Touhid Ebrahim :
Today the world is rapidly proceeding towards the development in all spheres of life. Especially in education it has brought radical changes for the welfare of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Together with the dynamic world Bangladesh is not stopped. The face of education and the systems of teaching have been changing from time to time due to the modern techniques. This process of changing is going very slowly as we have no permanent education commission or committee to bring the expected changes in the curriculum continuously. The teachers should be conscious of the fact that currently we are living in a technology based and fast improving world. Consequently, we have to keep pace with the advancement of the world as change is the nature of life. However, this change which many teachers should keep in view does not mean that we are wiping out the methods and approaches of teaching built before. It means not only relying on the basic approaches but also reorganizing and modernizing our methods and approaches of teaching by initiating the use of different digital techniques.
Technology helps the students to take more control over their own learning by providing instant accessibility and availability of vast stores of information and lesson related contents. In today’s modernized era, one of the techniques of improving students’ and teachers’ ability in teaching-learning activities is using multimedia in the classroom. It is a well-timed technique which make the learning more effective. Generally multimedia is anything and everything we watch and listen. It is graphics, image, text, sound, audio, video and so on. In general argument, multimedia is the combination of texts, images, graphics, animations, audios, videos and other media together to make a formative whole which is presented using computer/laptop, whiteboard, projector and sound system. It is used to acquire some specific functions. Besides, multimedia in the classroom could include power point presentations created by the teachers to make the lessons or functions purposeful.
The main purposes of using multimedia in the classroom are increasing the students’ eagerness and attention to study, improving the attitudes towards content and learning, reducing the drop out rate of students in educational institutions, Ensuring the appearance of every students in the classroom, objectifying the abstract things related to the lesson for better understanding, building a connection with students and instructor, making the lessons more attractive, enjoyable and comprehensible, enhancing the ability of teachers in class activities, providing opportunities for freedom of expression and developing the teaching-learning environment in the classroom. Overall, obtaining a good result of every student and ensuring the quality education over the country.
Traditional classroom situation in our schools and colleges are not up to the mark yet. While teaching in the classroom we see that a teacher usually stands in front of the students for guiding, instructing and giving explanations of the lesson. But every educational institutions in Bangladesh is currently over crowded and class size is unusually large. In Bangladesh, generally a teacher starts teaching before being trained and the teacher-student ratio is so high. It becomes impossible for the teacher to go for competency based teaching approach with one teacher for sixty students on an average. The class duration usually we see in the primary and secondary school becomes 35 to 40 minutes. It is quite difficult for a teacher to finish a lesson properly in 35 to 40 minutes. Besides, in many schools a teacher has to take four to five or even more classes a day. For that reason most teachers feel bothered and they cannot afford to teach the students properly. In primary and secondary level, sometimes we see that students feel disinclination to go to school. They do not find any interest to lessons and class activities. As a result they fail to pass the primary and secondary level and causes drop out. The drop out rate of secondary level school students in Bangladesh is extremely high. One of the apposite reasons of the students dropping out in Bangladesh is incomprehension of lessons and teaching-learning activities in the classroom.
However, in order to make a positive change in our education system we have to follow the advanced teaching-learning method which is thought to be more effective. Using multimedia in the classroom can be one of the most effective techniques. In this method teachers can create a co-operative learning atmosphere where the students will get an opportunity for learning more actively. Since we know different students have different learning styles and receptivity, multimedia resources help different learners following their learning needs. Multimedia activities encourage students to work in groups, to express their knowledge in different ways, to revise their own work, to solve problems and to construct knowledge etc. By participating in multimedia classroom students can learn effective collaboration techniques. It gives the students power to create and design rather than absorb representations created by others. It also provides the students with suitable learning resources according to their abilities. Because it is easy to remember a picture than a paragraph and an animated video of a concept is more comprehensible than a lecture. By using multimedia in the classroom students’ understanding of a topic becomes direct and long lasting. It makes everything easy, comprehensible, attractive and more interesting. Thus it can be reduced the dropping out rate, make the education purposeful and ensure the quality education among the country as well.
The government has spent a huge amount of money through some projects for providing multimedia classroom at schools. In the mean time, a total of 23,500 multimedia classrooms have been set up with a good quality laptop, a modem, a projector and sound system at schools and trained up about 20,500 teachers in order to introduce ICT-based education. Undoubtedly these are great initiatives of government from the limited fund. But in comparison to our school and college going students these are so poor. The government cannot do everything alone. It is a difficult task providing multimedia equipment to every 63,601 schools in the country. So, the former students and the affluent people of society need to come forward with the support for providing multimedia and other accessories in their schools. Besides, I would like to urge the government and the Ministry of Education to realize the demands and importance of multimedia classroom in our educational institutions and take more required steps to see the Education policy-2010 implemented.
