Headline, September 12 2020/ STUDENTS : ''' TELEVISED ''SCHOOLING'' TEMPLATES '''

STUDENTS : 

''' TELEVISED ''SCHOOLING'' TEMPLATES '''

FOR THOSE WHO LACK INTERNET THE WORLD OVER : The Developing World in particular, it's back to broadcast TV. Do stop and consider.

SINCE MARCH - MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD have resorted to televised schooling, with an array of strategies. The programs range from from recordings of classroom lessons to educational cartoons.

WHILE TELEVISION LESSONS ARE NOT AS VALUABLE as online interactions with teachers and other students, experts say, educational broadcasts do pay dividends for -

For children's academic progress, their success in the job market and even their social development.

Television holds promise as a low-cost complement to online schooling and a lifeline for students with few other resources. A vast catalog of educational programming exists, but analysts say policymakers, the world over, have mostly missed an opportunity to make use of it.

IN A HILLSIDE SHANTYTOWN IN LIME, PERU, Delia Huamani's school day starts not with the bustle of classmates but with the flicker of a television.

With  physical schools closed indefinitely, she gets her lessons at home from country's brand-new library of slickly made educational broadcasts.

As a substitute, it's far from perfect. Delia, 10, says her parents cannot afford books - she misses reading about animals in the school library - and she has no one to check her work. She leans on her friend Katy Baitista, 12, who wishes she could ask the television presenters to slow down during difficult lessons.

''When we go to pick up food from the soup kitchen, we talk to each other and explain things to one another,'' Delia said of Katy recently. ''Or sometimes she explains things to me. I don't explain anything. But she does, and that's why she's a good friend.''

For all its limitations, televised schooling has one enormous advantage for Delia, Katy and many more of the one billion children worldwide who are shut out of schools by the coronavirus pandemic : It can reach them.

In wealthy countries, the debates over how to deliver education remotely have focused on how to make online classes engaging and interactive. But such talk is sheer fantasy for many of the world's students, including millions in affluent nations, who do not have broadband connections or computers.

After decades of declining relevance in the face of heavy investment in Internet learning, educational television is again having its moment. Educators and government scattered around the world, desperate to avoid a long-term setback for an entire generation of children, are turning to the older technology.

And they are calling on the charm and glamour of locally known actors and news hosts, as well as teachers, to try to hold the attention of students from preschool to high school. They say they are following the cardinal lesson of YouTube era - the shorter and snazzier, the better.

''Ideally, one would have, like laptops and all these super fancy things at home,'' said Raisa Fabregas, a professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied educational television in Mexico. ''But of you don't have them, this is better than nothing.''  

To make lessons less passive and more effective, many of the lessons being broadcast now all use all the tools of professional studios, like eye-pleasing sets, script writers, 3-D animation, multicamera shoots, graphics and even related smartphone apps.

In the United States, where education varies widely at the local level, some places have paid little attention to developing remote learning, focused instead on an effort to reopen schools. Others have worked hard to develop robust online programs.

But that is of no use to the four million schoolchildren who do not have Internet access to home, a difficulty especially prevalent among Black, Latino and indigenous students.

''How many parents right now are just trying to figure out how to get through the day while their kids are just watching TV or on the iPad?'' said Melissa S Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland, who has published research about ''Sesame Street.''

''We could do a lot of good if people who are in a position of trust with those families could point them to some of that positive content.''

The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Education, and Learning  Strategies during the lockdowns, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors, Benjamin Mueller and Mitra Taj.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:

''' The TV Tap '''

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