Computer Curriculum - Challenge or Change ! : July 2008 Issue

The monthly publication on ICT and Education

digitalLEARNING Volume IV Issue 7 July 2008 ISSN 0973-4139

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Challenges to e-Learning in Developing Communities in Africa PAGE 22

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Constructivism - Emerging Model of Pedagogy Interview: Robert B Kozma PAGE 27

Leader’s Speak Ajay Sharma, President and CEO, New Horizon India Ltd. PAGE 33 India Formulating a National Policy on ICT in School Education

Your Say, Your Stake Policy Matters - PAGE 43

Computer Curriculum in Elenentary Schools page 6

Contents Volume IV Issue VII, July 2008

Verbatim “Education is not the answer to the question.

Education is the means to the answer to all questions.”

- William Allin “The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”

- Carl Rogers “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.”

- Anatole France “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.”

- Anatole France

Cover Feature

Country Focus

39

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22

Policy Matters

Computer Curriculum in Elementary Schools Farida Umrani, Sridhar Iyer and Malati Baru

Localising Education Tutor: Motivating 11 Marathi Language Learning

Muwanga-Zake JWF

Dialouge

27

Archana Rane, M Sasikumar and Sunny Saurav

Survey

15 Are Hamirpur Schools Prepared for ICT?

Kamlesh Dutta and Dr I K Bhat

Foyer

18

Curtain Raiser eINDIA2008: Setting the Agenda

Challenges to e-Learning in Developing Communities of Africa

‘Constructivism Emerging Model of Pedagogy’ Interview: Robert B Kozma

Corporate Diary

33

Leader’s Speak

36

Case Study: Research to Innovation Intel Education Initiatives

38

Ajay Sharma, President & CEO, New Horizons India Ltd.

Partnership: NIIT Infospectrum Alliance offers ERP Solution in Schools

43

Innovation: Mindspark: Digital Adaptive Learning Solution for Kids

India Formulating a National Policy on ICT in School Education

Development Agenda

53

Ekal Vidyalaya: One Teacher, One School, One Village

Regulars

57

Mark Your Calendar

News

20 41 55 56

India Corporate Asia World

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

digital LEARNING INDIA Volume IV, Issue 7 | July 2008

President M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Group Directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar Programme Co-ordinator Jayalakshmi Chittoor Assistant Editor Manjushree Reddy email: manjushree@digitallearning.in Research Associate Rachita Jha Research Assistants Shivani Satija, Angela S Nath Marketing Siddharth Verma (+91-9811561645) email: siddharth@digitallearning.in Sales Executives Rudra Ghosh, Fahimul Haque Subscription & Circulation Lipika Dutta (+91-9871481708) Manoj Kumar (+91-9210816901) Sr Graphic Designer Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Graphic Designers Om Prakash Thakur Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) Web Zia Salahuddin, Santosh Kumar Singh Amit Pal 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 Owner, Publisher, Printer, Ravi Gupta Printed at Vinayak Print Media E-53, Sector 7, Noida, U.P. and published from 710, Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50, Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta

Editorial Computer Curriculum Challenge or Change !

Integration of ICT into the school curriculum is now increasingly being recognised as a critical area of focus to convert technology into workable tools for basic learning in the formative years of an individual.

While the new communication technologies have provided answers for longstanding issues of infrastructure, costs and diversity, regional and spatial, the need to weave ICT into the existing teaching curriculum, without undermining the existing advantages, is a significant challenge that will have to be addressed.

A concern or caution that needs to be highlighted in this context is that mere presence of computers in a school, without a clearly defined usage and appropriate content, is likely to be reduced to recreational devices.

It is clear that integration of computers and information technology based curriculum not only needs high quality research for evolving pedagogy, but more importantly also ground level testing and application.

In this issue, we have attempted to bring to our readers some of the many promising initiatives towards class-room level application.

The cover story ‘Implementing Computer Science Curriculum in Elemenatry Schools’ shares insightful findings from a school pilot project for implementing computer sciences curriculum among the primary level students. It also builds up a case for not simply imposing ideas but blending them within the existing teachers’ handbooks.

It needs to be reiterated that computer fluency amongst students and teachers should come through an active participation in constructing the content and nature of the process itself.

The feature on Marathi Tutor addresses an issue that is very topical for a diverse nation like ours, which have 18 official languages, by detailing how theories of linguistics and pedagogic practices are being re-interpreted for creating a vernacular computer-based tutor.

We hope these stories will draw us closer to a democratised exchange by informing larger policy debates about learning from steps being undertaken by both the government bodies and private players for integration of ICT into the schooling process at the primary and middle levels.

We hope to take these debates and discussions further and will try to widen the policy aspects for all our readers in the upcoming Digital Learning India 2008 conference in New Delhi. Lets all make it a success!

Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Revolutionizes The Teaching - Learning Process Multimedia Lessons

Books

Teacher Training

“ Since 1997, IETS has worked with approximately 20,000 teachers and 215,000 students from public and government schools in India.�

www.ilfsets.com Head office: IL&FS Education & Technology Services Ltd., IL&FS Financial Centre, 3rd Floor, Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra (East), Mumbai - 400 051 Telephone: + 91 22 6694 7575 / 7676 Fax: + 91 22 6694 7700

Kolkata: + 91 33 2281 3642 / 43

New Delhi: + 91 11 41306726 / 27 / 28

Bangalore: + 91 80 2552 6760 - 66 / 2552 6768

Ahmedabad: + 91 79 2656 5856 / 2656 5839 / 2656 3543 / 2656 5337

Chennai: + 91 44 24424014 / 15

Hyderabad: + 91 40 23311182 / 83 / 30622331 / 30622334

Computer education provides a unique opportunity for boosting natural ways of learning.

Integration of ICT into the school curriculum is instrumental in developing a culture of thinking, lifelong learning and social responsibility

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July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

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Computer Curriculum in Elementary Schools

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ith e-Learning and digital adaptive learning becoming buzzwords in the recent years, the age of integration of ICT in school education seems to have truly arrived. But the moment one looks beyond the urban centers, the rural areas throw up hundreds of thousands of schools just beginning to wake up to the idea.

In the absence of a clearly defined computer science curriculum, computers could just get relegated to entertainment devices. A systematic curriculum can be instrumental in developing algorithmic thinking and organisation skills. This will not only lay a foundation for future programming skills, but develop important life skills.

In this article we share the learnings of a pilot project on implementation of computer sciences curriculum carried out for 10 months from class 1 to 5 at a private school in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Computer education provides a unique opportunity for boosting natural ways of learning. Integration of ICT into the school curriculum is instrumental in developing a culture of thinking, lifelong learning and social responsibility.

For developing countries, investing in computer education can be instrumental in building indigenous technological capability and autonomy.

Addressing digital divide Given the support for ICT in schools under government schemes such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), computer education has got a thrust in the past five years [1]. However, compared to Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

developed countries and even developing countries like China, the figures of computers in schools are quite low.

In India, less than 10% of all schools have computers, and even this is also heavily in favour of urban areas (26.41%) while the rural areas (6.66%) are marginalised. Amongst the urban areas, six Indian states of Chandigarh (73.65%), Sikkim (55.56%), Delhi (55.40%), Kerala (48.19%), Andhra Pradesh (43.48%), Nagaland (39.41%) have more than 35% penetration of computers in schools. On the other hand for the rural areas, only three states Delhi (51.18%), Chandigarh (40%) and Kerala (36.87%), have more than 35% penetration of computers in schools [2].

Except for Delhi, there is a wide gap in computer penetration in schools in rural and urban areas of each state indicating the rural-urban digital divide.

Even when computers are available in schools, the emphasis is largely on acquiring the skills for its usage. There is little deliberation on the course content and the methodology best suited to teach it. Private international schools have been the major frontrunners in computer assisted learning and other private and government schools are slowly catching up.

Defining a curriculum Computer science curriculum of the national and few state boards take the societal approach – computers being pervasive in present times, focus on acquiring basic technical skills – and vocational approach – prepare for a career in computer science, or application of technical skills in

different vocations – to the curriculum.

Private companies that market educational software to the schools consider the pedagogical approach and focus on computer assisted learning for different subjects.

However, in all the approaches to the curriculum -societal, vocational and pedagogic - only the behavioral aspect is considered and students are groomed to become ‘expert users’. On the other hand, the catalytic approach focuses on teaching information handling and problem solving skills. Curriculum based on this approach aims to develop computer fluency amongst the students and mentor them to participate actively in constructing the technology.

To address this issue, a team at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, adopted an eclectic (combination) approach to the computer science curriculum with the goal of developing computer fluency at the end of school education. The computer curriculum for each standard is broadly divided into three groups: 1. Concepts: Learning computer science concepts that are generally useful in many areas as well as some concepts that are specific to computer usage/functioning.

2. Usage Skills: Developing hands-on skill in the use of various hardware/ software and programming packages/languages.

3. Social Aspects: Understanding ethical and security related issues of computer and Internet usage.

The emphasis is on understanding the concepts behind various computer-based 7

plan, worksheet and website references for further reading. The course was implemented in a pilot school located in Mumbai. In light of the field experience, the curriculum was modified and the teacher’s handbook was upgraded to a textbook.

Each lesson in the textbook includes aim, lesson outcome and the content tied by a loose story with three characters, a mouse (Moz), a boy (Tejas) and a girl (Jyoti). This is supplemented by worksheets, computer based activities (using open source applications), points to explore by the students, a lesson plan for the teacher and suggested web resources for further reading.

activities, rather than just the usage skills of specific tools. For each standard, the syllabus is defined by giving the topics that should be taught, the reasons for doing so and a schedule. There is a spiral organisation of the curriculum so that students can continually build upon their existing knowledge. This curriculum was reviewed by experts and modified appropriately. The detailed syllabus is available at http://www.cse.iitb. ac.in/~sri/ssrvm/

Development of teaching material At the outset it was decided that the curriculum will be OS independent and eventually provide an exposure to both the platforms – open source (edubuntu) [4] and proprietary (Windows). We begin by focusing on the behavioral aspect and later widen the scope to cognitive aspects, refining mental capacities (through step-wise reasoning and logical thinking exercises) and teaching fundamental computer science concepts. A positive attitude towards computer technology is inculcated in the students through the various computer based activities and teaching methodology. Ergonomic aspects such as posture, exercises are covered at each level to emphasise health values.

After deciding on the content to be taught, teachers’ handbooks were written for the first four levels. Each chapter in the handbook included a lesson

At present, teaching material for four levels are available. Levels I and II focus on skill acquisition (e.g. keyboard/ mouse skills) while Levels III and IV concentrate on building algorithmic thinking, reasoning and organizational skills using real-life experiences, computer applications and multimedia programming language (Scratch) [5].

Practice of specific skills is through open source educational games such as Educational suite Gcompris [6], Childsplay [7]. These activities not only provide opportunities for building the computer skills, but also sharpen the cognitive skills such as classification, similarities, differences, speech/audio/ colour/pattern recognition, etc.

The book is available freely for educational use, under the creative commons license, at http://www.cse.iitb. ac.in/~sri/ssrvm/

Delivering the curriculum The teaching methodology adopted in the project followed a four stage model that is outlined as follows: a) Exploration: At the initial stage there is no direct teaching, but students are asked to explore a particular application by themselves. The teacher’s role is to provide positive reinforcement – appreciation, stars, etc for every right move by the student.

It is essential that the students are motivated to learn and they are able to focus attention on the task at hand.

In some cases, students are asked to observe the teacher doing a particular task and then explore the application on their own. Dividing the class into groups of four/ five students allows for collaborating and sharing resources amongst peers. b) Motivation for self learning: At this stage, the learner is actively involved in constructing new ideas/concepts based upon their current/prior knowledge.

Computer based activities such as multimedia programming (e.g. Scratch) provide students opportunities for experimental learning. These activities are intrinsically interesting to the students and they discuss alternative strategies with their peers. The teacher’s role is to work as a mentor/facilitator and ask probing/open-ended questions instead of ‘teaching’. For example, after demonstration of basic features, students wrote programmes in Scratch on their own. They had healthy disagreements wherein different team members tried their way of writing the script.

Reasons for including computers in schools

Rationale

Basis

Social

Computer skills are essential requirements in present information based society, hence school education should equip students with technical skills

Vocational

Prepare for jobs that require computer skills

Pedagogical

Use technology to enrich leaning experience, flexible and efficient course teaching

Catalytic

Computers as tools to change the education process through collaborative learning, relevant curricula and expand learning opportunities July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

opportunity to use the technology. It is likely that when girls have to compete with boys for computer usage, differences might show up.

c)Reflection: Students engage in social negotiation (debates/discussions) with peers and teachers to compare their understanding and create revisions to their current structures of knowledge.

The teacher’s role is to provide individualised support and motivate the students to become active learners.

Thus, the emphasis is on inquiry learning wherein students actively make observations, collect, analyse, and synthesise information, and draw conclusions. For example, after students made a picture using paint application, they were asked to construct a story around it. The teacher encouraged students to narrate more than one story for the same picture.

Field insights The pilot project implemented the curriculum for class 1 - 5 at Sri Sri RaviShankar Vidya Mandir, Mulund, a private school in Mumbai. a private school in Mumbai. The field work was carried out for 10 months (July 07 - April 08) with each class having one computer lecture per week of 30 minutes duration. Maximum strength of a class was 34 students and four laptops were used to provide hands-on experience to the students.

Each class was divided into mixed sex groups of five to eight students and the computer use was monitored. Students were taught basic computer skills, ergonomic/ safety values, applications such as paint, word processor, media player.

Exercises in algorithmic thinking and logical reasoning were provided through 10

computer based and paper pencil activities. For class 3 and 4, Scratch was taught through minimally invasive learning approach.

It was found that the elementary school students are avid learners and explore the various computer applications with minimal assistance. Given the urban setting and familial background, it is likely that 74% students have had an exposure to computer technology.

Computer-based activities interest the students and can be used for developing skills in other subjects. For example, students averse to solving mental math sums enjoyed TuxMath game requiring similar exercise. Thus, computer science can be instrumental in sharpening competencies in other academic areas.

Field observation indicates that while girls preferred paint application, boys were keen on playing strategy games. However, a more elaborate study is required in order to make a conclusive statement on gender difference in application preference.

Confidence of teacher with the technology has a positive impact on confidence of students.

This is in line with evidence from other studies that have highlighted the role of a teacher as a model that students emulate and transfer of positive computer attitude of the teacher onto her students.

Hence, teacher training is an essential component of successful implementation of computer science curriculum.

References 1.http://ssa.nic.in/ 2.2. Mehta, A. (2005). Elementary education in urban/ rural areas: Analytic tables. Where do we stand?

NIEPA 3.Hawkridge, D., Jaworsk, J. & McMahon, H. (1990).

Economics, education and computers in third

No gender differences are observed in computer proficiency and usage. This may be due to controlled exposure provided in the school setting where every student was provided an equal

world schools. Proceedings of the International conference on technology and education. 247­-249.

4.www.edubuntu.org/ 5.scratch.mit.edu 6.http://gcompris.net/

Farida Umrani is a post-doc fellow at Department of Computer science and engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She is conducting an impact assessment of computer education based on open source software for elementary school and has participated in development of the curriculum. Her doctoral research was on technology adoption by youth and its impact. Her research interests are e-learning, empowerment and gender.

Sridhar Iyer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Bombay. His research interests include: eLearning technologies, networking protocols and multimedia tools for distance education, wireless networking and applications, and some areas in program/protocol verification.

Malathy Baru is a project manager at the Developmental Informatics Lab, IIT-Bombay. Her research interests include adaptation of information and communication technologies for developing nations. She has a B.Tech in electronics engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

ng i s i al n loc catio edu

Marathi Tutor

Motivating Language Learning

With the advent of Internet and computer technology there is more and more demand for computer based tutoring systems for language learning. Language tutoring systems should not only use technology to deliver content but also build in relevant pedagogical component, for effective instruction. This article discusses the design of a constructive learning environment for teaching spoken Marathi

T

here are various approaches available for language learning.

The traditional approaches for language learning include resources such as books, magazines, etc and private courses where a particular language is taught to aspirants by a native expert. Such courses normally start by teaching script of the language and pronunciations of syllables.

The course then proceeds to grammar, introduction of pre-defined subset of vocabulary, common expressions and simple everyday conversations to conversations in specific domains.

The traditional approach, however, does not adequately address demands such as anytime and on-demand learning. Webbased educational systems, which to a Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

large extent overcome the challenges posed by traditional classroom learning and textbook learning, are becoming increasingly popular. These systems exploit various advantages of the Internet technologies such as anytime anywhere access, sharing of learning material and online collaboration. One of the major charms of e-Learning is to provide any-pace learning. This necessitates the system to adapt the pace–level of detail of instruction, time per topic, etc – of presenting course content based on the student’s current profile. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) make use of adaptive technologies to bring in aspects of a human-teacher delivering personalised tutoring to a student, into online computer-based learning environments. The use of a web-based educational system (whether intelligent or not) for language learning has been a major area of research and has evolved into a full discipline known as Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL).

This paper discusses a constructive learning environment for teaching an Indian language (Marathi) in colloquial form.

Related Work Our proposed system builds on work in areas of CALL, Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) and Constructive Learning Environments (CLEs). This section discusses the key aspects of each of these.

Computer Assisted Language Learning Based on the teaching methodology, CALL systems can be classified into: 1. Grammar oriented CALL system, where the target language is taught using grammatical components and structure as the base.

2. Situation based CALL system, which attempts to let the learner learn the language through its use 11

3.

