MARCH 20188our kids go to school... Which medium? Hindi? English? Or maybe any state language? Learning in the language that one understands made it easier to learn faster and better. That is precisely the reason how the various "language" mediums came in existence. Globalisation in post industrialisation era along with the advent of MNCs followed closely by the computer era prompted parents to send their kids to English medium schools, to enable them to become citizens of the world in which English surreptitiously albeit quickly became the global language of communication. Clearly, English was the future for the twentieth century and became the preferred medium of education by road-rolling other regional and even national languages. This was till the advent of the twenty-first century when a new language called "Technology" became the preferred "language". This makes us ponder. Isn't it pertinent now for us to start teaching our children in "Technology" medium?What does Studying the Technology-Medium Entail?Devices - Just look around and all you see is people with their heads bowed. No, they are not paying you respect, instead they are browsing their smartphones which have pervaded all cast and creed around the world in just a decade since the first iPhone got launched in 2007. In the near future, it will be imperative for children to be taught how to use smartphones effectively. Smartphone is just one of the million other devices that are all around us. Laptops, tabs, smart TVs, DSLR cameras, GPS, smart wearables, gaming consoles, driverless cars, home automation including smart refrigerators / washing machines, wi-fi enabled lights, CCTVs etc, the whole IoT jingbang, servers, robotics, just to name a few. Even teachers would need to be taught usage of Smartboards, casting devices, and projectors.Applications - People would need to be taught how to use apps. In the era gone by, we were taught how to write and would even get extra marks for good handwriting, now we need to teach how to type. There might be a course on Emojis as well which would include explanation of various types of emojis and how to use them effectively. Emojis can also be used to explain racial differences what with all the colours (white, brown, yellow, black) one can use. Interestingly, in one of the episodes of Black Mirror, a British TV series that revolves around the effects of technology in the future, castes are defined by the ratings one got from others on every human interaction. This even implies that people might even need to be educated on how to live in the virtual social world.While the caste system founded on ratings based on every interaction seem a little far-fetched, factions have already sprung up which are divided by people who are tech-savvy, tech-literate, tech-aware and tech-illiterate. It is quite clear that one would find it difficult to manage in the world which runs on tech-medium. The exact TECHNOLOGY ­ THE NEW MEDIUM OF EDUCATION By Vikas Kakwani, CEO & Founder, AAS VidyalayaMumbai based AAS Vidyalaya aims to create a school `For' the people `By' the people through a virtual school that operates exactly like a regular school.YIN MY OPINIONVikas Kakwani
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