Education 2007 - The Digital Bridge : December 2007 Issue

The monthly publication on ICT and Education

digitalLEARNING Volume III Issue 12 December 2007

ISSN 0973-4139

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Education 2007

The Digital Bridge Special Pull Out - Policy on ICT in School Education Survey PAGE 35

Contents

Verbatim

Volume III Issue XII, December 2007

The most damaging phrase in the language is: `It’s always been done that way.’

- Rear Admiral Grace Hopper You can lade a man up to th’ university, but ye can’t make him think.

- Finley Peter Dunne It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.

- Alec Bourne Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?

- Erich Fromm Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

- Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Cover Story

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From Structuralists to Instrumentalists

Glimpses

24

School Track ICT and Education

Educator in the 37 Innovative World - Umesh Pandey

Ayse Kok

Trainers’ Literacy Online Certification 16 MKCL’s Test for IT Literacy Trainers

Awards & Excellence

Vivek Sawant, Revati Namjoshi, Umesh Mathew, Amit Ranade

Students in Intel 39 Indian International Science and Engineering Fair

Corporate Diary Community Literacy to the Future in 20 Bridges India Prof. Dan Wanger, Dr E S Sridharan and Prof. C J Daswani

26 29

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Project - Smart Teaching and Learning Inside the Classroom Case Study - COREECS Extends Solution to Improve Collection, Management, and Reporting of Student Data Research - Rapid and Compliant e-Learning Content Development for Corporate Srishail Chari and Alok R Tiwari

The Foyer

42 UQSE - 2007 Regulars

34 46

Blog Book Mark Your Calendar

News

14 27 41 44

India Corporate Asia World

All the articles are available online at www.digitalLEARNING.in

digital LEARNING Volume III, issue 12 | December 2007

President M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Programme Co-ordinator Jayalakshmi Chittoor Sr. Sub Editor Manjushree Reddy Research Associates Rachita Jha Syed Ghufran Hashmi Marketing Siddharth Verma +91-9811561645 (India) email: siddharth@csdms.in Subscription & Circulation Lipika Dutta (+91-9871481708) Manoj Kumar (+91-9210816901) Designed by Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Om Prakash Thakur Web Zia Salahuddin Santosh Kumar Singh Editorial and Marketing Correspondence digital LEARNING G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Phone +91 120 2502181-85 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email info@digitalLEARNING.in Group Directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar Printed by Vinayak Print Media, Noida Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India digital LEARNING does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. digital LEARNING is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

Editorial A Year On The e-Learning Way! With the push toward Web 2.0 technologies, Time magazine last year named “you” as the person of the year for 2006. In the world of education, this signifies the growing attention toward personalising and customising learning and placing the learner at the centre of all learning activities. In the year 2007, we further recognised this, by thinking about the learner within e-Learning, not simply technology.

A myriad of new technologies impacted our lives and education in 2007. Not only technologies, the year created a chronic condition in information overload.

Researchers continued to progress towards determining the instructional design features, intelligent tutoring systems, virtual reality, and multimedia environments.

Coming back home, India has promoted through a multi-pronged approach to ICT education revolving around increasing the availability and improving the quality of education. Many states set up Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) as centres of excellence. Research and development in the emerging areas of technology and supercomputing are being pursued. There seems a continuous upgradation of standards at the school level with emphasis on physics, mathematics and English. Despite considerable growth in the numbers of computers acquired by schools, the incorporation of ICT into the educational curriculum has been promoted as a key step in bridging the digital divide.

The Internet subscribers base is increased to more than 35 million by 2007 from just four million earlier.

PC penetration is expected to become 20 per thousand by 2008 against 5.8 at present. Connectivity to Government Senior Secondary Schools (Vidya Vahini) and upgradation of IT infrastructure in the higher learning institutions (Gyan Vahini) has taken the first row seat. Steps are taken to address the issue of lack of qualified faculty and poor infrastructure in the academic institutions. Promotion of distance education, emphasis on postgraduate and continuing education and research has received adequate attention.

The system is made more demand driven by allowing the private sector to fill the burgeoning demand for both school and higher education. Increased school/university-industry partnerships to translate research into applications has yielded more economic value. Lifelong learning programmes are used to meet the learning needs of all, both within and outside the school system, including using distance learning technologies to expand access to and the quality of formal education and lifelong training programmes. The online tutorials and examinations, assessment systems, are flourished during the year, extending the horizon of education and skill building.

While many States have developed state-specific policy on ICT in School education, the need is felt for putting in place an enabling policy for use by all stakeholders at the national level. The Ministry of HRD has taken the initiation to formulate a National Policy on School Education, while developing a set of policy objectives, guidelines, and practices, by following a consultative and a participatory process with all stakeholders.

Today when we are approaching the close of the year, we will realise that India’s achievements and enormous potential are yet to be unleashed. The time now recommends an India-led process to coordinate and integrate reforms, combining those in the economic and institutional regime with the many initiatives in education, innovation and ICTs. No denial to it that there happened a shift from knowledge in the classroom to knowledge everywhere. This shift is radical, but progress is not. Today’s knowledge everywhere is an evolution, not revolution. Revolution is too strong a word for where we are today. 2008 is just round the corner. How will we use the year 2008 for pilot projects, continuous improvement, measurement, and change management? How will we bring knowledge and support closer to where it is needed and advance this worthy revolution? Let me leave the

thread here for you to think and wait, for what all will dominate and paint the ICT and Education landscape in 2008.

The New year also brings the time to celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of Digital Learning and we are glad to invite you to be a part of this celebration through our Anniversary Special issue in January 2008. Till then, happy reading!

digital LEARNING is published & marketed in collaboration with Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. (www.elets.in)

© Centre for Science, Development and 4 Media Studies 2007 (www.csdms.in)

Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

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ORY T S ER V O C

From Structuralists to Instrumentalists Literature Review of Digital Literacy and Digital Divide Ayse KOK [AYSHE.KOK@GMAIL.COM], CAMP RUMI, ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Narro wing t he div publis idehing a newsp in eve aper ry villa ge, pla a radi cing o, and wiring buildi every ng to t he Int does n e r netot aut omati solve t c a lly he pro blem. most s T h e erious divide the ex i s in tent a nd qua huma l i t y of n know ledge a learni n ng. It i d s not d it is ed i g i tal, ucatio nal.�

(Hadd ad, 20 01.)

The purpose of this literature review is to provide information about several ICT initiatives undertaken in education on a global basis in order to overcome the digital divide and summarise the ďŹ ndings of these initiatives. Due to the limited scope of the study, the bulk of the review mainly concerns initiatives undertaken in secondary schools from 1990 onwards, though general information regarding other areas of digital development has been included where relevant.

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December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

T

their use of the Internet for wide variety of activities.” So, the digital divide reflects various differences among and within countries.

Defining the digital divide

According to Alcántara (2001), the digital divide is an integral part of a much broader and more intractable development divide. People in lowincome countries are limited not only by their lack of access to modern means of communication and sources of information, but also by a complex network of constraints ranging from unresolved problems of poverty and injustice in their own societies (Alcántara, 2001).

his literature begins with a description and definition of the digital divide. The paper then provides a theoretical framework and organises the results of the literature review for sections like• Descriptive case studies • National policies • Country comparisons and • Empirical studies

The term digital divide was first coined

by Lloyd Morrisett, president of the Markle Foundation (Hoffman, et al., 2001). According to Hoffman et al., Morrisett vaguely conceived of a divide between the information-haves and have-nots. While Morrisett is credited with the term, the coupling of ICT and inequality is not new. This belief is also evident in Compaine’s (2001) claim that: “Before there was a ‘digital divide’ there were the ‘information haves and the have-nots.” (Compaine, 2001).

The marked gap between the number of countries that are high-level ICT participants and the number that are low-level ICT participants has been referred to as the global digital divide (World Economic Forum, 2000). So, an uneven pattern or gap of ICT diffusion between industrialised countries and least developed countries exists as measured by the number of phone lines per inhabitants (teledensity), the number of Internet hosts, the number of Internet users, the number of households that own computers, and the number of cell phone users (Campbell, 2001).

The global digital divide, as well as the digital divide within countries, is also referred to as the ‘technological divide’ (Rice, 2001).

In a similar vein, according to an ITU (2002) report, the digital divide is not only defined in terms of lack of access to telephone services, but also in terms of lack of access to ICT. OECD (OECD, 2001) roughly frames the digital divide as: “the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access ICT and to Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

Van Dijk (2003) distinguishes four kinds of barriers to access and the type of access they restrict: 1. “Mental access”: This type of access is restricted by a lack of elementary digital experience caused by lack of interest, computer anxiety, and unattractiveness of the new technology.

2. “Material access”: This is restricted if there is no possession of computers and network connections.

3. “Skills access”: A lack of digital skills caused by insufficient user-friendliness and inadequate education or social support limit skills access.

4. “Usage access”: Lack of significant usage opportunities restrict usage access.

In the light of these definitions, there appears to be a converging viewpoint that the digital divide is not just about access to technology, nor necessarily of high cost, but has a socio-economic component (ITU, 2002).

Although it is beyond the scope of this study, it should be noted that the legal, political, and economic circumstances under which a country operates gives some indication of a country’s e-Ready condition. Therefore, it is claimed that under the right circumstances, ICTs can greatly expand a country’s economic growth, create or enhance a country’s participation in global markets, dramatically improve human welfare and human capital, and promote

political accountability (United Nations Development Programme, 2000).

The digital divide in educational context Many parts of the world are undergoing a digital revolution in the area of ICTs (Commission of the European Communities, 2001). Similarly, it has been stated in a United Nations Report (2000, p. 3) that “the world is undergoing a revolution in ICTs that has momentous implications for the current and future social and economic situation of all countries of the world”.

This report also identifies several important benefits to countries and their populations from the wide application and use of ICTs, including the direct contribution of the ICTs tremendous potential for improving education, including distance learning and training (Rice, 2003).

The OECD (2000) has defined the digital divide for students in three ways: • Missing Link: In remote rural or poor inner-urban areas where telecommunications are limited and/or expensive and for students who have disabilities.

• Wasteland: Groups who find the technology isolating and mechanical, for example, females and some minorities.

• Foreign language: High poverty homes lacking equipment and language skills.

Furthermore, the following four important factors to bridge the digital divide have been cited in an ITU report: (ITU, 2002): • Awareness: The state and individuals should be fully aware of the importance of digital technologies and their applications.

• Accessibility: Infrastructure should be expanded and improved in order to provide the necessary connectivity for effective use of ICTs. • Availability: ICT must be offered within reasonable proximity, with appropriate hardware and software.

• Affordability: Means should be found to provide low-cost services to users, low-cost equipment, and 7

training on the effective use of ICTs for national and individual development.

In their article “New Technologies for Literacy and Adult Education: A Global Perspective”, Kozma and Wagner (2003) put forward that there are ICT digital divide programmes that can widen the divide, by investing in the top end (easier to reach) parts of the spectrum of the disadvantaged population. Thus, it is suggested here that if the UN Decade, which refers to the the years 2003-2012 as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly (UN, 2002a) to be

society. Besides, from each point of view, there is an assumption regarding the positive or negative effects of information technology on a society’s development (Trujillo, 2000).

According to Norris (2001), optimists believe in the positivist role of the Internet for transforming poverty in developing societies, while sceptics believe that new technologies alone will make little difference one way or other (p.9). On the other hand, pessimists emphasise that digital technologies will further exacerbate the existing NorthSouth divide (Norris, 2001).

Even within the poorest population sectors and countries, ICT is now too cheap to ignore since literacy and technology are becoming increasingly inter-dependent the United Nations Literacy Decade, is to succeed, it must also try “to reach the unreached, to reach those at the bottom end of the literacy divide, and to pay attention to how ICTs can make a special contribution” (Kozma, Wagner, 2003). They conclude that even within the poorest population sectors and countries, ICT is now too cheap to ignore since literacy and technology are becoming increasingly inter-dependent (Kozma, Wagner, 2003). Besides, private sector involvement is essential in order to take advantage of the latest ICT tools (Kozma, Wagner, 2003).

Theoretical lenses According to Trujillo (2000), regardless of the source, or quality of the study related to the digital divide, one can distinguish different paradigms whose assumptions and characteristics reflect one of the following viewpoints:

Similarly, Tambo (2003) states that the question of the digital divide is much more to do with national economic performance than with mainstream development objectives and poverty reduction and he broadly defines the following categories: “Digital optimists” have argued that ICTs offer developing countries including the LDCs, an opportunity to “leapfrog” stages of technological development and compete in ICT and knowledge areas with industrial countries on more equal terms than they have done in the past.

On the contrary, “digital pessimists” believe, that digital divides are likely to grow over time as ICTs become increasingly pervasive in industrial countries while most developing countries, particularly LDCs, lack the expertise to follow.

Results of literature review From a “structuralist” view, the structure of the social actions, attitudes, and processes determine the use, or non-use of information technology within a society (Trujillo, 2000). On the other hand, Trujillo (2000) notes that the “instrumentalist” approach considers ICTs as a powerful instrument with the ability to act as a catalyst to the “desirable” change in the structure of 8

As Adeya (2002) claims, the importance of ICTs and education is a topic that runs across all thematic areas on ICTs and development.

Trujillo (2000) argues, the discussion regarding the digital divide has been spurred by the recent availability of official international and national statistics.

Over the last two years, international agencies have produced several reports and published books that described the digital divide. To exemplify, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reports on the access indicators of the information society worldwide (ITU, 2003), OECD’s studies that review evidence for links between ICT and a country’s economic growth (Tambo, 2003) and its published papers regarding the ICT developments in education in LDCs (Kozma, Wagner, 2003); UNESCO’s reports about the use of ICT indicators in education (UNESCO, 2003) and European Commission’s country reports (European Commission, 2005) regarding the modernization of education include several national statistics.