4.

in various commonly occurring practical situations such as at a shop, post office, etc.

Immersion based CALL system, which borrows from the way children learn their first language and avoids the use of a supporting language for instruction.

Collaborative CALL system, which represents and guides the interaction between the student and the system as an interaction between a small group of learners.

Intelligent Tutoring System In a traditional classroom setup, a teacher employs various mechanisms to sustain the student’s attention, and provides appropriate guidance to the student based on his weaknesses and strengths in a particular subject. Though web-based educational systems have a lot of advantages, they still lack the presence of a teacher. An Intelligent Tutoring System (ITSs) attempt to simulate a teacher, who guides the student’s lesson flow, based on the student’s level of understanding in the subject.

In order to give intelligent instructional feedback and guidance to a particular student, ITSs typically rely on three types of knowledge, usually organised into separate modules: 1. Expert Model: This model represents the domain knowledge or expertise in the subject being taught.

2. Student Model: This model represents the understanding of the student in the subject, interms of what a student knows and does not know.

3. Instruction Model: This model, which is sometimes called the pedagogy module, consists of teaching strategies and essential instructions.

The strength of ITS is usually in its deep domain model enabling it to analyse student responses in depth and provide intelligent intervention.

Constructive Learning Environments (CLE) CLEs are learning environments built 12

on a constructivist learning model.

These systems provide effective playing grounds for learners to try out what they learn and get constructive feedback.

The playing ground can take a variety of forms from simple descriptive problem solving to simulated building of a device. Examples of such CLEs are the chemistry lab simulation [http://www. chemcollective.org/vlab/vlab.php] and the practice environments provided in the www.w3schools.com for learning

Language Tutoring in Indian Languages Tutoring systems available for Indian languages are very few. Some of these are freely available over the Internet, while others have demo version and/or limited access over the Internet. We studied two such web-based systems in detail viz. ‘Marathi Mitra’ and ‘LILA’ Marathi Mitra [http://www.marathimitra. com] is a web-based system which attempts to teach spoken ‘Marathi’

As of now, there are about 15 different categories in “Basic Vocabulary” lesson (like direction, anatomy, etc) covering over 200 words, along with associated audio files and images wherever required scripting languages like HTML, DHTML, Javascript, etc. CLEs hold substantial promise of taking e-Learning to a wider audience and increasing its effectiveness, and hence is an important field in instruction design.

Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) Traditional CALL systems lack the intelligence component which would adapt instructions to a student based on his knowledge level in the language and to analyse student responses in depth to provide effective feedback.

ICALL (Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning system, which emerged to overcome this drawback of the traditional CALL systems, is a combination of ITS and traditional CALL, often following a constructivist approach. ICALL characterises language teaching and learning as essentially a problem solving process, where the learner seeks to master a task or goal. Three general features of ICALL systems can be identified that serve to distinguish these systems from more traditional CALL programmes: a problem solving approach to teaching and learning; the dynamic nature of processing; and explicit representation of domain knowledge.

language, using English as supporting language of instruction. It introduces a separate pronunciation key for Marathi.

The course content covers vocabulary in various categories (general and advanced), basic grammar, day to day expressions and a few conversations.

Almost all the language constructs have associated audio files.

The Learn Indian Language through Artificial Intelligence (LILA) is an Intelligent Tutoring System for Hindi [http://lilappp.cdac.in]. The system attempts to teach Hindi language, in written as well as spoken form while taking into account pedagogical issues as well. For example, a student can attempt some lessons only after completing pre-requisite lessons. The course content is classified into sections which introduce alphabets, vocabulary and then sentence constructs. All of the constructs are supported with language scripts, images, audio and video at places.

Lesson Structure The course content is presented in the form of different lessons. Each lesson in turn consists of various subtopics and/or evaluation sessions. The sequencing is based on the information set by the faculty. After an introductory July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

lesson on the pronunciation key for the language, there is a lesson to introduce basic vocabulary from various categories followed by a lesson on expressions concluding with full-fledged conversations.

The system facilitates change of lesson sequence as well as addition of new lessons as required.

At the end of each lesson there is a final quiz for evaluation. The students can get familiar with the format and methodology of the final quiz by attempting the corresponding sample quiz. The student is deemed to have completed a lesson only when he clears the associated quiz. He clears the quiz if he scores more than the specified threshold of marks.

The system allows each construct that is introduced to be associated with one or more images, audio file(s) and pronunciation key. While the images are used to depict the language construct in a situated context, the associated audio clip and pronunciation key is used to pronounce the language construct in the target language. At places the images can also be supplemented with short video clips to demonstrate certain items in the vocabulary, particularly for verbs.

In the ‘Vocabulary lesson’, wherever relevant, multiple images are used to depict the word it represents, to reduce the ambiguity. Sometimes a single image may not clearly indicate what concept it represents. However if we display multiple images in the similar context, the exact meaning of the word that these images represent becomes evident.

2.

3.

4.

previous a construct. He can also revisit any given example construct multiple times.

Learner Focus: Keeping in mind the low attention span of the online student, language constructs and vocabulary are presented to the student one at a time rather than presenting all of them at once.

Learner Motivation: As specified earlier, the system adapts itself to the level of understanding of the student in the course. This personalised attention to a student plays an effective role in his motivation and receptiveness to learning.

Situation-based Learning: A learner being immersed in a particular situation leads to effective grasping of language constructs.

Our system immerses the student in common situations/places such as a post office, bank, etc, while teaching expressions and conversations, thus attempting to let the learner learn the language through its practical use.

Navigation and Learner Support A good navigational support is necessary for the student to feel comfortable in an e-Learning environment.

The menu on the left side of the screen comprises the list of topics and its navigation mechanism is based on the intuitive traffic light model. A Red cross icon signifies the sessions that

the student is not currently eligible for, Green tick icon signifies the sessions that the student is currently eligible for and Blue flag icon signifies sessions that the student has already completed. In addition to the above icons, an arrow icon indicates the lesson he is currently viewing.

System Architecture The system follows a 3-tiered architecture, with separate layers for presentation logic, business logic and data store. The system also adheres to the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture [http://www.javaworld.com/ javaworld/jw-12-1999/jw-12-ssj-jspmvc. html]. This not only makes the system modular, but also facilitates adaptation to changes in the system. For example, if we want to switch to some other database, changes will be limited only to the data storage tier.

The business logic tier and presentation logic tier would not see any changes. In terms of the MVC model, ‘View’ and ‘Controller’ need not change as long as the ‘Model’ used to represent the data remains the same.

Module Design Based on the functionality, we divided the system into various logical modules.

Each module puts together a set of related functions and interfaces with the rest of the system as a single logical chunk. In the 3-tiered architecture of the system, these modules sit in the business logic tier. Following are the modules in

Pedagogy The system addresses a number of pedagogical principles for second language learning as follows: 1. Iterative Learning: An iterative practice phase of the course material is necessary for learning in terms of long-term memory. In vocabulary lesson, for example, the student can listen to the audio clip multiple times till he/she gets comfortable with the corresponding construct and then moves to the next or Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

Architecture of the System

13

Implementing a tutor for other Indian languages would require just changing the Lesson Data as long as English is the language of instruction the system, with a brief description of the functionality they encapsulate: 1. Authentication Module: This module authenticates the users logged in against the user details available in the system.

2. Instruction Module: This module manages the lesson sequencing as well as pre-requisites for each lesson. This module gets the student’s current understanding level from the Student Module.

Accordingly, it invokes appropriate lesson from the Lessons Module.

3. Student Module: This module manages the student details such as his login details and his current understanding of the subject.

4. Lessons Module: This is a cluster of modules, each representing a particular lesson. By default, the system supports four lesson modules viz. “Pronunciation Key” module, “Basic Vocabulary” module, “Expressions” module and “Conversations” module.

5. Examination Module: This module encapsulates the functionality of the evaluation component of all the lessons, such as fetching quiz data, passing it for display, evaluating a student’s attempt for a particular quiz and recording the student score. It also passes the student score to the Student Module.

Implementation The system is implemented using JSP, servlets and JavaBeans and runs on Tomcat server. Th e user interface to the application is handled by JSPs. Servlets and JSPs interact with the JavaBeans.

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JavaBeans represent the data residing on the server.

We have used XML for structuring and holding data. Use of XML makes the data more readable, extendable and makes it easier to express metadata. It also allows easy interchange of data.

The data model can be classified into Lesson Data, Instruction Data,and Student Data. Each type of data is organized in one or more XML files.

Extending the system Adding new phases of learning (like grammar, advanced vocabulary, etc) can be done by manipulating the “Lesson Data” and making corresponding changes in the “Instruction Data”. Data storage and representation is designed and structured in a generic fashion so that it can be easily extendable as well as represent data of other languages. So implementing a tutor for other Indian languages would require just changing the Lesson Data as long as English is the language of instruction.

Current Status

The first version of the system is ready and is currently open for evaluation among a controlled set of audience.

After an introductory lesson on the pronunciation key for Marathi, there is a lesson to introduce basic vocabulary from various categories followed by a lesson on expressions concluding with full-fledged conversation. As of now, there are about 15 different categories in “Basic Vocabulary” lesson (like direction, anatomy, etc) covering over 200 words, along with associated audio files and images wherever required.

Expressions are categorised in general categories like “Business”, “general expressions”, etc. Each category is further classified into 2-3 subcategories.

Each expression subcategory consists of around 10 expressions each. Most of the expressions consist of 2-3 clusters, the cluster in turn consisting of 4-5 variants of the original expressions. There is a question bank of around 30-40 questions for each quiz in a particular lesson. The “Conversations” lesson consists of 5-6 full-fledged conversations.

Future Work The framework is being improved in many dimensions for a richer and more comprehensive learning experience.

We plan to extend the framework to support the concept of pre-test, which the student can appear before going through the course content. Based on the performance of the student in the pre-test, the system would allow direct entry to specific lessons. Currently the default extent of the lessons is upto conversation level. We plan to take it further by incorporating appropriate pedagogy ideas for effective instruction and investigating various pedagogy schemes for the same. Instruction module can be extended to give more intuitive feedback to the student after every exam, which will help him identify his weak areas in the course.

We are also exploring ways to automatically generate variants of a single expression.

Acknowledgement: This work was carried out as a joint activity of Open Source Software Division and Educational Technology at Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mumbai.

Dr M Sasikumar has been with CDAC Mumbai for over 20 years, and currently heads its Artificial Intelligence, Educational Technology, Open Source Software, Language Computing and Computer Graphics divisions. He has ideated and guided a number of software research and development projects, been a faculty in a number of courses, and closely associated with overall management of CDAC Mumbai activities. He is also author of two books. Sasikumar graduated from IIT Madras and did his post-graduation from IISc Bangalore followed by Doctorate from BITS, Pilani.

Archana Rane is currently working as a senior staff scientist in Educational Technology unit of CDAC Mumbai.

Her research interests include Learning Management Systems, Constructive Learning Environments, Assessment Technology and Language Tutoring. She has also been a faculty in a number of courses. She graduated from Mumbai University and did her post-graduation from Karnataka University.

Sunny Saurav is working as a staff scientist in Open Source Software Division of CDAC Mumbai since last two years. He is mainly involved in education related open source projects. He completed his BE (IT) from Rajiv Gandhi Technology University, MP.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

vey r u s

Are Hamirpur Schools Prepared for ICT?

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vailability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in schools and its integration with teaching and learning processes, is coming under greater focus as the country looks towards addressing the change of emerging as a knowledge economy.

In this context, this article discusses a recent survey done in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, covering 360 students and 78 teachers in 18 schools, to empirically establish the status of ICT related infrastructure and the level of exposure or engagement among students impacts their chances of accessing ICT related careers and thus ultimately contributing to the pool of manpower equipped with ICT skills.

The survey took into consideration both public and private schools. Despite growing role of the private sector, state-run educational institutions will continue to cater to the needs of millions of students across the country.

This clearly indicates that government schools will have to not only develop ICT facilities but also find effective means for passing it on to students as skills for the future roles.

For preparing a globally competitive manpower, the National Institute of Technology, with support from World Bank promoted Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP), conducts training programmes for skilled, unskilled and unemployed youths. It also promotes awareness on the vast potential of ICT to improve their quality of life.

To have an increasing impact, the NIT has also been targetting school children.

In May 2008, it organised several Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

A survey of students from selected schools in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, was carried out recently to assess their preparedness towards taking ICT related professions. Involving 18 government and private schools, the survey reveals that students from state-run schools lacked ICT exposure in comparison to their peers from private schools

programmes, including Olympiads and workshops, for children from various schools in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh.

The survey, with session 2008-09 as the reference period, first also part of it. The main objective was to investigate the nature and extent of ICT provisions in the schooling sector. More specifically, by mapping the ICT resources presently being used in the schools, manner in which they are being used and the organisational environment, a picture emerged of ICTs in the school. The performance of the current system and issues important to schools were also evaluated and noted.

Coverage The survey was conducted under the 50th Community Service Programme, organised by NIT Hamirpur, under the auspices of TEQIP. The data was collected on the following points: • Strength of the schools • ICT infrastructure of the schools • Internet/Intranet connection in schools

• • • • • •

Internet/Intranet usage in schools Software usage in schools Teacher awareness of ICT Use of ICT in teaching activities Student awareness of ICT Use of ICT in learning activities

The survey focused on the following broad questions: 1. How can one use ICT to accelerate progress towards education for all and throughout life?

2. How can ICT bring about a better balance between equity and excellence in education?

3. How can ICT help reconcile universality and local specificity of knowledge?

4. How can education prepare individuals and society to benefit from ICT that increasingly permeates all realms of life?

The objectives of the survey were to evaluate: 1. The quality of teaching and learning using ICT. 15

2.

3.

4.

The effect that ICT is having on standards of the student’s work and on how it assists them to access the curriculum.

The quality of planning for the development of ICT across the school.

The quality of resources available to support the development of the student’s ICT competence.

The project was intended to pin point the factors that motivate teachers to use ICT and also sustain its use. The aim of the project was to use the factors identified to inform the professional development requirements of practising teachers to enable them to use ICT appropriately in their teaching.

Mode of Survey To assess the preparedness of schools in the area of ICT, questionnaires were prepared for the categories of School Management, Computer Teacher, Teacher, and Students.

Questionnaires for School Management The questionnaire included 25 questions, mostly related to ICT infrastructure provided by the school. Location of the school was ascertained to compare rural and urban schools. Some questions werere related to the funding agency of the school to compare government, private and trust funded schools.

Questions were also asked about the strength of the school in terms of students, teachers and computers.

The main emphasis was given on ICT infrastructure of the school as questions were asked about the number of computers, current state of computers, Internet facility, bandwidth and local area network (LAN). Software used and purchased gave the idea of the software strength and awareness of the school.

Annual expenses on hardware and software showed the financial activeness of the school towards computer education and ICT infrastructure.

Questionnaires for Computer Teacher The questionnaire contain 16 questions on the theme of the use of computers in providing education to the students.

16

The questions were related to the use of ICT and the extent of the use in the classroom and labs. The problems faced by the teacher and how these were solved bore a direct relationship with computer awareness. Purpose of using computer showed the trends of computer usage in the society and gave an insight to the use of ICT in education. Some questions were asked about the valuable software and certifications given at school level and the qualifications of the teachers responsible for giving ICT and computer education to the students.

Questionnaires for Teacher A different questionnaire for a noncomputer teacher was prepared as the real impact of ICT can only be found out by taking the views and practices of noncomputer teachers. The questionnaire contained 15 questions related to the use of ICT and the extent of its use in the classroom. Hours spent on computer at the school indicate the usage of computers in teaching or preparation.

Purpose of using computers and the problems faced directly correspond to level of ICT indulgence in the teaching activities. Familiarity with software and Internet shows the level of ICT awareness and distribution of software and Internet in the area.

Questionnaires for Students The questionnaire contained 18 questions linked to the ICT awareness and indulgence in teaching activities of the school. Some questions also related to the availability and use of computers at home to show the level where students are exposed to computers in the modern age. Simple questions were asked about the familiarity with computers and Internet. Time spent on the computers and its purpose indicated the awareness of the student and activeness of the teaching authorities in following ICT. Source of learning gave the idea of the awareness of the teaching authorities or any other active organisation in the area.

Analysis Since the survey was part of a broader programme for community, we had to limit our survey to 18 schools only.

Though actual number of schools in Hamirpur district may be larger, it was

Evaluation Criteria The rating allotted to the schools is based on the following evaluation criteria among schools at different levels including: For School Management: 1. Ratio of teacher per student 2. Ratio of computer per student 3. Computers purchased since last 3 years 4. Ratio of computer per teacher 5. Upgradation of ICT hardware 6. Availability of Internet 7. Ratio of Internet enabled computers per total no of computers 8. Bandwidth allocated 9. School Website 10. LAN 11. Annual expenses on hardware and software 12. Software used at the school 13. 13 Software purchased by the school 14. No of printers 15. Participation in NITH activities For Computer Teachers: 1. Hours spent on computers in the school 2. Problems faced and way of solving 3. Purpose of computer at school 4. Computer present at home 5. Hours spent on computers at home 6. Purpose of computer at home 7. Email 8. Certification 9. Software Justification For Teachers: 1. Familiarity with computer 2. Use of computers in classroom 3. Hours spent on computers at school 4. Purpose of using computer 5. Familiarity with Internet 6. Email 7. Availability of computer at home 8. Hours spent on computer at home 9. Familiarity with softwares For Students: 1. Familiarity with computer 2. Usage of computer in classroom 3. Hours spent on computer at school 4. Familiarity with Internet 5. Computer availability at home.

