Ushering knowledge revolution: Focus on Asia - March 2006 Issue

The monthly publication on ICT and Education for Asia and Middle East

Volume II Issue 3 March 2006

Ushering KNOWLEDGE revolution: Focus on Asia

www.digitalLEARNING.in

NSTDA Online Learning Project (NOLP) Providing e-Learning solutions to the learning community PAGE 10

Three generations of school-based telecentres A look inside the RI-SOL Bangladesh Project PAGE 17

SPECIAL PULLOUT INSIDE

Ministry of Education Thailand

Thai schools principals become facilitators for e-Learning

Asia e-Learning Network, Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, British Council Thailand, Centre for Good Governance, Commission on Higher Education, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, National Electronics and Computer Technology Center, NSTDA Online Learning Project, The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation, SEAMEO RIHED, The Singapore infocomm Technology Federation, Software Industry Promotion Association, Software Park Thailand, Telecentre.org, The University of Washington Centre for Internet Studies, National University of Singapore, Rangsit University, The University of Malaya Faculty of Economics and Administration, University Teknologi MARA, Danish Technological Institute, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, GIS Development, Ministry of ICT and Ministry of Education of Royal Thai Government

are all partnering for the digitalLEARNING Asia 2006 conference

Are you joining in?

Asia 2006 April 26 - 28, 2006 Rama Gardens Hotel and Resort Bangkok, Thailand

www.digitalLEARNING.in

Contents

Verbatim

Volume II Issue 3, March 2006

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

Albert Einstein “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”

G. K. Chesterton

Ministry of Education, Government of Thailand

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

Benjamin Franklin “Education is the transmission of civilization. Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned again by each new generation.”

David Kearns, former chair Xerox Corporation

Cover story

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Thai schools principals become facilitators for eLearning

Statescan

21

Pilot schools utilise ICT for learning development Dr Rangsun Wiboonuppatum Ministry of Education

A click on progress Learning goes Kerala model K M Ramanandhan talks to Sanjeev Kr. Shrivastav

14 Life-long

learning for rural Thailand John Hawker and Kevin Elder Sat-ED

generations of 17 Three school-based telecentres A look inside the RI-SOL Bangladesh Project Nazrul Islam and Jack Welch RI-SOL

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

and expo, 8-10, February, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi India

23 40

Online Learning 10 NSTDA Project (NOLP)

Room for Life

Asia 2006 39 Linux Asia’s open source conference

Regulars

Focus on Asia

Providing e-Learning solutions to the learning community Surasit Vannakrairojn, NOLP

Conference report

Perspective

29

Challenges of modernising Indian educational system An open source renaissance for Indian education Venkatesh Hariharan

32

News Bookshelf

41

On the web

42

Mark your calendar

http://TakingITGlobal.org/

Upfront

36

Professor Vijay Kumar

e-Strategies and kStrategies for e-ducation Did we miss knowledge?

Karim Mammadov

3

digital Learning invites authors a Nowt h l y mon

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.

Please be sure to read and follow the Editorial Guidelines above.

Note that contributions may be edited for space and/or clarity.

Unsolicited manuscripts and artwork will not be returned.

Editorial guidelines Digital Learning contains articles and features on the theme of “ICT and Education” and related issues.

Authors are requested to follow the following guidelines while sending their articles to Digital Learning. a. Articles should not exceed 2,000 words. For book/ website/ conference reviews, the word limit is 1000. Longer articles will be considered only in exceptional cases. b. Articles/ reviews can be sent through email as an attachment or through post, typed in Times New Roman, 10 point. c. Relevant figures/ tables/ photographs should be sent. Hard copies of submitted photographs should be of high quality in a recommended size of 5 inches by 7 inches. Soft copies of imagery should be scanned at 300dpi at a minimum width of 4 inches. d. Passport size photographs and brief biodata of the author(s) must be enclosed with the article. e. For bookshelf contributions, please mention the title, name of the author/s, publisher/s, year of publication, price, number of pages and a high quality photograph of the cover. Books on Digital Learning related themes published from the year 2000 onwards are preferable. f. We are keen to cover conference/ workshop/ seminar reviews. Please mention the theme, venue, date, and name of the organiser, if you are reporting about an event. Please send photographs of the conference/ workshop/ seminar. The conference held in the past two months of the forthcoming issue will be preferred. g. The Editor reserves the right to reject, edit and adjust articles in order to conform to the magazine’s format.

All correspondence should be addressed to: The Editor, Digital Learning G-4, Sector-39, Noida, India Tel +91-120-2502180 to 87 Fax +91-120-2500060 Email info@digitalLEARNING.in

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March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

digital LEARNING Volume II, issue 3 March 2006

Editorial Ushering knowledge revolution: Focus on Asia

President M P Narayanan Editor Ravi Gupta Editorial Consultant Jayalakshmi Chittoor Sr. Assistant Editor Rumi Mallick Sr. Research Associate Manjushree Reddy Designed by Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Editorial and marketing correspondence Digital Learning G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Phone +91 120 2502181-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email info@digitalLEARNING.in Group directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India Digital Learning does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors.

Digital Learning is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

Asia is facing a booming economy. With rapid growth rates, thrust on improving infrastructure, rapid strides in the field of telecommunications, be it wired phones or mobile telephony and information and communications technologies, Asia is positioned to usher in a knowledge revolution. The ambience is absolutely ripe to bring in not only appropriate technologies but also the private sector players and solution providers at level playing field to contribute to this positive growth phase.

Digital Learning plans to review the progress made, and will focus on Asia in the coming two months. While reviewing how the governments have envisioned policies and programmes, the attempt is to bring to the readers a first hand coverage of the different ecosystem players.

In Thailand, for example, we found that the thrust has been to develop systems that will apply across the country and follow rigorous online learning standards, conforming to internationally accepted practices. This dream can be realised by emphasizing shifts in the learning- paradigms, as well as by creating appropriate technological environment.

Whether using television for learning, or building a sophisticated content and learning management system, the Ministry of Education, Government of Thailand, has been pioneering innovations and collaborating with multi-stakeholder partners to realise their vision. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of ICT are working hand-in-hand to provide the appropriate policy environment, and promoting the establishment of the standards. The tools and technologies have been identified, and as a forward-looking developing country, Thailand is looking for innovative options. Exciting experiments are on. We are planning to cover a series of focussed articles in the coming issues of Digital Learning from Thailand in particular, and Asia in general, beginning with the March issue.

An Asian perspective of e-Learning can be built by reviewing these efforts by the ecosystem players closely and bringing in a partnership of the many stakeholders.

In order to obtain a better understanding and showcasing the ongoing efforts in the Asian emerging e-Learning scenario, Digital Learning will be organising the Conference on Digital Learning Asia from April 26-28, 2006. Thailand’s Ministry of Education is supporting organisation for this event. The Ministry of ICT is hosting the conference. With their leadership, as well as an eminent panel of Advisors, this conference is emerging as a key platform for sharing and showcasing. The special pull out in this edition of the Digital Learning magazine profiles these events.

Digital Learning is published in technical collaboration with GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net)

We look forward to many of the readers of Digital Learning marking their calendars and making this their destination for this event.

Š Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies 2005

Ravi Gupta Editor Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

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Thai schools principals become facilitators for e-Learning

Pilot schools utilise ICT for learning development Dr Rangsun Wiboonuppatum [RANGSUN@EMISC.MOE.GO.TH], Ministry of Education, Thailand

How can one lead a whole school to positive changes when ICT utilization is a major challenge at both classroom and individual levels? When ICT has brought changes to learning and teaching experiences, each school is the battle field for those changes. In an effort to examine and demonstrate how schools could adjust to change, The Ministry of education, Thailand launched a pilot project in schools that proved that principals of schools essentially become more important in bringing changes to their schools. The emerged “LEARN” Model encompasses learning, evaluating & monitoring, assisting, rewarding, and nurturing functions. Despite the promising roles and responsibilities to challenge changes, neither is the model a panacea for any similar program nor an absolute solution for any school in the kingdom.

Dr.Rangsun Wiboonuppatum of the Bureau of ICT of the office of the permanent secretary, the royal Thai Ministry of Education, discusses the Ministry’s initiative and explains the LEARN Model.

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March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

G

lobalization is an interconnected and changed phenomenon in political, cultural, social, and economical spheres. Together with changes in those spheres, information and communication technology is emerged (Mittman, 2001). Although the emerging is not new, it affects social members greatly. In addition, the emergence of information and communication technology (ICT) use in education has already challenged many countries to increase accessibility in both quality and quantity to their citizens. Given the globalization together with rapid change in technology, ICT is coming to be at the core of preparing students for successful participation in the knowledge economy and learning society (Kozma, 2001). To prepare students for the future, a society need to consider curriculum, instruction, technology, and management.

Moreover, professional development is an important strategy focusing on how to equip teachers and principals with proper skills and attitude on ICT in education.

During the past three decades, there has been considerable progress in integrating ICT into classroom.

Computers have evolved from complex machines. This required sophisticated skills to operate them to simple tools that even young children can operate at ease. Over this same period, access to ICT has become more widespread. As educational software becomes available, and teachers and students have gained confidence and skills in using the technologies, ICT has moved from the computer lab to the classroom, and is now appearing in more and more homes (UNESCO, 2004).

In order to improve educational administration and management in educational institutions, the Thai government has initiated an innovative framework in a project called, “Mini-Ministry of Education.”

Inside the framework, the “Educational Innovation Committee” Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

was established to supervise the project which will be implemented during the fiscal years 2003-2006 (MOE, 2004). The project, in which students will be regarded as individuals with different capabilities and aptitudes, included five types of model schools in the school year 2003 as follows: the state-supervised schools, bilingual schools, schools for gifted students, Buddhismoriented schools, and ICT Model Schools.

This report will focus on ICT Model schools which are schools that apply ICT in developing the body of knowledge as well as integrating ICT into the teaching and learning process and the learners’ development activities. Originally, there were 12 schools and five universities participating in the project. The participating schools have been supervised by one of the following universities: Chulalongkorn University, Kasertsart University, Silapakorn University (Sanamchandra Palace Campus), King Mongkut’s University Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), and King Mongkut’s Insitute of Technology North Bangkok (KMITNB). Two years later, two schools and two universities; Thamasart University and Meafahluang University, joined the project after the establishment of the Bureau of Educational Innovation

How has the project been implemented?

The ICT Model School project aims to explore alternative approaches on how to integrate ICT into school and classroom activities. It was to improve teachers’ professional development by asking collaboration from university professors (Wiboonuppatum, 2003). The university professors mainly help school staffs in empowering school teachers and principals to gain knowledge and skills in ICI application and integration in their instruction as well as school management. The project has five

major strategies: school and university collaboration, stakeholder participation, professional development, lesson-learned exchange, and collaborative learning among participating schools.

First of all, the project brings university professors and schools teachers including administrators together to promote more effective use of information and communication technology (ICT). The principle also lies on asking more stakeholder participation. It is important for schools to take initiatives in ICT utilization. However, due to the limited funding, schools shall seek any financial support from various stakeholders (parent and community members). During the project implementing, all participating schools regularly meets at each school to take turn hosting the meeting event. The meeting purpose was also to visit and share idea and to exchange lessonlearned from each school to its peers.

Within the collaborative framework, the professor universities also supported professional development to school teachers and administrators.

The professional development mostly aims to enhance school teachers and administrators’ understanding on ICT utilization. Having ICT as hardware and software in schools does not guarantee the school staffs could integrate ICT for student’s improvement. Therefore, there were number of professional development series initiated by each participating university including Intel teach to the future, IT youth camp, Animation camp, Thik.com workshops, etc to ensure the students can benefit from the program. Moreover, the participating schools are built in the supporting network which school staffs share their expertise among themselves and also encourage each other during the project implementing period.

The project has been initiated by the office of permanent secretary (the bureau of information and communication technology) during 2003 and was adopted by the office of 7

basic education commission (the bureau of educational innovation) the following year. It was an interesting pilot project because each university takes its initiative in introducing ICT pedagogy integrated approached in a very limited resource. It was not a full funding project because the MOE needs also to see how the school will cope up with budget constraints and how university could help their partner schools to work in challenge situation both budget aspect and emerging of ICT in education context.

What are questions and data collection methods?

This is a report paper on a pilot project from the Ministry of Education. Although the project primarily aims on collaborative efforts among schools and universities, the report aims to answer one major question: what are school principals’ roles and responsibilities in the project that we can learn from the practical perspectives of school principals. In addition, the report should be able to shed light on how we as educators can prepare ourselves to the digital age in emerging new environment in schools. Moreover, there are few more questions: such as “How can one lead a whole school to positive changes when ICI utilization is a major challenge at both classroom and individual levels?”, “What recommendations from those administrators on deploying ICT integrated approaches in their school improvement plans and school development?” etc.

I spent a number of hours talking to participating school principals about their vision and strategies including their participation in launching the project. This is an in-depth attempt to shed light on various related aspects.

The method has to rely on the understandings, opinions, and perspective of various stakeholders (Wiboonppatum, 2002). In addition to those long hours meeting were conducted, I also conducted a focus 8

group on how the principals would continue ICT utilization in their school contexts. Ten principals and four school ICT coordinators participated in the focus group.

Moreover, ten school ICT coordinators participated in semistructure interviewed to reflect on how their schools’ principal support and manage ICT in school movement in their context. I gather all information and use content analysis technique by sorting out pieces of information in different themes. I then check the divergence and convergence of each theme under a major question posed in this section.

Although this is a report, the data collection method has to be flexible enough to allow the process to adequately comprehend principal perspectives, to encourage informants to express their opinions effectively, and have sensitivity to and curiosity about what is perceived by various participants (Vidich & Lyman, 1998).

What are school principals’ roles and responsibilities?

The project has launched since 2002 with agreement among volunteering schools and universities. It was interesting that the principals must voluntarily agree to participate in the project. This approach also goes in the university side. Therefore, a crucial aspect of the project started from the participating schools and universities agreement on how to work in concert to make use of ICT in each school context. The principals were challenged by their own efforts.

University professors were also challenged by their know how to integrate, help and foster ICT utilization in their responsible schools. The project has been consecutively conducted for three years. The major challenge is still on leaders. Some schools have done a wonderful implementation of ICT utilization in their school environment with assistance of university professors. It was also in concert with teachers’ and community involvement. Some schools have

gradually improved because there were changed in the principal positions. Despite of different change shown at each school, principals’ roles and responsibilities can be described as the following figure.