Trujillo (2000) claims that, “most of these described statistics that stated how access to the Internet ran along the fault lines of national societies, dividing educated from illiterate, men from women, rich from poor, young from old, urban from rural”. Monitoring the use of ICTs and the Internet became a priority for those interested in studying the digital divide (Trujillo, 2000).

Case studies Information regarding the empirical studies on information technology and development were obtained from the web pages of several international organisations, such as the World Bank Institute, UN, UNESCO, UNICEF, ITU, EU and OECD that currently fund or carry out development projects with a component from the ICTs. As Norris (2001) states, these international organisations raised concerns about the growing global digital divide and there is a need to overcome this disparity before the situation rigidifies “into a new virtual Berlin Wall splitting rich and poor worlds”.

In this context, OECD produced reports consisting of descriptive case studies such as “Schooling for Tomorrow” (OECD, 2000) which confirm that technologies themselves can be a powerful influence in the educational December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

arena. Moreover, OECD’s published papers that present how technology can support the development of both youth and adult literacy (Kozma, Wagner, 2003) include several case studies.

The proceedings from the forums of the UN ICT Task Force that depict the contribution of ICTs to education initiatives (Bracey, 2005); UNESCO’s studies regarding the ICT integration into schools (Haddad, Draxler, 2001) and its published books such as Pelgrum and Law’s (2003) “ICT in Education Around The World: Trends, Problems and Prospects” can be cited as instrumentalist studies illuminating several case studies.

Another example for case studies has been provided by the authors Hepp, K., Hinostroza, S., Laval, M., Rehbein, F. (2004). They have demonstrated in their study “Technology in Schools: Education, ICT and the Knowledge Society” that introducing ICT into the schools, without a proper staff development plan and without a pedagogical perspective, is a low-return investment.

Hinostraza, Guzman and Isaacs (2002) claim that educational projects such as those using the framework of application of SITES (a worldwide assessment of the use of ICT for learning) that connect students and teachers from different countries might expand students’ horizons by allowing them to know and interact with people from other cultures and they can also stimulate group work and social interaction (Hinostraza, Guzman and Isaacs, 2002).

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More insights from a few cases WorldLinks, GeSCI and Enlaces both deserve particular attention because of their extensive experience with ICT in many developing countries around the world (Hinostraza, Guzman and Isaacs, 2002).

World Links The World Bank Institute launched the World Links for Development, or WorLD Programme in 1997 “to expand access to digital learning resources and address the growing digital divide between the technology haves and have-nots” (Cossa, Cronje, 2004). The aim of the WorLD Programme is to link secondary school students and teachers around the world in order to improve education in developing countries and help develop skills that youths need for obtaining jobs in the 21st century.

The WorLD Programme has five components (Kozma, 2002): • Internet connectivity for secondary schools in developing countries • Training in the use of technology to improve teaching and learning • School-to-school partnerships, as well as regional and global partnerships with public, private, and non-governmental organisations • Telecommunications policy advice for the education sector • Monitoring and evaluation With direct reference to education, Hawkins (2002) writes about World Links for Development Programme’s experiences in connecting schools to the Internet and conceptualises the story into ten practical lessons that policy makers and business and community leaders should consider as they plan to incorporate the Internet in the educational process.

These lessons are (Hawkins, 2002): 1. Computer Labs in

developing countries take time and money, but they work.

2. Technical support cannot be overlooked.

3. Non-competitive telecommunications infrastructure, policies, and regulations impede connectivity and sustainability.

4. Wireless technology is most effective for connecting schools in developing countries.

5. The community should be involved.

6. Private-public sector partnerships are essential.

7. ICT and education efforts should be linked to broader education reforms.

8. The professional development of teachers sits at the heart of any successful technology and education programme.

9. Technology empowers girls.

10. Technology motivates students and energises classrooms.

GeSCI GeSCI has been established in 2004

by UN ICT Task Force to harness the power of new technologies to strengthen education and communities around the world (Bracey, 2005). In partnership with governments, the private sector, and civil society, GeSCI cultivates the growth of ICT in secondary education environments (Bracey, 2005).

As the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (2005) states “GeSCI matches the power of ICT with educational need, and has the potential not only to improve education, but also to empower people”.

With reference to GeSCI initiative, Dufborg (2005) states that the integration of ICT into secondary education systems is of particular value to developing countries because it gives them an opportunity to leapfrog inherent limitations and to acquire new resources.

Similarly, deriving from the GeSCI experience, Twinomugisha, Callan and Bunworth (2005) have developed a framework regarding the deployment of ICT in education. Twinomugisha, Callan and Bunworth (2005) have based their approach on the following key December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

considerations: • There should be a focus on educational objectives since ICTs are a tool and not an end in themselves.

• Installing ICTs in schools is part of an integrated, comprehensive and on-going system.

• Benefits, feasibility and long term costs should be considered.

CTCs and Enlaces CTCs or “telecentres” are used to increase access to technology and promote the use of technology in education in urban and rural areas and economically distressed communities.

In the literature, there exist many case studies that provide a description about these CTCs that focus on youth at the secondary school level (Michalchik & Penuel, 2003; Davies, Pinkett, Servon, & Wiley-Schwartz, 2003; Wagner, 2001; Best, Maclay, 2002). Especially, in developing countries, telecenters have also received a great deal of attention, particularly as a way of providing greater technology access, with the broader goal of increasing economic development (Proenza et al., 2001).

To exemplify, the Enlaces Project being an ICT initiative of the Chilean Educational Reform provide all of the nation’s secondary schools with computers (Hepp, Hinostroza, Laval, Rehbein, 2004). The programme provides schools with computer labs, community access to technology, access to an education portal on the Internet and training in the use of technology (Wagner, Kozma, 2003).

The results of the study of (Hinostraza, Guzman and Isaacs, 2002) show that these projects did not provide evidence of having impact on students’ learning as defined in the national curriculum.

However, they show that students participating in these projects had the opportunity to develop abilities defined as cross-curricular and practised ICT related skills (Hinostraza, Guzman and Isaacs, 2002).

National Policies Needless to say, there have been 12

several implications of country specific policies on a national level in the use of ICTs. This group of studies shares the assumption that the impact of IT adoption on a country’s development including education is positive, and therefore analyzes different policy scenarios that would favor faster diffusion of ICTs (Kozma, Wagner, 2003; Kozma, 2002; Jhurree, 2005, Lim, 2002; Cossa, Cronje, 2004; Leask, Kington, 2000; Monstad, 2004).

Similarly, Kozma (2005a) has explored in his paper “ICT, Education Reform and Economic Growth”, the relationships between ICT, education, and economic and social development. Kozma (2005a) suggests how policy makers can best connect technology and education reform to sustained, equitable economic growth.

International agencies such as the World Bank Institute’s report provide implementation strategies for support of ICT in education in developing countries (World Bank, 2002) and proceedings of the World Summit on the Information Society address barriers in the area of education (WSIS Civil Society Plenary, 2003).

One of the organisations that has been consistently studying the relation between IT and country’s economic growth is OECD. A series of OECD studies have been carried out by the OECD’s Development Centre intended for the design and establishment of economic policies (OECD 2000).

However, these studies focus on OECD member countries, and only occasionally include data from developing countries for comparative purposes.

schools of Mozambique in the last three years of the 20th century. Their study shows that, in spite of the extreme socio-political background and relatively low levels of training, the project has been reasonably successful (Cossa and Cronje, 2004).

As Alcántara (2001) claims, at the national policy level, no single ICT strategy is likely to prove most effective in all cases. Furthermore, Alcántara (2001) maintains that: “In the process of designing an appropriate local strategy for using ICTs to the benefit of disadvantaged groups, success will depend at least as much on understanding the structure of economic and political constraints affecting people’s livelihood as on remedying immediate problems of access to ICTs” (Alcántara, 2001).

Country comparisons According to Trujillo (2000), one of the reasons that studies dealing with crosscountry comparisons between the link of information technologies and national development are less frequent, may be due to the fact that comparisons among countries require agreement on an underlying theoretical conceptual model that does not yet exist.

In their book “Computers in ThirdWorld Schools”, Hawkridge, Jaworski and McMahon (1990) have looked at experience in African, Asian and Arabicspeaking countries that already have computers in some of their schools and have identified the rationales commonly deployed by Ministries of Education and international agencies. Deriving from these experiences, Hawkridge, Jaworski

Cossa and Cronje (2004) discuss in their article “Computers for Africa: Lessons Learnt from Introducing Computers into Schools in Mozambique” a research undertaken to document the process of introducing and using information and communication technology (ICT) in the secondary December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

and McMahon (1990) justify using computers in schools by defining the following four rationales in the related chapter “Do Schools in Developing Countries Need Computers?”: Likewise, Kozma (2005b) identifies in his paper as mentioned above- “National Policies that Connect ICT-Based Education Reform to Economic and Social Development”- a systemic framework of types of development that can be used to connect ICT-based education reform to national social development goals. For this purpose, Kozma (2005b) demonstrates three national case studies, namely, Singapore, Finland, and Egypt.

Furthermore, Alcántara (2001)’s paper “The Development Divide in a Digital Age” discusses the role that ICTs can play in improving the level of education.

Empirical research Abbott (2001) quotes in his book “ICT: Changing Education” from Selwyn (1998) who claims that “IT’ s benefits to schools have largely remained unchallenged”. Selwyn (1998)’s argument to this effects is worth quoting at length: “There is an emphasis on quantitative and case study research in this area at the expense of qualitative and ethnographic approaches …

Societal belief in IT as a technical fix has blighted the successful integration of ICT into the educational system over the last twenty years”.

On the contrary, some argue that discussions on the nature and characteristics of the digital divide are not supported by empirical research literature and that existing empirical research regarding the effects of the global digital divide and development in the developing world is modest (Trujillo, 2000). Yet, there are some studies that are worth to mention.

To begin with, Arquette (2001) explores in his research paper “Assessing the Digital Divide” the various discursive approaches to framing the research on the digital divide. From a metaanalysis of the different discursive frameworks, Arquette (2001) proposes Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

Regardless of taking a positive or negative, instrumental or structural approach, the systematic exploration of the effects of the global digital divide (Trujillo, 2000) on national education process seems to be a logical first step the Information Intelligence Quotient (IIQ) as a tool for assessing the state of a target community’s information and communication system development.

Although the results can not be easily applied into the area of education, his results provide descriptive evidence that regardless of discursive framework, there is a digital divide (Arquette, 2001).

In his book “Access Denied in the Information Age”, Stephen (1998) focuses on how technology is utilised.

Using an analysis of his empirical data, Stephen (1998) claims that ICTs might provide the opportunity to reduce the unit cost of education to the point where the society could afford to provide open and equal access to learning opportunities for all members throughout their lives.

Time for more studies A preliminary conclusion drawn from the reports produced by international development agencies, studies that measure the diffusion of ICT in the developing world, and the few empirical studies that evaluate the relation between information technology and development is that the global digital divide exists and is diverging (Trujillo, 2000).

Furthermore, there exists a general lack of information in the literature regarding the relationship between the measurement of ICT and a country’s educational development. Regardless

of taking a positive or negative, instrumental or structural approach, the systematic exploration of the effects of the global digital divide (Trujillo, 2000) on national education process seems to be a logical first step.

In the literature, there has been also a mention of the possibilities for further research: Adeya (2002) suggests that more studies are needed that focus on the social analysis of the use of ICTs to understand what kinds of assumptions are made about social relationships between people, support structures for the range of technological options, and how these may restructure the education and the social life.

Moreover, Wijewardena (2002) suggests that the study of the digital divide must move away from ad-hoc analysis methods to a more technical approach with policy prescriptions being guided clearly by understanding of the underlying causes of the digital divide.

Wijewardena (2002) also states that narrowing the digital divide should be a key goal of public policy.

To conclude, the issues outlined in this paper are not unique to developing countries since schools around the world face the same challenges and by and large the same lessons apply (Hawkins, 2006). Advantage should be taken of the power of technology to improve the conditions in the educational area.

As Hawkin (2002) states if together this transformation could be begun, “schools a hundred years from now will sit at the heart of a learning society and allow youth from any country in the world-rich or poor-to have the same opportunities to create a better world”.

In the absence of any agreed-upon keywords and descriptors for the reports located on the Internet, it is likely that some literature has been overlooked. All the references made in the article are available online at www.digitalLEARNING.in

Ayse is the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit organisation “Camp Rumi Technology Literacy Group” based in Turkey. Ayse received her MSc in e-Learning degree from University of Oxford in October, 2006. She worked as a consultant during the summer 2006 in UNSSC (United Nations Systems and Staff College).

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News INDIA Soon, an interactive Indian portal on disability In a pioneering initiative that will bring together non-governmental organisations, professionals, policy makers, students, parents, community workers and persons living with disabilities on a common platform, the federal Indian government would launch an interactive portal to provide all related information regarding different disability issues.

The Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI), a federal body dealing with rehabilitation of the disabled and Media Lab Asia, a unit of the Indian Department of Information Technology, are jointly developing the portal. An online national disability register would be part of the portal.

This will enable applicants to apply online and also view their status online.

The disabled-friendly texts in audio, video and multimedia mode will be cataloged and stored in web format for easy download. A dedicated section will be available for information on professional personnel and students being trained as specialists to deal with disability related issues. Currently

there are 30000 such professionals in the country and an estimated 5,000 persons register themselves for fresh training every year.

Canadian Appleby College set to launch e-Learning The Appleby College, based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, recently visited India for a strategic partnership with Indian schools to launch its eLearning programme.

The fee for the diploma will cost around one-fourth of the total amount being charged by the Appleby College in Canada. The College will be offering scholarships to deserving and meritorious students. The e-Learning programme has already been launched in countries like Mexico, Korea and Botswana.