6. Source of learning 7. Purpose of use of computers July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

decided to survey the schools which were either primarily situated in town or closer to NIT Hamirpur. Survey team also visited Sujanpur and Alampur.

These towns are 27km and 35 km far from Hamirpur. Based on the survey following results were obtained.

Gender Analysis: • According to the survey conducted in schools the ratio of boys and girls is 61:39.

• As per the survey 95% of the boys and 92% of the girls are familiar with computers.

• 43% of the surveyed boys and 31% of the surveyed girls have computers at home.

Analysis of Government and Private Schools: • Our survey included six government/government aided schools and 12 private/trust aided schools.

• 31% of the students study in government schools and 69% of the students study in private schools.

• There is not much difference in students per school ratio as there are 536 students per government school and 586 students per private school study.

• As far as computer infrastructure is con cerned, government schools have 30 computers per school where as private schools have 15 computers.

• The condition of proper government schools is not up to the mark as the computers are less as well as very old.

• The ratio of the students per computers in government schools is 18:1 & in private schools is 38:1 Analysis of Infrastructure in schools: • The total number of computers in 18 schools was 361.

• Percentage of Computers upgraded in the last three years are: 83% in 2005-06 62% in 2006-07 87% in 2007-08 • 13% of computers available in school were accessible to teachers.

• 78% of computers available in the schools are exclusively meant for students.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

• • •

•

Out of 361 computers, only 54% had Internet provision.

Only 18% computers were connected to printers.

Average annual expenditure of hardware infrastructure is INR 49,166 per school out of 18 surveyed schools.

Average annual expenditure on software infrastructure is INR 15,388 per school out of 18 surveyed schools.

Observations and Recommendations •

•

•

•

•

•

•

As per the observed result the current state of the ICT infrastructure in the schools is not up to the mark. School authorities need to take initiative by improving ICT infrastructure like upgrading current Computer Systems and purchasing new systems.

Upgradation of the current infrastructure should be done in hardware and software.

To take real advantage of ICT, schools should implement it in the current education system.

School authorities should be responsible for conducting or participating in ICT awareness programmes.

There should be frequent use of ICT by teachers in the preparation and delivery of curriculum.

Teachers should encourage students to avail benefits of ICT during studies and learning activities.

As per the observation, students are getting much addicted towards the field of entertainment. In spite of this they should be much concerned towards educational purpose of computers.

Government Schools and Private Schools •

•

The awareness level of ICT in the govt. schools is much low compared with private schools. The students of the government schools are not much exposed to the latest technology. The government should take serious remedies for improving this drawback.

As per the observation, the ICT infrastructure in government

•

• •

•

schools is much older and needs to be upgraded to compete with fast moving technology.

In contrast with the government schools, government aided schools like ‘Sainik School’ and ‘Blue Star Public School’, etc are providing much better ICT facilities. The government should revise its policies and if needed implement some new policies to get equalised with others.

Financially weak schools should be provided basic facilities of ICT Schools should seek the financial help of other organisations to better ICT infrastructure.

Though most of the trust aided schools are financially strong but they still lack in utilisation of funds in the field ICT.

Some of the schools have acquired a high degree of competence in the applications of ICT. Thus, initiatives in sharing their experiences and best practices with students of other schools will facilitate other schools to learn from their knowledge and leapfrog in the race of school development. In view of this, the identification, selection and customisation of the choice of technology have to be undertaken seriously and with a great degree of planning so as to motivate the young minds. To take the students towards a knowledge society by using ICT necessitates that all the schools in society take a pro-active role in this development. ICTs are being used and can be used in various fields but the most important one is field of education.

ICT implementation in school can open vast opportunities of learning and teaching. It provides huge amount of new information and techniques for teachers and students that can help take education to a broader level, which is becoming essential. The ICT survey of schools in Hamirpur has given us an insight into the preparedness and commitment toward ICT education of children. The results show that if ICT in education has to sustain, much effort from the government is required. Private institution tends to overcrowd the classes and the effective utilisation of ICT resources becomes difficult.

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Curtain Raiser eINDIA2008 er y o f

Setting the Agenda 30 May 2008, India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi, India

I

n recent years, countries including India have responded to the global need to constantly upgrade the ICT skills and adaptability of human trends with more knowledge expansion that can support an accelerated spread of new technologies in the whole system.

However, counties are still in different stages of this integration, coping with challenges of infrastructure and implementation. And bringing all those to limelight in order to initiate the action phase is what the eINDIA2008 is getting ready to do.

The Curtain Raiser happened on 30 May with the ‘Meeting of the Program Advisory Board’ of eINDIA2008 Conference at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi was organised by the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies. The meeting aimed to engage the Programme Advisory Board members to discuss and set the agenda for the eINDIA2008 Conference and Exhibition scheduled for 29-31 July 2008, at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.

Along with CSDMS, the 4th annual eINDIA conference is Co-organised by the Ministry of Communications & IT and Ministry of HRD, Government of India, and also by UN GAID. The conference is framed around seven development themes and technology verticals, like Education, Governance, Health, Agriculture, Telecentres, Municipal, and mobile services.

Held as an evening programme, at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi, the meeting drew participation by 25 delegates, comprising members of the Programme Advisory Board, who are the key resource persons from government, representatives from supporting partners and institutional partners, senior executives and leaders from the IT industry and members of the 18

29-31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

presenting publications of eINDIA2008.

It was chaired by R Chandrasekhar, Additional Secretary, Department of IT, Ministry of IT, Government of India.

The programme started with the welcome note by the Chairman of the Program Advisory Board, R Chandrashekhar who laid emphasis on the overriding importance for creating enabling opportunity to encourage new paradigms and intellectual networks through platforms like that to be provided by eINDIA2008.

The opening remark was followed by a presentation by Jayalaxmi Chittoor of CSDMS. Jayalaxmi explained the objectives of the conference; starting from the capturing through sharing and dissemination efforts, she elaborated on the objectives for each of the seven Conference tracks under eINDIA2008 namely- eGov, Digital Learning, Indian Telecentre Forum, eHealth, eAgriculture, Municipal IT, and mServe.

Dr Ravi Gupta, the Executive Director of CSDMS and the Convener of eINDIA2008 also added to the presentation, announced the eINDIA2008 awards. As an attempt to recognise the efforts of the community of practitioners, eINDIA awards, earlier known as i4d awards, will be conferred

in different categories, like- ‘Best Government initiative of the year’, ‘Best NGO initiative of the year’, and ‘Best Policy initiative of the year’. Awards will also be given in all verticals of eINDIA2008, for ‘Best ICT enabled farming of the year’, ‘Best ICT enabled Govt Department of the year’, ‘Best ICT enabled School of the year’, ‘Best ICT enabled University of the year’, ‘Best ICT enabled Hospital of the year’, ‘Best innovations at the Grassroots Telecentres’, ‘Best innovative Mobile service provider of the year’, and ‘Best ICT enabled Municipal of the year’.

An open floor discussion followed soon after the presentation, wherein the members and representatives of the Programme Advisory Board were invited by the session moderator, the Chairman himself, to give remarks and suggestions. The discussion that followed touched upon the key issues of each of the thematic areas and relevance of these issues for discussion in the conference. A good number of valuable inputs did come in, laced with words of inspiration and intent of providing support to the conference.

Concluded with suggestions, views and new ideas, it was not the end of the show, just left the members to hold their breath for the real show to begineINDIA2008 this July.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

News india Ignou launches eGyanKosh All the self-instructional print materials of Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) can now be accessed online. In addition, come July one can also view the audio-video instructional material on Youtube.com as well.

V N Rajashekaran Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Ignou, recently launched the eGyanKosh, online programmes and webcasting facility for GyanDarshan, Edusat and Gyanvani at Electronic Media Production Centre through the teleconference mode.

He said while 80% of the course material has already been put on the website, the rest of the material will be online from July this year. Initially the plan was to make this facility available only to students and faculty of IGNOU, but now it has been decided to open it to the general public free of cost.

Moreover, IGNOU has entered into an agreement with Google Ireland Ltd for telecast of the university video on Youtube channels as well.

The university also launched two online programmes - Masters in Library and Information Science, and Postgraduate Certificate in Cyber Law based on the learning management system developed in-house.

IGNOU is working towards providing all its courses online and would soon launch its online admission facilities.

IIIT-B launches ‘Yogyata’ employability programme The International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIIT-B) has has launched the ‘Yogyata’ employability enhancement programme along with Radix Learning.

The Yogyata curriculum for IT engineering graduates has been 20

designed based on inputs from leading IT companies on their individual induction training programmes for Application Development.

The four-months programme is designed to meet the needs of a diverse set of learners. The highlight of Yogyata is the guarantee of jobs to all those who complete the certification with A or B grade.

CII launches virtual classes in logistics The CII Institute of Logistics (CIL), has launched distance education courses in logistics and supply chain management through video conferencing across the country.

Shafik said, education is the key to a brighter future for India.

DFID’s support will be used to ensure all children aged between 6-14 are enrolled and regularly attend primary schools.

There will also be a focus on getting more children from marginalised social groups into education and improving the quality of education.

During his visit to India earlier this year, Premier Gordon Brown had said that Britain will spend 825 million pounds in next three years, of which 500 million pounds will be on health and education in the country.

CBSE mulling on introducing HOTS in classrooms Encouraged by the board results this year, CBSE now wants to introduce High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) in classrooms and for all subjects. This is not confined to private schools as even government schools have shown a significant improvement.

CIL is located in Chennai, and offers consultancy, training, education, research, events and publications services. Under the educational services, It offers a postgraduate diploma programme and certificate programme in logistics and supply chain management (SCM) in distance mode.

HOTS, as the name suggests, focuses on thinking skills and tries to move beyond rote learning. The focus of the question paper this year was to measure students’ abilities to reason, justify, analyse, process and evaluate information. It was

The virtual classes are conducted simultaneously in six centres in Kolkata, Kochi, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.

India gets INR12 bn British aid for education The Department for International Development of Britain has announced aid worth INR 12.6 billion for universalising elementary education in India. The funds will go to India’s flagship programme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), DFID’s permanent secretary Nemat Shafik said while launching their country plan.

introduced only this year in class X and XII board examinations for mathematics, science and social science, the weightage being 20%.

Ashok Ganguly, Chairperson, CBSE, said the goal for this academic session would be to transfer HOTS to classrooms so that maximum students can benefit from it. He added that after a thorough analysis, it would be decided July 2008 | www.digitalLearninG.in

on which subjects and how much weightage would be given to HOTS. It’s all about going beyond textbooks and widening the horizons of students, feels U N Singh, Joint Commissioner (Academics), Kendriya Vidyalaya.

‘HOTS is basically a concept wherein we are concentrating on applicationbased questions and discouraging rotelearning. The problem lies in the fact that neither coaching.

New HRD Ministry scheme on inclusive education for special children India is set to upgrade its commitment to high school education for the disabled from merely ‘integrating’ them into an existing mainstream to making the environment ‘inclusive’.

The ministry has sent the inclusive education scheme to the Planning Commission for its approval.

Mumbai college admissions go online Junior college admissions have gone online for the first time in Maharashtra, spelling relief to nearly half a million anxious students and their parents.

The state government created a special website, www.mumbaiapplication.com for the purpose, which nearly 500,000 students seeking admissions for the next academic year can use. Initially, the online admission facility has been made available to all the 500-plus colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai and students can apply from anywhere.

Students seeking admission to first year junior college can register themselves online, select the college(s) of their choice, pay the application fees online, or through mobile phones and even make multiple applications.

However, the process of manual admissions will continue as before.

A new scheme drafted by the Human Resource Development ministry has for the first time placed the onus of ensuring a dignified environment for education on institutions rather than on students.

The Centre now plans to replace the Integrated Education for Disabled Children programme, launched in 1974, with the Inclusive Education for Disabled Children at the Secondary Stage scheme. As the name suggests, the new scheme will target only secondary education, unlike the existing one that covers all school education. A similar scheme for primary education is in the pipeline.

The new scheme envisages a change in curriculum to include course content aimed at sensitising students to the needs of the disabled. Schools will also have to ensure ‘barrier-free’ access to facilities like libraries, canteens and computer centres.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

Cabinet gives approval to Fulbright programme The Union Cabinet has given its approval to an agreement that will double the number of scholars exchanged with the United States under the Fulbright Educational exchange programme.

It has also rechristened the programme to Fulbright-Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarships and Grants.

Officials said the agreement provides for the creation of the ‘US India Educational Foundation’ awarding ‘Fulbright Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarships and Grants’. Initially about 240 students from India and a similar number from the US will be sponsored annually under the programme.

The Cabinet’s approval to the revised draft agreement would also provide equal participation of Government of

India in policy and decision-making on the exchange of Indian and US scholars.

Digital boards to replace blackboards in Kerala schools Traditional blackboards, where tutors have to labour themselves with chalkpiece and dusters, may soon go into oblivion, if the public response to the digital boards being introduced by Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan school is any indication.

The Bhavan is implementing what it calls the ‘smart class’ technology in all its three schools in Kozhikode district in a bid to make education more interesting and also to enable the teachers to dedicate more time for teaching.

Bhavan’s Kozhikode Kendra has entered into a five-year contract with Educomp Solutions, which provides a variety of digital teaching aids, including graphics and working models that promises to herald a new era in the field of education.

‘We first introduced the technology in our schools in Kochi last year and the overwhelming response from the parents to the scheme has prompted us to bring it to Kozhikode now,’ says Bhavan’s Kendra Secretary, Col (retd) M P Gopinath. According to him, parents feel that the system has helped to better the overall education process in the schools.

Apart from improving the effectiveness of teaching, the technology is also expected to boost the performance of the students. As a first step, Educomp is now imparting intense training to a select group of teachers at the Bhavan’s higher secondary school at Chevayur near here as a forerunner to launching the digital teaching upto class XII in CBSE syllabus from next month.

The system is so designed that a single server will cater to plasma television sets in all the class rooms which the teachers can operate with a remote from any corner of the room. Besides graphics, animation and video clippings, diagrams and 3D images will also be processed by the server to make available all information as sought in the syllabus.

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Challenges to e-Learning in Developing Communities of Africa Muwanga-Zake JWF [ajmuwanga@une.edu.au], University of New England, Armidale, Australia

The evern evolving nature of ICT requires teachers to participate in life-long studies. However, life-long teacher training opportunities in developing communities of Africa are scarce and require teachers to apportion their own time and funs.

Challenges also crop up when ICT is adopted without giving adequate thought to pedagogic value The ever-evolving nature of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) not only makes it essential for a modern day employee to be equipped with ICT skills, but also continue updating it to keep up with the best and the latest.

This makes it important that the ICT supported distance education systems are available for the new age technology driven growth.

Beyond this need, those engaged in training teachers should have sound level of familiarity with ICT, so as to encourage and pass on these skills to future teachers. ICT skills passed on to teachers not only enhance pedagogy, but directly help students become globally competitive workers. However, challenges crop up when institutions move to ICT adoption without giving adequate thought to pedagogic value, amid the existing digital gap that currently makes distance and eLearning for Africa’s developing communities an impossibility.

22

This article looks at challenges that confront eLearning in Africa, particularly in training institutions offering distance education to teachers. There is also a discussion on some ICT professional development (PD) models.

Problems facing educators in Africa In any developing community, the use of ICT in pedagogy is undermined by the problems of connectivity, access and Policy.

However, in Africa, the above issues are compounded by: • Age – older people are less inclined to use ICT; • Lack of ICT awareness, knowledge, and its uses; • Location - distant places and rural areas; • Language - ICT language is normally English, which is the second language for most Africans;

• •

Level and quality of education in schools; and Poverty – one of the most important barriers, especially due to the fact that ICT is imported and therefore relatively more expensive in Africa than in developed countries.

Communities in Africa are widely spaced out in rural settings and would arguably gain most from distance education, provided it became affordable to access ICT tools for education.

This is where the voice of educational computing is submerged by poverty and other basic needs such as sanitation and potable water.

Use of ICT by schoolteachers in African countries Initially, educators saw ICT only as imparting computer literacy, communication, lesson preparation, and in administration. It is only now that digitalised lessons have become July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

more common, forcing teachers to make efforts to integrate ICT in their teaching process. But the ever-evolving ICT requires new teaching strategies and for this teachers need to participate in lifelong studies. However, life-long teacher training opportunities are scarce in Africa and teachers often have to spend their own time and resources.

Further, teachers have to acquire ICT skills alongside the pedagogy they support, because of the perception that ICT is merely a work-reducing tool.

Thus, many teachers in Africa adopt ICT in their usual teacher-centric pedagogical practices rather than in learner-centric paradigms. My personal experience shows that the situation is the same in tertiary institutions as well.

I have quoted two studies to reveal the serious digital gap that inhibit eLearning and distance education for in-service teachers in Africa.

During 2007, I initiated a collaborative study between University of New England (UNE), Australia and Makerere University, Uganda, regarding the ICT penetration in schools. The level of ICT integration in Australia and Uganda varied to such an extent that we had to form separate questionnaires for Uganda and Australia and present it in various modes to teachers. Not only were Ugandan schools ignorant of modern advances in ICT, the teachers there did not have access to ICT. They gave written replies to the questionnaires, while in Australia we received email responses.

In another study done on a sample of 26 teachers from 23 schools in South Africa during the year 20002004 (Muwanga-Zake, 2007), it was concluded that: Forty-five % of teachers had not been trained in using computers, 33% had never used computers while teaching, and 53% had less than a year’s experience in using computers in teaching while only 16% had experience of over five years in using computers.

