Reflections on Using e-Learning Technologies for B Ed (e-Education)

Abstract

The Information Communication Technology is creating a connected society- the society in which people, their living and working places and their organizations are connected anytime and anywhere. This connectedness has created processes not known earlier. Essentially we are in a transitional stage of changing from Industrial Society towards a new society often called as Information or Knowledge Society. It is expected that all the living, working, communicating and organizing processes will undergo radical changes with the emergence of knowledge-based society. In order to respond to these situations around the teacher education today is trying to include e-learning technologies into it maximally. Hence some of the B Ed programs are including the component if ICT in the varied forms. At our Open University we made one such attempt to take this venture even further; we tried to train the candidates ‘for’ as well as ‘through’ tech-mode using constructivist approach. The program is aptly termed as B Ed (e-Education) and is colloquially known as e-B Ed. To launch and to run this program has been a consortium approach, thus many organizations came together taking up various responsibilities in the whole show. The program uptill now has gone through one cycle. As PEO (Program Executive Officer) of the program the author got to witness the various stages like development, teacher training, technological preparation, program operation, assessment and so on very closely. It was learnt that since everyone was new for the media and for the constructivist approach, it was not a cake-walk. Each one and at every stage had to struggle a lot. At times we were successful beyond our own expectations and imaginations, but at certain points the situations are such that ‘we have miles to go’. The paper shares the journey on these lines and the lessons that are learnt. // Paper ID: 97