According to information furnished by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the institutions of higher learning in the country have a variable fee structure which differs from institution to institution. The matter relating to fee structure was discussed by Vice Chancellors held on October, 2007 and the UGC proposes to set up an expert committee to look into various aspects of the fee related issue and arrive at a strategy whereby the fee for higher education is neither ridiculously low nor it poses a barrier in equitable access to higher education.

The school is a member of G20 - a consortium of the top 20 independent schools worldwide. Besides, it claims to be Canada’s first e-School, with all students and faculty having Lenovo Tablet PCs.

High fee may affect education Reserve Bank launches access! children educational site The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) Committee on Financing of Higher and Technical Education has recommended that revenue generation through student fees

India sends the most students to the US: report The annual Open Doors report of the Institute of International Education- a US based agency has announced that India for the sixth year in a row has sent the most number of students to the US. The year 2006-07 saw a 10 per cent increase in the Indian students to the US, taking the numbers to 83,833, according to a new report on international educational exchange. China remained in second place, with an increase of eight per cent to 67,723 and South Korea, in third place, increased six percent to 62,392.

India contributes one in seven (14.4 per cent) of the total of 582,984 international students who together contributed about $14.5 billion to the US economy. The US Department of Commerce considers US higher education as the country’s fifth largest service sector export as these students bring money into the national economy and provide revenue to their host states for living expenses, health insurance, support for accompanying family members, and other miscellaneous items. Published with support from the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Open Doors 2007 report noted that 61.5 per cent of all international students receive the majority of their funds from personal and family sources.

14

beyond 20 per cent may seriously affect access to higher education.

Reserve Bank of India has launched a financial education site RBI.org. in/FinancialEducation that aims to teach basics of banking, finance and central banking to children.

To explain complexities of banking, finance and central banking in a simple and interesting way, Reserve Bank of India has created two special characters Raju and Money Kumar. While Raju tries to learn all about banking, Money Kumar attempts to explain subjects dealt with by RBI, such as monetary policy, bank regulations and currency notes.

The website uses comic books format to make the learning process easy and fun for children. The website also has films on security features of currency notes of different denominations and an educative film to persuade citizens to not to staple notes. The site also has games especially designed to familiarise school children with India’s various currency notes.

The site will soon be made available in Hindi as well as in 11 regional languages December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

such as Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, besides English.

No Indian varsity among world’s top 200 universities No Indian University, including the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology, has figured among world’s top 200 universities in The Times Higher - Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, while six Chinese universities have found place in the list.

Harvard University tops the league table followed by Cambridge and Oxford at second and third positions respectively.

The top 10 universities are all either in the US or the Britain, a survey has found. Besides China, other Asian countries figuring in the list of worldclass universities are Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

The IITs, which figured regularly in all the previous rankings, since The Times Higher - Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings which began three years ago, have fallen off the map this year partly because of a change in evaluation norms. For this year’s survey, individual IITs were assessed, and not the IIT system as a whole. And none of the seven IITs was considered good enough to find a place among the top ranking world universities. However, IIT Delhi and IIT Mumbai find mention among the world’s top 50 technology institutions, with the former at 37 and latter at 33 - both way behind China’s Tsinghua University, placed at 16.

NDTV to launch education portal

NDTV Convergence is planning to launch a number of portals in different genres including lifestyle, Bollywood and education over the next six months.

The company is also planning to launch a mobile portal NDTV Active and a Hindi news portal NDTV Khabar.

NDTV Convergence is also expanding its production team for the launch of these portals.

Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

IIT education to go online All seven IITs of the country are planning to offer lectures and course material at the very click of a mouse.

The move comes in as a part of the INR110 crore Government project to help lift the poor standards of academic content in an estimated 1,500 engineering colleges across India.

The project is under development since 2003.

The seven IITs along with the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore had earlier planned to provide engineering students the same education as they would have received in the campus.

Much of the course material is similar to the core science and engineering curricula that is taught at the IITs. The union Human Resource Development Ministry has already invested INR20.5 crore in the completed phase I of the project.

The concept of making IIT education online was drawn from National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a project that was initially conceptualized by the faculty at IIT Madras.

Bharti Foundation school plans new courses India based Bharti School of Telecommunication Technology and Management, a joint initiative of Bharti Foundation and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, is all set to launch a host of new programmes like internship, distance-learning, executive and post-doctoral programmes.

Started in 2000, the school has already instituted 10 seats for PhD in Telecom Systems Management and a Master of science (MS) research programme in Telecom Technology and Management.

Most of these are likely to commence by the next academic session. The distancelearning will involve lectures delivered in a tele-studio in Bharti School and broadcast using Internet protocol (IP) or very small aperture terminal (VSAT) technology to classrooms outside IIT-Delhi.

Girls breaking caste barriers with English schooling: Study

Visualisation learning centres at IGNOU Core Projects & Technologies Ltd has announced that coming together in a higher education project using space age technology developed by the NASA-sponsored Center of Higher Learning (CHL), the company has signed an MoU with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for setting up visualisation learning centres at all IGNOU centres in India.

As the processes of globalisation strikes deeper roots in India, girls are proving to be quicker learners than boys. An extensive study published in The American Economic Review , shows that a traditional institution like caste (jati) has been impacted by schooling, career and marriage choices of boys and girls in the new economy.

The project will create education content using space age technology called Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), developed by scientists of the CHL. Deployment of this technology in classrooms will greatly enhance the ability of students to understand complicated topics.

It will also enable them to conduct innovative experiments leading to cutting edge research and development efforts.

Its study areas are the dynamic urban context of Mumbai’s Dadar for 19802001, and families of the metro’s ‘labour market’. These form its fairly large sample size of 4,945, with upper-castes accounting for 17.5%. The response to the inquiries reveals that the premium on an English language education has gone up steeply. For boys it went up from 15% in 1980-90 to 24% in 1990-2000.

But it really shot up for girls from near zero to 27% in the same period.

15

ERS N I TRA RACY E LIT

MKCL’s Online Certification Test for IT Literacy Trainers www.mkcl.org

Vivek Sawant [MD@MKCL.ORG], REVATI NAMJOSHI [REVATID@MKCL.ORG], UMESH MATHEW [UMESHM@MKCL.ORG], AMIT RANADE [AMITR@MKCL.ORG], MAHARASHTRA KNOWLEDGE CRPORATION LTD, PUNE

M

aharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) has been implementing a Maharashtra Statewide IT-Literacy training programme over last five years under its Maharashtra State Certificate in Information Technology (MS-CIT) brand.

MS-CIT is a 132-hour (3 month, part-time) course in IT literacy in English/ Marathi / Hindi medium offered at more than 3000 Authorised Training Centers (ATC’s) of MKCL spread over all 35 districts and 358 tehsils of the state spanning urban and rural areas.

MS-CIT has emerged as a de-facto standard in IT Literacy in the state and more than 2.6 million learners have undergone this course over last five years. The response to this course is steadily increasing over the years.

MKCL has implemented several measures for quality improvement, some of which are: 1. Novel Curriculum and its continuous upgradation in response to emerging trends in technology and market and exceeding international benchmarks in IT literacy 2. A continuously evolving (ver 23.0) interactive multimedia tutor powered by MKCL Learning Management System (LMS) with rich voice over in English / Marathi / Hindi 3. Quarterly quality assessment of all Authorised Training Centers (ATCs) 4. A fully Web-based management framework for management of 16

5.

6.

Learner life-cycle from admission to certification and management of ATC life-cycle Wider and transparent availability of recent and vital information of all aspects of this entire activity on MKCL Website to all stake-holders and public at large An online supervised examination

system at about 1000 Online Examination Centers in the State leading to instant e-Certificates.

Problem definition The problem was how to conduct a meaningful assessment leading to certification of a large number of trainers; at affordable cost; with high December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

quality, reliability and trustworthiness; with widest accessibility over metropolitan, urban, semi-urban, rural, tribal, and hilly areas of the state; in shortest possible time of 3 months; in a mass-personalised manner leading to personalised assessment rather than mere mass-testing so as to offer developmental inputs to the trainers.

An e-Learning technology-mediated approach was the only inevitable pointer to solve all these complex problem.

e-Learning technology mediated approach MKCL devised a unique assessment model of Online Certification Test (OnCeT) and designed and developed an enabling technology platform for it in the form of MKCL’s Online Evaluation Framework (OEF).

MKCL’s OnCeT model for certification of IT literacy trainers Online Teachers’ Certification programme (OnCeT) has been launched to examine the skills and competencies of the Trainers of IT Literacy for using various application software tools effectively and efficiently, through a set of assignments and thereby evaluate the level of their mastery on the subject matter so as to bring about overall improvement in quality of academic delivery of the course.

Evaluation pattern OnCeT comprises of eight unsupervised weekly tests and a final supervised comprehensive Online examination at the district location.

Type of each of the eight tests includes Practical and Objective type online

tests. Each Practical Test comprises of three assignments which are to be solved in unsupervised environment and submitted in one week’s duration and passing threshold is at 50% marks.

Each of the Objective tests shall consist of 30 questions to be solved online in a single session of 45 minutes maximum one week delay in submission may be allowed with 20% de-rating of score, thereby requiring 62.5% marks for passing instead of 50%.

Eight tests have a weightage of 80 marks and a final supervised comprehensive Online examination has a weightage of 20 marks.

In all the interim assignments of OnCeT, various skills and competencies of the trainers at various levels have been tested, such as, knowledge, comprehension, application of knowledge and analysis.

MKCL’s Online Evaluation Framework MKCL’s Online Evaluation Framework (OEF) is a collaborative framework that facilitates Online Assignment Management and conduct of objective type tests with various types of questions.

Assignment Management System features Authenticated Personal Interfaces: Online Assignment Management System offers authenticated personal interfaces for Trainers, Subject Matter Experts (Faculty), Evaluators (Assistant Faculty), Tutors (Lab Instructor) and administrators. This has been designed and developed with an integrated approach to enable the Subject Matter Expert (Faculty) to post assignments for the trainers based on the course structure.

Assignment Randomisation: By using the feature of randomisation, a set of assignments can be prepared and various assignments can be given to multiple trainers randomly.

Submission and Evaluation: Trainers can download, complete and then submit the assignments online for approval Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

17

photograph and signature display on the screen are also best supported by the system.

Some of the important distinguishing features include test attempt record, result, and crash and recovery system.

System Interfaces Admin’s login: Admin creates users to perform specific role. With the specific user name and password provided by admin, the users can access OEF. Work Distributor’s Login: Work Distributor allocates the work to the Subject Experts (Faculties) and Evaluators (Asst. Faculties). While giving the assignments for Evaluation, Work Distributor decides the number of assignments to be given to one Evaluator. and feedback from the assistant faculty or local tutor which after approval are made available to the evaluators. This functionality is optional and in case of Supervised Final Examinations, assignments can directly be routed to the Evaluators for final evaluation.

Work flow: The automated work flow in the system keeps track of every assignment of individual trainer.

Framework also offers the facility to the trainers to get the assignments evaluated from best of the evaluators.

such as, difficulty level, type, marks, and associated learning unit.

Continuous up-gradation of the question repository enables the question paper setter to go for varied combinations while designing the paper structure.

Also, framework supports random paper generation.

Trainer authentication features such as

Subject Expert’s Login: Subject Expert can post the assignment for various topics using the interface. While posting the assignment, s/he can set the start and end dates, extended date if any, maximum marks, number of resubmissions allowed, etc.

Evaluator’s Inbox: Evaluator can download the solved assignment submitted by the Trainer and can

Objective Evaluation System features OEF also has an inbuilt engine to conduct Objective type tests with functionality offered to evaluators to frame variety of questions to test the trainers.

Different types of questions include multiple choice single correct, multiple choice multiple correct, match the following, fill in the blanks, picture identification, jigsaw puzzle, crosswords, hotspots, second level reasoning and concept map.

By following international QTI standards prescribed by SCORM, to maintain the question repository, different question parameters are stored, 18

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

by best using the configurability and customisation capabilities of the system.

Online Evaluation Framework can be used for students of the Universities / Colleges offering Distance Education programmes. OEF can cater to the needs of the students undergoing these programmes by offering them an access to interim assignments and also the corrective feedback by remote evaluators.

Evaluate the same. After evaluation, s/he can enter the marks and personalised corrective feedback for that assignment.

Trainer’s Inbox: Trainer can get a set of assignments to be solved in his/her inbox along with the reference material available for download for each assignment. Using the same interface, solved assignment can be submitted, marks allotted and corrective feedback given by the Evaluator can be seen.

Trainer’s Interface for Objective Test: Trainer can access all the objective Tests by using this interface. Upon selecting any Test paper, trainer can view the start and end dates, duration of test, total questions, etc...

Trainer’s Result sheet: After the evaluation process is complete, the Trainer can get the Result sheet in his/ her Login. The Result sheet will have the marks obtained out of maximum in each topic and also the final percentage of marks and final result.

Difficulties encountered and solutions designed and deployed during the implementation phase Several difficulties that are addressed during the implementation phase are (a)Failure to submit assignments on-time; (b) Incorrect Assignment Submission by Trainers; (c) Virus Infected Assignment Submission; Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

(d) Natural calamity like floods; (e) Evaluators’ Performance; (f) Reevaluation requests from Trainers.

Extended Date of Submission was provided for the Trainers to submit the assignment after the original end date. A new feature was added in the OEF, which helps the trainer to view the already submitted assignment. The new feature routes the assignments for re-evaluation automatically, based on the criteria set by the System Admin. Special sessions on distributed classroom were arranged to orient evaluators. Continuous call center support was provided to the Trainers to handle their issues related to assignment submission using OEF. Integrated SMS Gateway technology was used extensively for instant communication and follow up with evaluators.

Spin-offs and future directions OnCeT Model was found to be generic and can be replicated for conducting IT based Certification Programmes

About 12100 teachers (who appeared for OnCeT), 67 evaluators have contributed to the successful implementation of OnCeT programme and more than 180000 assignments have been submitted and evaluated so far.

