Abstract:

Educational Technology (ET) is a systematic way of designing, implementing and evaluating the total process of learning and teaching in terms of specific objectives, based on research on human learning and communication and employing a combination of human and non-human resources to bring about more effective instruction. Realizing the importance of Media and Educational Technology in India, the National Policy on Education in its modified document-1992 states that, “Modern communication technologies have the potential to bypass several stages and sequences in the process of development encountered in earlier decades. Both the constraints of time and distance at once become manageable. In order to avoid structural dualism, modern educational technology must reach out to the most distant areas and deprive sections of beneficiaries simultaneously with the area of comparative affluence and ready availability. Further it has stated that "Educational Technology will be employed in the spread of useful information, the training and retraining of teachers, to improve quality education, sharpen awareness of art and culture, inculcate abiding values etc., both in the formal and non-formal sectors. Maximum use will be made of the available infrastructure. (NPE-1986&92)
Today, our country India engages nearly 55 lakhs teachers spread over around 10 lakhs schools to educate about 2,025 lakh children (Source: Chapter-I, NCF-2005, page 1). Also if we look at the data and analyse on the growth of teacher education organizations in the country, it reveals that the number of these institutions have been multiplied i.e. as on 31.03.2000 there were 2051 such organizations and as on 31.03.2005 the figure is 4550 ( NCTE-Annual Report 2000 – 01 and 2004- 05).
Orientation of teachers and teacher educators of such a huge system at regular intervals is always a challenging task. Covering all such teacher educators only through face-to-face training and orientation programmes is virtually impossible.
Organization of orientation programmes through a cascade model i.e. multi-tier training strategy may be one of the modalities for training and re-training of a large number of teachers and teacher educators of our country. Special Orientation of Primary School Teachers (SOPT) and Programme for Mass Orientation of School Teachers (PMOST) was organized through adopting such strategy. However, keeping in view the transmission loss through such programmes through distance mode could be a better option. In the recent years Media and Educational Technology are being employed to revitalize the entire education system all over the world. With Launching of a series of satellites by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) broadcasting (audio and video) and teleconferencing facilities are now available in almost every states and UTs of our country.