Guru Purnima is a day dedicated to our teachers and gurus. Guru is a word that is made up of two words Gu and Ru. ‘Gu’ stands for darkness and ‘Ru’ means removing darkness. In the current era, don’t you think the Internet best fits this definition? I mean come on, whenever you find yourself in the darkness of not knowing something, what do you do? You simply Google it! And Google throws light on whatever it is you are looking for. In this context, don’t you think that The Internet is the real Guru of this modern era? Let’s see how internet has changed education for all of us.
Democratized Education Industry
Image Credit: Pexels.com
While “Education for all” is a key element of our democracy, it is far from reality. But, with internet, imparting education indiscriminately has become very much possible. Given a population that has access to internet, education can be made available to ALL of them quite effectively given the current scenario. This would have been impossible without the Internet. In fact, the potential students have much more wider pool of choices and customized education available for them on the internet as compared to the physical schools and colleges.
Learning New Skills
Image Credit: Pexels.com
Just few years back, learning a new skill was extremely difficult because you had to find an appropriate teacher for the same. Learning something new simply meant getting trained by someone else. There was no other option. Today, things stand very different. With the help of Internet, you can now learn most complex of skills from the comfort of your home. That too for FREE! You can learn how to play a guitar or you can learn a new language or you can learn how to dance, anything and everything is available on the Internet.
So, Is Internet Our New Guru?
While, the internet might ALSO be a great teacher, it can never really replace a teacher. The human element, the conversation, the personal guidance, the eye contact, the understanding and so many things more that a teacher brings to the table will always be missed if Internet is your ONLY Guru. Even in skills like dance and music, one can never accurately master it without an actual trainer. So, the idea of internet education is not to replace teachers but to make the task of education EASIER for teachers. It is time for teachers to use the internet in their education style. Teachers should now make the best of the available technology in order to keep students updated and make education easier as well as more relevant.
So much so, even the online videos for education have an actual teacher giving lessons on a subject, right? So, the discussion is not on replacing the teachers with the Internet. It is on how to make the best of both.