(The writer is a 2nd year ‘Bachelor of Education’ honours student at Govt. Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka. He can be reached at email: [email protected])
Today the world is rapidly proceeding towards the development in all spheres of life. Especially in education it has brought radical changes for the welfare of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Together with the dynamic world Bangladesh is not stopped. The face of education and the systems of teaching have been changing from time to time due to the modern techniques. This process of changing is going very slowly as we have no permanent education commission or committee to bring the expected changes in the curriculum continuously. The teachers should be conscious of the fact that currently we are living in a technology based and fast improving world. Consequently, we have to keep pace with the advancement of the world as change is the nature of life. However, this change which many teachers should keep in view does not mean that we are wiping out the methods and approaches of teaching built before. It means not only relying on the basic approaches but also reorganizing and modernizing our methods and approaches of teaching by initiating the use of different digital techniques.
Technology helps the students to take more control over their own learning by providing instant accessibility and availability of vast stores of information and lesson related contents. In today’s modernized era, one of the techniques of improving students’ and teachers’ ability in teaching-learning activities is using multimedia in the classroom. It is a well-timed technique which make the learning more effective. Generally multimedia is anything and everything we watch and listen. It is graphics, image, text, sound, audio, video and so on. In general argument, multimedia is the combination of texts, images, graphics, animations, audios, videos and other media together to make a formative whole which is presented using computer/laptop, whiteboard, projector and sound system. It is used to acquire some specific functions. Besides, multimedia in the classroom could include power point presentations created by the teachers to make the lessons or functions purposeful.
The main purposes of using multimedia in the classroom are increasing the students’ eagerness and attention to study, improving the attitudes towards content and learning, reducing the drop out rate of students in educational institutions, Ensuring the appearance of every students in the classroom, objectifying the abstract things related to the lesson for better understanding, building a connection with students and instructor, making the lessons more attractive, enjoyable and comprehensible, enhancing the ability of teachers in class activities, providing opportunities for freedom of expression and developing the teaching-learning environment in the classroom. Overall, obtaining a good result of every student and ensuring the quality education over the country.
Traditional classroom situation in our schools and colleges are not up to the mark yet. While teaching in the classroom we see that a teacher usually stands in front of the students for guiding, instructing and giving explanations of the lesson. But every educational institutions in Bangladesh is currently over crowded and class size is unusually large. In Bangladesh, generally a teacher starts teaching before being trained and the teacher-student ratio is so high. It becomes impossible for the teacher to go for competency based teaching approach with one teacher for sixty students on an average. The class duration usually we see in the primary and secondary school becomes 35 to 40 minutes. It is quite difficult for a teacher to finish a lesson properly in 35 to 40 minutes. Besides, in many schools a teacher has to take four to five or even more classes a day. For that reason most teachers feel bothered and they cannot afford to teach the students properly. In primary and secondary level, sometimes we see that students feel disinclination to go to school. They do not find any interest to lessons and class activities. As a result they fail to pass the primary and secondary level and causes drop out. The drop out rate of secondary level school students in Bangladesh is extremely high. One of the apposite reasons of the students dropping out in Bangladesh is incomprehension of lessons and teaching-learning activities in the classroom.
However, in order to make a positive change in our education system we have to follow the advanced teaching-learning method which is thought to be more effective. Using multimedia in the classroom can be one of the most effective techniques. In this method teachers can create a co-operative learning atmosphere where the students will get an opportunity for learning more actively. Since we know different students have different learning styles and receptivity, multimedia resources help different learners following their learning needs. Multimedia activities encourage students to work in groups, to express their knowledge in different ways, to revise their own work, to solve problems and to construct knowledge etc. By participating in multimedia classroom students can learn effective collaboration techniques. It gives the students power to create and design rather than absorb representations created by others. It also provides the students with suitable learning resources according to their abilities. Because it is easy to remember a picture than a paragraph and an animated video of a concept is more comprehensible than a lecture. By using multimedia in the classroom students’ understanding of a topic becomes direct and long lasting. It makes everything easy, comprehensible, attractive and more interesting. Thus it can be reduced the dropping out rate, make the education purposeful and ensure the quality education among the country as well.
The government has spent a huge amount of money through some projects for providing multimedia classroom at schools. In the mean time, a total of 23,500 multimedia classrooms have been set up with a good quality laptop, a modem, a projector and sound system at schools and trained up about 20,500 teachers in order to introduce ICT-based education. Undoubtedly these are great initiatives of government from the limited fund. But in comparison to our school and college going students these are so poor. The government cannot do everything alone. It is a difficult task providing multimedia equipment to every 63,601 schools in the country. So, the former students and the affluent people of society need to come forward with the support for providing multimedia and other accessories in their schools. Besides, I would like to urge the government and the Ministry of Education to realize the demands and importance of multimedia classroom in our educational institutions and take more required steps to see the Education policy-2010 implemented.
(The writer is a 2nd year ‘Bachelor of Education’ honours student at Govt. Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka. He can be reached at email: [email protected])