Figure 1: ICT Model Schools’ Principal Roles & Responsibilities Model This “LEARN” model represents how principals in the ICT model school project coping with the challenge happened in their school after their decision making on participating the project. The “LEARN” model is consisted of learning, evaluating & monitoring, assisting, rewarding, and nurturing function.

Learning Function First and foremost function is “learning”. By participating in the project, the school principals are asked by their university professors to put their efforts in studying some basic ICT knowledge. The principals could at least retrieve information prepared by their teachers. This is not only the matter of ICT knowledge gained, but it is also the matter of setting good examples for his or her teachers. In addition, there was the knowledge transferring from one who knows about ICT skills to learners across the different groups. More interaction and gaining respect among one to another naturally occurred.

Therefore, the principals must act as “a learner” in order to understand and March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

appreciate the ICT utilization in their schools. As a learner, they also to learn how ICT can be utilized in their schools setting. It was about broaden perspectives on their ICT skills and uses.

communication technology, or professional development. However, they have been guided by their university professors.

Evaluating and Monitoring Function

Due to the project is dealing with ICT utilization, some principal cannot help to think in terms of technology oriented approached. Therefore, some school principals have put their faith on their assistants. These assistants could be the assistants in line with the school structures or ICT school coordinator who the principal could rely on. In this manner, those principals must be very helpful in assisting their school staffs. It has clearly demonstrated that executive support is one of the best ways to drive awareness and usage (Bersin, 2004). What kind of assistance does a principal provide to their staffs?

Based on the observation, there are many forms of assistance. A principal could help their staffs in encouraging other teachers to apply ICT in classrooms because it has to be a whole school approach rather a single effort. A principal could look for ways to help their teachers to integrate ICT in classroom activities. The principal make an explicit attempt in recognizing an ICT school coordinator as a resource person in the school. It was not only about assisting implementing the project, but also about giving a hand in various task required in other related activities. The principals sometime must release the staffs in other school activities to allow them effectively interact and involve in many forms of training occurring during the initial stage of the project.

In working in the pilot project, the schools have put more and more budget in their initiative. Although the Ministry of Education has provided some budget for running project, it was not enough. The intension from the Ministry was a kind of seed money. Therefore, each participating schools started their raising fund activities; from community members, teachers and parent associations, contribution from private sectors, etc. The role of principals must be extended beyond learning functionality. They must also become evaluators as to gain more understanding in the project and the use of ICT in their school context. The principals start collecting and analyzing relevant incidents on ICT utilization in school. The principals must be able to answer whether their investment in ICT in various forms creates an impact on students’ improvement or whether their ICT in school approach is really needed.

This is because each school has been operated on budget constraint phenomena. Therefore, different schools in this pilot project allocated their very limited budget according to the necessary condition. Some schools spend on computers,

Assisting Function

Rewarding Function From the project participation, it was clearly noticed that teachers in participating schools must be highly dedicate. They used their weekend for training (with support from their university professors). The teachers also Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

spend sometime after school hours in capacity building. This resulted in having less time for themselves (it was also true for principals). To encourage their fellow teachers to gain strength in working in long hours in schools and a long term project, each principal has different techniques in rewarding their teachers. The teachers are highly appreciated by their principals for the past years. Common form of rewarding was the moral support from the principals. Although there were some cases received special promotion, the effective form was about soft skills of the principals.

Working together with their teachers, and being present at each schools activities are regard as forms of rewards. Recognizing each teachers in public and extend their sincere appreciation are also effective.

Nurturing Function The last observed function which the principals possess is “Nurturing”. It could be both easiest and most difficult role and responsibility for principals. Due to the ICT utilization in school and classroom activities may not show its impact in a short period of time, the principals, therefore must nurture their staff efforts and curiosity in ICT utilization in their schools. The principals then must foster the dedicated group of staffs in a way not creating a conflict in schools. Some schools have demonstrated the principal supports for ICT school coordinators while the principal also invite other teachers to be members of the group.

This way was not only fostering and disseminating ICT utilization understanding among their teachers, but also to allow more people in schools to involve in the project.

Some principals allow their staffs to fully engage in the project and support their decision when the staff needed. With this nurturing process, it was not only adding the flexibility in project implementation, but empowering staff as well. ❏ 9

NSTDA Online Learning Project (NOLP)

Providing e-Learning solutions to the learning community •

•

Online Learning Project (NOLP) is a project initiated by the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) as part of the Thai government’s information technology and education policy to research, develop and promote the using of e-Learning in Thailand. NOLP provides educational service and online learning facilities in line with the learner’s interests and aptitudes as mentioned in the National Education Act of Thailand. The project aims to increase the channels of education conveniently and flexibly through comprehensive web-based programmes.

The focus NOLP primarily focuses on five main activities• Research and Development of eLearning Technology Platform (Both Server and Client Software) 10

•

•

to meet the basic requirement of Thai’s Education and human resource development. By using open system technology, NOLP e-Learning Platform conforms to International eLearning Standard especially ADL SCORM Standard.

Research and Development of e-Learning tools for content development. NOLP focuses on Web based content authoring and managing tool, that facilitates the sharing of resource for the content developer and Content expert to work together. The content developed by this tool must conform to SCORM Content Standard too.

Demonstrate and develop the high-quality e-Learning content using fully interactive multimedia.

By using ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation Model), the content is designed

and developed focus for the target learner.

Promote the understanding and use of e-Learning Standard for developer, users and decision makers to utilize such specification for their system Train developer to have the capability to develop the SCORM Content Standard

NOLP consists of a team of specialists who caters to institutes and corporate partner’s needs through a detailed analysis of their difficulties and problems. NOLP e-Learning Development System (NeDS) enables teams of subject-matter experts (SME) to collaborate with NOLP’s production team on large-scale courseware project over the Internet.

Using NOLP’s predefined templates and central content database, NeDS helps to eliminate many timeconsuming variables found in traditional e-course development methodologies and technologies.

NOLP Manager, which is a browserbased set of tools that allows organization to manage e-Learning activities and site functions for their e-Learning site. NOLP provides Courseware Hosting, Delicate eCampus Servers, Co-locations Services, Back up, Maintenance and Mirroring of e-Campus Server.

NOLP ‘s learning infrastructure provides facilities for student, teacher and content provider in the main areas

March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

of creativity application, information access, collaboration and content tools. All NOLP & infrastructure Ls based on learning standards such as AICC, SIP and LRN for interoperability.

Key initiatives Learning Management System (LMS) NOLP’s LMS initiative was a flagship initiative that enables student or customers to deploy and manage all aspects of their learning needs and to assess the skills and learning needs of their employees. NOLP has developed the NOLP-LMS version 2.1 that provides an easy and dynamic mechanism for instructor to deliver learning content, manage and monitor student participation, and assess student performances. NOLPLMSTM also handles administrative functions such as course scheduling, registration, and enrollment.

The NOLP’s LMS supports AICC compliant interface and content adapter technology, system managed assignment, scoring and tracking of elearning content from any kinds of authoring tools which compliant to AICC. NOLP’s LMS also supports the delivery of multiple type of learning activities with in an institution or organization including instructor-led learning, training delivered on CD-ROM or e-learning courses delivered over an organization’s intranet or internet.

The technologies incorporated in LMS support integrated management solutions that are designed to scale from one to multiple servers while maintaining centralized administration to support a large number of concurrent users.

Content Authoring and Management system ( CAM) NOLP has also developed CAMS (Content authoring and management), which is the web based software tools for content authoring and Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

Key features of the LMS • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Deliver and manage blended learning experiences User-defined hierarchical content structure Flexible learning sequence Support multiple learning sequence on single content structure Automatic learning evaluation with multiple grading-systems support Adaptive learning based on learning and testing score Prerequisite checking Classroom management with customizable schedule and seat capacity Support self-enrollment Individual and group registration Support bulk registration through batch file Support multiple-course registration Automatic waiting list management Manageable learner status and transferable learning records Provide course catalog and scheduling Support SCORM Vi .2 conformant courses

management. This software unlike other authoring tools uses Web technology. By this technology the content developer, instructional designer, multimedia producers and subject matter experts can work together more effectively.

NQLP CAMS enables the developer to create, store, assemble, manage and reuse digital learning content. CAMS provides an easy-touse environment with Template-based content creation in WYSIWYG mode.

NOLP collaborative efforts NOLP has also worked closely with Ministry of Science and Technology to set up and operate the Science and Technology Knowledge Center (STKC) Project. The aims of this project is to promote Science & Technology for Thai citizen. As a part of the project, the biggest S&T portal in the country http://stkc.go.th has been set up. . The portal consist of 6 subsystems i.e. 1. Virtual Library 2.

S&T Knowledge Bank 3. Forum discussion 4. Virtual Museum 5. eLearning 6. eService . NOLP has been the key player to help the setup and operation of the project.

The Ministry of Science and Technology of Thailand has signed a MOU with Educational Institute in Canada (Vancouver School Board VSB and Co-operative Learning Object Exchange -CLOE at University of Waterloo) to develop ‘Learning Objects’ for Science and Technology.

‘Learning Object’ by definition is the small chunk of content that is ‘selfcontained’ i.e each learning object can be taken independently. The first pilot of the Science and technology Learning Object (STLO) Project will develop 70 LO in Earth Science in bilingual. The Web site for this http:// stloe.most.go.th, is already operating under the management of NOLP For more information on NOLP visit www.Thai2Learn.com

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U pfront As Thailand gears up for e-Learning, addressing issues of connectivity and capacity, developing relevant standard compliant content and has also become crucial. Surasit Vannakrairojn, Managing Director, National On-line Learning Project, Thailand, discusses e-Learning in Thailand, the importance of Sharable Content Object Reference Model or SCORM and NOLP initiatives in developing SCORM standards in an interview with Rumi Mallick of Digital Learning.

What is the market trend in eLearning in Thailand?

Cannot give you an exact figure of the market because our organization focuses in government sector. In last two years e-learning activity has increased from the government sector, the government is trying to set up an important project on using ICT for education for rural areas. As a part of this project, the government had to buy computers for every school.

However, the government has to realize that, providing equipments is not enough, learning content also has to be developed. The government at this stage is still trying to understand the whole concept of e-Learning and how to use the internet for education.

Some organizations within government have also started eLearning research and projects like the ‘Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology’ in schools. Lot of people are trying to understand the concept of content creation and trying to adopt SCORM standards.

What is the SCORM standard? What does SCORM standardize? It is often said that SCORM is still a specification and not a standard?

SCORM is an application profile standard. There are many levels of standards like specifications for applications, and the jury standard, standard accepted by international organization. SCORM is actually a 12

practical specification that has to be issued by some authority that everyone accepts. But before that the private sector has to take the initiative, form a consortium and to write specifications for the products.

Many small companies are coming together, but the big companies are still not sure.

The United States government has set up ADL- Advanced Distributed Learning Lab. ADL tried to find a formal specification that the government can use – or a formal standard for e-Learning procurement.

This is required to exchange and share information and content from diverse sources. The Thai Government is trying to look at specifications and either select a g ood one or come up with a combined standard. We want to make sure that whatever standard we adopt works in real world. To do this, the government has set up this lab where we are testing standards. Standards called the application profile standard can be a kind of test bed for everyone to make product that can conform to this standard.

This standard can be used for procurement of content. Everyone will need to meet the minimum criteria of standard. This is very ‘take-away’ kind and does not depend on local language or culture – so most countries do not want to invest more and they adopt the already existing standards.

What is the Thai government doing specifically to develop standards? Is the government thinking of enforcing SCORM? Thai Government has not enforced the use of SCORM for any procurement. However SCORM becomes very important in the eLearning system. The government is presently not going to enforce, however a number of developers are realizing the importance and are trying to adopt it. Some of the ASEAN countries have adopted SCORM in some cases the procurement like Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and Korea. But SCORM is not easy to understand and it will take time before the countries are able to fully unitize its potential.

Are you collaborating with Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) lab of the US Government?

No right now we have not partnership or collaborating with ADL.Only Canada and UK are partnering with ADL. Many countries in Asia are trying to establish collaboration.

Other than NOLP who is else is trying to promote SCORM? A lot of people in Thailand are taking about standards. Some people are taking about IMS, but this is too many standards to follow up, so when we talk about standard, them the only March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

proper e-Learning standard is SCORM. In Thailand, presently no one is investing in researching in SCORM except us in NOLP. How would SCORM help the e-Learning content developers?

SCORM provides common standards like a common platform that helps in sharing of information. When the developer develops his content, he makes huge investment of money and time to do so. He would also like his content to be used as much as possible. But under the present system, where SCORM are not used, this content is not easily sharable and its use becomes limited. Thus, if the developer adopts SCORM, his content becomes such that everybody can use, even the government becomes interested to procure and use such content.

So once the specifications are established, is this going to benefit both government and private players who are developing content in eLearning?

Yes. It will. Because SCORM is not a product, it is specification, meaning it is open- all can adopt if they understand- and everybody who can understand SCORM will be ready to adopt it. However the challenge is how to make everyone understand. So intensive training and workshop is required to make all the market players understand SCORM for content development. NOLP is providing such facilities, where government people and private developers can be trained to SCORM. How effective is e-learning for Thailand as compared to classroom? e-Learning is another tool of learning among the many tool for learning.

Maybe a better tool then most- for the learner as it has special characteristics Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

like it can be serviced anytime and anywhere. For any time content can be developed and the learners can access this content-something the classrooms cannot provide. Classrooms have specific time and place.

However, the effectiveness of e-Learning is dependent on culture of the country also. You cannot bring eLearning from the US and try to force it on Thailand. The state of education in the poor rural areas in Thailand is not so good. Maybe when we think of a better way to improve education, we may think of computers and eLearning, but we have blend e-Learning with classroom learning.

Only then this will be a good tool for delivery of education.

But first this process has to be customized to meet the local need.

People have to adopt- this first before e-Learning can become a part of the master plan for the country. People first need to know how to use and implement e-Learning only then a master plan would help. A master plan needs to be developed very carefully and I don’t think we are going to turn all classrooms in Thailand to e-learning classroom.

How would you compare Thailand with the rest of the Southeast Asian countries with respect to e-Learning?

In most of our ICT in education initiatives, we still follow Malaysia.

Malaysia is one year ahead of us.

