Adopting Learning at Home in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic Using Interactive Audio Instruction (IAI) in South Sudan
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Adopting Learning at Home in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic Using Interactive Audio Instruction (IAI) OrInteractive Radio Instruction (IRI) As a Back-Up Program To The Physical Face To Face Classes.
By Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak, Bor, South Sudan
Wednesday, April 21, 2021 (PW) — As the Global Pandemic Second Wave of COVID-19 is increasing worldwide and threatening people, South Sudan as a nation is included and is badly affected in many dimensions of life including education sector. Yet, education is one of the life-saving issues for human beings that why it is well stated that,“education cannot wait despite the crisis we are in.” As the Ministers of both General Education and Higher Education have agreed to re-open Academic Institutions, IAI program should also be facilitated alongside the face-to-face studies education program.
Before I go further, allow me to define these two key terms; The Interactive Audio Instruction (IAI) is a distance learning technology that benefits learners and children who cannot reach through conservative learning programs or in an emergency situation, unstable and conflict-affected areas or regions. It is also known as a distance learning technology that can deliver low-cost, culturally appropriate education via radio or mobile audio technology. Whereas the Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) is an education system that combines recorded broadcasts with active learning to improve education quality and teaching practices. The IRI programs need instructors (educators) and learners to react verbally and physically to questions, answer and exercises modelled by radio fonts and to participate in experiments, groups and other program suggested by the radio programmers. While the system is commonly referred to as “radio” instruction, the IRI programs can be delivered through a variety of recorded media, including physical teachers, CDs or MP3 documents or files. Historically, Radio technology was first developed during the late nineteenth century and came into popularity as an educational medium during the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Therefore, South Sudan should resort adopting learning at homes in the time of COVID-19 Pandemic using IAI or IRI to prevent the widespread gaps that may be created by the Second Wave of COVID-19 in the academic 2020 / 2021 because there was a study done in Britain that recommended the re-opening of academic institutions simply it is found out that children are at the high risk of contracting coronavirus while at homes than being at the schools because their parents goes for work and come back homes with viruses and these viruses can be transferred to the children at homes. According to the Britain research it is stated that, during this academic closure, many young girls resorted to unwanted pregnancies, unprepared marriages and many other evil things happened to them due to idleness during the lockdowns.
The same thing will happen to young girls and men in South Sudan, they may get disappointed because of a prolong closure of academic institutions due to frequent lockdowns. When I was traveling by bus from Shirikat to Juba on April 1st, 2021, I heard one of girls said that, “I am totally dismayed with a lockdown, after the first lockdown, I thought the schools will re-open, but again second lockdown has been announced, if the government announce another third lockdown, I will not entertain it again, I will get married she said. The girls added that, she waited for the re-opening of schools in all 2020 but all were in vain. So, let’s consider re-opening of the academic institution so that our children should be learning despite COVID-19 and also ensure the safety and security of our learners and teachers while at schools at the same time. Let’s take a risk of re-opening academic institutions both online and on air through IAI or IRI for all levels of education and learners should learn while the teachers should be working in shifting styles in their offices.
Important of radio program
Radio has long used as a popular medium in many developed and developing countries for more than two decades and it is viewed as “old technology”, yet it is used to deliver new method of pedagogy so learners could become more engaged in the classroom instruction. Nevertheless, because of practices and policies confidence is given to the ingenuity and tactfulness of learners the plan assists. In addition, technology use in education is becoming an increasingly vital part of the delivery of quality education. Furthermore, technology not only gives the learner the opportunity to control their own learning, but also provides them with ready access to vast amounts of information over which the teacher has no control. To add on, the radio is the most universal mass communication medium capable of supporting real local development programs at a minimal cost. It plays a tremendously vital role in the information & communication process that is preconditions for development. To move on, it is said that telecommunication would act as a catalytic agent for a flow in economic and social development during a period in which television also permeated the houses of citizens in high income countries. It is also noted that, on a global scale, it is the medium of radio that has remained the most potent communication innovation since the development of writing. Apart from the above mention, the large-scaleproduction of cheap, battery operated transistor radios have been the break-through responsible for dragging most of the world’s people into an international communication network.
In relation to its’ importance, the radio generates a very particular communicative situation in which transmitter and receiver are unseen. To elucidate more, the technological application offers the utmost potential for building up a one-to-one relationship with each member within a classroom. It can also exceed the territory of the region and breaks the barriers of numeracy. Side that, radio can also help the children of riverain communities and they can still receive the same quality instruction their counterparts around the country is receiving. In Sri Lanka, one person in 500 has access to Internet, but virtually everyone has a radio. Radio is rummage-sale as a connexionbetween the Internet and people. Radio is comparatively cheap technology with a very wide-ranging reach for many people in both vertical and horizontal directions. Radio lessons motivates the learners if they are used in such a way as to stimulate learning.
Radio also helps the learners and the teacher to avoid falling back to their local dialect. Broadcast lessons helps to simplify language teaching process and makes it perfect. Broadcast helps to provide opportunity to provide stimulating and rehearsing communicative situation to be encountered outside the primary classroom. It is a skilled behaviour which is only effective when two or more people are involved and more so in using audio or face to face communication, Since the introduction of school radio broadcast, the emphasis has been on singing along with the songs played by the classroom teacher who is expected to be a facilitator doing only what is directed by the radio teacher. The rationale is that learners benefit from listening to the well-researched mathematics lessons and learn the mathematical operations taught by prepared radio presenters. It is noted the value of radio technology and recommended its use to increase and improve learner’s imagination and listening skills. They recognized the importance of radio as a medium that relies on a single sense (hearing) and with which listening is the only method of learn. Radio can be used in different formats for educational purposes around the world.
