LEARNING - From a distance : May 2008 Issue

The monthly publication on ICT and Education

digitalLEARNING Volume IV Issue 5 May 2008 ISSN 0973-4139

Special issue in association with IGNOU

Indira Gandhi National Open University

Rs 75

www.digitalLEARNING.in

Contents Volume IV Issue V, May 2008

Verbatim Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

- William Blake The true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develop, to their fullest extent, the capacities of every kind with which the God who made us has endowed us.

- Anna Jameson The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

- Sydney J. Harris Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

- Anatole France A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.

- Sir John Lubbock

Cover Story

Innovation

8

30

Building Knowledge Society with Open and Distance Learning Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai

the Unreached 13Reaching with e-Learning Prof. Uma Kanjilal

Dialouge

37

Learning Community an Online Learner 20 Building Support System Dr. Vijay SP Srivastav

School Track The Greatest Equaliser 25 ICT: Interview: M C Pant, Chairman NIOS

With Scale Come Challenges!

Interview: Pial Islam, Project Manager, Digital Ecosystem, World Economic Forum

Country Focus

18 Pan-African e-Network

Equipping Teachers to Unleash Learners’ Creativity EasyNow!

Best Practices

39

SNDT: Empowering Women Through Distance Education Interview: Dr Chandrakant Puri, Director, Centre for Distance Education, SNDT University

Corporate Diary Leader’s Speak

41 44 43

V Sukumar, Country Manager, Education Solutions, HP Madan Padaki, Co-founder & CEO of MeritTrac

Partnership Revolutionalising the Face of Digital Learning

m-Learning

48

Education Gets Mobility Prof. V Suresh

Policy Matter

50

India Formulating a National Policy on ICT in School Education

Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai

M C Pant

Regulars

65

Mark Your Calendar

News

23 28 46 64

India Open & Distance Education

Pial Islam

62

Madan Padaki

V Sukumar

Milestones

YOUR SAY on EFA. I of Digital Learning e su is e th e ased se sting to it up. Only web-b p ee K y.

It was very intere or st er ow about Topp mobile can bridge h ug ro th ed ct ra was excited to kn inte through TV and solution delivered ucation. digital divide in ed S N Tripathy Govt of Orissa

Corporate World

Send your coments to info@digitallaerning.in

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

digital LEARNING Volume IV, Issue 5 | May 2008

President M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Group Directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar Programme Co-ordinator Jayalakshmi Chittoor Assistant Editor Manjushree Reddy email: manjushree@digitallearning.in Research Associate Rachita Jha Research Assistants Shivani Satija, Angela S Nath Marketing Siddharth Verma (+91-9811561645) email: siddharth@csdms.in Sales Executives Rudra Ghosh, Fahimul Haque Subscription & Circulation Lipika Dutta (+91-9871481708) Manoj Kumar (+91-9210816901) Sr Graphic Designer Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Graphic Designers Om Prakash Thakur Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) Web Zia Salahuddin, Santosh Kumar Singh Amit Pal Editorial and Marketing Correspondence digital Learning G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA 201301, India Phone +91 120 2502181-85 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email info@digitalLearning.in digital Learning is published by Ravi Gupta on behalf of Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. Printed at Vinayak Print Media E-53, Sector 7, Noida, U.P. and published from G-4, Sector-39, Noida, U.P.

Editorial Teaching and Learning at a Distance A third of India’s adult population is illiterate and just over one tenth of its children manage to finish high school. In a scenario such as this universalisation of education poses a daunting challenge for the nation. Attempts have to be made to reach out to the vast geographical spaces and infrastructure divide.

It is in this context that Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is being seen as a means for ushering in a revolution in delivery of quality education in a cost effective and needbased manner.

But availability of appropriate technology addresses only a part of the challenge as trained teachers and appropriate ICT content is in short supply.

India’s ODL systems have not succeeded fully in taking advantage of the technological advancements. Further, a wide variety of technological tools like Direct to Home through Satellite, televisions, radio, mobile phones and the internet have failed to reach those learners who live in inaccessible or remote areas or who are at a disadvantage due to socio-economic reasons.

Around 1.50 lakh teachers are added every year into an already existing pool of 30 million. But there is no homogeneity in the geographical distribution of teachers and the biggest sufferers are the rural population who are deprived of best teaching practices.

Although the technological advancements in ICT have expanded the delivery modes of imparting teaching, the teachers have been left out of its purview. Majority of teachers are either not aware or are untrained in using the ICTs in their teaching. The education system needs to co-opt the teachers in to these multiple teaching modes.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University, set up in 1985, has made a visible intervention in this regard with the creation of a pool of master trainersto supplement the conventional teaching-learning methods with ICTs and satellite-based systems.

