Television as a Medium of Education

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Name: - Kailash P. Baraiya

Roll No: - 9, Batch: - 2016-2018

Topic: - Television as a Medium of Education

Paper No.:- 15, The Mass communication and Media Studies: an Introduction

Submitted To: - Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

Introduction:-

                    Usually television is known as a medium of entertainment and also considered as ‘idiot box’.

Television is audio-visual in nature this powerful visual nature helps television to create vivid impressions in our minds which in turn leads to emotional involvement. The audio visual quality also makes television images more memorable. The live (broadcast) nature of television allows it to transmit visuals and information almost instantly.  Thus it can also be termed as a ‘live’ medium. This capacity of the medium makes it ideal for transmitting live visuals of news and sports events. If you are watching a football match in a television channel, you can almost instantly see the goal hit by your favorite team. On the other hand, you can read about the football match only in the next day’s newspaper. Television allows you to witness events which happen thousands of miles away. All of us know that there are a large number of people who cannot read or write. Such people may not be able to read a newspaper, but they can watch television. Anyone with a television receiver can access the information shown on television. This makes it an ideal medium to transmit messages to a large audience. In a country like ours, with a huge illiterate population, this characteristic of television makes it an ideal instrument for transmitting social messages. Television also has a very wide output, range and reach. It is truly a mass medium.

v Generally television is used for three things that are…

·       Entertainment

·       Instruction

·       Education

Here I am going to discuss about how television use in the field of education. Television is very useful in the educational field.

Medium of education:-

v Why Television is in the field of education?

·       Instructing

·       Explaining, Clarifying

·       Summarizing

·       Reinforcement

·       Imposing study speed

·       Supporting and enhancing teaching

·       Motivation and encouragement

·       Using as supplementary for the other materials

·       Presenting a reference to large masses

·       Presenting unreachable facts and events

·       Individuals are in need of different education. As the present situation cannot meet this need, it is necessary to provide mass education by individual and free learning by developing new opportunities.

·         New options must make the insufficiency of traditional educational practices disappear. 

·       New models must give opportunities to outsiders of the present education system.

·       New opportunities must provide all individuals equality in education.

                          For these various reasons use of television has been increasing from day to day by large audiences. It makes television inevitable in the practice of distance education field in Turkey as a developing country. From the point of the faculty, television broadcast can reach a large audience across the country through its national network. The faculty can also make use of newer, synchronous technologies or use interactive technologies such as teleconferencing, internet services, etc. Using of these technologies should take into account the target community. In other words, the best technology to provide all individuals equal opportunities is radio-television technology. This is the main reason that 75 televisions, a more advantageous technological tool than radio with its audio-visual facilities, is being used non-stop and is improving in each project of the Open Education Faculty.

v How television used as a medium of education?

                                    Television is the audio-visual media of communication. It offers a window to the outside world. Among all the mass media, television attracts the largest number of viewers. It is the most popular and has the greatest potential. This is because it is able to attract the audience of all age groups, literate and illiterate and of all the levels of the society.

•                                                                         Use of television as an instructional medium was first reported in 1932 by State University of IOWA in USA on an experimental basis in a world fair. Later on, due to the World War II the introduction of television was slowed down; and as a result by 1948 there were very few educational institutions involved in using television as an instructional medium in spite of great interest in television by the educationists. 

•                                                 In India, since the inception of TV network, television has been perceived as an efficient force of education and development. With its large audience it has attracted educators as being an efficient tool for imparting education to primary, secondary and university level students. Some of the major educational television projects are discussed as here under.

•                                                Secondary School television project (1961): aim to improve the standard of teaching in view of shortage of laboratories, space, equipment and dearth of qualified teachers in Delhi this project started on experimental basis in October 1961 for teaching of Physics, Chemistry, English and Hindi for students of Class XI. 

•                   Delhi Agriculture Television (DATV) Project (Krishi Darshan) (1966): 

                      The project named Krishi Darshan was initiated on January 26, 1966 for communicating agricultural information to the farmers on experimental basis for the 80 selected villages of Union territory of Delhi through Community viewing of television and further discussions among themselves.