Singapore is small country hence it has been able to easily adopt eLearning to a big extend. Korea has adopted computer and Internet very fast so has Japan who has also adopted blended learning. Currently Laos and Cambodia is far behind. In this respect Vietnam is taking some good initiatives in investment in infrastructure for technology in education.

What is the biggest challenge for Thailand to adopt e-Learning?

Thailand is investing in big national development projects. One such big investment is happening in education where ICT especially computer are being introduced in education. But the challenge is how to use this technology, train people to use this technology and develop good content for e-Learning, and how the content system can confirm to standards. Most schools have good infrastructure but not good eLearning content. The issue of capacity building and content is very crucial. Computer is easy to purchase, but it is very difficult to develop good relevant content. Government is making huge investment in developing infrastructure. But the government also has to invest in developing people and content. Only by developing all these, Thailand can establish good e-learning system that is not proprietary but easily shared. ❏

NSTDA online learning project “learn online” founded in 2000 to provide professional e-learning service. NOLP is so called e-learning vendor established by NSTDA in march 2000 and provides e-learning solutions to education organizations and companies.

NOLP provides services such as content development, provision for LMS contents and provision of contents. The goal of NOLP is to provide excellent and wide-ranging education by associating in a business-like manner with professors, teachers, and other educational institutes. NOLP opened for learning on 1 July 2002.

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Room for life

Life-long learning for rural Thailand John Hawker, [hawkerJ@sat-ed.com], Kevin Elder [ElderK@sat-ed.com], Sat-ED Systems Co. Ltd, Thailand

With a passion to bring better education to remote areas in Thailand, Sat-Ed System Co is delivering learning centres in rural Thailand called ‘Room for life’ using the cutting-edge technology of the iPSTAR broadband satellite.

Aimed at providing lifelong learning for the rural Thai people, this initiative is providing access to education content in remote rural areas beyond the reach of telephone networks.

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hang is a bright young man who won a full scholarship to a technical university in Thailand. He had to turn it down because, while it would pay for his tuition and fees he had no way to support himself living in Bangkok and his parents were not well enough off to pay for it either. Chang was overjoyed when he learned about the Sat-Ed Room for Life because it will allow him the chance to earn his degree without leaving the village.

There are many kids just like Chang; kids who are bright and eager and desperate to learn but time, money and other circumstances keep them in the village. With the Room for Life, Chang and others will not have to make the hard choice because they can study there.

In the sleepy hamlet of Baan Nong Pai, deep in the rural heart of Sakhon Nakorn stands the pilot Room for Life, a unique educational and 14

learning center. For the first time anywhere in the world, a village that has no phone lines has been able to access broadband Internet, IPTV VoD (providing educational video on demand), web cam, university degrees and a whole host of vocational learning and e-government services.

The development of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) over the last 3 years has dramatically changed the way pay TV will be seen in the future; and yet these technologies to date have not been used by the educational market even though they offer an unparalleled opportunity for learning as well as access to digital content.

The technology: Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) First one has to understand the core technology. IPTV differs from normal TV-based delivery systems in that

instead of being a passive device that you watch it is now a two-way interactive device. IPTV allows a person to interact with the content delivered to the TV. To the viewer, it looks exactly like a normal TV screen as the pages are designed for viewing on a TV. Using a simple remote control, a person can navigate through a series of high-quality videos and text pages, take tests using the remote control to answer the on-screen questions and be assessed on their results.

In actual fact, these are computer web pages are being delivered through a thin web browser located in the IPTV set-top box. Using middleware written for this purpose by Sat-Ed it becomes an interactive navigation device. This allows the TV to be used as the device to deliver a traditional LMS (Learning Management System) directly to the end-user’s TV instead of a PC. The thin web browser then March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

takes an HTML or Java page and displays it on a TV screen.

Room for life- delivering education In the village, the Room for Life has a great many different courses on offer.

In addition to High School and University courses, there is a heavy emphasis on vocational training from agricultural practices to silk weaving and everything in-between. This often means that the students are older adults who have never seen a PC much less used one for learning.

This is where the PC is a barrier to learning. In the same way that our parents and grandparents would leave the VCR clock flashing 12:00 while waiting for a grandchild to come over and program it, older adults not trained on PCs look at it as an confronting technology. Contrast that to our experience with children in the Room for Life. In order to be delivered through IPTV, the video has to be converted into an Mpeg 2 transport stream. We were running out of time to make a deadline for another Room for Life and, in desperation our chief engineer trained two of the village children, ages 11 and 14, to convert the videos to transport streams. To our engineer’s shock and surprise, the children listened carefully and fearlessly started to convert video files flawlessly. When seasoned pay-TV pros heard about this they were mightily impressed. We have found that the children under 15 in the village are soon learning things on the computer that took other people years to figure out for themselves.

The adults are a different story.

Perhaps the most telling story about the differences between the two groups was illustrated by the time I handed my laptop with one hand to one of the adults to hold while I did something else. Their eyes got wide and they backed away, unwilling to take on that kind of responsibility for fear of breaking it. Their child popped up and took it from me without Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

hesitation as the parent barked out warnings to the child to be careful. I was intrigued and tried this over and over with different adults over the course of several weeks and the result was the same. All of them either backed away or grabbed it with both hands, visibly scared of breaking it. In contrast the children all took it without thinking at all.

That is where using IPTV as an educational tool becomes so important. It allows these adults to access content, often in a group, using the same technology that they use sitting in front of their TV at home… a remote control. With this remote control, they can navigate through a course; stop, fast-forward, rewind or pause to discuss what they have just learned. They can stop a course for the evening and go back and pick it up where they last left off.

Coming soon will be the ability for the student to input their ID number into the system and the middleware will know where they left off so there is no time-consuming backtracking to find the spot. The Sat-Ed LMS will then track their progress and report back nightly by satellite.

Another important part of the technology is the use of “Push” technology. Through the use of a next-generation of satellite such as iPSTAR, content is “pushed forward” so it resides on the Sat-Ed digital library. This specially designed VOD server caches the educational content at each site so when a student accesses it using the IPTV STB it plays out the transport stream instantly, in fullscreen, media-rich video. This greatly enhances the educational experience. The trouble with Internetbased e learning is that your experience is connection

dependent. Even with broadband access (a rarity inside Bangkok and unheard in the rural areas) the most you will be able to view is a postagestamp-sized video because the content is created for the lowest common denominator. You also have to wait for the information to come through the Internet pipeline and the content delivery is as slow as the slowest pipe it has to go through to get to the user. This often creates a scenario where, even with a broadband connection, a person is always waiting for the buffering to finish; turning the World Wide Web into the World Wide Wait.

Contrast that to VOD learning with the content residing in the Sat-Ed digital library on-site. It plays out an instantaneous stream in full-screen color. This allows extensive use of video in training and it also gives the students additional video cues for enhanced learning. Studies have shown that people learn in different ways. By delivering as many cues as possible to learning, you increase dramatically the chances that one of them will be ultimately successful for the viewer. This mirrors the old adage of not just telling someone what to do but also show them what to do. With IPTV-based learning, the video that is delivered can address both of these at once.

That brings us to an interesting problem. There are a number of

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has to leave to find work in the Deep South in a rubber plantation. On Saturday, she got to see them and talk to them for an hour. It cost her 20 baht (50 US cents).

Patra went to an Internet café near where she works in the South and their grandmother brought the children to the newly opened Sat-Ed “Room for Life”. There her children, Beau and Bee, were able to talk to their mother online using a web cam and VoIP available in the Room for Life. The hour cost the grandmother 20 baht. Many of the villagers have family that are away temporarily in places all over the globe and the ability to stayed in touch with them through VoIP is priceless.

Computer-based predicative, we can training courses assume that there The available but there is are a number of sites development of a paucity of content that students will for IPTV-based want to access. In a IPTV over the learning. Only a few school settings forward-thinking using the Sat-Ed last three years organizations have digital library, the has changed the developed content so web pages are far but as the demand updated nightly by way pay TV will grows, the availability satellite and stored be seen in the will increase on the server. dramatically. Already When the students future. curriculum is being go to access it in the written that classrooms all over addresses the ability to use IPTV as a the country linked into Sat-Ed digital teaching tool as an adjunct to libraries, instead of having to wait traditional face-to-face teaching while each person is trying to access models. Potential uses for this might the same file over and over, they get it be a history class that watches a instantly. By multicasting it once to video of news reports of the period all the sites that are linked to the Satjust studied. Another might be a Ed network, it saves dramatically on chemistry class watching a video bandwidth costs and greatly reduces presentation of a chemical interaction the burden on the in-school network. shown in a lab setting instead of just reading about it. Still another might Room for life- beyond be an anatomy class watching a video education of a dissection of a rat while following along with their own specimen to There are other uses for the Room for dissect in the classroom.

Life in addition to strictly educational uses.

The first use of the Sat-Ed Digital Library is the caching of educational Patra had not seen her children since content for on-demand access. A April last year, nearly a year ago.

Patra is not a bad mother. The second use, almost as important in an economic reality of her small village in educational setting, is the caching of the Northeast of Thailand means she web sites. Because education is 16

Also there is the opportunity to bring the market to the village. By using Ebay and other sites to sell their goods, villagers can cut out the middleman who marks up the fruits of their labor and makes a profit simply because the villagers do not have access to the marketplace. With the Sat-Ed Room for Life the global village becomes a reality.

Each Room for Life site will be owned by a local IT professional who invests in the franchise. All of the profits generated stay in the community and there is someone who is able to address the unique needs of each site.

Sat-Ed does its part by continually aggregating content and responding to requests from the field.

Currently, Thailand has an Internet access penetration of only 11.9%.

This number is skewed on the high side with a 29% access rate in Bangkok. The rural areas are much lower. By using IPTV through the Room for Life Sat-Ed has built a bridge across the digital divide and helped to provide access to education to everyone. The ability for everyone to access knowledge is available through this technology today. With the technology in place in the village, the only limits one has are the limits to their own imagination.❏ March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

Three generations of school-based telecentres

A look inside the RI-SOL Bangladesh Project Nazrul Islam [NAZRUL@SCHOOLSONLINE.ORG] and Jack Welch [JACK@RI.ORG], RI-SOL, Bangladesh

The role of RI-SOL is to support the educational mission of each school through its expertise in technology and education. Recognising the fact that schools and communities are intrinsically interdependent RI-SOL Bangaladesh project, at present encompasses thirty telecentres, involves eighty schools and reaches almost one hundred thousand students and community members.

R

ecognizing that schools and their communities are intrinsically interdependent, RI-SOL, a US-based international NGO, began launching schoolcommunity dual use telecenters in Bangladesh in 2003. Over the last two and half years, we have found this approach to be viable in terms of educational, societal and sustainability goals. As the pilot phase now winds down, the project encompasses thirty telecenters, involves eighty schools and reaches almost one hundred thousand students and community members.

This project represents the third generation of RI-SOL’s educational telecenter concept, the Internet Learning Center (ILC). Not long after the introduction of the worldwide web, its value as an educational tool was recognized by industry leaders in Silicon Valley; in 1996, they created a not-for-profit organization: Schools

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Online (SOL, www.schoolsonline.org).

SOL promoted the use of computers in classrooms and the integration of technology into all aspects of teaching and learning. The concept spread quickly, buoyed by the rampant optimism of the time for any project involving technology and the Internet. The dot com crash was a harsh blow to these and similar projects, and forced SOL to reevaluate its strategy.

In 2000, Schools Online merged with Relief International (www.ri.org), an international NGO known for both its emergency relief operations (most recently, its responses to the Boxing Day Tsunami and the Kashmir Earthquake) and efforts directed towards rehabilitation and development. The merger reflected a growing commitment by Relief International to the education sector, while enabling Schools Online to make its programs global in scope.

Thousands of existing ILCs in western countries began to interact with the next generation of ILCs being established in developing countries.

This second generation effort added an intercultural dimension to the educational objectives.

Building on ten years experience, we have introduced three evolutionary changes during the rollout of ILCs in Bangladesh: increased reliance on the host schools, increased emphasis on sustainability through community involvement, and greater willingness to customize ILC structure and operation according to the needs and capacity of the schools and their communities. Organization of ILCs into local clusters has also proven valuable.

We think of the ILCs as a multi-use classroom rather than a telecenter that is used for classes – the distinction is important. The primary use of the 17

room, both for the school and its community, is learning. The ILC belongs to the school and is run by the school, it is not an autonomous enterprise appended to the school.

The expertise and authority for running the center lies in the school itself rather than hired specialists.

An ILC is: • a dedicated classroom equipped with computer equipment and some means of connecting to the Internet; • a resource for both its school and its community; • not just the equipment, but staff and content; • an integral part of the school, community and society in which it exists; • a continuing commitment for its school and community; • always evolving; An ILC is not: • a cyber café; • a drain on the school, but an asset for the school; • a one-shot project; The role of RI-SOL is to support the educational mission of each school through our expertise in technology and education. We solicit schools competitively in areas where we think we can make the biggest educational impact. Typically, this excludes elite institutions and focuses on schools that have minimal or no access to computer technology.

Establishment of an ILC takes place after a detailed consultative process involving both the school and its community. During this process, the 18

school must demonstrate its commitment and ability to network with other schools, communities and civil society organizations to enable the ILC to serve as a hub of activity.

Schools also form community committees at this point, a group that meets monthly to develop and update a customized sustainability plan for each center. Members of this group include school and community stakeholders: parents, teachers, local business owners, members of civil society and representatives from neighboring schools.

Typically, the ILC is time-shared

during school hours by the host school and two to four neighboring schools. After school, usage of the facility is divided between extracurricular student activities and community organizations.

The ILC project’s overarching goal is to use computer technology and the Internet to advance education in the broad sense: education of students, but also of teachers and community members. Administratively, the project is divided down the middle, with about half the effort invested in establishing and developing ILCs and half spent on developing teacher

capacity and educational content.

Teacher education occurs first in breadth and then depth. Immediately after equipment installation, every administrator and teacher in host and partner schools participates in a oneday computer fundamentals course designed deflate anxiety about the technology. By the end of the day, every staff member has a sense of achievement and mastery, having learned to turn the computer on, write text in a word processor, save the text, print it, and turn the computer off. By putting every teacher in the drivers’ seat, this simple lesson has proven effective in mobilizing teacher support for the ILCs from the first day of operation.

