A Quest about eQuest and Blended Learning in Teacher Education: An Indian Study

Overview

With the rapid progress of scientific and technological development, technology of education has also transformed accordingly. Internet has gained the limelight in providing any kind of information on any branch of study. The printed resources had been out moded by electronic resources in terms of creating, hosting, accessing and cost of production. The active seekers of knowledge through internet are increasing exponentially. Instead of totally depending on the instructions imparted by the teachers and the subject matter available in the printed media, the e learners can access the repot ire of information over the internet not only to seek information but also to form groups with interested peer members, to make threaded discussions and to form on line communities the way it happens in the real classroom environment.

Though e learning may be understood as an innovative technique or a form of ICT used in providing learning experiences to the learners through on line by using internet services and web technology, in real life situations it is not limited to internet and web technology alone. Therefore e learning in present day context may be considered as learning carried out, supported and facilitated by the advanced multimedia utilities as well as internet and web technology delivered to the end users in their computers, laptops and personal digital assistants. E learning may be in general classified into total e learning, support e learning and blended learning. In blended learning attempts are made for making use of a combination of traditional and ICT enhanced e learning practices. Blended learning describes the learning environment that either combines teaching methods, delivery methods, media formats or mixture of all these. It also refers to the integrated learning activities such as mixture of on line, off line and face to face learning. In other words blended learning is a mixture of traditional and e learning strategies. It is the combination of face to face learning with web based on line approaches the combination of media, methods and pedagogical approaches, to enhance control over learning, critical thinking and assessment.

In order to perpetuate the organized system of society, teacher education moulds the suitable persons as expected by the society to nurture the young minds as teachers. The strength of an educational system largely depends on the quality of its teachers. Whatever high the aims, however up to date the equipments, however efficient the administration, the performance of children is determined by the teachers. It is high time that we develop a class of teachers who are academically well prepared, trained professionally and can sustain the formidable task of nation building with confidence. These teachers must also posses experimental attitude with wholesome philosophy of education which calls for innovative approaches to prepare teachers at all levels. These teachers must be able to comprehend with findings of educational research, translate them into practice, and feed the same to the up coming generation for further research and development. The prospective teacher must be made to realize his duties and responsibilities in an emerging society like India. He must be taught what is relevant to the needs of the society. The teacher education program should be competent enough to inculcate the qualities, abilities, attitudes, ideals etc…..expected out of good teacher along with the ability to grab and refine the repot ire of information available in the World Wide Web, to scaffold the knowledge base of the learner instantly.