Pedagogical and organisational issues in the campaign for IT literacy through spoken tutorials

Abstract

This chapter describes an IT literacy promotion drive in India, using Spoken Tutorials, offered through organised self-learning workshops. Spoken Tutorials are Screencast videos of 10-min duration. The steps taken to make the Spoken Tutorials suitable for self-learning are described. As the Spoken Tutorial activity is restricted to open-source software, practice-based learning is possible, thereby being as effective as active learning. Only the spoken part of these tutorials is dubbed into Indian languages, benefiting a large number of students who are weak in English, which is nevertheless widely spoken in India. This helps everyone learn important IT topics while retaining the employment potential. About 100,000 students are trained every year through this methodology, with an option to earn certificates on passing online tests, all of which are offered absolutely free of cost. The website http://spoken-tutorial.org, which is used for coordination, has become extremely popular, with the number of page views expected to be three to four million in the current year. Feedback from 25,000 students and testimonials vouch for the usefulness of the Spoken Tutorial methodology.