Each school is then asked to nominate a teacher as a “technical lead teacher”, or TLT. The TLT becomes the caretaker of the ILC, taking on both a management and operational role.

Since IT is part of the Class 9 and 10 curricula in Bangladesh, many schools already have computer science teachers – even if the school does not have computers. Although these teachers already receive a salary for their teaching assignments, it is common practice in Bangladesh to supplement official income through private tutoring. Since the TLT takes on responsibilities that require a full-time commitment, we supplement the teacher’s salary with a small stipend for a limited period to offset this loss in tutorial income. The school, RISOL and the teacher sign a three-way agreement, committing the school to continue this stipend after a certain date. The timing of this switchover depends on a customized March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

sustainability plan created by the school and RI-SOL. Schools must factor this stipend into the sustainability plan, offsetting it through income generating activities.

We have found that the majority of computer teachers in Bangladesh lack practical experience with computers and require training to perform the technical aspects of the position.

Consequently, we have developed a localized technical instruction curriculum for these teachers to improve their technical proficiency.

Of course, there is a side benefit as well: they become better computer teachers.

The focus of our program is not, however, on IT – we consider computer technology to be a tool rather than an end. A major thrust of our educational effort is to enable teachers to integrate technology into their own subjects: math, spelling, geography, etc.

So, in addition to the technical lead teacher, we work with the school to select three to five educational lead teachers (ELTs) per institution.

Again, by mutual agreement of the teachers, the school and our organization, these teachers attend an intensive one week teacher

professional development training program conducted in an ILC. During this training, they are introduced to the program’s educational goals and methods by example. They sit where their students will sit, and the training itself employs group-based and participatory methodologies promoted by our project. The predominant teaching modality in Bangladesh is didactic and authoritative, relying

heavily on rote memorization and pattern replication. We supplement that strategy with methods designed to encourage creativity and analytic thought. During the week of training, teachers also receive instruction on preparation of lesson plans and how to build projects around available computer resources.

At training, the ELTs are presumed to know nothing about computers; in fact, this might be a plus in that they can approach the topic from the same point of view as the students. During both teacher training and student lessons, computer applications and program features are introduced on an as-needed basis, while the users are encouraged to explore further on their own. We have found that this approach is how people actually learn to use and understand computers.

Reading a book about a word processor is not as helpful as just using one, and experimenting is preferable to memorizing a series of keystrokes to perform a task.

In recognition of this intensive training, ELTs receive a certificate.

They do not receive an ongoing stipend, as their participation in the ILC is expected to occur during their normal class time, for which they are

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

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already being paid by the school.

ELTs are, however, eligible to participate in a number of professional career development opportunities in conjunction with the program such conferences and international exchanges.

Single training sessions, even very intensive ones like this one, will have limited long term impact unless some reinforcement is available. Likewise, a couple days of technical training are not enough to cover all the operational and technical aspects of running a telecenter. Our answer to both problems is monthly meetings.

ILCs are set up in geographic clusters, with five to ten schools in each cluster. These clusters are managed by local implementing NGOs or national NGOs with local offices, further promoting the schoolcommunity bond. Once per month, the technical lead teachers gather to provide mutual support, exchange media, and on a rotational basis, conduct workshops for other members of the group. The educational lead teachers also have a meeting once per month, where participants develop, test and exchange lesson plans. Both meetings are designed to promote local expertise and foster a sense of extended community between the participating schools.

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Beyond the lessons developed by the teachers, RI-SOL facilitates collaborative lessons each month on local, regional and international scales. These lessons involve other Internetequipped schools within or outside RISOL’s own ILC network. The local and regional lessons are developed in our education specialists in the Bangladesh County Office. Most of these are developed in Bangla, while English is the language of wider communication for international projects. Some international projects are within RI-SOL, others employ lessons developed by online resources such as iEARN and Global SchoolNet. The Global Connections and Exchange Program (GCEP) is a major component of ILC programming in Bangladesh. Children from around the world collaborating on GCEP projects learn about each others cultures through direct interaction over the Internet. Along the way, stereotypes are discarded and students gain an appreciation for the diversity of cultures connected by the Internet.

This program is sponsored by the United States

Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and its Bangladesh website is located at: http://www.connectbangladesh.org.

Implementing these programs requires a substantial investment of time, effort, funds, and faith, so we are strongly committed to the concept of sustainability – that an ILC which is set up today will still be functional one, five, ten or more years from now.

Our challenge has been to set up ILCs in such a way that schools can keep the equipment up to date and propagate the technical and educational knowledge required to use the centers.

Unlike a free-standing telecenter, the ILC is an integrated part of the school, a classroom. Investments in the ILC are a direct investment in the school’s infrastructure. Training teachers not only produces better teachers, but a cadre of professionals who can keep the center operational.

By clustering the centers themselves, the schools are empowered to help each other.

During the next five years, RI-SOL and its affiliated organizations will scale up to two hundred telecenters in Bangladesh. The model developed in Bangladesh may also find application in other developing countries. ❏ March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

A click on progress

Learning goes Kerala model

Statescan

For most people in the world this Indian state Kerala is quite little known. But among academics, Kerala has become something of a star, a place to study and to puzzle about. The reason is undoubtedly because of the so-called Kerala Model which generally refers to the high achievements of Kerala’s people on statistical indicators of development. One of the key factors for the substantial human progress in kerala, is the Kerala’s education system, especially for women. Kerala has the best primary education system in India, and a literacy rate of 90% - almost twice the rate for all of India at 52%.

T

he literacy rate for females in Kerala is 82%—one of the highest in all of Asia. Even in the rural areas, more than half the women are literate, compared with 43 per cent for all of India.

Kerala was declared a ‘Fully Literate State’ in 1991 and is the only state in India where over 90% of the people can read and write, and credit for this goes to the free and compulsory education provided to all children up to the age of 14 years.

Kerala schools possess better physical and basic facilities compared to those in other parts of India. 83% of schools are housed in proper building.

The IT @ School Project, launched four years ago, has remodeled conventional teaching methodologies in classrooms through use of Information Technology. The project, in its first stage, is being implemented in 2,738 High Schools in the State.

Over 40,000 teachers were given 90 hours of training on IT skills.

Computer labs with 10 to 60 computers are available in all High Schools. DLP projection-enabled classrooms are present in nearly 400 High Schools. IT @ SCHOOL is a project under the Directorate of Public Instruction of the Government of Kerala, which introduces Information Technology in High School Education for qualitative improvement of the conventional teaching / learning system.

The Education Department plans to introduce an elibrary project in the educational institutions in the state, which aims at equipping students to explore the vast potential of the emerging elearning system.

Under the project,

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each school will be given 150 VCD’s containing educational programmes, each with duration of one hour. The VCDs costing Rs.200 will be given to the schools at a subsidised rate of Rs.40 each. The State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET) is the implementing agency for the project.

SIET will also help the students to set up a home CD-library. Of the VCDs, 80 per cent will be based on the SSLC curriculum. The SIET has launched an educational and career portal http:// www.keralasiet.com.

The SIET telecasts educational programmes, in association with the Doordarshan, from December 26 to help the students who appear for the SSLC examinations in March 2006.

The SIET has also developed a SSLCtop winner audio CD-ROM with possible questions in each topic for the examination. CD, both in English and Malayalam, with duration of 20 hours is also available. The SIET has also prepared Malayala Kavitha Padanam CDs. The State Government would provide Rs.2 crore for the school library modernization project.

EDUSAT program would be implemented to the whole L.P schools in Kerala by June-July by the help of Local Self Government. ❏ 21

Dr. K M Ramanandhan, Kerala State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in a face to face with Sanjeev Kumar Shrivastav of Digital Learning ❏ Can you mention the major

interventions made under SSA programme in the state so far?

We made nearly 12 major interventions, of which most important is civil works. Almost 33 per cent of the plan outlay is for civil works, meant for construction of additional classrooms, new school buildings, inter-school compound wall, supply of free text books to all girl and SC/ST students. Additionally we give workbooks for class 4 to 7 in subjects like science and mathematics, which started in the current year. ❏ There are hardly any out-of-school

children in Kerala, the popular impression goes by this. What should be or is then SSA’s emphasis?

Education for all or equitable, quality education to children? Does it reflect a cohesive vision?

Education for All. Real focus will be quality. We have already built necessary infrastructure, we have sufficient classrooms, all physical facilities. Now we will focus on improving teacher-training, improving classroom practices. Research by NCERT found 18% out of school children in tribal, coastal and minority areas. This year we are going to start some 100 alternate schools where these children can be brought. ❏ What are the steps taken in bridg-

ing all gender and social category gaps at elementary education level?

Special intervention through innovative activities has been made for girls/SC/ST students. For motivation, we are giving them yoga training, we even provide the girls cycles for riding.

What are the steps/methods being 22

adopted to materialize the state-level planning(s).

Now we are taking the assistance of Panchayat Raj (the local self government in Indian villages) Institutions and we are taking the cumulative planning to school level.

Then we have school level work committee member who is very much involved in the planning process.

Then we have PTS-parent teacher association, which also help in planning in school level. Once it is done in school level, we consolidate at the panchyat level. Here is a planning and monitoring committee headed by the Grampanchayat president. This committee approves the pachayat education plan.

What are the initiatives the state has started in making ICT an integral part of elementary education?

It has become a subject in high school education. There was an examination last year in the subject. In elementary level, so far it is not in curriculum.

But we provide computer to UP schools, interactive CDs, teachers are also trained, started edustat for distance learning. Receive only Terminal (ROT) in all schools already launched though not yet been completed. There is a proposal for elementary level also. ❏ What are the goals you have set for

yourself and what are the major challenges ahead of Sarva Shikha Abhiyan in Kerala?

Challenge is achieving the quality education. We are also striving to improve communication skills, which is one of the handicaps in education in Kerala.

❏ Do you feel the need of improving

❏ How much cooperation and support

the teachers’ training process; is the current methodology used adequate?

have you availed from private sectors/ civil societies in the Sarva Shikha Abhiyan programme?

Current methodology of teacher training is a child-centred training.

Teacher is only a facilitator here.

There is no more the chalk and talk method working in kerala. ❏ How improved are the teacher-

training methods and the educational practices followed in tribal areas and amongst members of the coastal community?

We have changed the teacher training methodology to a large extent but still we need to improve the training and content. This year we will focus on content as well as the methodology. ❏ ICTs are considered as the panacea

of development and have the potential to make societies increasingly knowledge-based. How do carry it?

True to every sphere of life, including education.

We are getting very good support from all- from Parent-Teacher Association.

They themselves are taking interest in starting and promoting ICTs in schools. In Kerala, we are not utilizing the services of NGOs. I understand, we can not just ignore their involvement, at least in times of requirement of social mobilization. ❏ Your comment on the role and objective of media like Digital Learning magazine in serving the learning community...

I have gone through all issues of Digital Learning magazine, and appreciate the venture, particularly after going through the February issue. This is a good and a very effective enterprise in the whole education sector and this kind of attempts will sure help improving skills in this sector. ❏ March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

News

should be done with a cost effective factor and open source operating system and software configured for the school students and common citizen who wanted to benefit from the e-Governance initiatives to meet requirements of Asia Pacific and African countries. This PC would have wireless connectivity so that it could take care of communication needs and possibly even the telephone besides sufficient video capability to act as an entertainment platform. For young students it should serve as a boon in ensuring substantial reduction of carrying heavy books and note books.

ASIA Tally India to foray into China with languages software Accounting software company Tally India, which has launched its concurrent multi-lingual business accounting and inventory management software, Tally 8.1 in ten Indian languages, is all set to take the product to China where it will offer the same in some of the dialects.

The company is also working at launching it in other Indian languages, including Urdu, and will launch the products in Arabic for West Asia and other foreign languages, including for markets in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

President of India calls for joint design and development of tablet PC Citing the successful joint venture of India and Russia to harness the core competencies of the two nations for the benefit of the humanity, President of India A P J Abdul Kalam called for a joint design, development and manufacturing of handheld tablet PC with multilingual capability.

According to the President, missions of world knowledge platform should include the convergeance of bio, nano and the Information and Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

Communication Technology. Areas such as electronics, ICT and Automobile sectors should be focussed in the areas of design, development leading to productionisation for meeting the market demands of the respective countries and also for the world market. Development and manufacturing of handheld tablet PC

One Laptop per Child initiative finds Red Hat as India partner While streams of IT vendors are talking about low-cost PC solutions for the Indian market, the US$100 laptop being designed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the world’s poorest children, is already getting express backup from India.

Illiterate parents in India can go to school!

This is the mother of all programmeseducating illiterate parents for free.

The Mass Education department along with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in India will conduct classes for illiterate parents of out-of-school children during the Chinnara Angala programme.

Chinnara Angala, a two-month bridge course held twice a year, aims at bringing drop-outs back to the mainstream. Since Chinnara Angala is mostly held in government schools, a decision has been taken to educate parents along with their children. While SSA teachers will concentrate on students, mass education volunteers will cater to adults. As the bridge course extends up to 100 days in areas where dropout rate is high, accommodation will

be provided to students and their parents in government schools.

There are two incentives: A common venue for the entire family to get educated and no fixed timing for classes. As per the March 2005 Child Census, there are 1.05 lakh out-of-school children in the state.

Every bridge course will have at least two volunteers —preraks and upa preraks — to hold classes for adults. The department is also conducting short 18-day literacy and livelihood camps in slums, where semi employed parents can not only become literate but also enhance their skills.

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American software maker Red Hat Inc signed up as ‘‘founding corporate member’’ of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), the MIT initiative that is driving the US$100 laptop. As a result, Mumbai-based Red Hat India is now one of the global foundries where software to run the most affordable laptop is being written. A sizeable nugget of the software at the core of the laptop, now named ‘‘Fedora Core,’’ will be designed in India. With the world’s largest under-25 population, the government in India may just have to give the MIT initiative a push. MIT will sell the laptops only directly to developing country governments, which are then meant to issue them to children in schools on a basis of ‘‘one laptop per child.’’

University of Toronto selects Blackboard for e-Learning

Blackboard Inc., a leading provider of technology to educational institutions and corporate and government agencies, announces the University of Toronto, a leading teaching and research university in Canada, has licensed the Blackboard Academic Suite(TM), a suite of three integrated software products which support a Networked Learning Environment(TM).