Apart from five schools, all of them had irregular telephone and Internet connections and a shortage of computers and technical staff. Furthermore, Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

students had access to computers only in four out of 23 schools, which show that teachers rarely used computers while taking classes, except for imparting IT skills for Matric certificate. Those who used computers were limited to simple IT skills such as processing marks using Excel, accessing the Internet for information, using e-mail and word processing.

There were complaints from teachers regarding high cost of ICT training, which was again urban-based. Lack of Internet connection denied teachers access to web-based courses and materials. Some schools had obtained obsolete computers and ICT educational programmes, which were too expensive to upgrade.

According to a Department of Education, South Africa figure (2003), while 72.7% of Americans currently use Internet, only 6.4% of South Africans have access to and use the Internet.

In Ethiopia, the International Telecommunication Union of ICT in Education in a 2001 study found low Internet access and use in schools, four times as expensive Internet in the United States, very few people with IT training, and a monopoly provision of all telecommunication services.

institutions having to use distance education and ICT in pedagogically sound frameworks. In both cases, technical and pedagogical aspects of ICT have to be consistently researched and included in PD. Research would provide data to inform institutions about levels of and need for ICT skills among staff. Furthermore, the unique student and staff profiles, as well as differences in ICT equipment, demand inimitable PD and innovations. Hence, each institution has to research for and implement own solutions.

Challenges to institutions in distance education Teacher training institutions in Africa are challenged to provide adequate ICT skills and experience of pedagogy in ICT. While literature about ICT potential is abundant, it is often short of practical exemplars for educators. Thus, potential users rely upon information from ICT experts, often keen to market their wares. Sound judgement requires understanding of pedagogical benefits and technical intricacies of ICT. Therefore, another imperative is for staff to re-examine their teaching strategies with a view of incorporating ICT in a manner that supports constructivist and active learning.

An important consideration is the use

Implications for professional of ICT in distance education that helps development in ICT at school recipients to translate information and university level into knowledge. Against this desire In a knowledge economy, life-long learning is a work requirement.

Moreover, rapid developments in the field of ICT demand frequent updating of pedagogical and technical aspects for educators. An important consideration is the need for designated time for staff to engage with ICT frequently, which bears financial and work agreement implications. Distance education is key to life-long learning, but it requires ICT-trained workers as well as training institutions. However, in African communities, both the schools and universities lack cutting edge ICT, with which they can disperse education to far-flung and rural areas.

are complaints of shallow information delivery, which encourages students to skim and write trivia. Such cases undermine ICT potential and probably discourage potential users.

The scenario is: we have schoolteachers and lecturers in teacher-training

Apart from issues of reliability, another factor is launching of new

It appears that some of the problems start with the administrators of institutions having conflicting and vague goals for ICT use. Although ICT has its own conceptual knowledge and skills base, it requires staff to understand pedagogical implications of using them. This is a challenge since the evaluation requires an understanding of ICT’s pedagogical nature and a need for researching.

23

proposal includes two hypothetical visions of PD in ICT use: post-modern and paternalistic, as bases for staff to take ownership of their vision of change with emphasis on pedagogy. These are in turn compatible with Davis’s ‘Conceptualisation of User Acceptance Constructs’ model, which suggests causative relationships between Ease of Use (EOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU), i.e., the usefulness of a technology is perceived after achieving skills.

Figure 1: Davis’ Conceptualisation of User Acceptance Construct

initiatives with little evidence on the impact. The modernist cutting edge progressivism of ICT has apparently acquired a mythical image of the new and positive change - with terms such as revolutionary, powerful ideas, and student empowerment. This might scare potential users but also lure institutions to invest in ICT. Indeed, some ICT fail to live up to their claimed advantages, but the techno-centric culture sometimes distorts the actual potential of ICT. Techno-centricity seems to be responsible for instrumental rationality and dominance of training in skills at the expense of attention to pedagogy.

Since PD in ICT use is essentially for the ultimate benefit of students, it is important to consider students’ opinions and challenges. There is a need to look at the use of online ICT from a student’s point of view. For example, external students in the United States have found problems with streaming video lessons, partly due to students’ lack of understanding on how to configure their computers and the necessary specifications of computer hardware and software.

Some notable areas of adoption of Davis’s model include: Initial generic training phase to ensure that all participants achieve a reasonable level of literacy in ICT: For this participants need to be allocated to a group based on their level of ICT capability. This would reduce the possibility of embarrassment. Short training sessions – not more than 2 hours – are required and there should be smaller number of participants to ensure attention to all participants’ and to monitor progress easily.

Another model that seems compatible with Conlon’s ideas comes from Prestridge.

The advantage of Prestridge’s over Davis’s model is its consideration of the school vision, leadership for PD, and the engagement framework – in this case, constructive dialogue during PD activities. Prestridge also considers the need to investigate ‘existing pedagogical beliefs and practices’ among staff before PD, and then constructing with staff new pedagogy around ICT, in a way, which Conlon describes as paternalistic.

ICT Development Plan for Staff Staff PD has to be with respect to the objectives of the institution such as constructivist active learning, a need to reach external students, the status of ICT tools, the level of ICT skills among staff, and to how each ICT could support pedagogy. Furthermore, because ICT are acquired without evaluation for pedagogical potential, every ICT has to be researched to determine the ways it could support pedagogy.

From models illustrated in Figure 1 and Figure 2, another PD in ICT model emerges – ICT Development Plan for Staff - and illustrates the steps in the process of producing online resources, which would be researched during PD. This model borrows from Davis’s model in considering staff familiarity with ICT tools as the first step. But it differs from Davis’s model by involving staff in identifying their pedagogical preferences in relation to an ICT features at the time staff is learning about the ICT. A combination of step 1 and 2 should yield ideas about pedagogy in step three.

That is, staff would be able to design pedagogical environments given the ICT features in light of their pedagogical preferences.

Action research There are two strands of research: one is about how each ICT could support particular pedagogical frameworks; the other is about finding the best file formats for quality online resources, which are at the same time easy to download. The two strands happen

Framing PD in ICT PD would obtain from traditional models of Instructional Design, except that ICT are introduced at UNE prior to a needs analysis. Where ICT are already acquired, Conlon’s (2000) proposal seems to be viable. The 24

Figure 2: Prestridge’s PD model July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

6.

7.

8.

Figure 3: ICT development plan for staff

9. together (Figure 3) as staff works with each ICT. The goal of this research is to develop staff and to provide feedback to UNE that would inform the processes necessary in PD and in adopting ICT. The research additionally considers that staff are adults, and secondly that their work agreements do not necessarily include PD in ICT. Therefore, staff involvement is to some extent voluntary, and works better by first surveying staff interests regarding ICT. Of course staff could renegotiate their work agreements to include PD in ICT, but this assumes that staff and the UNE have firstly realised the potential of ICT in pedagogy.

Another consideration has been assessing the level of skills among staff. This has been done through questionnaires via the UNE website, as well as by a one-to-one engagement, by appointment, with individual staff.

Further PD will be based on ICT skills levels of each staff, with a view of grouping those at similar expertise or helping some individually.

Implications for teachertraining institutions The current problem is that teachertraining institutions (including UNE) are not obliged to use ICT by any authority.

However, distance education is already a necessity, not only for development, but for most tertiary institutions to remain in business, particularly for in-service training of teachers, who cannot leave classrooms without attention. Time is high when teacher-training institutions will be compelled to pedagogically use ICT to deliver materials and lessons for in-service teachers, and in their lectures to the extent that pre-service Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

teacher-trainees will be examined for computer skills.

In African developing communities, particularly for teachers in rural areas, where teachers cannot afford broadband, other means of sending resource materials that are not paper-based have to be investigated. One option is to use CD-ROM, but after finding out the most common and affordable software among schools. Alternative cheaper interfaces include mobile phones, or MP3 players.

Finally, ICT in-service training should be certificated.

Implications for teachers as workers Teachers in developing communities are far from becoming effective participants in the use of computers. African governments should set policies that enable cheap teacher in-service training in ICT pedagogical use. Other issues include: 1. Training in a sustainable framework, that is not once-off events, but lifelong preferably through distance ICT-based courses; 2. Getting involved in action research that focuses on pedagogy in ICT use; 3. Time allocation for life-long PD in ICT during school hours; 4. ICT operation skills ought to be mandatory for students and teachers; 5. Using ICT in a context such as a subject area, and relocating computers into classrooms;

Acquiring ICT evaluation skills.

This would reduce on schools purchasing useless ICT; ICT in-service training should culminate into certifiable outcomes, which should improve the teachers’ salary; Schools setting rules on ICT and timetables that include ICT uses; and Negotiating work agreements that include as matter of right training in ICT

eLearning and implications for educators in Africa’s developing communities Firstly, developing communities have to cope with the digital gap; specifically the high cost of ICT as well as of expertise in ICT skills and pedagogy.

Such communities have also to craft policies that would entice educators to improve ICT use and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, these requirements are beyond the powers of teacher training institutions, and calls for advocacy groups or NGO proactive campaigns. While most of the developed communities are aware of the ICT competencies their teachers need, these competencies and standards have to be determined and included in the education systems in most of the African developing communities.

There is also a need for creating databases of ICT courses, organisations, and service-providers in the education sector so that these are efficiently and economically used.

Within the powers of educators in tertiary institutions, is designing quality courses for eLearning and distance education, in consideration of ICT students can afford. However, these assume ongoing PD through action research, to the extent that each institution would develop frameworks that are considerate of its unique situation.

Dr J Muwanga-Zake is a lecturer of ICT in Education, as well as in the School of Education, at the University of New England, Australia. His research interests include ICT pedagogical uses; instructional design (analysing, designing, developing, implementing and evaluating technology enhanced programmes); science education; assessment in education; and indigenous discourse in research.

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Asia's Largest ICT Event 26-28 November 2008, Kuala Lumpur Convention Center (KLCC), Malaysia

eASIA 2008 Thematic Track

Organisers

ASIA

ASIA

ASIA

ASIA

knowledge for change

ASIA

2008

Participating Government Organisations

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (MEWC) Government of Malaysia

INTAN

MOSTI

Ministry of Health Government of Malaysia

MAMPU Government of Malaysia

University of Malya

Participating International Development Agencies

速

The World Bank

www.e-asia.org

e

g lou

dia

‘Constructivism - Emerging Model of Pedagogy’ Robert B Kozma has worked

clients like OECD, CISCO, Intel, etc.

as an independent consultant with government, multi-lateral agencies and commercial clients on policies, programmes and solutions that connect use of technology with education reforms. Some of the leading projects that he has been associated with include the Millenium Villages Project in Africa, World Links Arab Region Programme in Jordan, Evaluation of National Technology Master Plan for Singapore. He has also lent his expert skills to initiatives in Egypt, Chile, Thailand and agencies like UNESCO, Ford Foundation, besides corporate

Dr. Kozma has made valuable academic contribution to the field of technology and its application in education.

What key role does ICT play in education?

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has two primary roles in terms of its application in education.

One of its role is to support the existing education system by increasing access and providing additional resources to allow greater efficiency for education processes. By and large, education hasn’t experienced the kind of transformation that businesses have witnessed. For example, if you look at technology in business, it has really changed the way things are done.

India is a very good example of how businesses can outsource a lot of back office services and thereby reduce costs.

The second role of ICT in education is to facilitate a transformation in the Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

teaching processes. Technology has enabled many countries to move towards service economy and provide knowledge services. It has changed the way these high-end knowledge workers work. In schools ICT can support a shift towards knowledge workers by developing knowledge skills like information gathering and analyses, problem solving, collaborating, etc. These are the 21st century skills.

Today classroom lectures are given with Power Point presentations and students solve problems on computers instead of books, there are ways the computer can make that model more efficient and extend access. Countries have to consider which model they want to pursue - whether to support education to improve access and increase efficiency

or use ICTs to develop 21st century knowledge service/skills.

Tell us about the latest model in the area of technology-pedagogy?

The emerging model of pedagogy is called constructivism, where students learn through a process in which they actively engage in, manage and play a large role in determining what they are going to learn and how and also assessing whether they are doing well or what they need to do to improve. This process grooms the child for lifelong learning. And it fits with increased dynamism in the economy where jobs come and go, creates new ideas and innovations to build an efficient knowledge workforce. This approach to learning connects with the second role of ICT in education as it prepares the students to be knowledge workers with 21st century skills. ICT has an important role to play in this model by supporting education to enable students to be lifelong learners.

In what ways can ICT literacy be incorporated in teacher training programmes?

ICT literacy, also known as ‘Information literacy’ or 21st century skills, refers to use of technology in information gathering, data analyzing, report writing , creating models, ideas and innovations.

Using technology for these activities require different type of skills.

Often, teacher training or student programmes are geared towards ICT literacy and a certificate is awarded to support the technology competency standards. But this process is still underdeveloped and involves basic understanding and use of technology in classroom teaching. UNESCO also provides a set of standards that government agencies and private sector 27

The emerging model of pedagogy is called constructivism, where students learn through a process in which they actively engage in, manage and play a large role in determining what they are going to learn and how and also assessing whether they are doing well or what they need to do to improve can use in designing training modules for teachers.

The other teacher training module focuses on the constructivist notion of learning and knowledge workers. So a country can opt for a training model that supports their goal of education.

The key is that ICT policy be aligned with other policies, such as accessibility to education. When it is aligned, the resultant educational reforms will focus on 21st century skills. The educational reforms will have implications on curriculum, assessment, which can be then aligned with components of ICT policy. India seems to be taking the constructivist approach. The government needs to do some rethinking on the 11th Five Year Plan and use ICT to approach the goals of education.

What role do you foresee for Research & Development in ICT in education? Research and development plays an

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important role in ICT, but simply doing research is not enough. Many studies do not connect with the classrooms as it is done in labs with small groups of children merely to prove a theory.

The aim should be to establish a more integral relationship between the research and classrooms. Researchers need to ask teachers about the problems faced while implementing technology.

They need to adopt the problem solving approach where there is collaboration with teachers for solutions. Teachers also need to actively engage themselves in research where they try out new ideas and innovative ways of education delivery.

Take the case of Singapore, the government there is doing high end theoretical research on the technological pay-off investments in ICT in schools have given. It is a field based research involving various organisations rather than the traditional research centre associated with the university.

With technology coming into classrooms, what is the role of teachers. Teachers are the source of knowledge which is delivered to students, while students are seen as passive listeners.

This is the role most school teachers engage in. The use of technology can provide teachers with a new role in which students are more actively involved in designing new products and solving problems by engaging in self-learning. The teacher hence requires a deeper understanding of not just the subject but also the process by which students learn and how to use technology to do that. The teachers here are model learners or guides. For instance they not only know Chemistry as a subject, but also the ways to learn it. So the teacher sets certain criteria to support the students in acquiring knowledge as learners. This is a fundamental shift and requires support and direction for participation.

What are the major mistakes countries make in adoption of ICT in education policy?

First we have to ask what role will ICT play in education, then identify the best way of re-sourcing teachers into the classrooms. Technology and infrastructure are just models of delivery to achieve the educational goals. There is an implicit assumption that putting technology in schools will make a difference, but it is actually an alignment of policies and programmes that matters. This is one of the major mistakes that most of the countries have made.

INDIA

INDIA

2008

2008

200

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in 20 8

knowledge for change

India's Largest ICT Event 29 - 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi www.eINDIA.net.in Co-Organisers

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

State Partners

Government Partner

Ministry of Urban Development Government of India

Department of Agriculture and Co-operation Ministry of Agriculture Government of India

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

Government of NCT of Delhi

Supporting Partners

速

The World Bank e-Development Thematic Group

Electronic Media Partner

Premier Media Partners

Print Media Partners

telecentre magazine examining the role of public access to technology

eINDIA2008 Thematic Tracks

INDIA

INDIA

2008

2008

INDIA

INDIA

2008

2008

INDIA

2008

MESSAGE

Key Themes See the fascinating and varied sessions offered. Read the topics, look at who is presenting, and let your mind wander! Imagine what you can learn from the presenters during the three days of exploration, illumination, and growth!

Several steps have been taken to expand the horizon of education, starting from the primary education to higher learning, at the government level, at all the stakeholder level.

While we fail to distinguish between the use of new technologies for teaching and learning across the whole gamut of education and ICT as a subject, it has now become obvious to be critical about the emphasis being put on just one area. Doing away with it will entirely miss its relevance for all disciplines as it is now being regarded as a new literacy.

Everyone gears up for this new digital revolution, where e-Learning replaces the tried and tested didactic methods that have been used successfully since the advent of formal education.

Ministries around the world are largely working on how to bring in true ICT literacy by making learning accessible anytime, anywhere.

It has been tough for everyone including ministries so far to assess the actual impact of using digital technology and communications tools. Digital Learning Special issue aiming to provide a broad spectrum of all such shortcomings and the inroads to overcome is certain to bring in new hope in this direction.

I am happy to note that CSDMS is organising eINDIA2008 conference with a key focus on ICT in Learning, Governance and Health issues. I am glad to note that the issues around ICT and Education are being discussed in great detail. These deliberations are important for growth of usage of ICT in our educational systems from schools to colleges. I am pleased to see that my ministry is actively participating and supporting this path breaking event. I wish this event a great success.

I am also pleased to note that 'Digital Learning', India's first monthly magazine on ICT in Education is bringing out a special issue on the occasion of eINDIA2008. I wish this magazine all the success too.