OnCeT has become a case study for its unique methodology for skill testing, quality of the assignments, huge number of uploaded assignments, functional use of state-of-the-art e-Learning technology frameworks by thousands of grassroot trainers spread over the state of Maharashtra, and moreover, the characteristic collaborative effort of the evaluators to offer personalised corrective feedback to the trainers.

OnCeT programme, thus, attempts to simultaneously satisfy all the complex parameters affecting the learning services, such as, low cost, high quality, high speed, high touch, wide access and personalised experience to masses.

In essence, Online Certification Test (OnCeT) illustrates effective functional use of eLearning Technologies by grassroot Trainers to test their IT competencies and set an example of avoiding the Digital Divide effectively.

Vivek Sawant (md@mkcl.org) is the Managing Director and Co-founder of Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL). In MKCL, he has successfully integrated a network of 3000 IT training centers spanning over tribal, rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan areas of Maharashtra state.

Revati Deulgaonkar-Namjoshi (revatid@mkcl.org) works as the Programme Coordinator & Business Analyst, eLearning and eContent Development, with Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd. Amit Ranade (amitr@mkcl.org) is working as Management Executive for eLearning and eContent Development programme, having interest in eContent development and deployment.

Umesh Mathew (umeshm@mkcl.org) is working as Management Executive in eLearning and eContent Program of MKCL with a focusing on the e-learning Technologies for Evaluation.

19

ITY N MU CY M CO TERA LI

Bridges to the Future in India

www.literacy.org; www.sas.upenn.edu/casi/upiasi

T

he BFI concept was developed by the International Literacy Institute (ILI), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. ILI has been engaged in developing literacy programmes, both in the developed and the developing countries, for over two decades. ILI has been in the forefront of using ICT in education, especially for literacy, in its wider connotation. Apart from developing ‘functional’ literacy programmes for learners from different cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds, ILI has been successfully engaged in developing computer assisted instruction (CAI) learner and teachertraining packages using multimedia.

As an international resource center for planning, implementation and evaluation of literacy projects, ILI has been actively participating in the literacy projects and programmes in a large number of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America. Through its Summer Literacy Training Programme (SLTP), the ILI has trained literacy planners, administrators and fieldfunctionaries from over 75 developing countries. The BFI programme is a culmination of the long experience of the ILI in literacy and ICT.

Support behind the project Infrastructural and technical support for BFI-India has come from the State Government of Andhra Pradesh and the University of Pennsylvania. Core and continuing project support has been provided by JPMorganChase, with additional assistance from the World Bank, Spencer Foundation, Unicef, U.S. Department of Education, 20

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), ICICI Bank, IIIT-Hyderabad, Azim Premji Foundation, and Byrraju Foundation.

Outreach The BFI concept has been accepted and adopted by several countries, notably Mexico, Ghana, South Africa and India.

The programme has been initiated in South Africa, while in India BFI is being run in the pilot mode in Andhra Pradesh.

Various other Indian States that have shown an interest in adopting the BFI strategy.

BFI - India At the preparatory level, BFI was discussed with the Government of India (GOI) as early as 2000. The National Literacy Mission (NLM) of the GOI, at that time was looking at BFI as a programme of training of literacy workers who numbered several hundred thousands. The BFI model was seen as most appropriate for the NLM’s project of Continuing Education Centers (CECs). Even as these discussions were in progress with regard to the availability of ICT infrastructure at these CECs, the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GOAP) was able to provide ten computers each in 1000 high schools throughout the State for imparting computer literacy to high school students and teachers. In discussions with GOAP, it was determined that there would be great educational potential in this ICT infrastructure if these schools could remain open to the local communities after school hours for

The central philosophy of the Bridges to the Future Initiative (BFI) Programme is to bridge the digital divide between the ICT haves and ICT havenots, by extending learning opportunities to those most in need.

Consequently, BFI seeks to build educational and learning programmes that will enable the lessadvantaged learners to employ and utilise ICTs, to both acquire knowledge and to improve their lives through better economic opportunities.

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

literacy and vocational education in AP state.

BFI - Andhra Pradesh Once the GOAP agreed to making the 1000 high school computer labs available for community learning, ILI (working in close partnership with UPIASI and others) developed a three-strand prototype multi-media software to address 1) the learning needs of out-of-school children (10-22 age-group), called Learning for School, 2) the learning needs of semi-literate or illiterate youth (particularly young women) for life-skills and vocational training, called Learning for Life, and 3) to facilitate the GOAP’s programme of egovernance for the common citizens, called e- Governance. The software module was designed to be fully

interactive and therefore, the learners could learn, without a formal teacher, at their own pace. It was decided to try out this experimental multi-media software in Hyderabad to study its acceptability and to measure its impact on the community users.

This experimental phase of BFI was launched in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (AP) in October 2003. By December 2003, it was clear that out-of-school children and young women found the computer driven learning sessions highly motivating. Early indications showed that the BFI model could become a powerful learning tool.

Andhra Pradesh has an ongoing programme of bringing all out-of-school children into the formal school. This Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

has been attempted through intensive ‘bridge courses’, which are designed to prepare these children in the shortest possible time to reenter school. GOAP saw the BFI model as an effective tool for addressing the problem of children who had dropped out of school or had not enrolled at all in order to bring

be developed into a multi-media module called a ‘lesson’. The content for each unit was drawn from the environmental studies (EVS) curriculum, and the language (Telugu) and mathematics curriculum was condensed into twelve language/math activity blocks that impart the curricular skills in these

The BFI model is now scalable at low cost for numerous Indian languages them back to school. The ILI, therefore, decided to limit the BFI focus in AP to address this problem exclusively and develop modules in greater depth and breadth under the Learning for School strand. A BFI team was formed to plan and develop (under the guidance of Professor C.J. Daswani, formerly Professor and Head of Non-formal Education, NCERT, New Delhi, and Senior Adviser, ILI) a series of multimedia modules in Telugu for the out-ofschool children in AP. GOAP has contributed by making available the services of four experienced teachinglearning materials writers to work on this team – a senior mandal education officer, a principal of a district institute of education and training and two school teachers.

As of September 2007, the planned 12 BFI lesson units have been completed.

Multi-media Curriculum Development The BFI model builds on the oral competence of the learners in their mother-tongue, the Telugu majority language of AP state. The content for the lessons is woven around daily contexts in rural-urban settings.

Beginning with simple words known to the children, the lessons lead the children to the recognition of the Telugu alphabet and basic reading skills. The AP primary school curriculum was condensed into twelve units, each unit to

two areas. The content was organised thematically and situated in an episodic story line – a story of a typical Telugu speaking rural family that migrates to the city. Each of the twelve episodes portrays various concerns of this family, concerns that are ultimately linked to the curricular content. The logic for ‘twelve’ units/lessons/episodes derives from the observation that the learners require two weeks (two hours a day) to master a particular lesson unit. It was envisaged that the learners would be able to complete the primary school curriculum in about six months. The lessons – content, story line and activities were converted into multi-media modules by the BFI team.

As of December 2006, the planned 12 BFI lesson units are nearing full completion. Software for each lesson is of 50-minute duration. Basically, the story line content in each lesson is dealt with in 8 to 10 minutes. The language and math activities in each lesson take up about 40 minutes in the software (run-time; learning time would be 4-5 times greater). The story line sets the context, and skill training – both Telugu and Math is embedded in the story line. The activities are graded from known to unknown, simple to complex, concrete to abstract. The phoneticsyllabic structure of the Telugu script is exploited to enable learners to quickly recognise and read known words and texts, moving slowly on to unknown new words and texts.

Evaluation Two evaluations of the BFI approach to ICT-based learning are currently underway – the first on out-of-school youth in the Hyderabad area; the second 21

being undertaken with young children in the West Godavari district of rural Andhra Pradesh.

Study 1 In India, 18 months of substantive qualitative and quantitative was undertaken. On the quantitative side, in 18 pilot schools in Hyderabad/ Ranga Reddy districts, a longitudinal assessment data (in several overlapping waves) was collected on a sample composed of more than 250 youth in Andhra Pradesh: 162 BFI learners (dropouts, divided about equally by gender) who have followed the BFI -ICT enhanced literacy programme; 112 learners in non-formal education programmes (termed NRBC, or NonResidential Bridge Course) in the same communities (with no ICT enhancement); and approximately 70 persons of roughly the same age who have not been in any type of education programme. Socio-demographic surveys were also collected on these individuals (all undertaken in the local Telugu language), along with 2- 3 literacy assessments over intervening periods.

Data analyses are nearly complete, including multivariate, time-intensive, analyses. Reliable evaluation techniques have made it possible to compare each group (BFI vs. NRBC) on the rate of learning across four major areas of learning, a key test of the effectiveness of ICT on literacy. Both Reading and Math Computation showed significant differences in learning rates in favour of the BFI learners.

These are precisely the two areas that were the focus of BFI software intervention at the time of assessment: 22

namely in beginning reading and computational math. It appears that the BFI intervention in Andhra Pradesh has shown significant gains amongst one of the most difficult to reach populations in India – school dropouts with very low literacy skills. Finally, it should be noted that the above findings are likely to be an underestimation of the power of the BFI programme for several reasons.

First, nearly half of the BFI learners in Study 1 actually left the BFI Bridge Programme to return to schooling, far beyond the original expectation, and beyond the ‘return rate’ of most Bridge Programmes in Andhra Pradesh.

Second, since the best learners (those returning to school) have necessarily dropped out of the BFI evaluation study (they are not in class to be tested again), such learners (if present) would have boosted the BFI’s already positive results.

Study 2. In partnership with the Byrraju Foundation (and using equipment donated by IBM), the BFI Telugu multimedia has been adopted by 250 primary schools (about 50,000 children/year) in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.

The school children will, for the first time, have local language (Telugu) multimedia support for learning in their poor, rural schools. In a subset of these schools, BFI has conducted a second, more controlled, quasi-experimental study, of 145 children (8-10 years old) who are in schools that have only BFI (ICT-based Telugu language materials) software that will enhance their regular

studies. A second group (N=90) sameaged children had no ICT inputs for the first half of the school year during the time of the study. Attendance and participation were recorded, and the BFI children were able to take advantage of enhancements and extensions in the BFI software that took place since Study 1 was completed (there is now roughly twice as much multimedia for the children than that which was available at the time of Study 1).

Similar assessment instruments are being utilized in Study 2 as were used in Study 1. All data has been collected over a 3-wave four-month time period.

Analyses again show statistically significant gains among the BFI school children for literacy improvement.

Future plans BFI future activities will involve a scaling up across AP state, with a twenty-fold increase in sites requested by the state government. More broadly,

the BFI model is now scalable at low cost for numerous Indian languages.

Languages on the near-term horizon include Hindi, Urdu and Kannada – all of which can be produced based on the model already developed for Telugu.

Such a scaling up would allow the BFI model to be rolled out across many parts of India where an ICT infrastructure is, or will soon be, in place. The BFI-India provides a powerful model for child and adult literacy and numeracy learning, based on the appropriate use ICTs for learning. The BFI provides a powerful model of effectiveness for other Indian states, as well as other countries.

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Glimpses ICT and Education

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Manipal Education Announces Anil Kumble as their Brand Ambassador

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CORPORATE DIARY | PROJECT

Smart Teaching and Learning Inside the Classroom

www.educomp.com

Worldwide there has been a strong push to get educational technology into the hands of teachers and students - yet it remains a reality that most teachers across the world continue to struggle with their day to day challenges in classrooms and remain completely un-impacted by technology even today.

The Primary reason for this is that most technology integration initiatives developed for schools ignore to look at the specific pain areas and real life challenges that teachers experience in classrooms.

Not only should the solution address the pain areas of the teacher but also follow a path which blends seamlessly with their own individual traditional teaching styles. There is a need to provide them with digital content that is mapped precisely to curriculum.

The method also needs to be simple, minimally invasive, user friendly

and have minimal dependence on teachers own skills. Equally essential is on going handholding support from training to maintenance.

Smart Class was launched by Educomp on a limited pilot basis early 2004. In the initial stages a soft launch across a few select geographies confirmed that the promised value proposition and the model of delivery offered by smart 26

class had phenomenal acceptance amongst private schools of all categories.

Smart class was conceived and developed around the ideology that for technology to become an integral part of day to day teaching and learning practices in schools, it needs to move right in to the classrooms where students and teachers spend over 80% of their teaching learning time.

At the very initial phase of launch of smart class for Indian private schools some of the most reputed schools in India such as the DPS R K Puram, Bal Bharati School, Pitampura in Delhi and Padma Seshadri Group of schools in Chennai were amongst the first to adopt the programme.

Smart class has now been adopted by over 500 schools across India and is at the threshold of bringing in a rapid transformation of moving

technology into classrooms in private schools in India.

Smart class Programme Overview Smart class is powered by a vast repository of “instructor led” digital presentation materials such as animations/video clips, etc. which are mapped to curriculum guidelines adopted by the school. The content modules are made available to the teacher’s right inside the classroom

as and when they need them as per their own pre specified time tables.

A powerful application engine enables teachers to search/ select/ view / prepare lesson plans and use the content modules in class.

A knowledge center is set up inside the school campus equipped with a server connected to all classrooms.

The classrooms are equipped with PCs for the teacher and a display mechanism to broadcast instruction materials for a group of students in class.

Students acquire a greater understanding of the concepts taught in the class through engaging visuals and digital presentation materials used by the teacher. There is a deeper internalizing of abstract concepts that results in better recall and therefore directly impacting students academic grades.

Delivery model The entire programme is delivered to schools by Educomp on a turn key basis. The programme deliverables involve all elements such as the repository of mapped digital content resources, training for teachers, provision, installation and maintenance of all supporting infrastructure such as hardware, software, accessories, networking besides full time in campus manpower to provide day to day hand holding support to teachers.

