Internet technology has provided phenomenal opportunities to educational institutions as well as students for enhancing skills and learning. The old way of learning and the new one can be compared to various dimensions. While in traditional method the teacher and the taught were co-located in terms of space and time, online education has broken both the limitations.
In traditional modes of communications, there is a trade-off between a number of students that can be taught in class and richness of experience: If the class strength increases, the experience goes down and vice-versa. Classroom teaching is very high in quality of experience, but there is a limitation on the number of students that can attend a lecture. Internet technology has changed the fundamentals; the number of students and the experiences that they get can be enriched at the same time.
Two distinct possibilities exist in online education: synchronous and asynchronous technologies. In first, the teacher and the students interact with each other using online training platforms such as Adobe netconnect from Adobe, GotoTraining from Citrix or Webex from Cisco. In the latter, the pre-recorded lectures of classes are seen. In both the cases, the restriction of co-location is broken.
As far as time is concerned, as in classroom teaching, in synchronous technology the students and teacher are present together at the same time. As the teacher is still interacting on a real-time basis with the students, though more students can be handled per class in this kind of online engagement compared to an in-class lecture but there still a limit on the class strength. The students-teacher ratio may increase by 3-5 times using this technology. Investments in the development of instruction material are not very high, but active involvement of instructor is an essential requirement.
In India, commercial synchronous technology solutions are available in two variants. At IIM Ahmedabad, these have been classified into studio-to-classroom (S2C) and Direct-to-Device (D2D) solutions. In the first option, the instructor gives lectures from a studio specially developed for the purpose. It has multiple cameras, computers, and monitors. Students have to go to certain specific classroom locations in their cities to attend the classes. NIIT Imperia and Hughes offer such solutions along with various business schools in the country. Setting up of the studio as well as classroom, require significant investments. In D2D solution, the instructor can take a class from the studio or his/her desktop or laptop and students attend classes from their devices (desktop/laptop/tablet/smartphone). This does not require many investments.
If the student to faculty ratio is to be increased further, asynchronous technology comes to help. Using this technology, students watch videos available on the website at their convenience. Students do not interact with the instructor on a real-time basis, but they do interact within themselves. Intermittently, the instructor may be available online to solve doubts of the students. Creating content becomes very costly for asynchronous technologies as classroom sessions are to be recorded. Another advantage of asynchronous technology is that each recording can be used multiple times.
The author teaches at IIM Ahmedabad