Session 1 : OPENING PLENARY Leading Change in e-Education: How to Succeed Amid Endless Challenge Higher Education Track Session 2: Unleashing the Strength of Universities Through ICTs

Session 4: Technology Demo Session Session 5: Policy, Foresight and Innovation for Higher Learning

Session 6: Policy Issues and Large Scale Take up of ICT Education

Session 7: Developing & Meeting the Needs of ICT Skills

Session 8: Empowering Educators

Session 9: Quality Development, Quality Assurance and Quality Education Session 10: Meet the Vice Chancellors Session 11: Technology Demo Session Session 12: Building ICT Infrastructure: Flexible Integration Solutions in a Dynamic Environment

Session 13: Educational TV and Portal: Designs for Universal Accessibility

Session 14: Alternative Assessment Strategies, Innovative Approaches in Evaluation Session 15: Teaching and Learning at a Distance

(D. PURANDESWARI)

School Track Session 3: Smart Classrooms with ICTs

Session 16: Infusing Technology in Schools: Challenges and Insights

MOS-HRD (HE)

www.eINDIA.net.in/digitallearning

Exhibition Floor Plan

Conference Hall

132 No. of Seating

132 No. of Seating

Hall No. 11,10 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi 50

24 Ă— 7 Learning

51

NIIT Sudiksha Learning

120 sqm

48

For Exhibition Enquiries:

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Educomp

sales@eINDIA.net.in

48 sqm 6 sqm

120 sqm

9 sqm

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Actuniv

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12 sqm

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Intel

Edutech

MKCL

45

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12 sqm 90 sqm

Catura

20 sqm

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Merittrac

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38 Educo Soft

Edurite

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Julong Education

12 sqm

27sqm 24 sqm

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Hitachi

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9 sqm

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27 sqm

9 sqm OneRoof Inc.

23, 24, 30, 31

56 9 sqm

IGNOU

Metalearn

25 sqm

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57 21 sqm 48 sqm

56 sqm

40 sqm

70 sqm

54 sqm

Luidia Inc.

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EI India

21 sqm

mimio

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16 130 sqm

42 sqm

18 sqm

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63 sqm

59

81 sqm

www.eINDIA.net.in

108 sqm 120 sqm 130 sqm 190 sqm

Cargo Entry

SUN

White October

18 sqm

Microsoft Promethean

11

60 sqm

84 sqm Designmate

18

Mindstec Distribution

Everonn

12 sqm

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42 sqm

In Vidya

Nettsupport

16 A

Secretariat G-4, Sector - 39, Noida, UP, India Tel: +91-120-2502180 - 85, Fax: +91-120-2500060 Email: info@eINDIA.net.in, Web: www.eINDIA.net.in

54 sqm

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The Exhibition will be a critical space for professional interactions amongst participants, within the conference.

42 sqm

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S Chand

ACTIS

32 sqm

eINDIA2008 will feature an Exhibition and Demonstration area, where leading international ICT4D players, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers will present their latest products and services.

36 sqm

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18 sqm

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Exhibition

Ceeco

80 sqm

18 sqm

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Adobe

91

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120 sqm

42 sqm

36 sqm

SIPA

95

CSC 48 sqm Pavillion

94

107 12sqm

108

Globus Infocom Ltd.

Globus Infocom Ltd.

12sqm

Aavanor

Tea Aarea

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61 108 sqm

120 sqm

12sqm

61A

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12sqm

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indicates tentatively blocked

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Safenet

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48 sqm

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9 sqm Seed Healthcare

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Crane Global Solutions

VISA

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9 sqm 9 sqm

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Inter Systems

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18 sqm

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9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm

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CA

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Almoe

EdistaLearning

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ICAR

RB COMTEC

Nextenders

Coramandel

AdventNet

18 sqm

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9 sqm 12 sqm

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15sqm

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NIIT

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Technologies

e-Block

84 sqm

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CoreSys

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PMA

65

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24 sqm 9 sqm 12 sqm 9 sqm 12 sqm

67 9 sqm

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GKP/One World Southasia

12 sqm 6915 sqm 7015 sqm

21 sqm

Looking Beyond the IT Horizon

www.nhindia.com

Please share with us the growth trajectory of New Horizons India Ltd. As the name suggests, New Horizons India is a joint venture of the Shriram Group with New Horizons Worldwide.

Operational since 2002, it is engaged in the business of knowledge delivery through acquiring, creating, developing, managing, and licensing knowledge in the areas of IT, applied learning, technology services and supplementary education.

The company has 15 offices all over the country and employs over 700 people. We continue to report 100% growth in our business chart for the fifth year, ending March 2009. I am very confident of meeting the target rate. As the paid figure goes up, I do not see any tiredness coming in the system. We are now 750 people compared to some 300 people when we met last. There is growth in revenue, number of cities and in terms of offering. The external environment is very conducive.

Addressing the need, executing the plans well and doing what you see is coming your way is the key to larger size and larger contribution.

As the President and CEO of New Horizons India Ltd, Ajay Sharma is responsible for managing the company’s India operations and establishing it as a leading IT Training company in the region. With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Sharma has held senior managerial positions and been part of the Shriram Group of companies since 1979.

In an interview with Digital Learning, Sharma sheds light on the educational scenario in India and the constructive role that New Horizons India is playing to enhance the educational experience.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

What do you mean by external environment?

External environment means the macro economic situation of the country. Here I am specifically refering to the education sector. The demography of the country is very unique compared to the West. About 70% of our population is below 35 years of age and 20% is below 15 in contrast to the United States and Europe where 70% of their population is on the wrong side of the age. In the next 3-5 years the world will face a shortage among the working class.

India, on the other hand, faces a piquant situation. The education system is producing educated people but there is significant difference between a metro educated person and a city or rural educated person in terms of their personality, communication abilities and level of knowledge. There is lack of skilled human capital and industries need skills, be it core skills, multi skills, hard or soft skills. New Horizons is in the right business at the right time and with the right vision.

Tell us about ‘New Horizons Computer Learning Centre’.

New Horizons Computer Learning Centre is the global brand under which all training centres of New Horizons across the globe function. It has franchises in 60 countries, 250 locations, 2,400 instructors, three million students and revenue of US$400 million. It goes far beyond IT training and concentrates on an entire gamut of soft skills like leadership to supply chain management and customisation management.

We are currently working on two domains – one is insurance 33

New Horizons to Revolutionise Coaching To deliver world class and customised knowledge products and services to students, New Horizons India Ltd has announced a Strategic Business Unit (SBU), titled ‘Knowledge Horizon’, focusing on coaching classes for 11th and 12th class CBSE students for engineering and IIT entrance exams and providing teaching aids for schools.

Knowledge Horizon will combine classroom trainer-led teaching with IT-enabled support. With a student teacher ratio of 20:1, students will be admitted to the coaching class through a screening process constituting written and oral examinations. Some other salient features of the programme include mandatory parental guidance sessions. ‘Knowledge Horizon will also include personality development modules as part of its curriculum,’ said Mita Brahma, National Head, Knowledge Horizon.

and financial companies and the second is hospitality and tourism. We also want to concentrate on retailing as it is in demand now. With so many banking and insurance companies and retailers like Benetton, Marks & Spencers and Walmart coming in, there is a need for right kind of training. Two million graduates pass out every year but many of them remain unemployed. So we need to go beyond just IT training and do cross-domain training in IT and other skills.

In what ways does New Horizons build new skills?

Our method is based on the US model. An employer there does not look at a candidate for what he does but rather for who he is and what he can offer. So most professionals in the US, even CEOs, have worked in several domains. Some have even been caddies! An IT professional could have been a cab driver, a plumber or even an electrician. So my idea is based on the way the US job market works.

We have a New Horizons University that picks up fresh talent and nurtures the passion in them. It acts like a human factory and begins with the assessment of the market’s current as well as future needs.

The unit will offer learning tools for classroom coaching in Science and Commerce streams for the CBSE board in the first phase. Knowledge Horizon coaching classes will initially be set up in Delhi across 6 centres, with a total intake capacity of 1000 students. This will expand to 50 centres by March 2009 as first phase of expansion.

‘Leveraging our success in delivering systematic course led IT training, we hope to bring new levels of professionalism into the business of coaching students in India – and provide supplementary education focused not only at building academic prowess but also at overall personality development,’said Ajay K Sharma, President and CEO, of the company.

Equipped with interactive – whiteboards, digital material for learning and IT-enabled tutorial centres, New Horizons India will bring its critical understanding of the IT space to focus on personality development rather than a commodity approach to education. This approach to teaching is critical to meeting industry requirements. Teaching aides will comprise of of Maths Lab, Science Lab, Social Sciences Lab, Language Lab, which are rooms where students learn concepts through manipulation of concrete objects. Train the Trainer programme trains the teacher to be more effective and innovative.

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Statistics regarding school level education in India • In NCR region approx 2 lac students study for each standard in CBSE • 95% of students opt for tutorials/coaching of some kind • 80% students select a free lancer or a neighbourhood coaching centre without verifying credentials Findings on the state of coaching classes in India • 90% of kids who take solo tuitions or home tuitions do not score high marks • The batch size tutorials ranges from 50-60 students per batch that adversely affects their performance • Neighbourhood coaching centre admit every applicant and parents are unsure/worried about the quality of group

The next thing that we do is to hire people after measuring their level of competency as per the requirement in various sectors.

What is New Horizons global presence like?

New Horizons India is increasingly becoming the back office of worldwide operations because we are the only country with which New Horizons Inc. has collaboration and not just a pure franchise relationship. We also have a profit sharing agreement with them for distribution. They are very good at marketing while we are good at intellectual campaigning, so its a complimentary relationship.

Tell us about the e-Judicairy project. e-Judiciary is a three year project to make all courts paperless by 2011. Through this the judicial processes will be mechanised, there will be e-filing of cases and the aim is July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

to reduce the wastage of time that has crippled our judicial proceedings and led to a huge backlog in cases. Initially, the project presented a very big geographical challenge. We had to train 80,000 people in 2,200 rotations and every village had to be included. Moreover, there was resistance from the judiciary to work with the corporate sector. But perceptions have gradually changed and the project has now successfully reached its second stage. It gives me immense pleasure to say that every court in the country has now been converted into New Horizon’s classroom.

What other opportunities are you looking at in INDIA? We want to grow exponentially in the next few years and become a billion dollar company; but at the same time we do not want to compromise on quality at any level. With support from the Shriram Group, we are doing well. However we are maintaining the balance between expansion and preventing quality dilution and so are not in a hurry.

What is the competition in the sector like?

Competition in education sector is not threatening. We are not trying to snatch customers from each other, but we create customers for each other. I feel we have inadequate number of companies in this field. We need large as well as several small to medium companies to sustain the domestic needs

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

of the country and also handle the avalanche of educational outsourcing – from training to tutoring - that we are expecting.

Indians are in great demand for these skills.

Our company has come into being to look at the two million shortage in IT talent. It is a good opportunity for our company and others in the field, who are focused on high end training, quality and the ability to measure productivity change.

New Horizons Inc is the world’s largest IT training company.

We are not only working for profit but also for a larger cause, as we help produce skilled manpower that will increase businesses in all sectors.

What is your view on the role of teachers in the backdrop of ICT? What is the relationship between the technological and pedagogical elements in education?

I believe there should be a blend of pedagogical and technological elements in education. Today there are several means of knowledge delivery, like e-Tutoring, e-Learning, digital content, etc. However, technology cannot replace a teacher because teaching involves upervision and peer interaction which is crucial to learning. But at the same time, technology is important as it can help make education accessible to millions of people and help in the structured and defined growth of the human capital resource.

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‘Research to Innovation’ – Intel Education Initiatives Children’s Academy, Asha Nagar, Mumbai Research based learning in today’s world has encouraged learners to become researchers in their own right. Research activity fosters innovation and can therefore provide a valuable model for developing higher cognitive skills.

Central to Intel Teach, a professional development training program for teachers is the belief that if you empower children with the ability to be masters of their own learning through research and collaboration then the overall depth of the learning will be far more, than by guided teaching.

instead deal with real-life problems where the ensuing projects are linked to community solutions’.

Bhinderwala, who is herself a part of the first batch of MT trainers in Mumbai says, when she first joined the Intel Teach Program she could not save a file on the computer and had never heard of a power point. But today she feels empowered.

In a discussion on the projects her school is successfully handling, Bhinderwala spoke about the wide scope and array

A paradigm of this belief is the Children’s Academy School, Asha Nagar, Mumbai. Principal of the school Nafisa Bhinderwala, feels that ‘Intel Teach has empowered the students of her school and helped create an environment which induces research and furthers innovation.”

This research driven education in the Children’s Academy, she felt, has facilitated higher order learning skills and critical thinking powers, providing students of the school with an all round developmental perspective, creating a new generation of young innovators. The result of this transformation in the education system is that the students are ‘successfully dealing with research driven projects which are not curriculum based, and Intel Teach Program - A professional development program that helps classroom teachers effectively integrate technology to enhance student learning. It is the most successful professional development program of its kind.

More than 4 million teachers in over 40 countries have trained since 1999.

89% of teachers report using technology with their students as a result of the Intel Teach Program which in turn enhances student’s learning abilities.

In India, the Intel Teach Program has impacted over 8,69,000 teachers across 15 state governments, 2 Union Territories, 55 Universities and across Central government relationships like NVS, KVS & NCTE.

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President awarding National Bal Shree Award to Kshitij Gupta

of the projects, most of which had received recognition outside the school.

• SWAVALAMBI VILLA - A villa designed by the students which is self sustainable in all respects. It has a farm, the produce of which is served as food for its members. The farm is also a source of energy for running all the devices in the villa. This innovative idea in an

This research driven education in the Children’s Academy, has facilitated higher order learning skills and critical thinking powers, providing students of the school with an all round developmental perspective, creating a new generation of young innovators

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

energy starved globe was awarded the First prize at the Science Exhibition.

• BIODIVERSITY –a project on biodiversity conducted by the students which served as an eye opener for the need of conservation of species. This project won awards at the Ward level competition.

• GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE – Kshitij Gupta, a student of class X, successfully worked on a project on the effects of global warming which was highly appreciated at the ward, district and regional levels and also won him the National Bal Children’s Academy teachers with Principal Bhinderwala Shree Award for the Creative Innovative Science Category from President of India We strongly believe that teaching-learning Pratibha Patil. should not be restricted to the books and • PLASTOFUEL – Students produced fuel from waste plastic. The project went on to win a prize at the Ward curriculum and each teacher must put an effort Level. to explore fresh knowledge since learning is a • WEALTH FROM WILTS – A budding scientist Ameya Pawar extracted colours from waste flowers and life long process. This in turn would promote encouraged its use in Holi festival. Since a harmless curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, not only Holi is the need of the hour, his is a significant contribution to society. Ameya won an award at the among teachers but also among the students Homi Bhabha Bal Vaigyanik examination for his incredible work.

At the Nehru Science Centre, teachers from the school won The application of multi-media in the classroom awards for research based multi-media presentations related to through the Teach Program at Children’s Science and Environment.

Academy has facilitated learning through gratification of multiple intelligences

Bhinderwala has been personally involved with another project on HIV AIIDS for which she had prepared a Power Point presentation and took sessions with class IX. This project bagged the Best School Award for AIDS Awareness Programme.

Bhinderwala, was herself awarded the’ Eco Leader’ for the year 2008. She was also conferred as the Best Master Trainer

by Intel Teach for the year April 2008-2009.

The school management, she says, has successfully enabled its teachers and subsequently the students to integrate technology in their teaching and learning methodologies, to reach where they are.

But the quest for excellence has not been limited to winning awards. Bhinderwala told us about the various clubs the school runs beyond the walls of the curriculum like the Science Club, Nature Club, and Literary club. ‘These clubs provide a platform to showcase the abilities of our students in research and technology and also serve as a media for conveying messages like anti-addiction, anti pollution, anti crackers, anti-plastic, etc.’

The empowered teachers have also molded their role into what is required for the global world. As Bhinderwala said, ‘The teacher in our school is not the sole provider of information to the students any longer, but is a facilitator. She is a guiding force at each and every step, right from the inception till the implementation of the project’.

In a world where innovation is fundamental to the quest for sustainable growth, research oriented education is the new way of seeing the world and providing new approaches to solving problems. The Children’s Academy, Mumbai, is archetypal of the success of inculcating such an environment which is futuristic in its approach.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

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NIIT-Infospectrum Alliance Offers ERP Solution in Schools NIIT, a information technology service corporation, has entered into an agreement with Infospectrum, a global software product development and technology services enterprise, to offer ‘Quick School’, a customisable Educational Resource Planning (ERP) solution in schools.

Following this alliance, NIIT’s School Learning Solutions (SLS) will include the ERP in its eGuru offering for schools, thus providing it with its expertise and reach, while Infospectrum offers exclusive development and customisation of the solution and modules for varied needs.

The agreement was signed between L Balasubramanian, President, NIIT SLS and Jay Chopde, CEO and Founder, Infospectrum.

Speaking on the occasion P Rajendran, COO, NIIT Ltd said, ‘NIIT is a leading SLS provider in the country. With this strategic alliance, we are now in a position to address the needs of all the key stakeholders within the education realm - students, teachers, principals, school management and parents.’

‘With the integration of ready-to-deploy ERP tool in our portfolio, we are confident that schools will be able to strengthen their services to students and parents thus enhancing their competitive advantage many fold,’ added Balasubramanian.

