Prospects of e-learning in emerging India

e-Learning is on the lips of many educationists in higher education as well as in the corporate training world. Whenever a new technological tool is introduced to the educational world, researchers are keen to find out if they are effective for learning and instruction. It happened to the use of films, videos, computer-assisted instruction and now e-education. In this paper presentation, the issue of effectiveness of e-education will be discussed in the light of our experience in NIE. Much of what constitutes e-learning today is a little more than porting the classroom to the Internet. To these parties, whose aim is to reproduce the functionality and "look and feel " of the existing classroom materials in a new operating environment or platform, the web is treated as a delivery system for what already exist. However, the role of IT in teaching and learning has expanded in recent years. IT is proving to be very powerful in helping lecturers and students move away from teaching and learning programmes that are didactic towards a model that is more student-centred and constructivist, preparing students for the knowledge based society. In the new model, IT provides multiple vehicles for exploring knowledge and supporting learning-by-doing. It engages learners in knowledge construction collaboration and articulation of knowledge.