families, lack of interest in studies amongst others. In addition, the percentage of girls dropping out is higher than boys.
  • Approximately 53% of Indian girls aging between 5 to 9 years are uneducated.
  • In spite of provision of free education in Government schools, people want to send their children to private schools due to their lack of trust & faith on the quality of education would be imparted in government schools. There aren’t enough private schools to match this requirement. In some instances, the application to seat ratio is more than 150:1
  • Higher education enrollment rate in India is just 18% while in US it is as high as 83%. Indian students want to study abroad because there aren’t enough quality educational institutions in the country. In some colleges, the cut off are as high as 99.8%. The government itself admits that the condition of 77% of colleges and universities is not satisfactory which means that the level of education they provide is below Indian standards, let alone international standards.
  • India rightly boasts of having the largest technical as well as scientific pool of graduates but hardly 10% of them are readily employable. Meaning, they lack skills and practical approach that is needed to perform a particular job. No wonder we fail drastically and fall short of our employer expectations.
  • A research has brought forth drastic facts that there are more than 775 million illiterate people in the whole world out of a total population of 6 billion, of which 35% reside in India alone. In this country, more than 269 millions of people don’t even know how to read and write.

 

We know that these are mere facts and presenting it in a condescending tone alone won’t help the cause, but yes we can change the situation by taking certain steps at our end. We can and should change our outlook towards education and learning. MyEdge.in is doing just that. It allows you to gather knowledge from different sources at no extra cost, using technology and various ground breaking pedagogical techniques such as Virtual Classrooms & Virtual Library. If you think that there should be a change in the education system, you have to be the initiator of this change.

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Virtual Classrooms – A Revolution In Teaching
How To Enable Your Child To Cope With Competition?
Online Learning is as good if not better than Traditional Education
7 Alarming Facts that’ll Change Your Perspective about Education in India