A Changing Contemplate: Bringing New Media Into School Education

Mass media have changed tremendously in the past two decades especially in the field of communication. In developing countries like India, the standard of education is found to vary according to the place (rural, urban, city, etc) despite of starting a number of schools with qualified teachers. This may be due to the social background of parents, teachers, students and the access provided for using various teaching tools. With the advent of IT (Information Technology) through Internet, quality teaching could be facilitated using multimedia tools to remote places. Educating children using audio, video, graphics, text, color, animation, etc helps in two ways: clear explanation could be given on the subject, from the teachers end; and is interesting and easy to understand, from the students end. This study aims to study the access and usage of internet by school children and also examines how various forms of new media play a major role in their school education. The methodology used is Survey and in-depth interviews. Girl students are found to be the major internet users for the purpose of their education. Using internet does have both advantages and disadvantages. Schools must take initiative to create awareness about the pros & cons of accessing the internet. Teachers must encourage the students to use technology in education and technology should be made available to remote areas too, so that digital divide will be minimized.