The programme is made affordable for all private schools in India by helping schools to align all investments made for the program to a nominal subscription fees collected from students over a five year term.

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

CORPORATE DIARY | NEWS PARTNERSHIPS NIIT, NComputing team up for low-cost education in schools

IT training and global talent development company NIIT has entered into an alliance with US-based NComputing Inc, a provider of virtual PC solutions, to enable schools across India to offer affordable computer education to students.

NIIT, which offers computer and computer-aided education to 1.5 million students in over 5,000 schools, would bring its expertise and reach in schools while NComputing would offer its technology. The new partnership aims to promote NComputing’s shared computing solution from the Kindergarten to 12th standard education system.

NIIT partners with US company to introduce Math Lab NIIT Ltd, an Indian IT training company, has announced an alliance with the US-based Key Curriculum Press Inc, a provider of software research and development for Mathematics Education, to introduce ‘Mathematics Laboratories’ in Indian schools.

‘Math Lab’ is intended to enable school students to learn and explore mathematical concepts and verify mathematical facts and theorems using technology tools such as ‘The Geometer’s Sketchpad’, together with hands-on activities using a variety of mathematical models.

Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

TutorVista announces acquisition of Edurite Technologies TutorVista.com, the lonline education leader has announced its acquisition of Edurite Technologies – a domain expert in the Indian education segment and developer of education course materials.

With this acquisition, TutorVista has jump started its operations in India.

This partnership will allow leveraging education content, technology and Internet marketing expertise to bring affordable education across the country.

TutorVista has over 150 students studying in their pilot tutoring center in Bangalore and are looking at expanding to over 50 centers across India in the next 12 months. Edurite has over 100 multimedia curriculum based products for institutions and retail segment.

Edurite course material is available for all the leading national and state syllabi, such as CBSE, ICSE, SSC, SSLC and so on. Equipped with an in-house library of Reusable Learning Objects, Edurite has created over 5000 animations and 200 hours of video and several diagrams which can be used to suit any curriculum.

The new entity will be known as TutorVista Education India Pvt. Ltd. and will be monetized separately.

Purushotham, President – Education Programs, TutorVista will be leading the charge for Education Programs He was heading NIIT’s education business till 2002.

eSquareworld Academia partners with HughesNet Global Education eSquareworld Academia, part of eSquareworld, Dubai-Knowledge Village based education provider and HughesNet Global Education, a division of Hughes Communications India - a leading provider of broadband satellite networks and services, have announced to join hands to set up the first Interactive Onsite Learning centre at Dubai Knowledge Village.

The courses currently being offered from IIM Calcutta are the Executive Programme on Leadership for Young Managers and the Executive Programme in Sales and Marketing. Designed by management experts and acclaimed by the industry, these courses have been thoughtfully designed with structured online modules ensuring flexibility for the students and cutting-edge curriculum and certifications from some of the best institutes in India. The students will be able to interact with the instructor in real time using a high end multimedia personal computer that is used at all the HughesNet Global Education centres. Subsequently the Dubai centre will also offer the courses from the other institutes of India like Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode; XLRI, Jamshedpur; Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; Indian Institute of Foreign Trade; and Mudra Institute of Communication (MICA), Ahmedabad.

Blackboard partners with Sony for smart card The US based education technology developer Blackboard has partnered with Sony to deliver support for Sony’s smart card technology in its Blackboard Commerce Suite for use with campus ID cards.

Blackboard will support the FeliCa contactless IC card technology from Sony. A contactless IC card is type of smart card with integrated circuits that uses radio frequency to communicate with card readers and, in this case, card writers as well, allowing data stored in the card itself to be updated. This will allow students to use a single card for payments, ID, security access, and various other transactions.

FeliCa technology is currently used in about 250 million cards and mobile phones.

IBM joins hands with business intelligence tech. firm Cognos IBM has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the US based Cognos, a firm that provides business 27

CORPORATE DIARY | NEWS intelligence technologies to K-12 and higher education and other sectors.

The deal is still dependent on shareholder and regulatory approval and other conditions but is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008 and is valued at about $5 billion. Cognos is a provider of several technologies used in education, including alumni management, enrollment and tuition planning, finance, human resources, marketing, and other business intelligence and performance management solutions based on open standards and built on a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

PRODUCTS and PROJECTS Online tool to help students evaluate themselves Learnsmart India, a joint venture between BodhTree Consulting and Unified Council, will expand its academic-oriented projects targeting students from standard I to standard 12.

The company that has launched www.24X7guru.com, an online diagnostic and self-assessment tool for the high school and intermediate students, is planning to add state syllabus by next month. The online learning initiative started off with CBSE and ICSE syllabi. Initially, it had 4,000 students and now the number has increased to 4.5 lakh. It sets a target to

cater to one million students by 2008-09.

Learnsmart will add six states’ syllabi by January and International Baccalaurete

by December. It will launch another academic-oriented product in next year, which will be five times bigger than the ongoing venture.

Why students feel nervous when examinations are round the corner? The reason is simple either they haven’t prepared well or don’t know how far they do it better. This is where the concept and the online venture plays a vital role in eliminating fear in the minds of students. The total investment in the venture is expected to touch $7.5 million

by March 2009. Learnsmart India is mulling over a plan to spread 24X7guru.com concept to other countries. The online project is aimed at enlightening the students right from understanding concepts to several application methodologies of what they studied.

YouTube moves into education Richard Muller, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley is offering semester-long course on YouTube with help from Berkeley University and Google’s videosharing site.

Venture capital funds online education, e-Learning in India Indian companies received more than $74 million (INR290.8 crore) venture capital funding in October 2007. Deals included investments in sectors ranging between e-Learning, digital media and engineering solutions outsourcing.

Online education and e-Learning services emerged as the flavour of the season as venture capital firms struck three deals in this space in the last month - Mumbaibased Hurix Systems Pvt. Ltd received $5.1 million from Helion Venture Partners; TutorVista.com, an online tutorials company started by serial entrepreneur K. Ganesh, received $2.5 million from Manipal Education Group; Mumbai-based eLearning services company 24x7 Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd received $4 million from Capital18, the venture capital arm of media group Network18. All three companies have had earlier rounds of funding.

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Berkeley University is the first university which is bringing higher education to the web in this manner.

While Harvard University is bringing a law course through its extension program. Berkeley has opened the virtual doors of its university to the world at large. Under its partnership with YouTube, students can also view other parts of the university like campus life and events. Berkeley has its own 30second promotional video, called “You see Berkeley,” on its YouTube page. The content also works as a marketing tool to help strengthen alumni ties and expand community outreach. Berkeley has also launched a podcasting partnership for courses with iTunes. Currently, Berkeley has 1.3 million views and 700,000 downloads on its three channels run on its page.

Ford India launches education project Ford India in association with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has launched an educational project to improve the educational infrastructure and quality of education of government-aided schools in Tamil Nadu.

The project would provide education, guidance and counseling to children at an important stage of their life with the help of both parents and teachers. For students, the module aims at motivation towards studies, holistic development by renowned trainers and successful people from corporate and public circuits, facilitating students to develop skills such as memory, reading, writing and concentration skills. For teachers in the governmentaided schools, the project would provide training through workshops.

Apart from educating parents on psychological impact of the primary system on the growth and development of the child, the programme would enlighten them on their roles and responsibilities as parents, the impact of education on the child’s future and career opportunities and their role in career planning..

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

CORPORATE DIARY | CASE STUDY

CORE-ECS Extends Solution to Improve Collection, Management, and Reporting of Student Data

www.coreprojectstech.com

Fives years ago, in the midst of a winter that seemed determined not to end, CORE-ECS visited the offices of the Michigan Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services (OSE-EIS). The Office was in need of a student data collection system that would significantly improve the collection, management, and reporting of Special Education student data.

A centralised, Web-deployed application CORE-ECS proposed a web-deployed solution, CORE-ECS Bright IDEA with a centralised back-end database that would allow OSE-EIS to have immediate access to all Intermediate School District, LEA and School level data. The Michigan Department of Education had previously relied on data trickling upward to the State as unverifiable summary data.

However, as each LEA maintained its own student data tracking system, OSE-EIS was unable to reconcile duplicate records across LEAs. The centralised, web-based approach allows for a significant reduction of duplicate student data as all student data is stored in the same database.

Additionally, every student record is assigned a statewide Unique ID via the CORE-ECSUniqueID component.

Every new student record is verified against the existing data to prevent the creation of a duplicate record.

Another significant advantage of the centralised approach is that while local users can access their own data any time they wish, state-level users

can do the same in order to perform compliance audits, verify service provision information, and generate Federal and State-level data.

Available anywhere IEPs One of the primary challenges facing most LEAs in Michigan as well as in North Carolina, where CORE-ECS customised a version of Bright IDEA for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Exceptional Children Division (ECD), was the transfer of records across LEAs via a paperbased system. Often, students presented themselves at a new LEA without informing the previous LEA of their departure.

CORE-ECS’s Bright IDEA solution allows not only the student data to be instantly accessible at the new LEA but also the student’s IEP – eliminating days, weeks, or months of waiting for paperwork.

This ability to instantly access a student’s IEP allows LEAs to adhere to State and Federal regulations that allow the use of an existing IEP to provide services in a new LEA. However, the focus on compliance does not end there. ECS’s innovative electronic IEP, known as the Form Assistant validates IEP data as it saves each section of the IEP. The system enables users to follow the required IEP process but still provides the flexibility to complete certain sections of the IEP as and

Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

when data is available. For instance, the solution provides Warnings when IEP developers must ensure that parental notifications are sent along with the completion of a specific form, but does not prevent the user from completing the form.

Similarly, the system generates an Error and the user must complete any required information if the final IEP will be out of compliance when saved.

A complete solution Features such as the Online/Offline Electronic IEP, Web-accessible caseload management, and CrossLEA student data availability make CORE-ECS’s Bright IDEA solution ideal for local users trying to perform daily student data management tasks. These features, along with the ability to automatically generate Federal Child Count tables, the ability to submit local Child Count data at the touch of a button, and the ability to view any IEP across the State, also makes CORE-ECS Bright IDEA the ideal statewide Special Education solution.

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CORPORATE DIARY | RESEARCH

Rapid and Compliant e-Learning Content Development for Corporate

www.infosys.com

Srishail Chari (Charigs@Infosys.com), Associate Vice President, Group Manager, and Alok R. Tiwari (Alok_Tiwari@Infosys.com), Development Center Manager, Education & Research, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

I

nfosys has a global footprint with offices in 18 countries and development centers in India, China, Australia, UK, Canada and Japan. Infosys has over 58,409 employees covering 57 nationalities.

Infosys focuses on creating strategic long-term relationships with its clients.

Over 97% of it’s revenues come from existing customers. Infosys is rapidly differentiating itself from the competition to achieve rapid growth.

The focus of this differentiation is to provide unique business and sourcing solutions to the clients that improve their odds of success by increasing their competitiveness; and to deliver these solutions with the industry-benchmark Infosys Predictability that lets them sleep peacefully.

In line with this vision statement and the recruitment philosophy of learnability, the training process at Infosys has been conceptualised to provide high quality education and training to the employees.

This is done through Continuous Learning Programmes, which focuses on technical process, management and leadership training. This processes which enable and develop Infoscions, encompass all sub-processes to provide education, training and development for entry-level, ongoing and specific requirements of Infoscions. For allround development, key dimensions of training and associated prime responsibilities are identified as a virtual Infosys university.

Experienced instructors including those having Doctorate and Masters degree with academic and industry 30

Various small industries who had seen the potential of e-learning are today leading players servicing big clients in ensuring continuous and focused learning benefits their customers to achieve better ROI and improved productivity. The reasons of various successful implementations of eLearning models are many but primarily it’s the core value proposition of using technology to learn anytime, anywhere for workforce skill base improvements, enhanced knowledge acquisition and productivity improvement which makes it exceptional and almost irreplaceable. The need of rapid and compliant eLearning content for quick deployment on learning management server is ever growing.

exposure, impart the training. Individual and team training needs are identified based on inputs from business goals, departmental action plans, performance appraisals, role based competency, client satisfaction survey, 360 degree feedback. Project level training is imparted on specific technology needs and a part of the project effort goes into on-the-job training on technology / process areas. In order to provide best in class services for its customer Infosys has to constantly focus on its workforce talent development using “Technology Competency Center” and it has developed an exceptional hybrid model (Traditional/e-Learning) to train the fresh hired graduate in a different environment and train other workforce in an ongoing basis all using state of the art infrastructure and world class technology solutions. In its pursuit to build a world-class training facility, Infosys decided to consolidate its learning activities in Mysore and started the Global Education Center.

Be it Technical Training, Quality process training, personal effective managerial programmes or behavioral programmes, “Technology Assisted Learning” e-Learning model supports all and allows to match the scale we look for. Various stake holders can create the e-Learning contents rapidly based on the internal published guideline for quick and easy deployment of the same on Infosys LMS (Technology Assisted Learning) to provide easy accessibility for geographically distributed people.

Being operating as one of the biggest corporate university, Infosys not only December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

CORPORATE DIARY | RESEARCH DUBLIN core Meta data initiative, IEEE. However collaboration among them was missing and there was a need of someone to drive them and others in one direction. US Department of Defense took the lead role to bring in the work of all together into a common and usable reference model popularly known as SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model).

Various standards and specifications understand the constraints academia faces but are also involved in resolving the same. The research in e-Learning and programs like “Campus Connect” to benefit academia has helped both industry and academia bridge the knowledge gap in order to produce better equipped and industry ready professionals.

Characteristics of a good Learning Management System The main advantages of the “Learning Management System” is self paced

learning, knowledge anytime anywhere, increased availability of trained resources due to efficient time utilisation, better learn-ability and better knowledge retention for immediate production use and knowledge anytime anywhere. “Learning Management System” is fast becoming a proven approach for skill-based trainings, competency development and informing or attracting customers or business partners at a rapid pace.