Although often overshadowed as educational medium in relation to other technologies such as television, radio remains a viable medium that has proven educational worth in terms of both pedagogical importance and geographical reach. Radio is capable of delivering high quality educational programming to highly diversified audiences located across broad geographical expanses all at a low per unit production cost. Studies conducted by the Open University UK have confirmed that, when used as a supplementary learning tool, radio benefits weaker students. The main objectives of the unit were the fulfilment of a need to provide Direct Teaching to pupils in communities via radio programs in order to give them the opportunity to acquire knowledge and enrichment through aesthetic values such as music, drama and poetry.
First, there are times when learners must accept the truth of certain ideas. Second, students are more likely to remember what they learn, seek new ideas, and be motivated to study, when they develop positive attitudes towards an instructional situation. Third, the educator’s awareness of which techniques affect attitude is important because there are times when it is not desirable to influence a student’s attitude. Finally, the teacher can learn a great deal about how a particular situation impacts the learning process by measuring student attitude. With the proliferation of technology, educators must seek to understand the evolution taking place in the learning IAI arena so that they may: appreciate the tools that are available to them, learn how to use these tools to maximize learner outcomes; and how to transform the learning to facilitate the IAI tools.
When students are using technology as a tool or a support for communicating with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role of recipient of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or broadcast. The student is actively making choices about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or display information. Technology use allows many more students to be actively thinking about information, making choices, and executing skills than is typical in teacher-led lessons. Moreover, when technology is used as a tool to support students in performing authentic tasks, the students are in the position of defining their goals, making design decisions, and evaluating their progress.
To implement technology successfully in their classroom, teachers must develop a positive attitude towards the technology and feel comfortable using them as instructional tools. Often, however, teachers’ “attitudinal pendulum” does not swing as far to the positive side of the spectrum as most educational technologists might like and many still remain sceptical of the value of it. Teachers often feel apprehensive about technology because it challenges their current role in the classroom. When attempting a technology-based project, teachers may find themselves taking on roles they never before had to fulfil such as the role of trainer, collaborator, team coordinator, advisor, and monitoring/assessment specialist. They may also find themselves in the role of “student,” as many of the classroom pupils find themselves teaching the teacher how to use aspects of technology an uncomfortable role for many teachers.However, indicate that effective technology enhanced environments need to be more student-centred. This model is often in direct contrast with society’s traditional view of the classroom where the teacher is the sole distributor of knowledge. Any teacher can testify to the importance of school administration. Administrators influence school structure and culture, constituting the venue for any instructional initiative. Therefore, administrative support can make or break teachers’ endeavours to integrate technology successfully into the classroom.
It is the responsibility of the school administration, and staff to develop their own understanding of technology and learning and create a working environment that condones these efforts. School administrators should not only advocate the use of technology but also provide support mechanisms such as professional development, time for planning and collaboration, and necessary resources. Radio, almost universally available, has the potential to expand access to new education methodology such as IRI. Radio is an inexpensive, reliable technology; it is easy to use and maintain, and it can be used where there is no electricity infrastructure. Furthermore, a complete shift in mindset is required and that the broadcast of radio programmes should be considered as the start of a complex communication process and not the only solution. This is important in the context of educational provision where radio should clearly be used as part of a broader delivery strategy to enhance its effectiveness. After almost three decades of experience, the ability of IRI to improve the quality of education is established and well documented. Evaluations have yielded consistent and significant evidence that IRI can increase learning.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For Interactive Radio Instruction to be effective, each classroom should be equipped with working tools. Should be timetabled based on the radio schedule of IRI. Both teachers and pupils need to be prepared for the delivery of the IRI. In many instances, when the program is about the commenced, then the teachers become busy by reviewing the manual to see that required counters for the pupils. During this time pupils get busy sharpen pencils among others. Because lessons are saturated with more than one concept, teachers should use the time to monitor their pupils’ work. All teachers should be exposed to Interactive Radio Instruction program.
Conclusively, having a ready-made series of IAI programmingwill save considerable time – it normally takes a full year to produce each grade’s worth of programming. Broadcasting them as an emergency education solution during the COVID-19 crisis can be done quickly and cheaply, and if done properly will produce remarkably good education outcomes for learners. And using radio remains one of the only ways to reach large numbers of the most disadvantaged communities at low cost. In many countries, a large percentage of the population is out of school in normal times. This crisis presents an opportunity for those children or youth to have access to quality educational programming as well. It is important to see these programs as a potential bridge to formal schooling for that population as well as a tool that could help improve quality in formal or non-formal schools once they are no longer closed. But some modest emergency funding and careful thought about the social factors at play, the supportive technology at hand and the creativity and flexibility of the human spirit, can help create an effective adaptation strategy. Of all the human values commonly held, the commitment of a parent to the betterment of their child’s future is one of the most reliable and sustainable resources. The IAI is a powerful tool in harnessing that resource to offset the tragic closing of schools during this crisis.
The author, Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak is an educationist who holds a Bachelor of Arts with Education from Bugema University, Uganda and Master’s Degree in Comparative Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China
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