KOCHI: Digital devices have become part and parcel of the lives of Indians for a long time. Irrespective of economic status, people have rolled out the red carpet for welcoming the digital devices to their daily lives. The allure of technology did not spare people of various age groups too. It offered infotainment for child, young and aged. The best way to pacify toddlers is to expose them to a video or a song on a mobile phone. The command of the digital devices over our young generation is formidable.
The ‘Google generation’ consider it as the ultimate source of information. The potential of digital devices to offer information and supplement all kinds of educational activities has not only justified but also mandated their role in educational purposes.
Nowadays, it is not access to knowledge, but the excess of it seems to be a major issue. In an online report published by IBM says that 2.5 quintillion bytes of digital data are produced every day. A quintillion has 18 zeros in the figure! Every minute 571 new websites are added amounting to roughly 1.8 billion websites out there in the digital world. The glut of information is rather a bane than boon for our young information seekers at educational institutions who are in need for information to solve their educational assignments, projects and the self-directed learning initiatives.
In a hurry to solve their information need which is often wracked in the time frame, youngsters blindly rely upon the information available on the internet. They rarely spend time to evaluate the authenticity of the websites through which the information is coming, the date of uploading of information and credibility of the author. Most dangerously, there is a tendency rife among our students to copy paste the information without following copyright rules and regulations.
Teachers and educational policymakers have a great role to play in checking their impact on our students. High attention should be given on locating the right information from the flood of internet, critically evaluating them and using them effectively. It demands a new breed of teachers who are information literates. They can promote information literacy among their students.
According to the 2011 census, the literacy level of Kerala is 93.91 per cent with Mizoram at second position with 91.58 per cent. But those who take pride in the high literacy levels of these states would contract their brow in a frown if the information literacy levels of these states are surveyed. The same will be true across India. What we need is a massive movement of Information literacy that parallels the digital movement happened in India during the last decade. Amruth G Kumar is the associate professor and head of the department, School of Education, Central University of Kerala, Kasargod.(The views expressed by the author are his own)