Learning through this mode can provide substantial and immediate rewards, but developing a strategy is complicated for several reasons such as acceptance, usage of appropriate and scalable technology, etc.

e-Learning industry standards and specifications With the emergence of the word e-Learning various bodies and organisations started developing specifications and standards. However this definitely never met the end user need due to non compliance with factors such as interoperability, reusability, manageability, etc. The early work in this was done by many such as ARIADNE (Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for EUROPE), Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

Advanced Distributed Learning The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative is a strategy sponsored by the government, industry, and academic leaders to facilitate instructional content development and delivery using current and emerging technologies. Specifically, its Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) project focuses on next generation open architecture for online learning, including standards for runtime communication, course structure, and content meta-data.

Aviation Industry Computer-based Training Committee The Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) is an international association of technologybased training professionals that creates guidelines for the development, delivery, and evaluation of training technologies. The AICC pioneered the most widely accepted interoperability standards for computerbased and webbased training.

IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society Standards Activity Board has chartered the Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) to develop technical standards, recommended practices, and guides for computer implementations of education and training components and systems - specifically, the software components, tools, technologies, and design methods that facilitate their development, 31

CORPORATE DIARY | RESEARCH deployment, maintenance, and interoperation.

IMS Global Learning Consortium The IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. (IMS) is a non-profit corporation that began with a focus on higher education. Today, they’ve expanded their specifications and projects to address a wide range of learning contexts, including school, university,

corporate, and government training.

Available specifications include: Learning Resource Meta-data, Enterprise, Content Packaging, and Question and Test Interoperability.

presentations. At the same time this tool can also be used for designing eLearning contents quickly. PowerPoint, if used appropriately can help you create rich, compelling, and instructionally sound e-Learning content. In most of the cases Subject Matter Expert (SME) uses Power Point to develop the initial content. e-Learning developers and instructional designers often use PowerPoint to create outlines or

storyboards as it is easy, convenient, and quick.

The concept of developing e-Learning contents for effective learning is not old. However some sophisticated tool usage requires specific skill and additional domain knowledge for appropriate usage. At the same time there are tools which are easily available at almost no cost which can be used to generate quick SCORM compliant contents that can not only act as re-usable learning objects but are also easily deployable to any Learning Management System.

Although there are many standard products in the market, here in this article, the objective is to demonstrate two of such easily available solution for rapid e-Learning content generation and deployment.

An e-Learning developer or instructional designer can take the existing base materials and enhance it further. And this enhancement can be done in PowerPoint - the native format of the content. Rather than convert the SME’s training presentation over to another tool, the instructional designer or developer can augment and improve the original within the same tool using the same format. This means a SME’s PowerPoint presentation can be used “as is” with narration added in Breeze if the delivery need is immediate. If more time is available the original materials can be enhanced to add richer media, interactivity, quizzing, and improved instructional design. Links can also be added to slide content to provide non-linear navigational design.

Materials can also easily be enhanced by inserting pre-existing Flash movies or software simulations directly into a PowerPoint slide as objects.

PowerPoint PowerPoint is a tool used to make

PowerPoint comes with numerous design and presentation templates.

Tools for rapid e-Learning content development for deployment in industry

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The design templates get you started with the graphical look and feel and the presentation templates provide a skeleton for arranging and outlining your actual content. Interactivity in any form of e-Learning greatly enhances both the appeal and the effectiveness of learning. The PowerPoint Breeze plugin makes it very easy to add quizzes, tests, and surveys to e-learning content. (The scores and data from these can be sent directly to your AICC/ SCORM LMS.) The Breeze plug-in simplifies the addition of audio narration. Adding narration to online training content has been proven to increase retention rates.

In most cases it is also the learner’s preferred mode of receiving instruction or information. Very often the simplest approaches to a problem are the most effective. Tools designed specifically for e-learning authoring can be used to produce some wonderful online content However it demands time which could be a constraining factor.

Power Point usage can significantly increase the speed of development of e-Learning by using an authoring tool with which your SMEs are already familiar.

MS Producer Free to licensed users of PowerPoint, Microsoft Producer features include improved audio and video quality, better synchronisation, and presentationsharing tools. Microsoft Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint is a software which is used to capture video, audio, and still images from a Web camera, a video camera (digital or analog), or from your computer screen. The captured content can be used in Producer presentations.

Producer can also be used to import existing Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, Windows Media files, still images, and HTML files, and then synchronize narrations with video and PowerPoint presentations. It can then publish the presentation to LMS, an e-Service provider, to a corporate intranet site, on a corporate network, or to the Web. Thus using December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

CORPORATE DIARY | RESEARCH Publishing your presentation After project editing is over its ready for the final publish. While publishing the project as a presentation, all the digital media in the project, including any video, audio, HTML files PowerPoint slides and templates, is compiled into one final presentation. This final presentation and the files contained in it can then be published to a local computer, Web server, Windows Media server, e-Service provider, Learning Management System or even to a CD that can be used for later distribution.

MS Producer we can create a SCORM compliant e-Learning course quickly.

MS Producer can be used to capture various objects like voice, video, presentations etc or import the same from a pre-existing setup. One can then synchronize them for appropriate integration. It has various templates to use which allow minimal effort from the person designing the e-Learning content to avoid development from scratch. Not only this, it can generate the contents to be played back at multi bit rate later or based on the available bandwidth for play back at run time.

Here are the simple steps which need to be followed in order to have your e-Learning content ready for deployment on any Learning Management System.

Getting content into Producer In this step all digital media is added into Producer Project. The files which are added can include audio, video, Power Point Slides, HTML files, etc.

If some of the objects are already available then they can be imported otherwise they can be captured using connected devices such as Web Camera, Microphone, etc.

Editing in Producer After digital media is available this can be arranged in the project. Timelines can be added. It basically is the Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

Producer workspace in which various elements that appear in the presentations can be arranged. The timeline enable to edit the entire project or elements of the project, such as individual audio and video files. Unwanted video and audio can be trimmed out of the presentation. Further enhancements can happen by adding video transitions and effects.

Synchronising your presentation This step allows synchronising existing video and audio files with your PowerPoint slides. This is important feature of Producer because it lets you take different digital media files, such as audio, video, still images, and slides and then quickly synchronizes them to create a richmedia presentation. Synchronising is done through the synchronise slides features.

Previewing your presentation In this step entire presentation can be reviewed. This is an important step to have a check before the contents are published.

The need for e-Learning in a corporate university or academia is more or less the same due to the challenges they have. e-Learning has existed in some form or the other for more than 20 years now. However, its current form is the most attractive and promising. Many of our customers, associate partners and academicians in university are either trying to implement the e-Learning solutions or going for a solution available on the shelf with little or no customisation. No organisation can grow without focusing on development of their precious human resources.

Learning Management System in its current form provides an excellent approach to achieve this with a great flexibility. There are various methods of developing the e-Learning contents.

SCORM compliant Rapid content generation today is very easy because of widely available tools in the market.

Some of the tools like MS Producer; Power Point, etc can be used to develop the contents for quick results and easy deployments. More sophisticated course development requires the usage of tools beyond this.

Srishail Chari is one of the pioneers in the Education and Research Department at Infosys. One of his contributions has been the development of e-Learning across the organisation. Currently, he is the Technical Competency Development Lead for Infosys, responsible for the technical competency development of all of Infosys, across the world.

Alok Tiwari, in past 13 years, is involved in various assignments covering hardware, software development & Education Research. He is currently working as development center manager Education & Research at Pune development center executive council member. He is responsible for technology program & certifications roll out for the employees of Pune development center. Alok is involved in key organisational initiatives like Campus Connect (Industry - Academia collaboration), Technology Assisted Learning, etc.

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BLO

OO B G

K

Blogging in Education

How to Get Started Shuchi Grover, [SHUCHI_GROVER@POST.HARVARD.EDU], Educational Technologist, Bangalore, India

My first two articles in this 3-part series on Blogging in Education have hopefully set the stage for teachers to try out this new (web 2.0) technology tool to begin online publishing, conversations and collaboration with their students and/or with other teachers.

Itching to start blogging? Off we go…

The first step in getting started with blogging is for you, the teacher, to familiarise yourself with the idea, and dynamics, of blogging. The best way to do this would be to start a personal blog that you may use to pen (or rather, type) personal thoughts and opinions, or to reflect on your teaching through publishing your thoughts and ideas about your profession. You could, at the same time, also become a part of an existing community blogging forum, to get a sense for commenting on others’ ideas, while also receiving, and responding to, comments on your own ideas and opinions. It is important for a teacher to get a good sense for both experiences – ‘personal’ as well as ‘group’ blogging. For the latter, you may consider joining educatorslog. in (http://educatorslog.in) described in the 1st article of this series. It takes only a few minutes to select a user name, password and email address for verification; and once you’ve confirmed your existence through responding to the verification email, you are ready to become a “blogging” member of the educatorslog.in community forum, and start commenting on existing posts from other members, as well as posting your own ideas and opinions on issues of education in India, or sharing resources that other teachers may find useful and relevant to teaching in India.

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To create your own personal blog, you could use of the many free, easy-to-use blogging tools widely available on the Internet. Among the most popular are blogger.com (from Google), wordpress. com, edublogs.com and livejournal. com. ‘Signing up’ is usually as simple as selecting a blog title and a blog name (that will appear in the web address of the blog), and providing an email address for verification. The rest of the settings may be set later once you’ve created your blog. These include personalisation details such as the appearance and color scheme of the blog, a profile/description of the author of the blog, and links to your other favorite websites that you’d like to share on your blog site, among many other things. The process of actually signing up for, and creating a blank blog (as well as publishing your first “Hello World” post) should take you no more than 5 minutes! That’s it! No hassles related to downloading and installing software of any kind, or paying for site-hosting for your blog. It cannot get easier than this!

Anyone can post comments on just about any blog. However, in order to start a group blog for your class or the teacher community in your school to participate in as co-contributors, you could consider creating a blog on blogger, edublogs or wordpress (as

described above for your personal blog), and then “inviting” members (your students or your teacher colleagues).

Anyone who already has a user name with that blogging service (e.g. blogger) can accept the invitation, and then start publishing posts (in addition to just comments) on the group blog.

Free blogging tools such as these, however, do not allow completely private blogging spaces, and blogs created on these are usually visible to anyone on the world wide web. For a group blog that is completely private - accessible and viewable only to the members who have been invited or added, teachers may want to consider Classblogmeister – a blogging platform created by David Warlick, an active educator blogger based in the U.S., under the aegis of The Landmark Project. Classblogmeister (http:// classblogmeister.com) was designed specifically for teachers to use with their classes, and as such, provides a “controlled environment” that has tools that allow teachers to comment privately on student work, and also moderate all comments made on the group blog.

So let’s usher in the era of “education 2.0” in our classrooms in India … and get started with blogging! Here’s to blogging and learning!

Shuchi Grover (shuchi_grover@post.harvard.edu) is an Educational Technologist from Bangalore. An alumna of Harvard University (and BITS Pilani and Case Western Reserve University), she has worked with educational institutions such as Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Business School and several K-12 schools in India and the US. Her current professional pursuits include creating a Web 2.0 platform for networking educators in India (educatorslog.in), coaching on Harvard University’s WIDE World online courses, Designing curriculum for teacher education programmes, and assisting school management and teachers with technology planning and effective integration. Know more about her at http://shuchi-edblog.blogspot.com December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

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Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

knowledge for change

®

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Developing the National Policy on ICT in School Education The digital age aims to transform our schools into knowledge hubs and information centres, where every teacher is ICT-enabled and every child is ICT literate. The Department of School Education, Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India is currently developing a National Policy on ICT in School Education with strategic assistance from Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) and Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS). The approach towards the development of a National Policy on ICT in School Education is participatory and collaborative and we invite the stakeholder community to share their suggestions, recommendations and experiences to support the creation of an informed and practical Policy. As part of a multi pronged strategy to engage with stakeholders, several econsultations are planned. We are overwhelmed by the response to our first “Call for Papers” and take this opportunity to invite School Educators and Principals to respond to the Questionnaire below. Students are welcome to participate too.

Survey Form 1. Do you think there is need for a National Policy on ICT in School Education? Yes/No……..............................

If yes, then why .......................................................................................................................................................

2. a. Please Indicate the ICT facilities available in your school. Radio, TV, Computer, Internet, any other, please mention …………………………………………………………......................................................................... b. Where are the ICT facilities available?

Computer Lab Classroom

Any other, please mention...................................................

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C. For what purpose does your school use ICT? ...............................................................................................................................................................................

3. What are the priority areas that need to be addressed within the policy?

(Mark each option on a scale of 10, where 10 is highest priority) • Internet Connectivity in School • Radio in every school • TV in every school • LCD projector in every school • Interactive Whiteboar • Computer Lab with TV/Radio/Internet/LCD Projector in every school 4. What all should an ICT-enabled classroom have? ………………………………………………………………………………………............................................................

5. What should an ICT-enabled school have? ………………………………………………………………………………………............................................................

6. What should an ICT-trained teacher know? ………………………………………………………………………………………............................................................

%

7. Do you think each school should have an ICT Plan? Yes/No…………………...........................................….......

8. Who should do the ICT planning in School? ...................................................................................................................................................................................

%

9. Is there a need for a separate ICT Co-ordinator? Yes/No....................................................................................

If yes, then please suggest what level - school/block/district? .........................................................................

10. Who should do the monitoring and evaluation of ICT programmes in Schools? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

11. Do you think there is a need for an online teacher training/B.Ed courses? Yes/No .........................................

12. Do you find the need for a specialisation subject of ICT in School? Yes/No .....................................................

How is it different from Computer science? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

13. How can ICTs be used to empower physically challenged students in school education? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

15. a. Do you have a digital library/repository in your school? Yes/No...................................................................

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14. Will ICT as a vocational subject help students for 21st century skills? Yes/No..................................................