A Networked Learning Environment enables students and teachers to learn, connect and share educational materials and resources from practically any location and at any time. The Blackboard Academic Suite fosters Web-based and Webenhanced learning and is used by hundreds of universities, colleges and K-12 schools in North America and abroad. The university plans to utilize the system immediately to enhance 24

the student experience by providing improved integration of digital resources, better communication and collaboration utilities and a consistent, web-based interface across courses. Instructors will benefit from possibilities for new methods of instruction and more effective and efficient class administration.

University research group in Thailand bring out utility-bill payments system through CAT kiosk Customers in the near future will be able to make their utility purchases and payments with CAT cards using a one-stop service called a CAT Kiosk – doing away with their visits to convenience stores – thanks to something the Scorpion Research Group of Kasetsart University in Thailand has come up with.

It is for consumers wishing to make their utility-bill payments through a kiosk. It supports both English and Thai versions and the team plans Russian, Korean and Japanese versions as well. It will also reduce imports of equipment, which is costlier. The kiosks will be equipped with a high-end computer, printer, barcode scanner and a wireless modem sending information into a central system. Customers will be asked by a 17-inch display monitor to make their payments; they can also have the payment scanned.

After that, the computer will show the amount to be paid and calculate the service charge. Customers will be able to pay more than one bill at one go.

Users will then pay through their credit cards. The computer system will then verify the credit card at headquarters. Once that is done, customers get their printed receipts

equal access to information and communication technology (ICT), the Information and Communications Technology Ministry in Bangkok has rolled out a project called “Teen ICT”, encouraging young people to be trained in the use of technology.

The concept is to allow students from Teen ICT Project to study game development in depth as well as the development of education media. The target is for 40-50 students to join Teen ICT Workshop in the first year.

Teen ICT Project ran from August to December last year with around 700 students from over 100 schools in more than 10 provinces nationwide being trained in the use of the Internet and multimedia applications.

In the project 50 leadership students were created in Bangkok, selected from 150 students chosen by the Basic Education Commission. Those 50 then trained the other students.

Auditor to monitor ICT usage in Malaysian schools The Education Ministry in Malaysia will soon appoint an independent

Teen ICT trains younger people To make the country a knowledgebased society where people have March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

auditor to monitor the effectiveness of the use of ICT in all schools.

This was necessary as almost 87% of schools in the country have either desktop computers or notebooks. It is important to know whether teachers are using the facilities effectively in the learning and teaching process and whether there are enough computers.

Also is important to know whether the computers are lying idle or whether they have been supplied to schools, which don’t have power supply. The ministry had initially short-listed five companies for the auditor role, however three companies pulled out after he laid down stringent conditions.

Shabdik software for new Bangla writers The latest version 3.5 of Shabdik software is now released, which is helpful for new writers, as one needs not to learn new keyboard layout for Bangla. Moreover it is free for amateurs. Download available from www.iecbd.net.

The notable features of the software are Active Speller for all applications with which there is no need for passive spellchecking for only word, Autocompletion, Intelligent Interface, etc. The software detects new words typed for first time.

Thus users will have larger vocabulary gradually. Bangla Dictionary of over 1 lac word now with version 3.5 which everyone can search throug, edit and modify words thereby. User definable keyboard layout is supported. Conventional users can write with the same software having benefit of dictionary-based auto-completion and other features. The underlying technology supporting the easy interface is not indeed phonetic keyboard which many people confuse, rather it is a new technology innovated by iecb called IxPad which transforms user inputs based on dictionary matching to produce the best hint.

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

FSA launches e-Learning course The Financial Services Authority (FSA) in Scotland has launched an eLearning package for small firms to help them work out what financial resources they need to meet regulatory requirements.

Firms need to keep adequate financial resources at all times and this online training course is designed for those with little or no accounting knowledge. The financial watchdog has already introduced various initiatives to assist small firms, which include improvements to the Firm Contact Centre such as longer opening hours at key times; more targeted newsletters and webpages; tailored Handbooks; and a range of workshops, training courses, roadshows and surgeries. The eLearning package is a new way of offering assistance to firms and may offer support to those that need it.

Customised leaptop’ for students from HCL Info With an eye on the burgeoning notebook PC market in India, HCL Infosystems announced its foray into notebook manufacturing with a range of products customised for various target groups including students, doctors, lawyers and consumers.

The new ‘HCL Leaptops’ range is being manufactured in India in Pondicherry facility, and designed as per the requirements of various target groups such as architect, doctors, info kiosks, women and defence segment.

For instance, the company has launched a rugged notebook, designed to work in adverse atmospheric conditions including rain, snow, extreme vibration, with an ability to withstand temperature between minus 15 degree and 65 degree. The notebook for students offers pre-bundled licence of portals, where they can study the topics online and test their skills.

Cisco Networking Academy in India Networking major Cisco Systems and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) in India have teamed up to provide the Cisco Networking Academy Programme in about 250 non-profit educational institutions across the state Andhra Pradesh.

The JNTU Colleges of Engineering in Hyderabad, Anantapur and Kakinada will be accredited as Regional Academies. These academies will identify and accredit 250 non-profit educational institutions as local academies under them within a period of two years. The academies will impart networking education to around 25,000 students every year.

25

WORLD Privacy fears hit Google search A leading US digital rights campaign group has warned against using Google software which lets people organise and find information on their computers.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the latest version of Google Desktop posed a risk to privacy. This is because a feature in the software lets Google keep personal data on its servers for up to 30 days. Google says it plans to encrypt all data transferred from users’ hard drives and restrict access. The new version of its desktop search software comes as Google is battling efforts by the US Department of Justice to force it to hand over data about what people are looking for. Google Desktop 3 is currently only available for Windows XP or Windows 2000.

Reinventing High School education infused with technology High Tech High, in this innovative charter school, in a converted warehouse, students don’t take tests or write papers. Instead, they use the latest technology to produce documentaries, books and presentations.

The brainchild of lawyer-turnededucator Larry Rosenstock, High Tech High is one of many attempts in America to reinvent high schools. The movement is fueled by growing alarm over dropout rates - especially among blacks and Hispanics - disengaged students, and a decline in American competitiveness in science and math.

High Tech’s model is to locate small schools with no more than 450 students each on the same campus. It is “high tech” not because it trains students to fix computers and write software, although some do, but because technology is infused throughout the curriculum. Students 26

work on networked laptops and maintain digital portfolios. There are plans to open more school campuses in California as well as Texas.

UK college to get its radio online A WELSH further education college in UK is to become the first to launch an online radio station through an innovative website.

Dozens of schools have set up their own stations using award-winning website www.radiowaves.co.uk, but Coleg Gwent will become the first further education college to join their ranks. The college, the largest further education provider in Wales, will launch its presence on Radio Waves under a name picked by a student.

Radio Waves allows schools and colleges to set up online radio stations where they can upload clips of up to 30 minutes sharing their news and views with the nation. College staff hope students will begin adding clips to the website, and that working on the radio station will boost their IT and communications skills. Getting involved in the Radio Waves project should help students to improve their self-confidence, build relationships and enhance their ICT skills.

SAC US’s largest online-degree provider United States News and World Report ranked San Antonio College as the sixth largest online degree-granting program in the United States, according to the magazine’s eLearning Guide.

The University of Phoenix, which maintains a campus in San Antonio, based in Arizona; Park University in Parkville; St. Leo University in Saint Leo; the University of Maryland, University College in Adelphi; and Central Texas College in Killeen, Texas, were listed as the top five schools. According to the publication, students were enrolled in 19,000 online classes at San Antonio College

during the 2004-2005 academic year.

Classes include a combination of content on CD-ROM, video and some on-campus meetings. San Antonio College offers 195 distance-education courses toward the completion of an associate in arts and science degree, and an associate in applied science degree. The school also offers online associate’s degrees in mathematics and criminal justice.

More bytes for girls in IT and multimedia in Australia

Responding to the decreasing participation of girls in IT subjects, Swinburne University in Australia is running a program to motivate girls into using IT and multimedia in schools. The programme More bytes: Girls in IT is part of the Australian School Innovation in Science Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM).

The unique program aims to engage a diverse group of girls from Year 8 to 10 in IT and multimedia by giving them the chance to network and build their story of girls’ culture using technology. The project brings together a diverse mix of high school girls from different backgrounds, and increases their opportunities to think creatively, to share ideas and resources, and inspires them to consider IT and multimedia as possible careers.

The girls will work on a series of March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

group projects using IT and multimedia challenging the popular view that IT ‘is for nerds’. The idea is that by giving them a hands-on experience they will form an emotional connection with their work by giving it a sense of reality and motivation.

International Finance Corp supports to expand ICT in Nigerian varsities Pursuant to its drive to link universities across Nigeria to the information and communication technology (ICT) world, SocketWorks Limited has signed a $2.5 million (about NGN350 million) agreement with International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.

The first such initiative in Nigeria’s higher education sector, the facility is to support SocketWorks’ rollout of CollegePortal into select Nigerian universities. CollegePortal is a package of information and communication technologies that will provide students with the tools to become fully computer literate. IFC’s loan will also enable SocketWorks to develop software and purchase computers and other hardware for Nigeria’s universities. University students, faculty, and administrators will have access to a full suite of online management systems and study tools, including offshore libraries and other information sources. By October, working with the Minister of Education in an initiative called, “Digital Bridge for Nigerian Schools” SocketWorks intends to introduce all Federal Governmentowned schools to a thriving digital culture by deploying a bundled ICT solution that includes software, access devices, power systems, connectivity, multimedia resources and digital content.

Computer lets parents track kids’ eating This could be a common occurrence at Houston schools when the district, Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

Texas’s seventh-largest with more than 250,000 students, becomes one of the largest in the nation with a cafeteria automation system that lets parents dictate and track what their kids get.

seeks to introduce multimedia projectors, CDs, DVDs and other information communication technologies (ICTs) as an integral part of the learning environment in classrooms.

Primero Food Service Solutions, developed by Houston-based Cybersoft Technologies, allows parents to set up prepaid lunch accounts so children don’t have to carry money. It also shows the cashier any food allergies or parent-set diet restrictions for his or her account, and the student is not allowed to buy an offending item. Parents also can go online to track their child’s eating habits and make changes. The company’s system already is being used in schools in Arizona, Oklahoma, Michigan and Tennessee, as well as other Texas cities. Several other companies have similar cafeteria monitoring programs at other schools.

According to Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, the e-Learning project is the next vital element in the strategy to transform this country and achieve sustained development. The project, initiated by Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell, will be implemented on a phased basis over the next three to four years and will target students in grades seven to 11 in all 150 high schools islandwide. The Technology Ministry allocated $50 million from the Technical Investment Fund for the project while additional funding was received from the Universal Access Fund .

It’s good for parents because they can track what their kids are spending.

Ministries launch e-Learning Jamaica Project The Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology, Jamaica launched its eLearning Jamaica Project. The project

HP sign MoU for the NEPAD eschools project HP has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Egypt and the e-Africa Commission, paving the way for the launch of the third NEPAD e-School in the Northern African region.

The objective of the NEPAD eschools initiative is to supply African 27

schools with an educational technology solution including computer hardware, software, Internet connectivity, technical support and teacher training. Six schools were selected by the Egyptian Government to participate in the demonstration project, of which, three of the schools were allocated to HP. The scope of the project focuses on providing an end-to-end education solution that will utilise Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to connect schools to the NEPAD eSchools network and the Internet. In addition to connectivity, solutions will provide content and learning material, as well as establish health points at schools in support of the NEPAD e-Health Programme. Upon completion of the project, more than 6,00,000 schools across the continent will enjoy the benefits of ICT and connectivity to the NEPAD e-School network and the Internet.

Study finds Linux less expensive than Windows

Linux environments in less than 30 minutes.

Google unveils Web page creator Google launched a service that lets people create their own Web pages hosted by the Internet giant. Google Page Creator, which is in beta, has sample layouts and lets people type in content, upload images and publish their pages, without knowing HTML. People can create multiple linked pages and are allowed 100MB of storage on the service. The free service requires a Gmail account and supports either Internet Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 1.0, or higher. With Page Creator, the company has drawn a distinction between Web sites and Web pages, saying that a page is a “single document with its own Web address,” whereas a site is a “collection of pages with a common subdomain,” or the “xxxxxxx.com” portion of the URL. “During this initial testing period,” Google said, people can create only pages, not sites.

ICT course aims to change lives in New Zealand

In a new survey of IT organizations, respondents claim that recent developments in Linux have eased management complexity and lowered the price associated with running the operating system and its related software.

The results contradict some Microsoft claims that Linux’s total cost of ownership is higher than Windows. In the survey, the majority of respondents noted that they spent less effort in managing and supporting Linux than they spent on Windows. Over half said that they could diagnose and repair problems in 28

The Unlimited Potential course aims to give computer skills to people in New Zealand who may never have had the chance before. The course sponsors - the Government and Microsoft - hopes that local communities will be revitalised as a result.

Minister for the Community, Winnie Laban says new skills can lead to new jobs and creative alternatives to deadend employment. Microsoft NZ Managing Director Ross Peat says the examples of countries like Ireland and Singapore have already shown what happens when a population has crossed the digital divide. Some of the pilot schemes have been very solidly based in the local communities, with Microsoft providing network equipment, PCs and software to enable the training to be carried out

actually in the community rather than elsewhere. The technology and the software provide opportunities for people to realise their potential, and can transform lives.

Open source software for educational ICT

Up-to-date advice for all colleges and universities in the UK about open source software is now available.

The Joint Information Systems Committee realises that almost every further and higher education institution in the UK is making using of open source software.

With the European Commission and the UK Government giving its support to its development and deployment, it has become a central issue for institutional management of IT systems and services in education.

‘Open source’ refers to software whose source code is openly available to be modified by end-users, in contrast to proprietary software.

While such software is already in use in colleges and universities, it is rarely yet part of institutional policies and strategies and there are still a great many misunderstandings concerning it.

In this latest publication, JISC - supported by its advisory service OSS Watch - advocates the use of open source as the default for software development as well as providing guidelines on copyright, licensing, trademarks, patents and development practice.

March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

Challenges of modernising Indian educational system

An open source renaissance for Indian education Venkatesh Hariharan [VENKY@REDHAT.COM], Red Hat, India

Perspective

N

apoleon once said that, “War is too important to be left to generals alone.” Similarly technology is too important to be left to technologists alone. By the same token, education is too important to be left to educationists alone. Today, we are on the cusp of an age that is being defined by the intersection of education and technology, particularly information technology.

