The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Educating youth on internet safety Teaching & learning

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Wednesday, Apr 29, 2009
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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Educating youth on internet safety Teaching & learning

Meera Srinivasan

Different schools in the city are following different computer education syllabi

“My mother taught me how to use the internet and also opened an email account for me”

— FILE PHOTO

FAR AHEAD: Students with access to computers master several tools quickly, before they are taught in school, say teachers.

CHENNAI: They master computer games in a jiffy. Some of them even browse the internet comfortably. However, what do students in the primary and upper primary sections learn as part of computer science education ?

The curriculum followed at this level seems to vary from school to school. With school education boards giving a significant degree of autonomy to schools in this matter, institutions are adhering to different syllabi.

According to Meera Shivashankar, who teaches students of the primary section in a private school, children are introduced to computer science as a subject from class VI. “Simple programmes and different tools are introduced. Students get to work on these during the practical classes at the computer lab,” she says.

The State Board as well as the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have been stressing the importance of making the IT or computer science curriculum relevant to students.

However, for many students, a lot of learning happens at home, too. Krithi Kannan, a class VIII student of Vidya Mandir, says the syllabus followed in her school is called ‘Chrysalis’, a computer science curriculum developed by EZ Vidya, a learning solutions company. “But my mother taught me how to use the internet and also opened an email account for me,” she adds.

With this kind of early exposure and access, students perceive the computer as an interesting gadget to decipher and explore. Ms. Shivashankar also finds most students in the primary classes fairly comfortable with tasks ranging from browsing the internet and using MS Word to even downloading music on to the system. “They even have a hang of e-mail.”

The ease with which the children take to computers also calls for greater emphasis on educating the youngsters on aspects pertaining to internet safety. Noted publishing house Orient BlackSwan (formerly Orient Longman), in its revised edition of the ‘ComputersAhead’ series that serve as textbooks for students of classes I upward, has included several topics, covering areas from ‘MS Word’, ‘Excel’, ‘Access’ to those as exciting as ‘PowerPoint’ and even ‘Building your own website’.

Mukul Sahgal, publisher (schools), Orient BlackSwan, says the idea was conceived over a decade ago, when computers were gaining popularity. “Now, we don’t make the children define a computer or get into other theoretical aspects. The approach is very hands-on.”

S. Prashanth, managing director of Akmin Technologies, which has partnered the publishing house for the module on ‘Building your own website’, says that in the context of the increasing exposure to computers, it becomes important to include information on internet safety in the curriculum. “We give a model website and ask children to build based on it. They are asked to refrain from using personal information.”

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