**4.2 Technology in vocational education training or ICT in vocational education and training**

Technology refers to use of computer-aided learning and the innovative use of information communication technology in order to achieve the learning objective in technician and vocational education in the time and scale. They are most often as virtual teachers in guiding the learners when enabled with virtual or remote teachers for a large group or learner community.

A variety of technology-enabled solutions are developed by vocational and skill training providers to meet the larger objectives of flexible learning and lifelong learning. The type of technology varied with the type of skills and vocational trades offered by the service providers. They can be broadly classified and termed as follows:

i.Multimedia technology for interactive learning


Each of the aforesaid can be defined by means of their use, application and relevance for vocational and skill training. The multimedia technology for interactive learning is multi-modular-based skill training resources wherein trainer can use theses as teaching aids and after the classroom delivery, learners can use them as self-learning module. These can be used based on the learners' skills attainment, capability to learn and capture the skill levels and advance in the learning attainment. The teacher/trainer can use the multimedia content to augment this as teaching notes and combine the virtually additional resources to given learners additional information, techniques in variety of modules. This serves multiple functional pedagogical techniques.

At the same time, online learning portal is a collection of ICT-based vocational and skill contents, already available in the Web site or a pre-recorded content and depending on the learner capacity and requirements, which can be augmented for teaching and learning. However, this allows flexibility to use wide content, which can be sourced from the Web resources across a variety of areas and geographies. The learner has the option of choice for a specific level of learning speed and accordingly can access the resources and be able to combine the best resources available in the Web-based resources. This shall have seamless access to resources available on the web; however, the limitation include they need to be customized as per the skill level, type of trades, focus to skill attainment and too much of flexibility in the assessment framework.

The virtual labs are unique Web-enabled practical handling technologies wherein students will be guided through specific instructions to undertake hands-on training, practice with virtual experimentation and clearly defined outcome-based learning. This will work within the given framework of experimental theme and programme. These are also most suited to advanced experiential learning and experimentation.
