Keralaeducation

Posts Tagged ‘Distance education’

Many prospective students find themselves putting off earning a college degree because responsibilities at home or work prevent them from attending classes. As technology has progressed and become more accessible, educators find they are able to reach more learners. It is now possible to deliver a high-quality online education to many who would otherwise find it impossible to reach their educational goals.

How It Works

If you have access to a computer and the internet, you have what you need to get started. Universities have setup programs that offer many types of degrees, delivering specially developed lessons via the internet. Students read required texts, do homework, and send in assignments. Instructors are personally involved with each student, answering questions and grading assignments. Proctored tests assess each student’s progress. Materials are well-designed and many involve a multi-media approach to learning. These programs provide an education that is equivalent to or better than those found in more traditional learning settings on campus.

Is an Online Education Right For Me?

Determine whether an online education is a good fit for your learning style.

*Are you naturally curious, with a great love of learning?

*Are you a self-starter, able to discipline yourself to study when no one is making you do so?

*Are you able to set short and long term goals and attain them?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, you can expect to be a successful online learner.

How to Get Started

Your first task is to determine what you want to do with your degree. Next, choose an area of study that will allow you to reach your goal. Once you know what you would like to earn a degree in, check out the various programs developed by universities offering your desired degree. Websites like www.onlineeducation.com offer prospective students tools that help them find programs to fit their personal needs.

Virtual Classroom Technology is also abbreviated as VICTERS. Using EDUSAT, the virtual classrooms will provide a range of education courses for students. It was inaugurated by the president of India, in the month of July, in Trivandrum. IP-based education ensured that lessons were multimedia based and interactive.

EDUSAT is also called GSAT-3. Launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in 2004, it is India’s first only-for-education satellite. India being a young country, with the average age of the population around 26, it was important for something like the EDUSAT to happen. Interactive satellite-based education meant that more students have access to education.

Kerala has been successfully running VICTERS. Its model of delivering such education courses can be simulated in other parts of the country as well. Riding on the success of this, Kerala is now looking at the Direct to Home (DTH) option. In the DTH model, satellite will beam the signals directly to the student’s home. All that students will need is DTH dish antenna, and a color television. Picking the signals, the dish antenna will relay the contents to the television. Students can control the courses on TV itself. More than 5 million children are said to benefit from this education methodology.

Sensing the rising needs, ISRO has deployed more facilities on its satellite to support DTH. Normal school timings are chosen to beam-in education courses. All education courses are compliant with the Kerala state syllabus. Aimed primarily to change the way instruction is given, VICTERS is not an initiative to offset existing teachers.

Teachers are the custodians of education in Kerala culture. Offsetting teachers means offsetting education. Given the number of teachers, it is impossible to supplement their worth through an interactive education system. To enable the transformation of teachers, VICTERS also has included them in the scheme of things. VICTERS is running on a three-party partnership mode in the classrooms of Kerala; VICTERS, the teacher, and the students being the partners.

More importantly, it does away with the business of expensive tuition’s in Kerala education system. It also stops the widespread disease of synopsis guides.

The Centre for Continuing Education Kerala is a project that was born as a result of a Canadian-Indian partnership in the field of education. Orchestrated by the Indian government in the year 1995, this education initiative won the Canadian government’s partnership and patronization. Involving the southern Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, this education initiative promoted the birth of a slew of technical education institutes as well as Canadian colleges.

But the financial assistance was short-lived. The situation created the need for the government of Kerala to take charge of this centre. Since then, it has solely been developed and sustained by the government of Kerala. Now the Centre for Continuing Education Kerala is an independent entity, coming under the aegis of the government of Kerala. More centers have been added to complement the main centre, in various parts of the state.

The centre is an education centre, in that it comes in various manifestations, like engineering colleges, polytechnics, professional training centers, schools and so on. A principal or dean heads each centre. Educational initiatives like professional training, skills-gap trainings, and market-need education is given here. Correspondence courses are also conducted. Students who cannot attend regular classes can make use of the correspondence courses, in long-distance education mode.

Applied education has always been the endeavor of educational institutions. Normal colleges and schools would design a curriculum, and think less about re-inventing it periodically. Obsolescence of courses is evident in these circumstances. Students pass out of schools and colleges learning and getting trained on subject-matter that has long been archived. To prevent this, the Centre for Continuing Education imparts training based on industry needs. Employment orientation is a distinguishing factor of this centre, compared to other education & training institutes.
If one has a look at the curriculum provided by this centre and its sub-centers, it is not surprising to note that they have courses that are often considered insignificant to be singled out in other colleges. Therefore, the initiative to establish relevance to education provides valuable return on investment for students, for the fees they pay.