Today IGNOU has the distinction of being the world’s largest university and serves the educational aspirations of more than 1.8 million students in India and 35 countries abroad through its 21 Schools of Studies. In all these years, the IGNOU’s focus has been on extending its reach to the doorsteps of the hitherto unreached.

The current issue of Digital Learning is an attempt to capture the essence of ODL and also its best practices. We have received immense support from the IGNOU in bringing out this collaborative issue.

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

Editor: Ravi Gupta © Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Now it's time to get recognised!

Because your ideas can improve the lives of many Because your work has been inspiring Because you have made a difference Recognition can potentially bring you the much required funding, government support, NGO collaborations and academic research around your innovations to scale up and boost your endeavours.

Apply for eINDIA2008 Awards Awards are in the fields of e-Agriculture, e-Governance, Digital Learning, e-Health, Telecentre Forum, m-Serve, and Municipal IT. Nominations are invited for: • • •

Government initiative of the year NGO initiative of the year Policy initiative of the year

Nominations are also invited for the following special category awards: • • • • • • •

Farming initiative of the year ICT enabled government department of the year ICT enabled school and university of the year ICT enabled hospital of the year Grassroot telecentres initiative of the year Innovative mobile service provider of the year ICT enabled municipality of the year

Last Date June 30, 2008 AWARDS

Contact: Ritu Srivastava (Tel: +91-9999369624) G-4, Sector 39, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, 201301, India Ph:+91 120 2502180 to 85; Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: Awards@eindia.net.in

Nomination forms are available online :

www.eindia.net.in/2008/awards

Building Knowledge Society with Open and Distance Learning

Equip, Educate, Empower

In spite of our significant efforts and achievements in the post-independent era in India even now one-third of the adult population is illiterate, only 12% of the school eligible age children complete 10th standard, and only 10% of the university eligible age group gets enrolled in our 18600 colleges and 360 Universities.

Can conventional methods cope up this scale of educational challenges? Can we make a major foray into educational technology by launching open and distance learning system?

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

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oday all over the world, we hear the agenda, Learning for Development. Professor Amartya Sen portrays development as freedom, expressed concretely in the widely accepted programmes for bettering the human conditions that includes the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, the Goals of Education of All, the Commonwealth objectives of peace, democracy, equality and good governance and sustainable development. Expanding human learning is essential to the achievement

over 95% of the adults can read, write and count. The female literacy levels are also equal or even higher in these developed countries. The completion of school education of the schooleligible age children in the developed countries is near-universal, over 85%.

The post-school higher education opportunities are there for between 50 and 80% in all developed countries.

In spite of our significant efforts and achievements in the post-independent era in our country even now one-third of the adult population is illiterate, only

In India, women make up 40% of distance students compared with 28% in the conventional face-to-face mode of every element in this agenda and knowledge is the path to freedom.

Conventional teaching-learning methods cannot cope up with the scale of educational challenges, particularly in highly populated developing countries.

Technologies of different kinds need to be harnessed to supplement the conventional teaching and learning process. We need to promote powerful models for applying technology to learning for various purposes. We need to eliminate illiteracy and ignorance, we have to create wider access to schooling, we have to improve the health condition of the people, we have to find out methods for increasing the income of our farmers, and we have to link learning to better livelihoods.

If you look at the growth patterns of the developed countries, you will identify three innate educational criteria related to literacy, school education and postschool higher education attainments.

All the developed countries have achieved universal literacy. That is Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

12% of the school eligible age children complete 10th standard, and only 10% of the university eligible age group gets enrolled in our 18600 colleges and 360 Universities. These educational gaps are characteristics of all developing countries. Only by appropriate and innovative use of technologies we can address these challenges of scaling up of educational opportunities.

Educational technologies are particularly important for developing countries in the areas of higher education, teacher training, schooling, and non-formal learning. The large scale application of technology to learning began at the postsecondary level because success there was more likely to stimulate adoption at other levels than the other way round.

For a number of developing countries, launching an open and distance learning system was the first major foray into educational technology. Higher distance learning has grown at an accelerating pace in the last two decades. These countries have also a tradition of dualmode institutions that combine distance

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teaching with campus instructions.

The developments in distance teaching-learning have had a huge impact on access all over the world. In our country, distance learning accounts for 24% university students and the government policy aims to raise this to 40% in the coming years.

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Distance education has been particularly helpful for women. In South Africa, 4 out of every student enrolled in higher education study at a distance. In India, women make up 40% of distance students compared with 28% in the conventional face-to-face mode.