‘Quick School’ is an integrated and comprehensive solution that spans across all functional requirements and departments of educational institutions. It allows the schools to manage information on Academics, Staff, Students, Examination, Attendance, Fees, Schedules, Payroll, Recruitment, Library, Hostel, Transport, Inventory etc on a real time basis. Teachers, Management and other users can use these modules with 38

minimal training. Its modular design gives the educational institution flexibility and scalability that can be configured in line with the growth of the institution. It is currently being offered by Infospectrum in over 140 premier schools such as Delhi Public Schools, Somerville Public Schools, Navrachana International Schools, and International School Amby, Lawrence School among others.

Chopde said, ‘The key to a schools success lies in the way it manages the deluge of information.

QuickSchool’ will enable schools to seamlessly integrate information across different academic facets, for better decision making. I am confident that our alliance with NIIT will go a long way in ushering in the ‘Information Age’ in schools.’

The implementation of ERP solutions in schools will also enable parents to dynamically monitor real time progress of their wards, thus effectively addressing their needs to identify improvement areas for better academic performance.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Mindspark: Digital Adaptive Learning Solution for Kids

www.ei-india.com

Educational Initiatives, a private limited company, has developed a learning programme to allow students to engage in enhancing their understanding of different subjects through a series of interactive content, replete with rich animation and visuals, within the comfort of home by using their PC.

Foundational Principles of Mindspark • •

• This learning programme, called Mindspark, allows students to construct his or her own learning pace. It is an interactive system, where the student is not learning passively by listening to someone or viewing ready-made solutions, but by answering questions of increasing complexity levels.

At the heart of Mindspark is the theory that students learn best when they control the pace of learning. There have been several successful experiments worldwide on this. Mindspark is a genesis of various such experiments.

A key advantage of Mindspark is the fact that it successfully harnesses the power of new technologies to bolster learning. An intelligent computer system uses a complex adaptive logic to decide what problem to serve up to a student next, based on his response to the current problem and problems answered earlier. The system is also able to identify when a student needs help to understand a concept, and proceeds to give her explanations that will help her move ahead.

• •

Every child learns at her own pace – there is no “ideal” learning rate for a given age group Effective learning takes place if the material presents a challenge that is just above the cognitive level of the student Frequent exposure to appropriate learning material enhances learning Learning through drill alone - without understanding - is not learning Though individual variations exist, there are universal patterns in learning

Key Features

Focus on understanding One of the most unique features of the Mindspark programme is its focus on understanding and analytical thinking. This is one of the key factors that really distinguishes the Mindspark programme from any other learning programme. For instance, most Maths learning programmes available today use games to create learning. But the quality of learning being aimed at is suspect, since the focus is entirely on procedural fluency – with a lot of drill in +, -, × and ÷, rather than conceptual understanding or application. But today, what any student really needs to move ahead in life is real understanding, and analytical abilities – and that is what the Mindspark programme aims to foster.

Adaptive logic Mindspark has a built in adaptive logic that allows a student to move at her own pace.

This complex logic determines where to take the student after each question – based on her answer to the current one, and also taking into account how she has answered previous questions on that concept.

A question from Basic Algebra, to develop the ability to observe and generalize patterns – an important, but often ignored skill to be developed in Algebra Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

Typically, a student would select a topic, and start with fundamental questions based on the topic. This is to ascertain that the student has a strong grounding in the topic. A student with a deeper understanding of that topic automatically moves ahead quickly to more advanced levels, while those who need to spend more time on the basics will be served 39

up more questions of the basic level. This feature also ensures that the child does not have trouble in higher classes due to a problem with the basics.

An intelligent computer system uses a complex adaptive logic to decide what problem to serve up to a student next, based on his response to the current problem and problems answered earlier In Mindspark, the topics are not encumbered with artificial barriers like classes and grade levels. This allows a student strong in a content area to go to advanced problems in that, while a less confident student might get remedial questions from a more basic level. For instance, for a student currently in grade 8 who has not had a strong foundation in Algebra, the system will automatically serve up fundamental algebra questions that would help him clear his basics. On the other hand, a student who is gifted could even attempt advanced problems and topics beyond the prescribed curriculum for her grade level.

Addressing common errors and misconceptions Many students have misunderstanding of basic concepts that they carry forward from an early age. It is important to identify those and help the child overcome them. Most often, a child does not try to clear these misconceptions due to a lack of opportunity or fear of embarrassment. Research through detailed student assessments provides insights on exactly where students are likely to have difficulties, and why. Mindspark questions are designed on the basis of detailed classroom studies and research in student learning - to specifically target common student errors and misconceptions.

In-depth explanations Whenever a student goes wrong in a particular type of question, a detailed, concept based explanation is provided for it. Often, the explanations are visual or animated rather than just textual, to facilitate quick grasping. This system of providing explanations allows the student to revisit the concept, and quickly figure out how to tackle subsequent problems on the concept.

Finely graded questions A special feature of the Mindspark programme is the way in which the questions are graded. The extremely fine gradation of questions allows the system to make sure that a child is truly thorough with a subconcept, before moving on to the next. Also, it helps in pinpointing exactly where the child is having difficulties.

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A question from Basic Algebra, to develop the ability to observe and generalize patterns – an important, but often ignored skill to be developed in Algebra Child friendly features In addition to the innovative use of visuals and animations to motivate students and foster learning, the programme makes use of other child friendly motivating techniques to encourage students. One of those features is a system of reward points using ‘Sparky’ – the animated light bulb, the Mindspark icon.

Sparkies are awarded based on how consistently well the student is doing.

Detailed feedback and reports In order to help parents and educators track a student’s progress at any time, Mindspark has a system of providing detailed weekly reports. For a parent, the report provides details of how her kid is doing in different topics and concepts.

For a teacher, the report not only provides a summary of the progress made by her class, but also details of how each student is progressing different topics and concepts.

The Mindspark advantage In a real classroom situation, the challenges a teacher faces are manifold. While classroom teaching has its own place, it is near impossible for her to focus on the learning of

each individual child – plus our current examination-based assessment system also does not help provide that focused attention. Mindspark works as a complement to regular classroom teaching and exams by helping each child learn and work on the concept in an self-paced, interactive manner.

Suchismita Srinivas is a graduate in Maths and in Education from Delhi University and also has a Diploma in Child Guidance from IGNOU. Her passion for Maths led her to teaching assignments at primary and secondary levels in various schools for over 14 years. Her main motive was to help children develop a long term interest in the subject. At Educational Initiatives Pvt Ltd, based in Mumbai, she leads the Digital Adaptive Learning content development team.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Smart Technologies introduce new classroom ‘Smart Audio’ Smart Technologies have introduced a new classroom audio system. Dubbed ‘Smart Audio’, the system provides wireless audio (using both microphones and third-party audio devices, such as MP3/4 players), along with integration with Smart interactive whiteboard systems.

The new system includes an IR receiver, ceiling-mounted IR receiver, wearable wireless microphone, handheld wireless microphone, two microphone chargers (plus rechargeable batteries), and four ceiling or wall-mounted speakers.

the cumulative expenditure will be INR 52 lakh.

Akshaya Patra, which runs this mammoth school meal programme, is aided by central and state governments and private corporations. Commenting on the new addition of a major corporate sponsor, Madhu Pandita Das of Akshaya Patra said, ‘To continue to feed the 8.5 lakh children everyday and also to reach its goal of feeding over a million children everyday by 2010, the foundation is very much dependent upon corporate participation in a big way.’

Apparao Maliavarapu, Founder and Managing Director of Centum Electronics said, ‘We are happy to support Akshaya Patra in this noble. It is important for India to fight illiteracy and hunger as we cannot call ourselves developed unless we can feed and educate all our children’.

Other features include tone control, integrated audio mixer, and support for external audio devices, including computers, CD and DVD players, and MP3/4 players.

The system, which is also designed to integrate with Smart interactive whiteboards running Smart Notebook collaborative learning software, rolls out in August.

Centum Electronics to sponsor meals for 1,447 school kids under Akshaya Patra Centum Electronics Limited, manufacturers of hi-tech electronic subsystems, modules and components, has pledged support to Akshaya Patra, the world’s largest school meal programme which currently feeds over 8.05 lakh children across the country every day.

Under this pledge, the company will sponsor the mid-day meals for 1,447 kids in seven government schools, for the next three years. The total cost for this is INR 17.5 lakh every year and Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

eyes. This means precise control over positioning of elements on the page.

Moreover, one can easily add media (animations, videos etc) or insert images, tables, lists, hyperlinks etc. with just a few clicks. One can also create multi-lingual courses as this template supports a vast range of languages.

Apart from the ability to create Flash and HTML courses with RapideL-i, some other interesting features which will soon be added include the MS PowerPoint to Flash converter and MS Excel porting to create large volumes of courses offline.

CrossKnowledge-NIS Sparta tie-up for web-based training solutions in India CrossKnowledge, a European eLearning major, has entered into an exclusive partnership with NIS Sparta, a Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group company, to offer its web based distance training solutions in Leadership, Management and Soft skills throughout India.

Through this tie-up, over 200 management programmes designed under the supervision of management experts from Harvard, Standard and IMD will now be available in India.

RapideL-i adds new template for design flexibility RapideL-i, the internet-based rapid e-learning tool innovated by Brainvisa, has recently added a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) template for complete design flexibility.

In a constant attempt to overcome challenges faced by e-Learning developers, Brainvisa innovated the WYSIWYG template to allow users to design the page the way they like, format it as required and add any media type within that course page. This is apart from the 100 templets provided to create instructionally rich courseware.

Using this blank template, users do not have to anymore imagine or visualise the look of the output. Instead one can see it building up in front of their

Rishi Roy, Director, CrossKnowledge, said, ‘We’re thrilled to be partnering with NIS Sparta to offer our unique web based management training solutions to Indian customers. India is going through an explosive growth and the lack of qualified manpower is increasing becoming apparent and threatening to slow the country’s progress.

CrossKnowledge offers cost effective, efficient and effective solutions to these very problems.’

NIS Sparta President and COO Muralidhar Rao said, ‘NIS Sparta has a history of partnering with global leaders in management training to bring international best practices into India.

We are extremely pleased to partner with CrossKnowledge as it enables us to introduce globally recognised on-line management training in India.’

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The partnership has enabled NIS Sparta to increase its repository of quality content by adding to it over 248 modules focusing on Management Fundamentals and Techniques and Personal Management Skills.

by ‘VEDAS’ (Virtual Education Delivery and Assessment System), the proprietary intelligent software suite of Mindlogicx, and has built in features to simulate real time classroom environment virtually.

R Rajalakshmi, Director, STPI, Bangalore said on the occasion of the launch, ‘This initiative of Mindlogicx has come at the right time when talent paucity is threatening to blunt our competitive edge. The OFS besides bridging the digital divide would also ensure an increased supply of skilled manpower as required by the industry.’

Speaking on their entry into India, Hervé Gauchaux, Managing Director of Crossknowledge said, ‘CrossKnowledge has developed innovative web based learning solutions that are rated No 1 in quality and effectiveness by leading organisations in Europe. The company brings to its customers four new major benefits which are very highly rated (Reach, Speed, Quality and Cost).

Thanks to this partnership, these benefits can now be delivered to any organisation in India.’

‘The OFS is a major step in addressing the skill gap Indian economy is grappling with. The vision of Mindlogicx to impart necessary skills which the industry demands on a virtual basis across various disciplines would rekindle the hopes of teeming millions nursing ambitions of obtaining suitable employment,’ Managing Director, TUV Rheinland India Pvt Ltd, Enrico Ruhle said.

Mindlogicx launches ‘Online Finishing School’ for graduation students Mindlogicx Infotech Ltd, an R & D technology company, has launched an ‘Online Finishing School’ (OFS) aimed at making final year students across various streams job ready and employable. The certification for the programmes offered will be provided by TÜV Rheinland Group, which into independent testing and assessment services, making it globally valid.

Through its reskilling and upskilling course modules, the OFS empowers students in science, commerce, engineering and management disciplines to acquire necessary skills required by the industry and increase their employability quotient. OFS has an added advantage as students can access it from any part of the country 24x7, owing to its virtual nature. It is powered 42

The certificates provided by TÜV Rheinland will carry a seal of authentication by way of Global Access Code (GAC) and the same will be made available in the global database of TÜV Rheinland. This will help students connect to the prospective employers by using the unique GAC that vouches for authenticity of knowledge base of the students.

Genpact-NIIT JV to set up NIIT Institute of Process Excellence Genpact, which manages business processes for companies around the world, and NIIT have launched a joint venture — NIIT Institute of

Process Excellence Ltd — to address the increasing demand for skilled workers in the business and technology services industry by providing training programmes in relevant areas.

The new company will initially offer training programs in areas such as business processes, language skills and business communication, and intends to add additional offerings in other areas including finance and accounting, banking, insurance and supply chain.

NIIT Institute of Process Excellence is designed for students aspiring to build sustainable careers in the high growth business and technology services industry.

The NIIT institute offers a solution to business and technology services industry’s growing need for a large talent pool skilled in business process knowledge. Genpact and NIIT will combine their respective strengths to offer the industry’s most comprehensive training curriculum for existing and potential employees of business services and technology companies. Genpact will provide industry-specific knowledge as well as internship and job opportunities to students. NIIT will complement this with its expertise in learning content development, training delivery, and its capabilities in education process management.

Sharing details about the training facilities, NIIT CEO Vijay K Thadani said, ‘NIIT Institute of Process Excellence training programmes will be offered to students through state-ofthe-art learning centers in key metros, mini metros and Tier II towns in India, followed by China and the Philippines.’

Training facilities in Indian cities — Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune — will be set up in the first year of operations, followed by Dalian, Changchun, Shanghai and Xian in China, and Manila in the Philippines in the next phase. Genpact and NIIT expect the new institute to have over 250 learning centers by 2012.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

ICY L O P RS E T T MA

India Formulating a National Policy on ICT in School Education Expanding the multi-stakeholder perspective

Ministry of HRD Govt. of India

How do teachers, administrators and policy makers feel about their experiences with technology? Is there a balance between teaching about technology as a subject, and as a tool for learning? Has the technology integration proved financially, technically and administratively sustainable over time?

In continuation to our discussions on formulating a National Policy on ICT in School Education in India, and our attempt to make the discussions more wide, open and collaborative, we are producing the discussions that the UN Solution Exchange (www.solutionexchange-un.net. in\en) Community members have reflected on the key thematic pillars like ICT Infrastructure, e-Content, Capacity Building, Innovation and Research, Monitoring and Evaluation, Quality in School Education, and Public Private Partnerships in a series. In this issue, we are presenting a part of the discussions happened on the issue of e-Content.

The June issue of Digital Learning has produced the eDiscussions of the UN Solution Exchange Education and Development community on the Capacity Building and Innovation and Research.

As we know, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (www.education.nic.in), Government of India, has already initiated the process to formulate the ‘National Policy on ICT in School Education’. The Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (www.gesci.org), a UN ICT Task Force founded organisation, along with Centre for Science, Development, and Media Studies (www.csdms.in) provides strategic assistance to MHRD in the preparation of this policy.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

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eCONTENT DEVELOPMENT and DELIVERY Four queries were posted on the issue of development and delivery of eContent in school education. Fourteen responses were received from both the ICT for Development and Education communities of the UN Solution Exchange.

Queries

Respondents

Experiences and examples, case studies and recommendations on mechanisms for delivery of digital content (computer-aided multimedia, Edusat, Radio, TV, etc) to reach schools.

•

Challenges in procurement of quality digital content (computeraided, TV, Radio, etc) for schools, especially pertaining to local languages.

Suggestions for strategic and practical use of digital content in the school education system. Are there any experiences that can be evaluated?

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Department, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata Madhu Ranjan, United Sates Agency for International Development (USAID), New Delhi Ananya.S.Guha, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi Veena Sethi, UDAAN Foundation, New Delhi Gurumurthy Kasinathan, IT for Change, Bangalore Syamaprasad Datta, P.N. Das College, Palta, West Bengal Sanjeev Kumar Rai, UNICEF, Bhopal Jitendra Shah, Indictrans, Mumbai Ranjit Nambiar, National Instruments India, Bangalore A Prabaharan, Public Action, New Delhi Jitendra Prasad, C-DAC, Hyderabad Nagarjuna G, Free Software Foundation of India/HBCSE, TIFR, Mumbai M V Ananthakrishnan, Developmental Infomatics Lab, KReSIT, IIT Bombay, Mumbai Anshuman Das, Development Research Communication & Services Centre, Kolkata Rujuta Deshmukh, Independent Consultant, New Delhi

Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Department, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata

‘Allow academia to provide quality content’ a computer is viewed by 2 to 4 students. But if a projection system like K-YAN of IL&FS (http:// www.k-yan.com/) is used, then the impact is obviously greater. In West Bengal, K-YAN was distributed by the state government in 42 schools in Bankura, 23 in Burdwan, and 51 in North 24 Parganas. Similarly, 55 girls schools in Tripura were provided K-YAN two years back which did wonders.

Although there is ample content in the ICSE & ISC and CBSE, NCERT syllabus, there is not much in the state-run boards. It is therefore the responsibility of respective local players or bodies of educational players to create content.

I personally feel that the best way to develop quality content is allowing the academia in IITs, IIMs and Indian Institutes of Information Technology, etc to provide us with content that the education boards will accept without much fuss.