If introduced as a course, what should be taught in this subject? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

b. Does your school have its own website? Yes/No.............................................................................................

Please write your school website address (URL)………………………….............................................................

16. Do you use digital content in classrooms? Yes/No...............................................................................................

If yes, then please mention the types of digital content ....................................................................................

17. Does use of digital content in classrooms enhance your teaching responsibilites? Yes/No............................

If yes, then how? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

If no, then what are the challenges? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

•

Oral through radio?

•

Interactive through TV/Computers

•

Hybrid through both ICT tools and Teachers?

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18. What would be your preference in digital content for classroom teaching?

(Mark each option on a scale of 10 where 10 is highest priority)

19. Do you support digital content to be created by teachers and students for classroom teaching/learning?

Yes/No………………........................................................................................……………………………....………..

If yes, then why ......................................................................................................................................................

20. If you were given a wish for using ICT in schools, what would that be? ..................................................................................................................................................................................

Name: ……………………………………………………………………...…….....................................................................

Designation: ……...…………………………………………………………........................................................................

Organisation: …………..…….....……………………………………………......................................................................

Address: .....…...………………………………………………………………...................................................................... .........................................................................................................................................................................................

Phone: Mobile:……………………..............… Office: .......................…………….. Residence:………….....................

E-mail: ......…………………………...……….................................…………………………………...................................

Thank you for filling our survey form. Please send your responses to

The survey form is available online at http://www.digitallearning.in/ICT_in_Education_Policy/survey-form.asp Please mail your responses to rachita@csdms.in

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Centre For Science, Development and Media Studies G- 4, Sector - 39, Noida - 201301, UP, India Phone: +91-120-2502180-85 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Web: www.csdms.in

Innovative Educator in the World

School Track

Umesh Pandey has done an extensive work in ‘Periodic Table’ that has made Inorganic chemistry very much student friendly.

Power Teacher Umesh Chandra Pandey of Government Inter College Dinapani, Almora in Uttarakhand is declared “One of the most innovative educator in the world”. Top 80 innovative educators of 60 countries took part in the recently held ITLA conference organised by Microsoft in Helsinki, Finland. 22 teachers out of the 80 got this honour of being innovative educators.

Earlier in February 2007 Umesh was declared ITLA India winner at Cambodia, where 10 participants of each 22 countries of Asia Pacific Region took part. Umesh has done an extensive work in ‘Periodic Table’ that has made Inorganic chemistry very much student friendly. The work is now available in the form Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issu12 December 2007

of CD. Student can explore the detail of each element and their related things.

The Science and Maths teacher in Almora, Umesh has received training under Project Shiksha of Microsoft. He has written two books for school students.

Although he had a friendship with the computers much earlier, since the time when he brought one for him while scribing the books, but the actual realisation of the power of computer came only while undergoing the Project Shiksha training. The priority then became to

make learning more exciting with the use of computer.

Umesh started creating lesson plans and CBTs with an attempt to make teaching-learning process more interesting and effective. He made a number of presentations on different topics, out of which, two keep special importance. The first one was on how to multiply, created for the students

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Digital Library and e-Learning Initiative at NIT Silchar National Institute of Technology, Silchar, Assam has successfully completed the digital library and virtual classroom project sponsored by Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. Under the Digital Library project, the Library will digitalise old and rare books, manuscripts

Knowledge Bank

of class 8 and includes a number of innovative techniques to simplify the multiplication process.

The second and the other important innovation of Umesh for the classroom teaching and learning relates to the periodic table, the critical part of the subject Chemistry.

Umesh’s work on periodic table was done using FrontPage, with every element having a link describing where it is found, its properties, its uses, etc. It also covers interesting facts about the history of the periodic table and many important manufacturing processes for chemicals. This exploratory tool on periodic table has made learning Chemistry both interesting and exciting for the students.

The work on periodic table is now used as a state resource by the education department and is being replicated as a teaching aid across schools. with this degree need not clear the foundation course to enter a foreign university.

38

Kishor Chandra Satpathy, Librarian and Coordinator of Continuing Education Cell, coordinated this project and has also implemented the eLearning solution in the Institute. The resources are available in the Campus LAN for users at http://dlib.nits.ac.in & http://elearning.nits. ac.in. and documents. 300 e-Books have already been put in the digital library server for the access of the student in the campus LAN. Under this project library has scanned the photographs of the institute and its programs and has created a digital photo gallery.

NIT Silchar Library is the first Library in the North Eastern region to have a full-fledged digital library portal. The library also is in the process to implement the RFID technology for security purpose.

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

ND A S D AWAR LENCE EXCEL

Indian students in Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

www.sciserv.org/isef/

ive teenagers, three individuals and one team of two, have done India proud by winning 2 grand awards and 5 special awards and 1 governmental award at the Intel ISEF, the world’s largest pre-collegiate science competition. Four of the six projects are chosen from over 150 that participated at the Indian leg of Intel ISEF, the Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science (IRIS).

Tanay Delima and Nikhil Khosla, Mumbai

Intel has entered into a partnership with Department of Science and Technology (DST) at Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), resulting in merger of two programmes, Intel Science Talent Discovery Fair and “Steer the Big Idea” into one program ‘IRIS – Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science’.

IRIS 2007 has been initiated in March 2007 by inviting project synopses from participants in three categories from age 10 – 35 years. The truly innovative projects are then exposed to a much larger world of science and education.

They represent India and showcase their work to the international scientific community at the largest pre-college science fair in the world - the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair - Intel ISEF held every year in USA.

Tanay Delima and Nikhil Khosla, both 15, from Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai has won Fourth prize of $500 in Team Category for Physical Sciences for there project ‘A Novel Advanced Brake Light Warning System to Prevent Vehicular Tailgating Accidents’.

F

The event participation in 2007 has been a huge success for the Indian contingent comprising of Vaishnavi Viswanathan for category Environmental Science, Rishin Behl for Category Engineering, Aavishkar Apoorva Patel for category Physics, and Ram Raghunathan for category Computer Science. As team projects the winners were – Tanay Delima and Nikhil Khosla in Physics, and Rehan Netarwala & Sarvesh Nevetia in Engineering.

Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

Tailgating accidents account for 65% of all vehicular accidents. The aim of this experiment was to find out whether it was possible to prevent these tailgating accidents by giving the driver in the rear vehicle additional time to apply his brakes and thereby bring his car to a safe stop when the car in front stopped.

Presently, the rear brake lights come on when the brakes are applied. They wondered whether, if an additional rear light of a different color came on when the accelerator was released prior to the brakes being applied, it would indicate to the driver in the car behind of a possible intention to stop, and he would then get that additional time required responding and bringing his car to a safe stop.

In this experimental setup, the subject was asked to stop the rear car with the brake pedal when he saw the brake lights of the car in front come on.

The brake lights of the car in front

operate in two modes. In mode 1 they come on when the brakes are applied like in all cars today. In mode 2 an additional yellow rear light comes on when the accelerator is released prior to the brakes being applied.

The distance taken by the subject to stop the rear car in the two modes was observed and the data analyzed.

Conclusion: it was indeed useful for the driver at the rear to be able to detect when the front vehicle driver’s foot was taken off the accelerator.

“I realized the competition at the International level is nowhere close to what I experienced at IRIS National level. Meeting so many people was overwhelming. Regarding support from Intel we had received guidance at the coaching camp which helped in improving our project and also our presentation skills...”- Nikhil Khosla Ram Raghunathan, Chennai Ram Raghunathan, 16, from Sishya School, Chennai has won second prize of $500 for Computer Science in Individual Category for his project FDIS: A Fast Frequency Distribution Based Interpolation Search Algorithm for Sorted Arrays.

Search of sorted arrays is a fundamental operation in computer science. In this project, Ram presents a novel search algorithm that utilises frequency distributions of data in the array paired with interpolation search to conduct the search more efficiently. The numerical experimentation showed FDIS performs significantly better than both Interpolation and Binary search algorithms on average number of searches and average time taken for 39

the search. The worst-case performance of FDIS is better or not significantly different from that of Binary and Interpolation. I also analysed the impact of array size, frequency table size, and shape of data distribution on the performance of FDIS, relative to the other two.

Vaishnavi Vishwanathan, Mumbai

Vaishnavi Vishwanathan, 15, from Modern English High School, Mumbai has won second prize of $500 U.S. Savings Bond in Individual Category for Environmental Science for her project of ‘Termite Malady ? – A Herbal Remedy!!’

Termites are a major cause of destruction of property; especially wood, paper etc. They multiply very fast.

Hence, controlling them is very difficult.

They grow and reproduce under moist conditions. Termites are mainly cellulose degraders. Dead trees are also known to inhabit termites. Heritage buildings built close to 100 years ago are also known to inhabit termites. These buildings are meant to stand for years and hence one would have to spend lakhs of rupees in treating them.

As a part of the research on natural product efficacy against termites, I studied two main parameters: The effect of Kusha root extract on controlling termite population The use of Kusha root extract as a wood preservative Wood samples were therefore treated with Kusha root extract. The results showed that the presence of Kusha root extract led the termites to exhibit a “lingering behavior”. They remained on the surface, all clumped together and unable to organize themselves. Hence they could not reach potential food sources through tunneling activity or building shelter tubes.

40

The study thus led her to conclude that the Kusha root extract is effective in controlling termites “ …Throughout my project the person who was constantly at my side was my guide Sitalakhsmi Parmeshwaran. She was my strength and motivator behind my success. Intel’s panel of scientists has helped me in reaching at this point…”- Vaishnavi Vishwanathan Sarvesh Nevatia and Rehan Netarwala, Mumbai Rehan Netarwala Sarvesh Nevatia, both 17, from Jai Hind College, Mumbai at the ISEF in the Physics Category for their project spherical wheels - a new revolution. Spherical wheels are here to radicalize the world. They can be used in robotics, trolleys, tractors, forklifts and wheel chairs. Our spherical wheels work on the principle of a computer mouse.

Each sphere is held in place by three rollers, two of which are powered.

When the rollers rotate, the adjacent sphere rotates due to friction. The spherical wheel’s speed and direction is controlled by the individual speed of each roller. Through this, multidirectional motion can be achieved.

Acceleration, kinetic energy and power of a sphere are greater than that of a cylinder hence a spherical wheel is more efficient.”

Rishin Behl, Mumbai

Rishin Behl, 18, from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Mumbai has won total 5 awards at ISEF. Second prize of $1500, first prize is $1000 & a trip to SEG International Exposition, second prize is a trip to China for a week to attend the 22nd China Adolescents Science and Technology Innovation Contest to be held in Kunning Yunan Province , third prize of $1,000 U.S. Savings Bond , full

tuition scholarship awards by University of Mexico in individual category for Geophysics for his project ‘A Novel Design for Magnetic Levitating Seismograph’.

Aavishkar Patel, Bangalore Aavishkar Patel, 17, from Kendriya Vidyalaya , Banglore at ISEF in Individual Category for his project ‘A Coupled Oscillator Model For Grover’s Quantum Database Search Algorithm’.

Grover’s database search algorithm is the optimal algorithm for identifying a desired object from an unsorted collection of items. Although it was discovered in the context of quantum computation, it is simple and versatile enough to be implemented using any physical system that allows superposition of states. Analysis was done of a mechanical realisation of the algorithm using coupled simple harmonic oscillators, and construct its physical model for the simplest case of 4 identical oscillators. The identification oracle is realised as elastic reflection of the specified oscillator, and the over relaxation operation is realised as evolution of the system by half an oscillation period. The sensitivity of the algorithm to changes in the initial conditions and damping was explored, both analytically and experimentally.

The amplitude amplification provided by the algorithm enhances the probability of the desired object in the quantum case, while it enhances the energy of the desired oscillator in the mechanical case. The focusing of energy into a specific oscillator can have interesting applications in processes that need crossing of an energy threshold for completion.

This mechanism may be useful in nanotechnological devices.

Intel is glad to provide a platform to such deserving students to display their skill and knowledge at the International level.

More details on http://www.intel. com/cd/corporate/education/APAC/ ENG/in/k12education/math/math2/ math25/265497.htm December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

News ASIA Philippines initiates project for public high schools

communication technology, English and mathematics will replace outdated editions and replenish chronic shortages of the new 2006 curriculum textbooks being introduced to the schools in 2007.

The Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), Philippines has initiated the iSchools Project to support the effort of the government and the Department of Education (DepEd) in integrating information and communication technology (ICT) education in public high schools.

Harvard unveils ambitious plan focusing on South Asia

The project focuses on strengthening classroom learning and instruction by expanding access to various sources of information. The components of the project include to conduct trainers’ training to ensure quality during the educators’ training implementation phase; the stakeholders’ mobilisation and project briefing; the provision of an Internet laboratory; conduct educators’ training; content development; monitoring and evaluation; applications development; the computer maintenance, trouble shooting and recycling; capacity-building program for DepEd ICT coordinators; educators’ congress; and the project close-out activities. The content development includes the initiation of training on web development among teachers and selected senior students that will enable them to create local educational content.

The project entails a host of new courses and programmes through which students will be exposed South Asia’s cultures, histories, opportunities and challenges. It will be pursued with collaboration and coordination across the entire university, including Harvard College and Harvard’s 10 academic units. Students from South Asia represent one of the largest groups who come to Harvard from outside of the US. The numbers from India alone already exceed those from Germany, France, and Japan or the UK.

Harvard University has unveiled an ambitious plan focusing on South Asia which envisages partnerships with institutions and organisations to advance teaching and learning in the region and increasing number of students from there.

Pakistan to invest billions to establish universities

ADB provides over 1 million texts to schools in Indonesia The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing more than one million textbooks to senior secondary schools across Indonesia’s Aceh province and Nias island as part of ADB’s Grant for the Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project (ETESP).

