ABSTRACT
In the last three decades, advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have made a profound impact on everyone in the different walks of life. The education sector is no exception to it because the stupendous changes especially assimilation of the ICT and later introduction to the online learning platforms among the learners in the higher education occurred throughout the globe due. These significant advancements not only vied attention of the educational institutions, intellectuals, researchers, and learners globally but they also helped them to adapt different virtual learning platforms, prepare themselves for online presentations, interactions and discussions, sharing of knowledge with one another and utilisation of the e-learning resources through technological adaptations like Educational Technology (ET) which broughtrevolutionary changes in the domain of human education. The information technology also played a major role in changing the learning styles of the learners and learning environment of the virtual classrooms in the 21st century. It accelerated expansion of the concepts of the blended and flipped learning classrooms to foster learners’ needs for comprehensive understanding of the target subject and flourish active learning environment. Further, the use of information technology facilitated learners dismantle difficulties and overcome barriers occurring in the process of teaching-learning in a learner-oriented classroom. It also refined instructors’ pedagogy of teaching and interaction with learners. Unlike the traditional system of teaching-learning, and research within the four walls of the educational institutes, it attracted educational institutions implement the digital education, machine learning or online learning environment facilitated with Open Education Resources (OERs) accessed through ET. It provided avenues for technological adaptations of OERs as Cultural Heritage of E-learning Platforms in the age of Educational Technology. In addition to these offshoots of the online learning resources, Information Technology helped learners demarcate between the old educational system and the OERs by introducing E-learning platforms. It envisioned the flaws of the traditional ways of teaching-learning environment and inculcated creative and critical understanding of the virtual classrooms among learners. Consequently, many countries worldwide could begin to democratise the concept of the Right to Education for all. The present study reflects upon a technological adaptation of OERs as cultural heritage of the E-learning platforms through IT. It will deliberate on how Information and Communication Technology assimilated gradual but the steady leap into web-based materials, and online learning designs with quality education.