‘Broadcasting by K-YAN’ Most of the schools can be given digital content to be unicasted, but the fact is how to ‘broadcast’ it as we all know 44

Tripura: http://www.ilfsets.com/Projects.asp?menuid=4&sme nuid=15&childid=0&pageid=415 Footprints: http://www.ilfsets.com/Projects.asp?menuid=4&s menuid=12&childid=0&pageid=412 West Bengal: http://www.ilfsets.com/Projects.asp?menuid=4 &smenuid=11&childid=0&pageid=411 Baramati Bus: http://www.ilfsets.com/Projects.asp?menuid= 4&smenuid=7&childid=0&pageid=47 July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

K-YAN: http://www.ilfsets.com/Products.asp?menuid=2&sme nuid=6&childid=1&pageid=261 I definitely suggest K-YAN as a cost-effective option, unless a PC is used along with a projector. For content, I feel, we are totally dependent on vendors who are working in the area of content creation. We have made a CD with the help of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Kolkata-

EKLAVYA, which is on basic computer education including Office and Hardware in English, Hindi and Bengali. We also have found out some content in Bengali for class 10 and 12 for Biology, Geography etc and of course the IL&FS ETS are there with content for K-12.

Content should be in accordance with the education board standards, this is in check here in West Bengal.

Madhu Ranjan, United Sates Agency for International Development (USAID), New Delhi

‘Delivery of digital content through radio and TV’ Technology Tools for Teaching and Training (T4) is a USAID-supported initiative implemented by the Education Development Centre (EDC). T4 has numerous examples of delivery of digital content through Radio using Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) and TV (Edusat) to reach hundreds

The greatest challenge is to make it pervasive and integrate its features into the ethos of a school been produced and broadcast/delivered so far. All these programmes are evaluated by external agencies before they are aired and are also assessed for changes, both in the teaching practice and learning levels of students, each year.

of primary schools in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar in partnership with the state SSAs. The IRI programmes are broadcast in the local language for all primary classes in Karnataka for all subjects. In Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, MP and Bihar, broadcasts are made for classes I and II for English language. These broadcasts are needbased, as identified by states themselves. The content is also delivered through video (Edusat) in those primary schools in Karnataka that have the necessary infrastructure. Besides, a series of Group Teaching Learning (GTL) multimedia CDs have been developed, covering a range of topics in Science and Social Studies. Under this, over 500 programmes have

The critical features of this initiative are: • The teacher remains central to the teaching-learning process.

• The programmes are so designed that they encourage ‘interactivity’ and ‘inclusion’ in the classroom.

• The programmes are designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated in consultation with the SSA, thus allowing for its mainstreaming.

• The rich and insightful inputs of grassroots NGOs in the formative evaluation these programmes strengthen it immensely.

• There is intensive training of teachers and other education functionaries of the government.

From our experience, the most critical challenge in this entire process is to maintain the rigour in providing support to teachers and closely monitoring their work, and this in turn requires an adequately equipped and motivated academic support staff.

Ananya S Guha, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi

‘Policy makers to take advice of school authorities’ ICT is an all-encompassing term which includes radio, television and computers. The greatest challenge is to make it pervasive and integrate its features into the ethos of a school. They can act upon one another or be used separately but in an integrated fashion. For example, podcasting or computer broadcasting can serve the purpose of a radio, with the ability for synchronous interaction. There could also be phone-in programmes by FM Channels. As a Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

college teacher in Shillong in the 80s, I found many school radio broadcasts ofgood quality. But how many students would tune into these at 1.30 PM, a time when classes were held?

The policy makers must consciously take the advice of the school authorities in decision making such as fixing the timing.

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Veena Sethi, UDAAN Foundation, New Delhi

‘ICT learning in a remote area’ I would like to share my experience in introducing ICT learning in a remote area. We are a very small NGO operating in Mukteshwar (Nainital district). Since there are no such facilities in the area, as an experiment in 2005, I started a computer education centre in my house. I designed a very simple course and trained local youth in computer basics.

Today, they are not only teaching others but one of them is also in charge of the centre. Unfortunately, we have not had much success in persuading the local government schools (primary as well as secondary) to outsource computer teaching to us. Reasons are the usual: the schools do not have electricity / provision to pay for it, even the one or

two schools that do have systems do not have teachers.

So we have entered into partnership with a local Shishu Mandir school where we are imparting computer education to three senior classes (approximately 70 students).

In addition, our students also run the Tata Consultancy Services designed Adult Literacy programme in different villages, from time to time. Some of our senior students also come to Delhi for training in hardware and new programmes.

Our latest venture is producing multimedia educational CDs in Hindi for students from class 1-5.

Gurumurthy Kasinathan, IT for Change, Bangalore,

‘Need for open source software and open standards’ A topic such as content is quite domain independent. The education domain has significant meaning attached to ‘teaching learning material’, including philosophies of its creation, constructivism (a learner learns by making meaning of an experience, which requires active participation and even creation; a mere consumption of information or content is unlikely to cause learning), scaffolding (requiring active facilitation of the teacher in co-constructing these experiences for creating ‘knowledge resources’), critical pedagogy (reflecting critically on the content and processes of learning in terms of the underlying premises and values – there is really no such thing as ‘value neutral content’), etc.

The principle of constructivism suggest that treating “learning as a process of consuming ready made content” is quite problematic.

The very process

Similarly using proprietary software which does of engaging with not enable the learner to software tools investigate into the tool process of designing itself is a huge problem. ‘content’ already has a name to construct both new tools and new It is the very process of - curriculum, and we have information and processes of learning engaging with software dedicated frameworks for tools to construct both new developing it. ICT as a part is the epitome of learning using ICTS. tools and new information and/or enabling such For this, open source software and open of and processes of learning curriculum does that can be a epitome standards need to be a critical theme of not change the name of what of learning using ICTS is basically being done within an ICT in education policy (Seymour Papert has the domain. developed this thinking from ‘constructivism’ to ‘constructionism’). For this, open In fact, in the workshop on the ‘e-Content’ theme held as source software and a part of the current consultations in March 2008, the open standards need to be a critical theme of an ICT in workshop decided to drop the term content for the more education policy. meaningful and dynamic ‘digital learning resources’ which would not only cover information resources, but also software Education content is not the same as say agriculture and hardware tools that the learner could use to construct information. And in the education domain the knowledge.

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July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Syamaprasad Datta, P N Das College, Palta, West Bengal

‘With effort and proper guidance, ICT in school education is feasible’ This topic, i.e, Nature of ICT in Education Policy, is thought provoking. Members have systematically presented a number of suggestions; it is marvelous to see so much support emerging out of the discussions.

But, with my experience in education for quite a long span of time in various places of Bengal, to be more specific, in varying economic zones, I sometimes wonder about the feasibility of this ICT. I, for my part, encourage my students, though in a higher academic sphere, to take help of this in a practical way. But considering the varying economic standpoint and cost of infrastructure, case of continuous maintenance and proper guidance of the teachers, makes me shudder at the probability for implementation of ICT. Although I am an optimist to the core of my heart, and I believe, that gradually, with all our efforts and proper guidance, everything is feasible.

Nevertheless, every stakeholder should be represented in the policymaking.

Jitendra Shah, Indictrans, Mumbai

‘We need to start facilitating learning opportunties’ ICTs can be used to write a different story of education or it can be used to pour old wine in a new bottle.

We have to accept that computers are best at allowing children to learn. This is not yet another ‘pedagogy’ which is about ‘teaching’ but it leads to ‘better delivery’ of the same stuff

I would like to highlight that there is a lot of open source content available online, some of which are given: 1. www.curriki.org for content which is world class and all free 2. ‘Internet scout report’ for links to all the best educational content on the net, run for years by Wisconsin University, http://scout.wisc.edu/ 3. www.ofset.org : organisation for free software for education and training 4. links on education on www.indictrans.in 5. edubuntu : education version of ubuntu http://www. edubuntu.org/ 6. Digital study hall : dsh.cs.washington.edu : videos in Indian languages for school education 7. geogebra.org : algebra and geometry integrated 8. netlogo : http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo : a modeling and simulation environment for (massively parallel) agent based modeling for A to Z subject domains

A lot of this material can be the starting point for generating our own versions in Indian languages. We have the right to do so as licenses for the above are such. What the vendors usually give is locked up content, which cannot be modified.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

There is one condition though; we have to accept that computers are best at allowing children to learn. This is not yet another ‘pedagogy’ which is

about ‘teaching’ but it leads to ‘better delivery’ of the same stuff. We need to veer around to the idea that, until our system successfully kills it, every child is constructor of his/her own knowledge and his/her own ‘epistemologies’.

Also, we need to ensure that the teacher does not feel ashamed of not knowing how to handle the computer or for not having ‘all’ the information. What we need to develop is the culture of teacher ‘stop teaching’ and start facilitating ‘learning opportunities’. Motivating, connecting the children should be her task. So long as we look for quality in other places than the mind of the child we are likely to gain nothing.

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Sanjeev Kumar Rai, UNICEF, Bhopal

‘Access to information should be seen as first step to empowerment!’

Use of ICTs in Education is a natural need of the time and every school should get this opportunity. Normally we find a usual gap in policies and programmes of this kind and a casual approach for ‘additional’ things in the school.

Therefore, it should be part of the curriculum and evaluation system. (I am saying this based on my experience of a small research on school TV during 1999 and equipping Block and Cluster Resource Centres (BRC/CRCs) with computers).

other facilities like: infrastructure, electricity supply and back up support, a resident engineer for onsite support, regular capacity building of the users and trainers and freedom to experiment, etc.

Technology would certainly accelerate the pace of learning in schools but Technology in Education demands a bunch of

Access to information should be seen as first step to empowerment process!

Some experience sharing workshops with team of Head Start of Madhya Pradesh, School TV of Delhi, Gyan Darshan of IGNOU etc. would be helpful to make the programme more effective.

Ranjit Nambiar, National Instruments India, Bangalore

‘Change requires challenging what has always been done and accepted’ The new millennium may mark an important stage for policyand Science claim their place as indicators because makers in India. It encourages us to turn our attention to the they provide essential knowledge tools and provide the challenges, that the future presents. For policymakers, the foundations for lifelong learning skills. Less easily measurable challenge will be to stay in touch with, and ahead of, national competencies in Civics, foreign languages and ICT will be and transnational movements, which will change the face of no less significant in the future. Least developed are learning India and impact the national systems of education. Following to learn skills but, arguably, they may be the most critical are the five key challenges for the future in my view: and enduring of competencies in the society of the third 1. knowledge challenge millennium.

2. challenge of decentralisation 3. resource challenge Continuing professional development 4. challenge of social inclusion 5. challenge of data and comparability requires rethinking, reappraisal,

re-evaluation of accepted practices; challenging what has always been done and accepted. It may unsettle teachers and puzzle parents who have cast schools in the mould of what they know

These challenges bring us back to the essential purposes of school education, in relation to work, social life and lifelong learning. The information explosion demands fundamental rethinking of traditional conceptions of knowledge, its ‘transmission’, ‘delivery’ by teachers and ‘acquisition’ by students. It raises questions about the assessment and testing of knowledge and the more demanding resources of skills, attitudes and motivation to learn.

It questions curriculum content and the prioritisation and compartmentalisation of ‘subjects’. Reading, Mathematics 48

All of these areas of knowledge and skills present major challenges for the teaching profession and to the content of teaching in initial and in-service training. Indicators in these areas do not provide the answer but do raise critical questions about how and where teachers should be trained in the future and how continuing professional development can be ensured.

Change requires rethinking, reappraisal, re-evaluation of accepted practices, challenging what has always been done and accepted. Change often requires both restructuring and re-culturing of organisations. It imposes new demands on hierarchies, status and relationships. It may unsettle teachers and puzzle parents who have cast schools in the mould of what they know.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

A Prabaharan, Public Action, New Delhi

‘Speed, innovation, follow-up and targetting the needs should be the hallmark’ The use of ICT in education is a vital process in today’s world.

It is very fast moving with changes coming in every minute.

To produce better results with e-Content we need to keep our eyes and ears on ground constantly. What is important today is not relevant tomorrow. In this amazing changing world of cyber innovations the challenges to deliver e-Content are many.

Since 1998, I have been involved with a multinational higher education project. This is known as M.A Global Studies programme (www.gsp.uni-freiburg.de) offered by Albert

Current world order is all about fascination. One has to work to cater to the tastes of e-Content recipients

2.

3.

4.

The delivery should be followed up with phone call or letter. The popular expectation of e-Communication is not working to the level of estimation by scholars Allow the students, especially in government schools and rural schools, to play with the computer internet.

Hole in the wall project of NIIT (www.hole-in-the-Wall). com/ clearly demonstrates that even illiterate students can become experts in cyber surfing through carefree playing on the Net To put it in our words, speed, innovation, followup and targetting the needy should be the hallmark of your efforts.

Ludwig University of Freiburg , Germany with University of Natal, South Africa and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. It was one of the first programmes to offer P.G degree with startup through Internet. The foundation for this degree was laid through Net chat.

From my experiences of the past 10 years in this programme, I can suggest the following: 1. Current world order is all about fascination. One has to work to cater to the tastes of e-Content recipients

Jitendra Prasad, C-DAC, Hyderabad

‘Computer manual in regional languages for kiosk/CSC operators’ We at India Development Gateway: (www.indg.in) are developing a Computer Manual in Hindi & English (later in Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali and other Indian languages) for kiosk operators/CSC operators.

The CD- EKLAVYA, mentioned by Anindyaji seems like a great programme and we would like to explore the possibility of collaboration for content development for rural children in regional languages Please visit our portal: www.indg.in to understand the objective of the project.

Nagarjuna G, Free Software Foundation of India/HBCSE, TIFR, Mumbai

‘Adoption of free software in schools’ Regarding the policy that India should adopt for ICT in School Education, please refer to a paper by Nagarjuna G; Mumbai; 27 April 2008 Available at: http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/ictd/ediscuss/ediscuss02/res15040802.html Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

The paper develops reasons for adoption of free software exclusively for school science education. It provides a list of policy guidelines and recommendations for the use of free software in Schools.

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M V Ananthakrishnan, Developmental Infomatics Lab, KReSIT, IIT Bombay, Mumbai

‘Logical integration of technology with classroom teaching needed’ There are many challenges in procurement of quality digital content (computer-aided, TV, Radio etc) for schools, namely, textbook page turners; no localisation of content; animation/ simulation of trivial concepts; local terminologies/words which are confusing; no linkages to programmes on Radio/ TV; no integration of technology with classroom teaching.

We have created a multi-modal repository www.eshikshak.dil.iitb. ac.in which includes: references to off-the-shelf CDs, with sections of the Maharashtra State Board books (Classes V-VII); links to freely available resources on the net and websites of related courseware…in science and social studies.

There is a need for close co-ordination between teachers, students, administrators and parents in making this possible.

Teachers need to be assured that their involvement is essential to the integration of technology with teaching. Their jobs will not only be secure There are many but more enriching and challenging! challenges in procurement of quality Logical integration digital content for schools: textbook page of technology with classroom teaching turners; simulation of trivial concepts, (as detailed in (1) confusing local terminologies, no Radio/ above) is needed.

TV programme links, no integration of technology with classroom teaching

The IIT Bombay experiences are available for sharing.

Anshuman Das, Development Research Communication & Services Centre, Kolkata

‘Public Private Partnership can deliver new age learning to people’ Educomp (http://www.educomp.com) has some wonderful ideas, lesson plans, materials and other useful resources on ICT in education. Educomp today works with over 7000 schools across India, US and Singapore and has a track record of implementing large scale Public-Private-Partnership projects. The Company works very closely with various state and central government agencies, Ministries of IT and

HRD, and governments of other countries. The company also works closely with schools to implement innovative models to create and deliver content to enhance student learning.

Educomp’s long undiluted focus on the K12, curriculum design and teacher education space in developing applications and products has revolutionised leverage of information technology and Internet to deliver new age learning to people.

Rujuta Deshmukh, Independent Consultant, New Delhi

‘ICT curriculum to play role on prevention of child sex abuse’ I suggest that school education should have prevention of child sex abuse as part of the curriculum. ICT based content and delivery methods would work very effectively on this issue. Qualitative awareness programmes for children based on the issue can be developed, and can be run effectively in schools.The awareness programme could be in a story or drama form, which will convey the issue and make children aware of their rights.

The background to this suggestion is emerging findings about rampant sex-abuse of children in India. According to Dr Lois J Engelbrecht, a researcher working on the problems of child sexual abuse, nearly half of child population in India suffers from child sexual abuse, which has very negative impact on their substantial development. Lack of knowledge 50

about the issue among children and parents make them prone to abuse and deprive them of complete potential growth which is very much essential for sustainable development of the nation.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Size:21.5 x 28 cm

digitalLEARNING

India's Largest ICT Event

29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Its How We Deliver The High Definition ICT And Education Experience

Dr. K Kasturirangan, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)

D. Purandeswari Minister of State for Higher Education, MHRD, Goernment of India

Arun Kumar Secretary, Bureau of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of HRD Govt. of India

Alain Madelin President, Global Digital Solidarity Fund

Prof. Mohammad Akhtar Siddiqui Chairperson, National Council of Teacher Education

Subhash C Khuntia Jt. Secretary, Dept. of School Education and Literacy, MHRD, Govt. of India

KEY SPEAKERS

G Narendra Kumar, Secretary, Department of Training & Techncal Education & Higher Education, Government of NCT of Delhi

Terry Culver Executive Director Global Nomads Group

Deepak Pental, Vice Chancellor, Delhi University M C Pant, Chairman, National Institute of Open Schooling

Ashish Garg, Country Programme Director- India, GeSCI S Regunathan Advisor, National Knowledge Commission

N Ravi Shankar, Joint Secretary, E-Learning Group, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Department of Information Technology

Dr R Sreedher, Director, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) Dr Madhav Chauhan Founder, Pratham

Dr V S Ramamurthy, Chairman, Board of Governers, IIT Delhi

REGISTER NOW www.eINDIA.net.in/digitalLEARNING

Vasudha Kamat Jt. Director, NCET,National Council of Educational Research and Training

Dr Rajashekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Open University

Randeep Kaur, Learning Advisor, Plan International-India

ent m pe o l a e Dev agend

Ekal Vidyalaya

‘One Teacher, One School, One Village’

www.ekalindia.org

Although the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of India (EVFI) was registered as charitable trust in 1999, the concept has been in practice for over a decade. Inspired by the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda, a group of young educationists began work among the primitive tribes in Jharkhand in 1986. They refined the concept of the ‘one-teacher-one school’ amongst the tribes of Gumla (125 km away from Ranchi, Jharkhand), Two years later, similar schools were set-up in 60 villages near Dhanbad.

