The impact of new media on the students of rural and urban schools in India

All of us have come much further from the time where most of us were just consumers of the media and the contents related to the media.  Few decades before the contents of the media were controlled by few recognized and authorized people. But for the past few years, because of the rapid developments in the new media, nearly everyone who knows to use the media is becoming the producers of the contents. 

And the new media has become a platform that allows us to access the content anytime, anywhere and on any digital device. The majority of the technologies, that are described as "new media" are digital, with the characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, opaque, compressible, and interactive. Few examples are the Internet, websites, social networks etc.

As every coin has its two sides even the new media has its own merits and demerits. New media helps us to shorten the distance and be in touch with our family and friends no matter where they live, it also allows us to put forward our thoughts and views about whatever and whenever we want, lets us to get interactive user feedbacks and so on. The new media has travelled a long way and has spread its wings from the various research fields to the education department. Smart classroom is one such example which is gaining its popularity. Along with all such developments the most concerning thing about new media are new and unregulated content, state and individual privacy protection, protecting our children from harmful media users and contents and among so many such other concerns, lies the increasing of digital divide and knowledge gap.

This study aspires to research, the impact of new media on the students of rural and urban schools in India specifically Vellore and Bangalore. The aim of the research is to find whether the new media is one of the causes of knowledge gap among the school students, when compare the ones who are exposed to the new media with those who are not exposed in their school levels. In urban most of the schools are upgrading themselves with the latest teaching technologies like smart class, which is helping the students in many ways. 

On the other hand still numerous schools in the rural are using same old traditional techniques and tools. This research may help other researchers, scholars and school academicians to understand the pros and corns of using new media as a teaching tool. 

Key words: New media, School education, Knowledge gap, Teacher education

Introduction:

New digital technologies like internet, software’s, smart class are the latest way of teaching, which is becoming popular in our country (INDIA) in the resent years. Such technologies are becoming important tools of educational system. The lessons are taught using special software and made known to the students with projector in classrooms. This particular method of teaching helps the students in understanding the concept in a better way. For the educators it is a boon, because they feel that no matter how complex the content or the topic are, it helps them to explain it in more enhanced way.  Like this there are various other new media that support the education system, but doesn’t reach everyone. 

For instant:  if i try to explain the functioning of our body, or how tumours form and look. No matter how hard i try to put them in words or make a diagram still you will not understand the context fully. But if the same is explained with the help of a smart class program using 3D images you will get a better idea. Because you can see layers of our body, how does a muscle look like? How veins carry blood? How does our heart pump blood all over the body? and it goes so on.

It took human about 60,000 years to develop their oral tradition; more or less 6000 years towards a tradition of writing and reading and nearly 2000 years to develop alphabets. But the development of new media has been very rapid it took jus few decades for it to reach almost every human race, here everyone does not mean that each and every individual. The person who are educated, knows to use new media and above all the one who can afford it are the users of the new media. 

The humans those who don’t have these knowledge or facility are deprived from the merits and usage of the new media. Such difference is called digital divide and the consequence that we face through this is, the Knowledge gap. Early many individuals, states, villages, where under the trap of such divide. But now a day’s even students and the educational institutes like various schools and colleges are becoming the victims of such digital divide and knowledge gap. 

This research paper tries to explore whether the new media is one of the causes of knowledge gap among the school students, when compare the students who are exposed to the new media with those who are not exposed in their schools. When yester years teaching techniques, tools and methods are compared with the present, we could see that there is a huge transformation taking place all over the world and so is with India. Long gone are the days when we had Gurukul education system so is going to be the future of present methodology of the teaching because after few decades all the classrooms will be equipped with new media teaching tools and techniques. 

So, many schools in urban are stepping into such changes but the scenario of rural schools does not change much. A lot number of students who study in rural schools are still not aware of new media and its usage and advantages. When compare the knowledge about such technology a huge number of students from rural are short of information. And when they go for their higher studies or come across other students who have basic knowledge, face lot of difficulties. 

This paper focuses on to find that why such knowledge gap among the students are caused. The reason can be anything. For example, it might be because all the schools cannot afford new teaching technologies like smart classrooms and equipments. Few institutions that can afford do not want to allocate so many funds in buying and installing the equipments or they might not have infrastructure. The reason can be anything but; at last the sufferers are none other than the students from such schools. The institution that has smart class facility, have no assurance that all the educators will have knowledge to operate smart class equipments or the schools and educators use it in a regular basis. Unlike this there are so many reasons that cause a digital and knowledge divide among the students.

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