However, India faces a massive challenge in modernizing its education system. In a country that has 888,000 educational institutions, 179 million students and more than 2.9 million teachers modernizing the system is a task that requires innovative thinking and a radically new approach. In the 2005 budget, the Government of India embarked upon an aggressive plan of spending a bigger chunk of its GDP (approximately six percent) on modernization of education.

With 179 million students and 888,000 educational institutions, modernizing India’s education system is a huge challenge. The need of the hour is therefore a close collaboration between educationists and technologists; and open source provides the ideal framework for this process.

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In many villages and cities across India, millions of children have no access to basic educational facilities.

At the same time, the basic structure of our society has changed from an industrial economy to one where the importance of knowledge pervades every action of ours. The billion dollar question that affects the lives of these 179 million students and the future of our 888,000 educational institutions therefore is—how do we modernize our education system at a time when we haven’t been able to deliver on the basic constitutional promise of providing basic primary education to all Indians?

The shifting structure of our society from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy offers us both a threat and an opportunity as we seek to modernize our education system. In a world where the creation and dissemination of knowledge are being 29

that is distributed along with the source code. Open Source software programs are released with a liberal license that allow users to study the code, modify it and freely redistribute it. The philosophical underpinnings of Open Source sound very simple but the tenets on which open source is based—collaboration, community and the shared ownership of intellectual resources—has resulted in tremendous innovation.

rapidly digitized, it is inevitable that IT will play a central role in the education system of the future.

Classrooms of the future will not be mere brick and mortar structures imparting instructions but information hubs where knowledge is created and disseminated. This shift is very similar to the shift we see in the media where power is shifting away from “broadcast” media like print and television to the “interactive” medium of the Internet where individuals are not passive consumers of information but also producers of information. In the professional world a similar shift is happening with organizations placing a premium on employees who can think on their feet and execute tasks independently, as against those who merely follow instructions. If we wish to equip the next generation of Indian students for the knowledge economy, our education system needs to make a 180 degree shift from a system that emphasizes rote learning and studious adherence to instructions to one that emphasizes creativity and encourages innovation and independent thinking.

Our 179 million students (and 2.9 million teachers!) must not be passive “downloaders” of information but active participants in the process of 30

creating and disseminating knowledge.

Moodle (www.moodle.org) an Open Source course management system was developed by an educator who found existing proprietary programs inadequate or expensive. It is now used by Classrooms of the thousands of educational future will not be institutions to manage their mere bricken coursework and is supported by an mortar structures active community that develops and imparting upgrades it. Since it has been developed instructions but by an educator himself, it enables a information hubs teacher to use Moodle to teach a where knowledge is course fully online or to supplement a created course taught in a traditional setting.

If we deliver effectively on this vision of ushering our vast army of students into the digital age, we lay the foundation for making India one of the superpowers of the 21st century. This is a challenge that should deeply engage India’s educationists and technologists and requires an interdisciplinary collaboration that has never been seen before. The open source development model provides the ideal framework for this process.

In the context of a developing country like India which is rich in talent but lacks the purchasing power of the west, open source offers several sustainable, long-term advantages as we seek to modernize our education system.

The term “Open Source” originated in the world of software. At a simplistic level, the term represents software

In the world of software, Open Source has lead to the creation of world-class software like the Linux operating system, the Apache web server and thousands of other software programs. Millions of people have contributed to the development of these programs and benefited from using them. Linux, for instance, was released under the General Public License in 1991 and consisted of 10,000 lines of code. In a mere 14 years, due to the contributions of open source developers across the world, this code-base has grown to 10 March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

million lines of code. Linux now runs on everything from supercomputers to hand-held computers. It is estimated that if these 10 million lines of code were commercially developed, the cost would run into billions of dollars. Because Linux is available under an open source license, it is a community resource that is freely available to everyone.

The Open Source philosophy has proved to be so popular that other disciplines are embracing the tenets of community, collaboration and shared ownership of intellectual resources with powerful results.

The Open Source philosophy is catching on in the world of education content. For example, Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) has rapidly emerged as one of the largest online dictionaries in the world. In a short span of five years, Wikipedia has attracted five million entries from across the world in several languages and is a fantastic educational resource that we should localize to Indian languages. Because it is released under the open source, “Creative Commons” copyright, Indian educators have the freedom to translate Wikipedia into Indian languages and share it with their

students. The venerable, Massachusetts Institute of Technology took the radical step of “open sourcing” 1,100 courses online at http://ocw.mit.edu based on their conviction that, “the open dissemination of knowledge and information can open new doors to the powerful benefits of education for humanity around the world.” Other web sites like Planet Math (www.planetmath.org)aim at creating communities of educators focussed on a specific domain to make knowledge more accessible.

Many educational institutions themselves are now coming together to leverage the economic benefits of participating in Open Source development. For instance, leading universities like the University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT and Stanford are investing up to $1 million in staff time to develop producing open source Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) software. Even universities that are not members of the Sakai Project can download the software and interest in the Sakai Educational Partner Program (SEPP) is growing at the rate of 1-2 universities per week.

Thus it is clear that whether it is for

creating educational content, managing coursework and learning, teaching a specific discipline or administration of an educational institution, the open source model offers tremendous benefits as a model for the creation and dissemination of knowledge. In a country where 888,000 educational institutions need to be modernized and more than 179 million students educated, the community ownership model of open source can help the country save billions of dollars that would be spent on proprietary operating systems, software and content.

Since anything developed under an open source model can be shared freely, it can help in the rapid dissemination of educational materials to India’s vast population of students.

From a long-term perspective, it is important that the creation and dissemination of knowledge should be a collaborative, community driven process rather than one that is monopolized by a few individuals or companies. In the Indian, intellectual tradition, knowledge has always been considered as a common good treated as a community resource rather than private property that can be monopolized and enjoyed by a few.

The need of the hour is therefore a close collaboration between educationists and technologists. The open source model provides a framework that can lead to an open source renaissance for Indian education.❏ The author is Head – Open Source Affairs at Red Hat India Pvt. Ltd. He can be contacted at venky@redhat.com. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not that of the company. This article is released under a Creative Commons license and permission is granted to reprint this article provided that this notice is retained intact.

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

31

e - Strategies and k k-- Strategies for e - ducation

Did we miss knowledge?

Karim Mammadov [karim.mammadov@gmail.com] Often the modern world is associated with rapid change, high speed, fast growth and etc. However, all these factor fallout aside in comparison with today’s development and “electonification/knowledgefication” of the world. Nowadays, we can put “e”/”k” behind everything and find them in the internet or World Wide Web. This change brings a big mass of information to our world. The importance of information decreased in one sense and increased in another.

The decline informational importance occurred in sense that you can find dozens of web pages which includes the information which you need.

Amplification occurred in sense that only competitive information or competitive knowledge began to create difference. Knowing explicitly what, where and how starts to create difference in modern world.

On the other hand, organizations start to look for the new opportunities. One of these became e-nvironment, the place where you have equal conditions to compete. Boom of dotcom; provoke many people to invest heavily in the electronic area.

However, as BCG matrix emphasize heavily investment on stars never means immediate income from them.

Actually, one of the problems of that ‘crises’ was high expectations and promises, which means lack of knowledge. (M.Porter, March 2001.)

As M.Robert (2000) pointed out in his book, this is an era of denial or paranoia. Paranoids were those who tried to do everything and anything they can think of with the internet and knowledge. Though, as author continues neither denial nor paranoia is solution. The solution could be to understand the capabilities 32

(knowledge, information, etc.) and how they could be used by the company. However, before attempting to understand the new world, one needs to understand the organizational strategy for e-ducation of the institution. (M. Robert (2000), p 6-7.)

In other words, the same content of strategy for e-ducation has to be understood and transformed into the new context of the new world – eworld or k-world.

Generally, developing strategy for education (even in “e” or “k” world) with its dimensions means running from the content, through the process, to the context. That means strategy could not be perceived without its dimensions which are not different from each other, rather than complimentary. (de Wit & Meyer (dW&M) (2004), p.5) Therefore, even this paper will focus on the process dimension it will include and emphasize others as well.

The desire to understand today’s complexity and confusion encouraged me to try to relate two strategies for education processes in one and create simplicity. Moreover, during the preresearch of the literature I have not found any explicit academic research on that topic. Even these two topics were quite “fresh” for the strategy literature.

The paper begins with a brief overview of “e” and “k” strategy and its current focus on organizational resources and capabilities for education. It links these strategies in the content dimension of the strategy process for e-ducation. Building on this view, it presents an interrelated developing process of strategy transformation to adapt to the

gradually/evolutionary changing environment for e-ducation.

e-Strategy Changes in IT industry and in the whole world force companies to turn to the IT and develop appropriate strategies on the organizational level.

E-strategy can be regarded as one of these strategies. (M.Porter, 2001) Therefore organizations focused on estrategy process for e-ducation as on a codified set of steps that first of all “demystifies” the Internet. On one hand, the e-strategy process itself drives you to think about what information processes you have in place today, how your functions relate to each other and to your teachers/senders and students/ receivers. Then, added to that, is the e-effect of e-ducation, or the impact that the Internet will have on those things. (M.Robert (2000), p. 107) Briefly, e-strategy gives you an opportunity to move your organization to the electronic environment and operate there on the organizational level. Therefore, operations in e-nvironment require organizational level strategy which is the e-strategy for that specific environment.

K-strategy E-ducation organizations are coming to view knowledge as their most valuable and strategic resource, and bringing that knowledge to bear on problems and opportunities as their most important capability. They are realizing that in order to remain competitive they must explicitly manage their intellectual resources and capabilities. However, many executives still have a problem with March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

managing their capabilities-knowledge that can help them to link knowledge oriented processes to organization strategies, and are unsure of how to translate the goal of making their organizations more intelligent into a strategic course of action. In other words, they lack of k-strategy (knowledge strategy). (M.Zack, 1999) Knowledge strategy implies a notion of knowledge-based strategy, that is, competitive strategy built around institution’s intellectual resources and capabilities. Knowledge strategy is oriented toward understanding what knowledge is strategic and why.

(N. Bontis and C. W. Choo, (2002), p.270-271)

Link between strategies Concerning the fact that both strategies are based on organizations capabilities and resources to have/ create strategies and to develop them, these strategies in their content can be formulated and understood from resource-based view (RBV). (dW&M (2004), p.284) In the RBV, organization resources gave them competitive advantage to create sustained competitive advantage that will directly mirrored in their strategies.

Therefore, here I will try to find links between e-strategy and k-strategy for e-ducation and vice versa.

Both strategies have several patterns which can be generalized according to

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

the e-strategy for e-ducation (internet as a process) book of M. Robert, where he states that generally estrategy is intangible, trying to focus on moving, evolving target.

(M.Robert (2000), p.19). Those general patterns in broad sense could be applied to every strategy. However, concerning the structure of k- and estrategies that patterns like intangibility and evolvement can be particularly observed in knowledge area/e-ducation where every moment means new person who shares it. And particularly neither knowledge nor electronic e-nvironments are intangible.

Consequently, the new world/society becomes more and more dependent on information, this shift lends itself perfectly to the Internet and should be properly managed e-ducation by the right k-strategy which will intersect with the e-strategy on the rapidly and evolving Internet area.

(Ibid, p. 29).

Since the Internet is primarily a transporter of information, the more the society becomes dependent on information, the more disruptive the Internet will be to institutions. This is why the institutions most threatened by the Internet today are those with a product or service mostly based on information, which means there comes a new era of e+k–strategy (further estrategy=k-strategy will be used as e+k-strategy model) . As it can be observed from the picture the strategy, which will help organizations to move (process) to the new world or new environment and even in new circumstances (context)

have an ability to properly manage its capabilities and resources (content).

As an example, at Amazon.com, has information on 17 million of its customers. (Ibid, p.32) These databases allow Amazon.com to know exactly the current interests of its customers and their future interests as well. Simply by e-mail address Amazon.com is able to do one-to-one providing of new book/knowledge.

Developing Interrelated Strategies After the dot-com fallout, surviving companies/organizations needed to sharpen strategy and analyze metrics much better. (M. Epstein, 2004) Since the world entered into the new world, institutions have to review their strategies and develop a new one. Therefore, I consider the importance of the k-strategy which will provide necessary knowledge to organizations to develop (which also means change in strategy formulation process) e-strategies for the new conditions. In other words, I consider these changes as a ways of encouragement to develop or interrelate these strategies in e+kstrategy model for e-ducation the new e-nvironment, which will form and be part of new world. For that reason, I will mainly refer to the combination of M.Robert’s book on “E-strategy” and M.Zack’s article on “Developing a Knowledge Strategy: Epilogue”.

However, that part will not be limited with these sources only and will provide combination of other publications.

Hence, one million of questions come in the mind of most of administrators, what should I do? How should I do it?

Who knows the solution? The answer is simple, nobody knows. But, in order to make the picture clearer or eradicate fuzziness I will try to combine the ways of k-strategy development with the e-strategy development in order to create a common picture and prove that strategies for e-ducation in process 33

may be interrelated and similar concerning certain merits and aspects.

According to several strategy guru’s the best way to develop e-strategy in the frame of organizational strategy it is better to start with your employee.

(M.Robert (2000), p.33) That could be easily supported with the k-strategy development process which focuses on organization/society capabilities and sources on employees.

Consequently, we know with whom or who will develop/change our organizational/institutional strategy towards the new model e + k-strategy model in e-ducation world. So, where should we start?

That point is very important and may be most of you will have a feeling that this paper repeats the traditional way of strategy formulation. (dW&M (2004), p.7) However, I can argue and say that the process in general always or in most of the cases remains stable.

The things, which make/create difference, are tiny pieces of similar/ huge process.

Thus, I think that every administrator or person who will start to develop this model should first of all be able to understand new world/Internet and structured process for e-ducation that works. Any strategy must be oriented toward the future. Thus, the first phase in formulating a clear organizational strategy (for education) is to determine what the e-nvironment will look like in a few years down the road. (M.Robert (2000), p.33) As Business Week observed in an article about the future impact of the Internet: “It is difficult to determine how to improve something when you do not know what it is that you want to do. Our experience has shown us that most people in organization do things right. Unfortunately, they are frequently blamed for doing things wrong.” (A. Slywotzky, 2000) In other words, they are doing things right but doing the wrong things. So, it is important to get people to identify the 34

right things to work on, to help people who do things right to work on the right things.