By 1995-1996, there were 1200 schools being run in Jharkhand.

Jharkhand’s experiment with this non-formal education concept was extraordinary. Overall literacy rates, including youth literacy, in Jharkand doubled. Furthermore, during the same time, health workers noticed a sharp decline in diseases caused by non-hygienic practices, witchcraft, and alcoholism.

Inspired by the success of the Jharkand experiment, organisations from all over the country have joined the Ekal Vidyalaya movement in the last decade. The EVFI now serves as the umbrella organisation for various ngos that run the one-teacher schools in their respective areas.

Ajay Singh, Secretary General of EVFI, speaks to Digital Learning on the novel concept of Ekal Vidyalaya and challenges strewn in the path of educating tribal and rural India.

Please describe the concept of Ekal Vidyalaya.

Ekal Vidyalaya was started in 1986 in tribal areas of what is now known as Jharkhand by a group of educationists, in the backdrop of high illiteracy in the country and a huge demand for capital and infrastructure to address the need for education.

As an answer to these twin-challenges, the group came up with world’s lowest cost model school system, based on the concept of ‘One teacher, One school, One village’. The Ekal Vidyalaya movement seeks the participation of village folk in all its processes - creation of the school, selection of teacher, and adaptation of the curriculum and schedule. It also recruits local people to coordinate training and other projectrelated issues at the levels of subcluster Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

(10 school unit), cluster (30 school unit), subarea (90 school unit) and area (270 school unit). The involvement of local people at every level is based on a commitment to education and an eagerness to help advance their own community.

This non-formal school concept also goes beyond the traditional image of a school and tackles structural limitations.

The main element in a school is learning and teaching and not a building and its infrastructure. Its important to have adequate infrastructural support, but the lack of it doesn’t have to impose constraints on the learning element.

In the last decade, Ekal Vidyalaya concept has grown from 1200 schools in Jharkhand to a nation-wide movement of over 24,006 teachers, approximately 5,000 voluntary workers, 20 field

organisations (scattered in 20 states), and eight support agencies.

How does the Ekal Vidyalaya system address the needs of a village population?

The village plays a significant role in the Ekal Vidyalaya process. A survey of the village is first undertaken to gauge its interest and subsequently a committee is formed in the village to oversee the school. The committee nominates two potential teachers and also helps the Ekal Vidyalaya team with other logistics. It is also responsible for addressing any issues that may arise during the school year.

The Ekal system has an element of flexibility unlike a traditional school. For villagers, the first priority is livelihood.

So a farmer’s son, who has to graze the 53

cattle, should be allowed to do so and then attend classes. Similarly if there is a festival or a wedding celebration in the village, people attend that and then come for the classes. This goes a long way in preventing conflict between education and work and introduces an element of balance.

We also impart professional training in agriculture, vermiculture, etc. Our focus area is on basic education, health education, economic development education, and empowerment education that includes empowering rural people to take care of themselves and their district and make them aware of their rights.

What criteria is followed while recruiting teachers?

For being eligible for the post of teacher, the person should have atleast studied till class 10 and belong to the same village or the neighbouring one.

This is to ensure that overhead costs are minimised. When we start forming Ekal schools, we conduct a survey of at least 10 villages and form a group of ten teachers. These teachers are then given training for a week on various issues on education and schooling. We train them about the curriculum they have to teach and the methodology to be followed. The curriculum is also assessed regularly.

What are the salient features of the syllabus?

The syllabus comprises three Rs, that is reading, writing and arithmetic.

Moreover, the importance of local languages is stressed upon. We also include topics like environment awareness, our civic duties, country’s ethos, etc. We also give a lot of stress to the local content.

54

What is the government’s role in this venture?

We don’t take any assistance from the government as the process is time consuming. Most of our funding comes from industrialists and individuals. We have a chapter in the United States with 2,500 donors. In Hong Kong, we have about 1,000 donors.

Are there any standards being adhered to in terms of certification, assessment, courses, etc?

Our education is informal and students are taught till class 3. There are no standards that apply at this basic level of education. Our aim is to prepare these children for regular school. This is like a period of transition which allows the students to familiarise themselves with the process of schooling and then join regular schools like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

At times, regular schools are far off from villages, and children are too young to travel alone. By the time they are capable of travelling on their own, they have missed out on many years of initial learning.

Therefore our concept of one school, one village, one teacher solves that problem and prepares the children for regular schooling.

How does EVFI ensure accountability?

Our website is extremely comprehensive and explanatory.

The exact location of Ekal schools all over the country are given in a map on the website. Other information like number of students, teachers, etc are also available on the website. So our donor in the US just needs to log in for whatever information is required.

This system helps ensure accountability as all the information is available on the website.

Another special feature of our organisation is that we use only about 5-6% of our funding in administrative expenses. Thus more than 90% of our funding goes into the actual cause

of imparting education. Our senior level officials don’t depend on the organisation, even for their official expenditure. Moreover, in our organisation, we practice what we preach. You will see our officials out on the field before asking others to do so.

Have you been approached for sharing of knowledge and experience?

The government-led National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) had approached us for imparting training to women on good healthcare practices and awareness. So we developed a women -centric programme called ‘Asha’ for the NRHM. EVFI believes education is important, but should be accompanied by health and sanitation.

We want to educate the people on preventive care and protect themselves from diseases.

What are the future plans of EVFI? We plan to open schools in 20 states that will stress on vocational studies as well as have formal education from classes 5 to 8. The certification will be given by the National Institute of Open Schooling. Those who pursue further studies will get a certification of class 10 and 12 and will also receive IT training.

There is a need to promote opportunities at the local level so that people living in villages and small towns get jobs locally and do not have to go migrate.

Moreover, the conflict that urbanisation brings will also be reduced in this manner.

Where does ICT figure in EVFI’s scheme of things?

ICT is very much on our agenda and we plan to incorporate it in a gradual manner. We have talked to the Universal Village which connects villages via a mobile bus equipped with a laptop that is connected to other laptops. So basically data is collected en route and archived. This also keeps us in the know-how regarding the status of the schools. We have also devised a hand-held device that can be used for surveying health facilities. But the problem is that many villages do not have sufficient infrastructure to support these service.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

News Asia Singapore to turn high schools into IT labs

Singapore government is bent on turning the country’s public high schools into training laboratories to address the growing demand for skilled workers in the communications technology industry.

Under the Commission on Information and Communications Technology’s ‘Internet for Public High Schools’ Project or iSchool Project’, the government will allot P1 million this year for every public high school selected to pilot the project. The project is aimed to bridge the digital divide and also make the students in the country globally competitive.

It would also impart training to teachers to upgrade their digital knowledge.

Under the project, the CICT aims to cover at least 2,000 of the country’s more than 5,000 public high schools in the next few years.

NIIT in for expansion in Malaysia NIIT, a global information technology service corporation, plans to expand its education and training centres in Malaysia to 50 within the next three years.

Chief Executive Officer Vijay Kumar Thadani said NIIT currently has centres in Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Prai, Seremban, Melaka, Johor Baharu, Teluk Intan, Penang, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. The target is to increase Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 7 July 2008

this to 50 over the next three years with support from the government.

The India-based corporation made its entry into Malaysia in 1997 and was among the first 20 global companies to be conferred the MSC Malaysia status.

NIIT is also looking at collaborating with educational institutions that offer degree programmes. Currently, NIIT has a partnership with Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Unitar) for the development of over 100 hours of instructional materials for its bachelor’s degree programme. It has also licensed its Vista multimedia engine for developing future learning content to Unitar.

Mr Thadani highlighted the need for skilled manpower in the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry and the important role that countries like Malaysia can play in meeting this need.

By 2020, there will be an estimated shortage of nearly 56 million IT professionals in the developed countries and countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and India can meet this need by focusing on developing relevant talent.

IT learning labs in Bangladesh schools Thousands of children in 10 cities of Bangladesh now have access to innovative technology solutions as part of 50x15 Initiative Learning Labs Programme carried out by NComputing, AMD and BRAC. Under the initiative desktop computers have been deployed in 10 schools around the country. Similar to previous 50×15 deployments, BRAC followed AMD’s learning lab methodology, which includes providing tools, techniques and training to maximise educational impact.

The programme is part of a collaboration between NComputing and AMD to empower people in developing countries with tools and skills to help them succeed in today’s modern world.The successes and lessons learned in these labs will be applied by the companies in future deployments.

‘The deployment of 50×15 Learning Labs throughout Bangladesh will help it become a bigger part of the information society. BRAC BDMail Network (BBN) Chairman Abdul-Muyeed Chowdhury said the company’s goal is to provide PCs to 1,000 libraries and 15,000 nonformal primary schools all over the country. The move is expected to bring Bangladesh one step closer to bridging the digital divide.

ADB loan for improving Bangladesh vocational education Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide a US$50 million loan to help improve Bangladesh’s technical skills training system and create better wage and employment prospects.

An agreement for the loan was signed at Economic Relations Division (ERD) in the capital, Dhaka by ERD Secretary Aminul Islam Bhuiyan and ADB Country Director Hua Du. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) would co-finance the country’s ‘skills development project’ of US$66.7 million with a grant of $6 million, which is now in the process of approval.

The ADB loan will have a maturity of 32 years, including a grace period of eight years, with 1% interest for the grace period and 1.5% after the grace period.

Under the project, experts in the readymade garments and textiles, light engineering, and construction industries the three main employment sectors in the country - will help create skills training programmes relevant to the industries.

The project also targets training to around 70,000 people over the five years to be completed by May 2013.

55

News world US$15 million WB credit for Basic Education Project in Burkina Faso The World Bank has approved an International Development Association additional credit of US$15 million for the Basic Education Sector project in the Republic of Burkina Faso.

The original Basic Education sector credit in the amount of US$32.6 million was approved in January 2002 and became effective in October 2002.

This additional financing will continue to support the Government’s ten-year Basic Education Sector Development Programme and build on the results achieved under the first phase, progressively expanding and improving the basic education sector.

By strengthening the sector’s management and monitoring, the programme will strengthen the foundation for a sustainable education sector. It will provide training, curriculum enhancement, and pedagogical materials that will contribute to greater learning outcomes.

RIT to set up campus at Dubai Silicon Oasis Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority has signed an exclusive agreement with Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) - US to establish a campus at the Dubai Silicon Oasis, the regions integrated innovations hub for hightech industries.

The RIT Dubai will start operations in August this year.

56

Dubai Silicon Oasis allocated around 3 million sqft of land for the development of a fully fledged Academic Complex comprising the university campus, an academic centre, dormitory, and recreational facilities for students and the faculty. The RIT will provide academic content, oversee the management of the university, and provide its internationally recognised and certified degrees.

RIT Dubai will initially cater to fulltime employees looking to pursue their master degree. Courses will be offered in various disciplines within the fields of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Networking Security and Systems Administration, Human Resource Development, Finance, Project Management, Computer Information Assurance, and Service Leadership and Innovation.

Furthermore, RIT Dubai is expected to offer undergraduate programs to fulltime students in a variety of fields similar to those being offered at the graduate level.

Over 2,000 students to receive Erasmus Mundus scholarship

More than 2,000 students and 450 teaching staff from outside the European Union (EU) have been selected to receive an Erasmus Mundus scholarship for the academic year 2008/09, the European Commission said.

These scholarships will allow them to study in Europe for one or two years and obtain a Master’s degree from one of the 103 top-quality Erasmus Mundus

Masters Courses offered by consortia of European higher education institutions.

This latest selection completes the first phase (2004-2008) of Erasmus Mundus, the EU’s programme with the aim of enhancing the quality of EU higher education through continuous worldwide dialogue and cooperation with third countries. In total, more than 6,000 students will have received an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to obtain a degree in Europe over the fiveyear period.

Over the same period (2004-2008), more than 1,000 teaching staff from third countries have been given an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to actively contribute to masters courses in teaching or research activities.

The second phase of Erasmus Mundus (2009-2013) is expected to start with a planned total budget of Euros 950 million. Its main new features are the inclusion of joint doctoral programmes, increased scholarships for EU students and an intensified structural cooperation with third-country higher education institutions.

GlobalScholar offers summer tutoring programme for K-12 kids When the new school year begins after the holidays, many students struggle to remember what they had learned the previous year and often fall behind in their studies.

The skills and knowledge a child gains throughout the school year don’t have to fade away during the summer.

GlobalScholar’s summer tutoring programme helps students struggling with Math and Science or who want to get a head start for next year. The programme includes one-on-one tutoring, personalised assessments and a customised curriculum. The Skill Builder course provides unlimited tutoring for 45 days and is available for students K-12.

The Stride Ahead course also provides 20 hours of tutoring for K-12 students.

Both summer programmes are taught by highly qualified tutors.

July 2008 | www.digitalLearninG.in

Mark Your Calendar july The 8th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies - ICALT 08 1 - 5 July 2008 Santander, Cantabria Spain http://www.ask4research.info/icalt/2008/

The 2nd African Council for Distance Education( ACDE) Conference and General Assembly 8 - 11 July 2008 Lagos, Lagos State Nigeria http://www.nou.edu.ng/noun/acde2008

International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education (ICICTE) 2008 10 - 12 July 2008 Corfu, Greece http://www.icicte.org/

The 5th Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning: Access to Learning for Development 13 - 17 July 2008 London United Kingdom http://www.col.org/pcf5 Paris International Conference on Education, Economy & Society 17 - 19 July 2008 Paris, France http://www.education-conferences.org

International Workshop on Social and Personal Computing for Web-Supported Learning Communities (SPeL 2008) 28 July - 1 August 2008 Turku, Finland

eIndia 2008, India’s Largest ICT Event 29 - 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, INDIA www.eIndia.net.in

august International Conference on Learning and Teaching 4 - 5 August 2008 Putrajaya, Malaysia http://web3.tarc.edu.my/v1/tic/index.htm

24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning 5 -8 August 2008 Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, United States http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference

International Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education OLDE’08 13-15 August 2008 Vienna, Austria http://wahss.org/

European eLearning Summit 19 - 21 August 2008 Nottingham, United Kingdom http://www.elearningsummit.eu/

Interactive Technologies 20 - 22 August 2008 Arlington, VA, United States http://www.salt.org/salt.asp?ss=l

2nd International Conference on Educational Economics 27 - 30 August 2008 Athens, Greece http://elearn.elke.uoa.gr/2ndICEE/

http://software.ucv.ro/~popescu_elvira/spel2008

september

iSummit 2008 29 July 2008 - 1 August 2008 Sapporo, Japan

e-Learning Asia 2008 10 - 11 September 2008 Seoul, Korea (South)

http://icommons.org/isummit/

http://www.kelia.org/user/eng/elearningasia2008.jsp

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 4 April 2008

Announcement UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education: Call for Nominations ‘Digital Opportunities for All: Preparing Students for 21st Century Skills’ is the theme of the 2008 UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education.

Funded by the Kingdom of Bahrain, the US$50,000 prize is given to two winners every year for activities that demonstrate best practice as well as creative use of ICTs to enhance learning, teaching and overall educational performance.

Submissions for candidature must reach UNESCO via the governments of Member States, in consultation with their UNESCO National Commissions, or by international non-governmental organisations which maintain formal relations with the Organisation.

Deadline for Submission The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2008. The prize money will be equally distributed to two winners at an award ceremony on January 14, 2009 at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

For furter information visit http://www.unescobkk.org/ index.php?id=6800&tx_ wecknowledgebase_pi1[tt_ news]=1083&tx_wecknowledgebase_p i1[backPid]=6771&cHash=4bb 94c74c3

Enlist Your Event Here. Write to info@digitalLEARNING.in

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ICT The Future is Now

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Education Development Index

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Digital Children: Implications for Education PAGE 35

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digital Learning invites authors We invite editorial contributions from our readers in the field of Digital Learning. While no guarantee is made or implied, we will make every effort to incorporate all views and experiences in the relevant issues so as to better serve the ICT and Education community at large. Note that contributions may be edited for space and/or clarity. Unconsolidated manuscripts and artwork will not be returned.

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The monthly publication on ICT and Education

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Teacher, ICT, and Insights PAGE 11

Special issue in association with IGNOU

Interview: Prof. O R Reddy, Vice-Chancellor, B R Ambedkar Open University PAGE 21

Indira Gandhi National Open University

Leader’s Speak Anoop Gupta, Corporate VP, Microsoft Unlimited Potential Group PAGE 33 India Formulating a National Policy on ICT in School Education

May 2007 | www.digitalLearning.in

Your Say, Your Stake Policy Matters - PAGE 46

Collaborative Technologies for Enhanced Teaching with UKIERI pagE 52

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