Intro to AUDIO- VISUAL AIDS & Objectives, Merits and issues of Educational Technology

MEANING OF AUDIO- VISUAL AIDS

•Carter V. Good:-  “Audio – visual aids are those aids which help in completing the triangular process of learning i.e; motivation, classification and stimulation.”

•Edger Dale:- “Audio – visual aids are those devices by the use of which communication of ideas between persons and groups in various teaching and training situations is helped. These are also termed as multisensory materials.”

•Burton:- “Audio – visual aids are those sensory objects or images which initiate or stimulate and reinforce learning.”

•Mcknown and Roberts:- “ Audio – visual aids are supplementary devices by which the teacher, through the utilization of more than one sensory channels keeps to clarify, establish and correlate concepts, interpretations and appreciations.”  

•S.P. Ahluwalia:-  “Audio – visual materials reinforce the spoken or the written words with concrete images and provide rich perceptual experiences which are basis of learning. These material make learning less non-verbalistic and reduce the boredom of mere verbalism.”

Effectiveness of teaching – learning process does not depend only on teacher but also upon the different types of equipments available in the classroom. The different equipments generally called audio- visual aids makes teaching – learning process more interesting, more stimulating, more reinforcing, and more effective. These are those instructional devices that are used in the classroom to encourage learning and thereby make it easier and interesting. Albert Duret rightly said, “it is easier to believe what you see than what you hear, but if you both see and hear, then you can understand more readily and retain more lastingly.” They are called so because they call upon both the auditory and visual senses of the learners.

Objectives of Educational Technology/ICT

1.To determine the goals and formulate the objectives in behavioral terms.

2.To analyze the characteristics of the learner.

3.To organize the content in logical and  psychological sequence.

4.To mediate between content and resources of presentation.

5.To evaluate the learner’s performance in terms of achieving educational objectives.

6.To provide the feedback among other components for the modification of learners.

7.To develop technology enriched learning environments that enable our students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, manage their own learning and assessing their own progress.

ADVANTAGES OF AUDIO- VISUAL AIDS

•1. Audio – visual aids helps in the maximum utilization of sense organs in the teaching – learning process.

•2. They help us to make teaching – learning process more effective and interesting. The use of different audio – visual aids reduces the passiveness of the classroom interaction and makes it lively and interesting. 

•3. They help us to recognize and meet the individual requirements of the individuals. Some learn better through demonstration and some learn better through doing. So they recognize the individual differences of the learners.

•4.  They make the abstract ideas concrete and thus help in making learning more effective. It results into more clarity and better understanding.

•5They help us to provide first hand experiences to students. Thus these aids are good substitutes for the real objects as they make learning equally meaningful.

•6. It reduces the rate of verbalism by providing concrete materials in the form of charts, models, maps etc. It clarifies the abstract concepts by the use of different aids and thus helps us to make things more clear and meaningful to the students.

•7. They help us to economise the efforts of the teacher and the taught. In other words, they save much time and energy of teacher and taught because very difficult items can be easily taught through their use in a limited effort. 

•8. They help us to develop creative power of the individuals. By providing the different types of equipments, the learners involve their all faculties in order to create or develop something new.

• 9. They help us in overcoming the shortage of resources like shortage of good classroom teachers, shortage of current facilities available for teaching and learning. 10. They help us in transfer of learning or training and helps us to develop scientific attitude among the learners.