Another way to develop interrelated strategies is the right measurement.

For that kind of measurement there should be developed appropriate metrics/e-tools. (Tony Ingram & Alison Hedges, 2004) The selected metrics will likely include a combination of input, processes, output, and outcome metrics to effectively measure performance.

There is no rule for the right number of metrics to include in a measurement system; however, including too many tends distract administrators from pursuing a focused strategy. (M. Epstein, 2004). These analyses ensure that each unit is making a contribution to the e-ducation initiative and improving organizational effectiveness. Additionally, these metrics can be used to provide a gap analysis that permits administrators to determine what other inputs or processes are required to meet the organization’s e-ducation project objectives.

Similarly, Zack (1999) points in his article that he observed many organizations whose strategy dictated a move to an e-nvironment model without the requisite knowledge and skills and a knowledge management initiative to address those knowledge gaps. Others were migrating from providing outputs to providing knowledge-based services and solutions for e-ducation, without their first understanding what they knew (or did not know) about being a service provider, or identifying the unique value (if any) to be found in their existing knowledge.

So, how to know what I or my organization know? To identify what you know (later part will use Zacks’(1999) suggestions) usually starts with some type of knowledge mapping process. That means to map existing knowledge against what is required to formulate and execute the organization’s strategy for e-ducation.

Further, the map can be used to evaluate how an organization’s knowledge about e-ducation compares to its “competitors”. If we think of strategy as defending knowledge positions rather than “market” positions, then competitive knowledge benchmarking is crucial for evaluating the organizations “competitive” position. Where an organization holds a strong strategic knowledge position about e-ducation, it may be prudent to invest to maintain that position. Where it holds a weak knowledge position, it may be prudent to invest to gain strength.

These knowledge management decisions must be made within the context of knowledge-based competitive opportunities and threats.

It is also crucial to know what “competitors” know. Some organizations try to know that via intelligence or similar scanning function. However, most intelligence functions attempt to identify what “competitors” are doing, not what they know about e-ducation. On the other hand, Zack (2002) suggests that those who want to learn may be become and ultra-aggressive organizations. Those, who proactively transfer their knowledge out of the institution to accelerate the learning cycle via e-strategy that approach is frequently applied in software industry. An example of perhaps the most aggressive strategy is that of the open-source movement used, for example, to develop the Linux computer operating system, which makes public the core source code to take advantage of those innovations others may develop.

(E. S. Raymond, 1998) Knowledge is not static and what is innovative knowledge today will ultimately become the core knowledge of tomorrow. The similar trend can be observed in e-nvironment today’s innovative product – e-ducation can became tomorrows’ core knowledge/ competitive advantage. As an example, Dell’s relations with customers and suppliers were crucial March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

and equals to 70% with the e-strategy, e-strategy gives an at least because of its revenue. they are applied in Recognizing and opportunity to move acknowledging the your organization to the different worlds.

And even, going new e-world Dell e-environment and moved supply chain deeper they can to the web and by bring up the operate there on the this new e+kargument that these organizational level. strategy gains a core two different competitive Therefore, operations in strategies have different starting advantage by ee-nvironment require points and different learning organizational level destinations so, (e-education).

(J.Hagel III & J. their processes strategy which is the eBrown, 2001). Thus could never be strategy for that specific interrelated or defending and growing a at least linked. e-nvironment. competitive position On the other hand, considering these requires continual learning and arguments I can emphasize the fact knowledge acquisition, strength and that the world is becoming more longevity of the processes within an global and smaller at the same time; organization.( M.Robert(2000), p. 94) nowadays, the news/information flow As they become part of the fabric of all over the world in a second. And the institution’s thinking, they there is no possibility to stop it. provide a basis for continuous reThose floods are mainly supported evaluations the world changes. This by the electronic devices or let us is particularly crucial with the say e-nvironment. Regarding that Internet, since the future is filled with fact it is even too late to worry unknown developments. (Ibid) about its impacts because the process already started and it is In many organizations, knowledge impossible to stop it. management/e-ducation efforts are divorced from strategic planning and According to the M. Roberts, execution. However, having an technological change takes 25-30 appropriate e + k-strategy for eyears to find a valuable application ducation in place is essential for and another 50 to 70 years to infiltrate assuring that knowledge management all the nooks and crannies of the efforts are being driven by and are society that it will eventually affect. supporting the institution’s (Ibid, p.40) As an example he gives a competitive strategy for e-ducation. microprocessor which was found in Discussion 1960 and still applicable, even it had its impacts after 18 years. Later he This paper mainly focuses on the points that the same is true of interrelation of these two strategies in the Internet and it was invented the context of strategy processing for in 1968. Therefore it means this e-ducation. However, it could be new development have not yet argued that different developments applied to all parts of our life. It are unique in their occurrence and only starts to affect the e-ducation/ interrelation may create a catastrophe world in late 1990. as Einstein’s atom, which was interrelated to the nuclear weapon.

Therefore, I personally think even these different strategies may have Another contradictory argument may different starting point but, they go in come from knowledge strategist who the same destination. All this happens will argue that this strategic with the aim of increasing development has nothing to do organizational “competitiveness”, Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

“uniqueness” and etc. which in new world will mean going “e”. And being there will require resources and capabilities which are basics of k-strategy. For example, (referring back to the picture) the starting point in soccer, volleyball, basketball, etc. is a ball (content) and destination point is the basket/gates (context). Here, goal (destination) is to win and process is to play.

Therefore, even if it seems to you that this paper tries to predict the future I would call it as another scenario analyze for the nowadays trends.

Conclusion In the conclusion I would like to come back to M.Porters’ words: Don’t throw the strategy baby out with the Internet bath water. And probably will add there following phrase: Instead wash him/her with the knowledge soap and teach/e-educate him/her how to use this beauty (knowledge) in the slippery Internet bath.

It is obvious to all of us that being paranoiac while experiencing a new process will not help us to survive in today’s world. Therefore, we have been more creative and innovative in the process of our strategy fulfillment. In this way we exploit, explore and as was mentioned in this paper interrelate/link different ways/processes to get better results.

Even these ways may seem quite strange and fresh (for some even old and musty), the difference which we may create is lying in ourselves, in our knowledge. Here I tried to provide an idea that this uniqueness can be strengthened in combinatory way and help to get advantages in e-ducation. However, that work characterizes only a different outlook which has not been tested yet.

But, again using your knowledge you can judge whether that way is appropriate to you or not. ❏ 35

U pfront OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based electronic publishing initiative which aims at providing free, searchable, access to course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.The National Knowledge Commission of India is working towards incorporating OpenCourseWare in India’s present knowledge practices. Distinguished faculty member of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA and a member of National Knowledge Commission of India ,Professor Vijay Kumar shared his thoughts on various aspects of OpenCourseWare and how will India be benefited from its usages, in an interview with Rumi Mallick of Digital Learning.

❏ What is the philosophy of OpenCourseWare (OCW)?

OpenCourseWare (OCW) is about providing unfretted access to educational resources. From MIT’s perspective, one way to implement this kind of philosophy and vision is to make all its two thousand courses available on web for free. In that sense its not an MIT education as it does not give you a degree, but it provides you a ‘window’ to MIT education, a snap short for what happens in MIT, its courses, study notes etc. ❏ Can OpenCourseWare really transform higher education in India?

If you look at not just at MIT open courses but OpenCourseWare consortium and the alliances that have been created around open education resources, it implies that there is real possibility of having a large amount of good education content available, which if you do the right kind of things both technically and organizationally, can be contextualised and localized to meet 36

the educational needs of different sections. Thus, in terms of providing extensive excess to high quality resources, OCW and similar initiatives points to the opportunity to very good educational content being available worldwide.

The other part of the vision is that because it is a global initiative, and the fact that this content is not just MIT or the USA, it has the opportunity to bring high quality content from anywhere in the world.

This including the fact that India participation in this movement can actually contribute content it this alliance and to this large global repository.

One thing I want to add here is that when you talk about the vision, it is also about India participating as a key player in the global knowledge economy. This vision is not just about content; this is about setting up a global community of content providers, content consumers or people who are interacting with each other in a global knowledge economy. ❏ Would you elaborate a little further,

can India really come into the picture as a content provider? Technology, do you see India becoming very big player in this whole movement?

Well, when we talk about OCW we have to remember two things, one is content itself and second thing is a model. It would be a wonderful for India to join OCW alliance and the OCW council. Various institutions in India have already expressed interests to participate. One way is, these organizations participate, so we have great initiatives like NP Tel, Eklavya, which are already producing the key educational material whether video based, or others for consumption both within their institution or to put out to other institutions. Now, following the open model, one of the things you have to ensure is that they provide content in a consistent format, that is complete and that is easily sharable.

OCW produces complete courses.

They are also able to take advantage of gaps in their offering by looking at the other offerings that are there and being able to leverage that. So when we talk about the India’s contribution March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

to content, there are already initiatives that are creating content for utilizing the content which are being created for courses. So India can use the open courseware model to make its content widely available within India. It can participate in OCW alliance to not only take advantage of content it does not have, but to make some of its contents available to the world. So, there are the ways through which it can operate both as contributor of content as well as participant in this alliance. ❏ Is the Indian government taking any concerted efforts on building this kind of movement or participating in this movement? What is the role of the Knowledge Commission in this?

The Knowledge Commission looks at access and quality of education as one of its key charges. It wants to provide really high quality education to meet the needs of the different sectors in the knowledge economy.

So we are trying to see how can we leverage and improve current initiatives as well as initiate new ones in order to meet its ambition of providing quality and access to education.

The Knowledge Commission has a lot to do with content access, knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and e-Governance, because if you look at the knowledge cycle from the creation to the consumption of knowledge, many things come in, and on of the main goal of the Knowledge Commission to really provide excellence in education and improve current structures to provide this kind of excellence.

Again as I said, when you think about India, where a major part of the population is under 25 years old, when you think about various reports that has come from NASSCOM or the Mackenzie report where they talk Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

about the need of IT sector and service sector in 2005, you need knowledge workers in India. India with all its resources and brain power, we needs to make sure that we have the right structures to become a key player in global knowledge economy, even in cases where we have islands of excellence. ❏ Do you see MIT collaboration with higher institutions in India?

Yes absolutely. It is happening now too through OCW alliance i-Lab alliance. It happens through initiatives like this. There are individuals who also work or collaborative with individuals. When you talk about institutional kind of collaboration, we want to lead through good assets that we have like i-Labs, OCW projects like this, whole bunch of I- campus projects so what we want. We would like to look at how to enable and support adoption of some of the initiatives and have the players become participants. So works with the knowledge commission offers a very good opportunity to bring some of this initiatives, either directly or as models for India. ❏ Do you see MIT doing any direct partnership with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) or with state government ?

At this point I cannot say. There are only possibilities. We try to engage them. MIT is a big place. It has research labs, media lab, MIT faculty, there is a lot of collaboration going on. There are research collaboration going on between people in material science department with All India Institute of Medical Sciences and with what I am doing in OCW, and it is through these initiatives we are working together. So at this point there is no direct collaboration with either MHRD or any particular agency. So the unit that we are

engaged with now is the National Knowledge Commission. ❏ What are those new critical factors that are really important for any successful alliance say between MIT and any other institution around OCW? Open courses rules are pretty simple.

One is we want to make sure there is quality content and quality resources.

We want to make sure that it is available in the kind of format that is being presented and when people put it in they must realize that it is accessible to the world. So both in terms of quality and the rules that surround the material, we have to realize that this quality that it is going to be available to the world. The world is going to say how good it is and the world has to see it. ❏ The opportunities we see are immense but there must be some challenges too. What would you say as the most critical challenges?

Well, one challenge is that how do you really take these materials, which were created for other domains, MIT courses being created for MIT students, how do take them, manipulate and modulate them to suit the different context. This is a nontrivial challenge. Now, having said that, I want to say right now people are accessing things as they are and using it. So while the benefits can be tremendous once these materials are actually componentised and used in different context, as it is too it has opportunity.

At UNESCO, couple of years ago we were talking about localization and contextualization, there were a couple of folks from African countries, who said just give us OCW and we will figure out what we want. So the content is there, some people use it as it is and while some people may want 37

to take it a step ahead. So localization and contextualisation is one kind of challenge.

The other kind of challenge is India needs to have a very robust technical infrastructure network. Campuses have to be networked. Some of the simple lessons we learned in innovation diffusion, even regardless of how valuable it is, if it is too difficult to get to the value, people will not be interested. Difficulty can come either through a network, or sometimes the material can be so complex. Now the substance what I have to say got value, but if I had not been able to communicate simply then you would not have derived the value. So one of the lesson you again learn that if complexities of deriving value is too high, you do not get the value. So innovation does not get adopted and it does not get diffused as it is only minority who can deal with the complexity that goes with.

That is why I had this myths that ohh!

We will solve technical problem and every thing is fine. and there is

tendency of those who is in technology that those guys are clueless, they do not get it ,they do not get it. You either have not made a compelling case or you will not made them easy to access the value.………

The challenge is contextualsation the challenge is to make sure that there are adoption. How do you create communities that will support earlier adopter of this content how you will make sure educators will understand.

The challenge is technical and organizational infrastructure to support the adoption. The challenge is also building the kind of service architecture such that you can actually support these materials to be used in different context. So all that the good stuffs you create does not become outdated in the next wave of technology. You have to create the content sufficiently separated from actual technology implementation. If you change this tomorrow, which you will, because new technology will come and you want to take advantage of this, your content is not rendered useless.

❏ Do you see ICT having real transformative power in education?

Indeed, ICT as a delivery mechanism, take, networks makes content accessible, application visible and sharable. Networks enable communities to collaborate and communicate with each other, which has real value in education. ICT today are enabling and transforming pedagogy. I used to design courses in the past where I think about how do you leverage technology to create highly interactive experience. Use ICT to combine lab exercises, Visualization is ICT, rich –project based active learning environment. Then the Internet-blogs, wiki, etc, interactive videoconference, shared white board etc. So ICT is affecting the content, pedagogy and clientele for education.

