Traditional education in India has been transformed into digital means in many schools and educational institutes in India. Digital learning is a technology based practice of teaching to strengthen students' learning experience. Digital education is not like online learning. Online learning is through internet services done among people scattered all over the world. Digital learning is led by teachers through the aid of a wide spectrum of learning tools and services.
Digital learning provides access to challenging contents, facilities for learning anywhere anytime, specific instructions to ensure that each student reaches their full capability of learning. These facilities trolled over physical use of Blackboard and the chalk system in many schools and learning institutes. A recent survey done by a Gurgaon-based, a management consulting firm, Technopak Advisors present in almost over 22 countries estimated that approximate of 1 Lakh out of 2.6 Lakh private schools in India has equipped themselves with the facilities for digital education.
Technopak’s claim that the Indian education market has estimated around 500 million dollars a year for enrolling digital education in schools and institutes over normal traditional education means. Officials in both government and non-government firms in education fields support their claim. Although many educational institutes have already started taking technology as a new means to make learning methods more effective and interactive.
Digital learning techniques are personal, flexible and are led by teachers with significant support. This type of learning is collaborative and aligned to a specific vision. Digital based are very flexible and driven by technology and data available. This is more transparent than normal methods of learning. It also uses high quality resources and net services.
Virtual classrooms, e-lectures, web conferencing and online courses are a part of digital learning. There are lots of benefits of digital learning. Students do not get fully prepared to face the challenging competition in this changing world and many of the Indian schools are not prepared to overcome this problem. In such cases digital learning is effective.
Again, many schools do not have good qualified teachers to provide the students with a good education and motivate them to face challenges. This is where digital learning techniques help a lot. BITS Pilani in Hyderabad has enabled BITS connect 2.0 for accessing live online lectures of professors and students directly from their campuses in Goa and Hyderabad.
A computer science professor at BITS Hyderabad, C Hota says, “Last semester we had 14 courses via BITS Connect 2.0 with 90 students participating. We are now looking to extend it to other courses as well”. Also some researchers say that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have started online education facilities at a growth rate of 21% in 2012 since last year.
A marketing professional, Ramya Sastri, pursuing courses in Business and Management via Coursera says that,” Online courses are a great way to diversify your skills, especially for working professionals who have no time to attend classes physically. It is great exposure to international education”.