Support for practical science and information communication technology education in senior secondary schools is the focus of the education component of the ETESP grant. The textbooks on biology, chemistry, physics, information and Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

The Central Development Working Party (CWDP) of Pakistan is likely to recommend and take up 40 developmental projects worth billions of rupees in 10 sectors at a meeting including education, governance, physical planning and housing, information technology, transport and communication, nutrition, water resources, higher education commission, science and technology and energy.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is working on four projects relating to the establishment of engineering universities. The first project is the establishment of a university of engineering science and technology Pakistan (UEST) in collaboration with China, worth INR 49.120 billion. The second project is the establishment of a UEST in collaboration with Germany worth INR 51.024 billion. Two other universities are to be established in collaboration with Austria and Italy.

The costs of these projects are INR 49.894 billion and INR 47.648 billion respectively.

Manipal group buys 50% in online varsity Manipal Universal Learning International, part of the education arm of the Manipal group—has acquired a 50% stake in U21 Global, an online varsity, for an undisclosed sum.

The Mauritius-based Manipal Universal bought the stake from Cengage, which was earlier called Thomson Learning.

The remaining 50% of the shares are held by a network of 20 leading universities including University of Nottingham, National University of Singapore, University of Melbourne, University of Virginia, University of Auckland and Waseda University.

The Singapore-headquartered U21 Global started operations in 2001 and currently offers management education courses. It has 4,000 students from 60 countries. Around 25% of the students are from India. The courses are targeted at the upper end of the online management education market with Indian students paying a fee of $10,000 (INR 4 lakh) for an MBA course. Manipal group plans to invest $5 million in operating the varsity. Manipal group operates two universities—Manipal University and Sikkim Manipal University—apart from around 30 institutions in India. It also has colleges and university campuses in Antigua, Dubai, Malaysia and Nepal. It has about 125,000 students from 52 countries studying in various undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programmes.

41

ER Y O EF

TH

International Conference on Universal Quality School Education 21-23 November, 2007, Hotel Ashok, New Delhi

A

three-day International Conference on Universal Quality School Education (UQSE) was organised in New Delhi by Educational Technology and management Academy, in association with Unicef, Unesco, and Media Lab Asia.

The conference was participated by a number of academicians, educationists and experts from across various sectors that included Schools, corporates, non-government and government.

The conference took off with a welcome address by prof. Marmar Mukhopadhyay, Chairman UQSE and Director Educational Technology and Management Academy (ETMA), followed by the inaugural address by Dr. Karan Singh, Member of Parliament.

Speaking on the occasion Dr. Singh stressed on quality education for all and that equity and quality should go together. Dr. Singh also highlighted the need for a strategic planning for cultural diversities and disparities in the country.

The MP also shared his concern over the incorporation of value education in school curricula.

Prof. Mark Bray, Director International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) delivering a key note address pointed out that 77 million children are still out of school, with half of them in the subSaharan countries. Prof. Bray observed that the efforts for improved access to primary education puts pressure on the secondary education and therefore neither of them can be ignored. He also said that policies striving to ensure quantity of education negatively impacts secondary education and serves only as remedial primary education making up for the deficit in the quality of primary education. This arrangement 42

Dr Karan Singh, MP Discusses with the Convener, Prof Mukhopadhyaya

leads inequalities to remain in society in a disguised form. Throwing light on shadow education system, Prof. Bray said this system exists along with and because of the mainstream education system, and is proportionally related to the mainstream education system.

An address on Quality Education and Development of Minorities was delivered by Arvind Singh, the Minister of Education govt. of Delhi.

The Minister pronounced the need to modernise the Madarassa system of education and emphasised on its significance to make primary and secondary education accessible to minorities. Day one of the conference covered interesting themes like ICT in School education; Education for Sustainable Development. This was followed by concurrent sessions on quality issues, teaching learning process and economics of quality school education.

The second day of the conference covered themes relating to Science of Education, ICT in Education-The Futures and show cased Quality Primary

Education. Following which concurrent sessions on leadership for 21st Century Schools; Teaching learning process and economics of Quality School Education have been organised.

Speaking on the occasion Prof. Ved Prakash, Vice-Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, focused his speech on the stratification of societies in South Asian countries that hampers their development-social, cultural, political and economic, and said empowerment through education is the solution of the problem. The Vice-Chancellor drew attention towards the fact that the 11th five-year plan does not emphasise on the universalisation of Secondary education, rather it says universal access to Quality Secondary education. He also said that assessment in principle should be used to identify inadequacies rather than judging students’ performance so that education can be accessed by every child and that they can learn. The other important speakers of the day were L. Samphe from UNICEF, Satish Kaushal from IBM, Hari Iyer from CORE. December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

The last day of the conference was dominated by themes related to beliefs and values in quality school education; leadership for 21st century schools and economics of quality school education.

Towards a Policy on ICT in Education, the session of the conference was organised by the key speakers like Anshul Sonak, from Intel, Radha Ganeshan of Quest Alliance, Ajay Kapur from Oracle, and Douglas Bell from Education Development Centre (EDC).

The session was chaired by Osama Manzar from Digital Empowerment Foundation.

This session elaborated on the role of technology in leveraging school education and emphasised on the need to have a guiding policy at state/district level to solve the complexities of implementing ICT in school education.

It was highlighted that technology is one of the ways to solve the problems in the education sector but it can not solve all problems in the area.

The guiding principles pointed out during the conference were having the importance of paying attention to the curriculum demand and content supply, leadership development in the people associated with education sector and good practices that should include a dialogue among the implementors and policy makers, taking care of cost and competitiveness, and adequately address the need to incorporate skills for success like collaborative and problem solving attitude, systematic planning and content knowledge application, learner centric approach. It was also

Panelists of the Session ‘Towards a Policy on ICTs for School Education’

echoed during the conference that any practice in educational sector should fuel the policy and said that a good public private partnership makes an important ingredient to sustain any formula. A larger dialogue among all stakeholders is necessary for developing an appropriate mechanism.

Speaking on the occasion Douglas Bell from Education Development Centre (EDC) thrust upon the role of ICT to support teacher in imparting effective teaching. More efforts in advocacy are needed to bring greater awareness regarding ICT in education and at the same time efforts should be made to bring more access of ICT to teachers.

The learned speaker put a stress on public private partnership model of education for sustained progress quality incorporation in education. The obstacles in the path of education as enumerated were the lack of financial assistance and absence of quality

Meera Balachandran, Principal, Ramjas School, R K Puram

Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 12 December 2007

standards as the principal factors in efficiencies in the educational field.

The session discussions stressed on the learner-centric policy and focused on the parameters of requirements of ICT in school education. The speakers mentioned to target professional development of teachers, revision of the curriculum of institutes of teacher training and suggested that infrastructure component should be guided by a comprehensive policy, that should be adequately fortified with security checks. The conference was put to an end with a high note with suggestions and recommendation from the audience and the speakers. Almost 80-90 percent of the audience responded in affirmation when asked whether the country needs an ICT in education policy. It was also suggested from among the audience that a top down approach is the need whereby policy-maker should be trained and made aware of the role of ICT in education followed by implementors, teachers and students. Value based preservation through ICT was the dominant opinion among the audience as was the suggestion that children should be involved in the creation of content, local knowledge access and dissemination. Its was also suggested that technology should build projectbased content to be used in diverse culture through a right teaching and learning environment. Lack of respect for the teaching profession is a great concern that needs to be taken into consideration by policy makers. and hard to reach areas of each country.

43

News WORLD Nigeria introduces ICT into primary school curriculum Nigerian introduces Information and Communication Technology into the primary school curriculum following the launch of a new basic education curriculum for primary and junior secondary schools in the country.

The new curriculum, which has been approved by the National Council of Education (NCE), is aimed at addressing, among others, issues of value re- orientation, poverty eradication, critical thinking, entrepreneurship and life skills. A major feature of the new curriculum is the phasing out of primary science and integrated science, to be replaced by Basic Science and Technology.

Rwanda takes ICT to street kids Rwanda will launch an extensive campaign aimed at taking Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to street boys in the country.

The project, initiated in Africa by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is aimed at equipping every Rwandan child with a laptop. The laptops would also be given out to children in all primary schools in the country. Last month’s Connect Africa International summit on ICT, set the goal of ensuring Internet access to every African by 2012. At least US$ 300 million will be invested in projects which will promote Information and Communication Technology in Africa.

iPods to train teachers in Zambia Education Development Centre (EDC), As part of a creative pilot project, has distributed iPods to sixth grade Zambian teachers experienced with EDC’s interactive radio instruction (IRI) and trained them in their use.

The initiative is to enhance 44

professional training in Mathematics, Science, and English. The iPods are loaded with the IRI lessons as well as with audio and video training materials designed to support teachers in their presentation of complex topics. Using the iPods in combination with a footor solar-powered generator and a set of speakers, the teachers can also broadcast the IRI lessons without being tied to the radio broadcast schedule.

Education policies of meager benefits!

The recently published Lancaster University’s research into the government’s specialist schools programme and the Excellence in cities initiative has concluded that, the education policies costing billions, have been of meager benefits.

The research pointed out the educational resources appeared to have been allocated inefficiently and inequitably in the programme, since most resources had gone to schools with higher proportions of better-off children. While there had been an improvement in exam results, only a third of the improvement could be attributed to government policy.

The response of the Department for Children, Schools and Families was defensive, accusing the report of not looking at the whole picture. The same defensive reaction was evident this month when Cambridge University published its interim reports from a wide-ranging, independent, twoyear review of primary education in

England. They demonstrate that the initial sharp rise in primary school test results between 1995 and 2000 is now understood to be largely a result of teaching to the tests, and not to a dramatic improvement in learning.

It points out that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the government’s own Statistics Commission accepted the rises were overstated. The review also finds that the primary curriculum has narrowed in response to the testing; that statutory tests make it harder, not easier, to judge pupils’ progress; that there have been rises in test-induced stress among pupils; that the results of the tests are unreliable in up to a third of cases; and that the gap between the highest and lowest achievers in Britain is wider than in many other countries. The reports conclude there has been a genuine, although modest, improvement in children’s numeracy. It cannot say the same about literacy.

Chilean president signs education reform pact Chilean President has signed an education reform pact after a debate involving all the country’s political parties.

The National Education Reform Accord, which is to be submitted to the legislature for approval, proposes a general law of education to replace the existing national law on teaching, which was instituted in March 1990 under former Chilean military leader Augusto Pinochet. The move marks a triumph for the thousands of high-school students that have been campaigning for education reform since March last year. The provisions of the newly proposed law include quality education as a constitutional obligation instead of a guarantee of access to education, and the creation of the Education Overseer and the Education Quality Assurance Agency.

December 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

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digital LEARNING invites authors We invite editorial contributions from our readers in the field of Digital Learning.

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May 2007 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Mark Your Calendar december

march

Regional Conference on Quality in Higher Education 10 - 11 December, 2007 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

The 2008 International Conference on e-Education 27 to 29 March 2008 Bangkok, Thailand http://www.e-case.org/e-Education2008/

http://qamu.um.edu.my/conf2007/

11th UNESCO-APEID International Conference: Reinventing Higher Education: Toward Participatory and Sustainable Development 12 - 14 December, 2007 Bangkok, Thailand http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=6257

School Education, Pluralism and Marginality: Comparative Perspectives 14 - 16 December, 2007 India Intl. Centre, New Delhi, India http://deshkalindia.com

january e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East 2008: Define. Design. Deliver 14 - 17 January, 2008 dubai, Dubai United Arab Emirates

Intl. Conference on Quality Enhancement in Educational Communication 29 to 30 March 2008 Tiruchirappalli Tamil Nadu, India http://bdu.ac.in

International Conference Of Educational Technology ICOET2008 3 to 5 March 2008 Muscat The Capital, Oman Website: http://www.icoet,.com

april The International Conference on Technology, Communication and Education (i-TCE2008) 7 - 9 April, 2008 Kuwait http://www.i-tce.org

http://elexforum.etqm.ae/

Responding to Change - Flexibility in the Delivery of Language Programmes 7 - 11 January 2008 Hong Kong Thailand http://lc.ust.hk/~centre/conf2008

february International Research Conference 27 to 29 February 2008 Iloilo City, Philippines http://www.wvsu.edu.ph

iLearning Forum Paris 2008 4 to 5 February 2008 Paris, France http://www.ilearningforum.eu

Digital Learning | Vol 3 Issue 5 May 2007

TCC 2008 Worldwide Online Conference 15 - 17 April, 2008 Online http://tcc.kcc.hawaii.edu

Third International Conference on Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning, IMCL2008 16 - 18 April, 2008 Amman, Jordan http://www.imcl-conference.org

International Conference on Open and Distance Education ICODE’08 25 - 27 April, 2008 Rome Italy http://wahss.org/

British Council announces Chevening 2008 Programme The Chevening Scholarship scheme offers candidates the opportunity to undertake postgraduate study at leading universities in the UK. Annually, the Chevening programme supports around 2000 individuals from across the globe to study in the UK. Up to 100 Indian professionals receive financial assistance for the duration of their studies each year. Candidate should ideally have at least 2-3 years of relevant work experience in the selected field of study. Though recent graduates may also apply.

Eligibility • Age 21-35 yrs. for Masters (Open) and 28-40 years for the Chevening Gurukul Scholarships • Masters course at a UK institution should not be more than 12 months • Should not be pursuing studies in the UK at the time of application • Should not have received a British Government funded scholarship in the past Chevening Open Programme Scholarships cover the following: (a) Tuition fee (b) Living expenses for the duration of the scholarship for a maximum period of 12 months (c) Return airfare from India to UK (d) UK Student Visa Last date for submission of applications: 14 December, 2007 Complete application form can be sent by email to chev.application2008@ in.britishcouncil.org or posted to British Council, 17 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-110001 with clear mention of “Chevening Scholarships 2008”.

More details at: http://www.britishcouncil. org/india-scholarships-cheveningprogramme.htmexploration or any other field of research involving extensive computational calculations.

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