Whose who did not have access to education are coming in, new kinds of content are being created and made accessible, and new kinds of pedagogy like highly active learning, project based learning, collaborative learning are coming in. So this is what ICTs are doing. ❏

Over a billion Chinese can now access courseware in their own language... OOPS! OOPS stands for “Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System”. This is a huge “Course Translation” project. Open Courseware is not a strange term for Chinese. The China Open Resources for Education (CORE) who has been looking into MIT’s Open Courseware for a while.

Recently, a large consortium funded by a Taiwanese creative foundation (fantacy.org.tw) has initiated a project which will translate many foreign open coursewares such as MIT’s Open Courseware and courses from public health department of Johns Hopkins University into Chinese. This will allow many Chinese academics to be exposed to the first class 38

learning content around the world.

This organization now has over 1500 Chinese volunteers to do the translation, publication and web development.

This will be the world largest course translation project. There are currently 55 courses completed translation, 305 courses partially online, 920 courses in progress. Over 6000-8000 learners browse the web site each day which sums up to over 120 thousands visitors per month.

The students can access two versions: • Simplified Chinese version (mainland Chinese, Singapore): www.cocw.net • Traditional Chinese Version (Taiwan region and HK): www.twocw.net March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

Conference Report

Linux Asia 2006

Asia’s open source conference and expo, 8-10 February, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi India Special Focus- India Education Forum It’s the talk of the time, the big discussion, about easy-to-use, virusfree desktops, about high-performance clusters, about data and application migration, about wireless computing, about scalable storage and virtualization, and about best practices, collaboration, standards and saving big money.

Linux Asia conference and Expo 2006, the place to preview and evaluate the open source latest technologies firsthand, paved the right forum(s)in New Delhi, India from 8-10 February to put out all these talks and discussions for all- from SMEs, ITES and BPOs, large enterprise, banking, financial services, insurance, telecom, media, government and education.

Organised by Technetra, the technology consulting comany in partnership with EFY Group, a India based technology publications company, LinuxAsia Conference and Expo, the annual event since 2004, became an essential platform for decision makers, managers, technologists and analysts from industry and government to learn, network and interact with global and Indian open source peers and players, in its third year this time.

India Education Forum became the focal point for Digital Learning team in Linux Asia 2006 that highlighted several industry sessions, forums, open source panels, projects, awards, and many more with the theme “The Customer Speaks”.

India Education Forum on 10 February in the Gulmohar room of India Habitat Centre was started with the keynote of Dr. M.S.Vijay kumar, assistant provost, Director of academic computing, IS&T, MIT, Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

honorary advisor - National Knowledge Commission. The panel comprising Aruna Sundarajan, Country Programme Director, GESCI, UNICT, Sadhana Bhalla, Principal, Mira Model High School, Delhi, Kushal Mitra, IIIM, West Bengal and Venky Hariharan, Red Hat furthered the forum with a very triumphant discussion on Open Source Solutions for Indian Schools. Open Source in Universities, Open Source Educational Tools, Modernising the Education Curriculum and Building a FOSS Education Community for India are the other discussions, which made the forum an illustrious one with panels like Dr. Sanjeev Singh, University of Delhi, Shankar Iyer, Red Hat, Zaheda Bhorat, Google, Narinder Bhatia, CII Shiksha India, Danese Cooper, Intel, HNS Rao, Navodya Vidyalaya, Anand Adkoli, Liqwid Krystal, Prof. CN Krishnan, NRCFOSS and others.

The India Habitat Centre, spread over nine acres of beautifully landscaped environs in the heart of the capital city of India, provided an ideal physical environment to LinuxAsia 2006 with a range of facilities that would maximize the effectiveness of the individuals and institutions, in their holistic support of the habitat.

Workshops: Apart from the education Forum, workshops at LinuxAsia provided a classroom setting for collaborative learning and an opportunity to experience the power and potential of Linux and open source software. Motivating Open Source Contributors and Building Communities, Linux - Ready for the Enterprise, Open Solutions

Workshop by Novell, LinuxFest Workshops by IBM are some of these workshop sessions that retained the high-quality approach in promoting the knowledge of open source. ‘.ORG Mela’- this free and open expo area for all open source community members interested in presenting their open source projects to a FOSSfriendly audience backed up showcasing their work and projects.

And it created a platform LFY Reader’s Choice Awards where Linuxfriendly and Open Source products, projects and services in the Indian marketplace got recognized. HP, IBM, Red Hat India, Sony, Lenovo along with a few others shared the Industry Awards, while some others were recognized with Honourary Awards.

Venkatesh Hariharan of Red Hat India and Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu became Indian Open Source Personality of the Year and International Open Source Personality of the Year.

Lots of cool talks at Fedora’s FUDCon on February 9, IBM’s LinuxFest on February 10, Linux Developer Camp on February 8 and 10, Novell’s workshop on February 9 and many more open source talks, workshops and tech days- a great experience harvested in Indian capital. ❏ 39

Bookshelf “Knowledge Maps: ICTs in Education” prepared by Michael Trucano for infoDev Publication: Info Dev,2005

The “Knowledge Maps” presents a clear picture of what is known and what isn’t about information and communication technology (ICT) use in education. Inspite of large investment in ICTs to benefit education and increasing use of ICTs in education in developing countries, important gaps remain in the current knowledge base.

This book has been divided into ten topics (impact of ICTs on learning and achievement; monitoring and evaluation; equity issues; costs; current projects and practices, specific ICT tools, teaching and ICTs, content & curriculum; policy issues, and school-level issues) grouped into four major themes (Knowledge Maps: Impact, Knowledge Maps: Costs, Knowledge Maps: Current implementations of ICTs in education, Theme: Planning).

infoDev’s series of Knowledge Maps on ICTs in education is intended to provide a sanpshots and summary of research literatures related to ICT and education.This book is an attempt to limn the general shapes of a very large body of knowledge and highlight certain issues in a format quickly is accessible to busy policymakers.It meant to point out key general assertions and gaps in the knowledge base of what is known about the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education, which especially as such knowledge may relate to the education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This book is also available online at http:/ /www.infodev.org/files/2907_file_ Knowledge_Maps_ICTs_Education_infoDev.pdf

40

These “Knowledge Maps” attempt to outline where important gaps in received knowledge exist, and were utilized in the formulation of recommendations in support of a series of related research projects and workshops at infoDev.The knowledge mapping exercise relies totally on existing research and literature. A full listing of useful resources consulted during the knowledge mapping exercise is also presented in a bibliography. infoDev’s series of Knowledge Maps on ICTs in Education are a work in progress. The Knowledge Maps will be updated on a regular basis to reflect new developments and research.

The impact of ICT use on learning outcomes is unclear, and open to much debate(Topic1 and 2). There is an absence of widely accepted standard methodologies and indicators to assess impact of ICTs in education. There is a disconnect between the rationales most often put

forward to advance the use of ICTs in education (to introduce new learning practices and to foster 21st century thinking and learning skills) and their actual implementation (predominantly for use in computer literacy and dissemination of learning materials).

There is very little useful data on the cost of ICT in education initiatives, especially those attempting to assess total cost of ownership, nor guidance on how to conduct cost assessments.

ICTs are being increasingly introduced in education, and interest in their use appears to be growing, even in the most challenging environments in developing countries(Topic 4).

There are emerging best practices and lessons learned in a number of areas, but with a few exceptions (notably on ‘schoolnet’ development and general lessons learned), they have not been widely disseminated nor packaged into formats easily accessible to policy makers in developing countries, and have not been explicitly examined in the context of the education related MDGs(Topic 10) .

While much of the rhetoric (and rationale) for using ICTs to benefit education has focused on ICTs’ potential for bringing about changes in the teaching-learning paradigm, in practice, ICTs are most often used in education in LDCs to support existing teaching and learning practices with new tools. While impact on student achievement is still a matter of reasonable debate, a consensus seems to argue that the introduction and use of ICTs in education can be a useful tool to help promote and enable educational reform, and that ICTs are both important motivational tools for learning and can promote greater efficiencies in education systems and practices. ❏ March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

http://TakingITGlobal.org/ In this era of globalisation youth must be availed a platform to find inspiration and expression, get involved and take action in their local and global communities.

‘Takingitglobal.org’ does just that. It is an online community with the membership of over one hundred thousand motivated youth.

TIG’s interactive website provides a platform for expression, connection to opportunities, and support for action. It is now one of the world’s most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference.

by the year 2010.

This portal introduces and facilitates various online programmes such as online community engagement,

The motto of this portal is: “Inspire Inform Involve”.

The motto of this portal is: “Inspire Inform Involve”.

TakingITGlobal works with global partners – from UN agencies, to major companies, and especially youth organizations – to build the capacity of youth for development, artistic and media expression, make education more engaging, and involve young people in global decision-making.

TakingITGlobal is a new type of international organization, developed within the context of several emerging trends such as global challenges demanding global solutions, a revolution in information and communications technologies, young people – the world’s greatest untapped resource, an idea whose time has come etc.This portal informs the visitor about its history and the objectives TIG has set for to achieve Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 3 March 2006

thematic engagement around major global challenges, student and educational engagement, organisational engagement and local engagement.

In its publications section young visitors can access “Guide to Action”. This educational booklet provides a step-by-step process where young people reflect upon their community, identify key issues, get informed, plan and implement action projects and evaluate their success.

In its Media section one can access the news related global issues and young people as well as the insights and research articles which are very useful and these study materials are available in pdf files and fully downloadable.

On its home page there are various options like “Make Connections” which contains discussion boards, groups, member search, newsletters

On the web and TIG blog etc , “Take Action” contains work forum, project and workshop kit etc, Understand Issues contains issues like cultural diversity, equity, education, employment, environment, health and wellness, information communication technologies (ICTs), media, peace and conflict, Poverty and globalisation, social justice and human rights.

This portal provides free online membership to the visitor. A member of TIG can have online chat with other members of TIG community through using this portal and articles can be submitted for the publications in TIG’s Panorama section.

The home page avails global online gallery of artwork and also provides database of organizations related to youth and their actions.

Rinalia Abdul Rahim of Global Knowledge Partnership writes “I have watched TakingITGlobal grow from a compelling idea to a compelling reality. With their global network of young people, powerful technology, and organizational savvy, TIG is a driving force in collaborative efforts to reach and mobilize youth to create digital opportunities for all.”

The Time Magazine has written about the TIG “At the heart of the new generation’s approach is a collabora-tive style that is getting smart young minds together. This is a central tenet of TakingITGlobal which helps young people around the world network and find out about worthy projects.” ❏ 41

Mark your calendar march NERCOMP 2006 20-22 March, 2006 Worcester, Massachusetts USA http://www.educause.edu/ content.asp?SECTION_ID=159&bhcp=1

17 International Conference: Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education 2006 20-24 March, 2006 Orlando, Florida USA http://www.aace.org/conf/site/default.htm

CISS 2006 (Conference on Information Sciences and Systems) 40th Annual 22-24 March, 2006 Princeton New Jersey USA http://conf.ee.princeton.edu/ciss/

Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) 22-24 March , 2006 Orlando, Florida USA

eLearning Producer Conference 18-21 April , 2006 Boston, Massachusetts USA h t t p : / / w w w. e l e a r n i n g g u i l d . c o m / p b u i l d / linkbuilder.cfm?selection=doc.1067&templateid=1

6th International Educational Technology Conference, IETC, 19-21 April , 2006 Famagusta, North Cyprus http://www.ietc2006.com/

Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning Princess Sumaya University for Technology 19-21 April, 2006 Amman-Jordan http://www.imcl-conference.org/

ICDE 2006 International Conference 20-22 April, 2006 Tianjin, China http://www.ihets.org/progserv/education/apc/ apc2006/index.html

http://www.fetc.org/

IHETS/IPSE All Partners Conference 21 April , 2006 Indianapolis, Indiana USA

april

http://www.ihets.org/progserv/education/apc/ apc2006/index.html

Distance Education and Training Council, 80th Annual Conference, 2006 9-11 April, 2006 Seattle, Washington USA

Digital Learning Asia 2006 26-28 April 2006 Bangkok Thailand

http://www.detc.org/meetingsReports. html#80

www.dlasia.csdms.in

may IST-Africa 2006 3-5 May , 2006 Pretoria, South Africa http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2006/

ASTD 2006 International Conference and Exposition 7-10 May , 2006 Dallas, Texas USA http://astd2006.astd.org/

Interface 2006: Alberta’s Renaissance: Imagine the Possibilities 10-12 May, 2006 Lethbridge, Alberta Canada http://interface2006.uleth.ca/

Online Educa Madrid 17-19 May, 2006 Madrid, Spain http://www.online-educa-madrid.com/english/ index.php

Teaching Professor, 2006 19-21 May , 2006 Nashville, Tennessee USA http://www.teachingprofessor.com/

Innovation in Education (CADE and AMTEC Joint International Conference, 2006) 23-26 May, 2006 Montreal, Quebec Canada http://www.acedamtec.uqam.ca/EN/president/

15th International World Wide Web Conference 23-26 May , 2006 Edinburgh, Scotland http://www2006.org/overview/

UCEA 91st Annual Conference, 2006 9-12 April , 2006 San Diego, California USA http://www.ucea.edu/pages/ 2006confmain.html

17th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning 10 - 14 April , 2006 Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida http://www.teachlearn.org/final.html

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March 2006 | www.digitalLearning.in

www.egovasia.net

We invite stakeholders from NGOs, governments, private sectors, donors and development agencies to join this forum and exhibition for taking stock of Asian Telecentre movement, the issues of sustainability and capacity and showcasing best models to

www.asiantelecentreforum.net

April 26 - 28, 2006, Rama Gardens Hotel and Resort Bangkok, Thailand

We invite you to participate in an exhibition of the latest e-Government vision and practices of the Asia, combined with technical sessions for policy makers, practitioners, academicians and industry leaders to showcase the best practices for collaborative learning and partnerships to

I am a child Though, I look after two as My own.

I have dreams Though, I never talk About them.

I have needs Though, I have not The means.

I have learnt To give, without Ever demanding.

Is asking for An education, asking Too much.

I am but a child!

Through its innovative learning methodology, Hole-in-the-Wall Education Limited (HiWEL) makes a significant contribution to improving elementary education and life skills of children across the world, especially those in disadvantaged communities in rural areas and urban slums. To find out more, visit: http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com 2nd Floor, Synergy Building, IIT Campus, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110016, INDIA Tel: +91-11-26581017 / 20 Fax: +91-11-26581022 ; email: hiwel@niit.com