•      Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) (1975)

•                                           Indian National Satellite project (INSAT) (1982): The prime objective of the INSAT project was aimed at making the rural masses aware of the latest developments in the areas of agricultural productivity, health and hygiene. It was initially targeted at villagers and their school going Children of selected villages in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

•                                            UGC-Higher Education Television Project (HETV) (1984)

University students were the beneficiaries of this project. The University Grants Commission in collaboration with INSAT started educational television project, popularly known as ‘Country wide Classroom’ on August 15, 1984 with the aim to update, upgrade and enrich the quality of education while extending their reach. 

•                                                IGNOU-Doordarshan Telecast (1991): aim to provide tele-counselling to students of open universities in remote areas. Owing to the encouraging response from viewers, the frequency of this project was increased to five days a week. This programme is very popular.

•                                     Gyan-Darshan Educational Channel (2000) : Ministry of Human Resource Development, Information & Broadcasting, the Prasar Bharti and IGNOU launched Gyan Darshan (GD) jointly on 26th January 2000 as the exclusive Educational TV Channel of India. 

v Role of Television in the field of education:-

Television has been given considerable importance in many countries as source and a toll of teaching. Television is adaptable and can follow different approaches when used in the different educational situations. The medium is used for formal, non – formal and informal education. To support formal education, television usually function supportive and rein forcement tool.

To show practical application of principle already written in the textbooks and to show the laboratory work and demonstrations. To humanize distance education and to improve language skills by showing model teaching techniques. To show real life situations and microscope things on magnified scale. Animations, dramatic presentations, slow motion and case studies.

v Teacher can use television in classroom to satisfy varieties a of objectives like:

·       To reinforce and expand on content being taught.

·       To respond to a variety of learning styles.

·       To increase student‘s motivation to learn

·       To stimulate other learning activities.

v Generally television can help to achieve the following objectives:-

·       Social quality in education

·       Enhance quality in education

·       Reduce dependency on verbal teaching and teachers.

·       Provide flexibility of time and space in learning

·       Stimulates learning

·       Provide mass education opportunities.

vSome learning Channels:-

v Supporting Role of Television Programs for Exams:-

                                    In teaching, television can be used interactively or one-way. In one-way teaching, by producing the programs beforehand, they can be delivered as videotapes or television broadcast. Contrary to this, interactive television strengthens the effect of teaching by allowing the participation of the audience. Live broadcast is a good way of broadcasting from the point of gaining interaction. Keeping this in mind, the Open Education Faculty has started two new practices in the academic year of 1998-1999. First, from the results of mid-term and final exams processed by the Information Process Center, 10 lessons that learners have had difficulty with were chosen. At the first stage, questions answered incorrectly for the chosen lessons were selected, and television programs, where these questions are replied by the experts, have been prepared and broadcasted. The second practice is live broadcast. In this practice, lessons decided by the Information Process Center were announced to the students before broadcasting and informed that questions could be given either by fax or telephone before or during the broadcast. Learner participation for the two-hour programs lasted five days during the weekdays was huge. The same practice was carried out for a total of 10 lessons in March and September for the academic year of 1999-2000. Live broadcasts will continue for the same period and the number before final and make-up exams in the Open Education Faculty in the future.

Conclusion:-

                Taking into consideration this and the opportunities television has provided, the use of television as a supportive educational tool at the Open Education Faculty will continue in the coming years as it has been since the first year. Especially with the studies started by the DEPU, it has been aimed at using television more effectively and meeting the expectations of the students by planning the television together with the other materials. The Open Education Faculty needs to use television for many purposes. Turk sat satellite, and developed telecommunication systems are being used, when necessary, for the Open Education Faculty services by renting.

(P. Gohil, TV or Television as a Medium for Education)

Works Cited

Gohil, Pritiba. "TV or Television as a Medium for Education." 22 March 2016. 16.

Gohil, Architaba. "TV as a medium of Education." TV as a medium of Education. 28 March 2018. 10.

Saglik, Dr. Mediha and Dr. Serap Ozturk. TELEVISION AS AN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY:. January 2001. 3 april 2018 <http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/yonetim/icerik/makaleler/23-published.pdf>.