Web has today ushered in a revolution even in the minds of toddlers!

Technological advancements in the field of education are at its best with the latest laptop just developed by Indian Institute of Technology @ only Rs1500 being made available for the use of education and learning.

The Internet web has ushered a revolution in the minds of even toddlers. I-Pod and I-Phone applications are being used comfortably by preschoolers. Education has taken a significant overhauling with technology being widely used in effective teaching and mentoring. Teachers have had to undergo a sea change in updating their online skills so as to reach out to their students.

The announcement that this `1500 laptop will be made available to all higher education students from 2011, comes close on the heels of the expanding use of technology inside classrooms.

E-learning or distance education is easier these days as laptops and internet connectivity has given the universities faster means of reaching more students in real time.

The use of interactive boards helps visual learning inside classrooms and is extremely effective in learning.  So are power point presentations made by teachers. Most often students are asked to prepare power point projects and present them in classrooms to be graded for project based learning.  Animated videos are made and shared to explain a concept in math or physics. Languages are learnt using VOIP (Voice Over facilities) such as Skype, Google Talk. Other online tools like wikis and blogs are being increasingly used on collaborative classroom and online projects.

Another concept gaining popularity is blended learning. This combines traditional classroom practices and e-learning solutions. For example, students in a traditional class can be assigned both print-based and online material, have online mentoring sessions with their tutors through chat modes and subscribe to a class email list.

The use of affordable laptops will bring in a lot more ease to the teaching-learning process. It is amazing that the recently announced laptop, that has been designed keeping in mind students, will be able to provide video conferencing, a touch screen for browsing, PDF reader, memory processing chip, motherboard and internet connectivity features all for $35 or Rs1500.

The current generations of students are Internet worms. Most students spend nearly 5-6 hours a day on SNS sites, such as Orkut and Facebook.  Infotainment sites like ESPN and music sites such as Youtube keep students engaged in computing for hours each day. Computers can be easily used to encourage and develop writing skills, pool resources with peers in foreign countries, do genuine kinds of research that is valuable to the adult world, and do difficult kinds of problem solving that would otherwise be impossible.  Since the use of computers among students is already so high, it is only imperative that we use online tools and gadgets to teach and get them interested in aiming for higher grades rather than just whiling away their time.

There are free to use tools that educators can use for making teaching more effective. Some of them are Delicious, Slideshare, Dropbox, Voicethread, Nvu, Yugma etc. The online opportunities in education are limitless, and the only limit that is being set is by our current mindset.

The access of information will continue to grow exponentially; the cost of hardware will keep dropping dramatically. It remains to be seen if Indian Universities and institutions of learning will remain mere venues of transmitting information from text books or accept the new frontiers that mobile, online and hardware technologies are making available for education.