Availability of trained teachers has been the major obstacle to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education.

Africa alone must train and recruit 4 million new teachers in the next 10 years to reach the goal. In the last 15 years, teacher education at a distance has expanded its purpose and audiences, improved its effectiveness, and harnessed information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a sophisticated, but steady manner.

Achieving universal primary education is a vital developmental goal. Educational technology directly as well as through its application to teacher education can only address this challenge. Countries are focusing to alternative means of secondary schooling. Open Schooling uses highquality self-instructional materials coupled with networks of local centres and trained facilitators to support the learners. Common curricula across the school systems make it easier to achieve economies of scale.

In addition to the application of technology to expand and enhance the formal education system in the areas of school education, teacher training and higher education, the basic development agenda of improving health, reducing poverty and in sustainable development, calls for learning on a massive 9

scale. This should have the focus on improving livelihoods and fostering a healthy population. Improving the livelihoods in rural areas is central to poverty reduction. These livelihoods are mostly farming- dependent and agricultural extension is still largely based on face-to-face communication and demonstration. Communication technology has a great role in these areas of agricultural extension and sustainable development.

The United Nations have proclaimed the years 2005-2014 as the World Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Sustainability is the key goal for the 21st Century. It means that future generations should have the same change of leading a fulfilled life as the earlier generations. At the same time, the opportunity to live a quality life must be more fairly distributed around the world today. Sustainable development combines economic progress with social justice and conservation of the natural environment. Sustainability is as pressing a task as it is great and noble one. It cannot be merely decreed from the top hierarchy; it must be learnt. In this context, Education for Sustainable Development instills the competencies that are required if we are to build our lives in a manner fit for the future.

The aim of ESD is to integrate the

idea of a form of development which is environmentally, economically and socially sustainable into education around the world. Education for Sustainable Development is equally relevant to learning in kindergartens, schools, universities, further education and cultural institutions, or research institutes. The necessity of realizing the objectives of achieving a balance between economic efficiency, social justice and conservation of ecosystems and the responsible use of natural resources has to be integrated to the teaching-learning at all levels.

and economic security to millions of our population. This requires a careful matching of scientific and technological vectors with social dynamics. Building up sustainable regenerative capacity of the land and water resources to provide basic food and economic security to the people at large, without compromising on the ecological and environmental integrity is the challenge before all of us.

In this context it is absolutely imperative that we make use of advances in Science and Technology for building up the carrying capacity of the country on a sustainable basis.

If the damaging consequences of global climate change are to be understood, and if effective countermeasures are to be developed, research is essential.

Education, science and politics should work together to formulate the path for sustainable development. In order to bring sustainable development forwards, large numbers of scientists must work together in an interdisciplinary environment. They must make sure that scientific and research findings get through to education, the general public and public debate.

Any successful educational programme has to take into account the needs of the intended learner. We also have to find out what type of knowledge work is needed for the real growth of the country and what type of skilled force. We have to look at the market requirements, service sector, we have to probe the agricultural sector, organised sectors of the country and see what are the types of knowledge they require, what are the kinds of skills they need.

Then let us analyse the skills and knowledge we provide to our graduates.

Then see the mismatch and fill the gaps.

Find out the additional knowledge and additional skills required and create a mechanism for providing this additional skill, additional knowledge.

The most challenging problem which our country, and developing countries all over the world, have to face in coming decades will be to provide food, health,

Sustainability Science in India Sustainibility Science provides the theoretical basis for the planning and implementing sustainable development programmes and activates.

It is an academic amalgamate/malange of multiple disciplines such as economics, engineering, environmental sciences, geography, sociology and political science. The alarming rate at which ecological degradation is taking place has highlighted the crucial need to reform the current development model and resort to a more sustainable one thus ensuring enhancement of the quality of human life.

In keeping with its vision of promoting the goal of ecological sustainability and fostering eco-friendly development strategies, IGNOU established a Chair chaired by Professor M.S. Swaminathan who has been referred to by the United Nation Environment Programme as the ‘Father of Economic Ecology’.

The chair seeks to carry forward research and development in the field of Sustainability Science by adopting a systems approach for the development of strategies for sustainable development and initiate ‘action education’ programmes in major eco-systems. The chair will also create various courses for scientists, stake-holders and decision makers and along assisting government bodies with research.

Some of the activities of the Chair are as follows: • Action Research Projects on Sustainable Development in seven Agroclimatic Regions of the country (hill, arid, semi-arid, coastal, irrigated, mountain and island), • Education and training material, • Policy Studies for preparing a document on Sustainable Development resulting in the development of an ‘Agenda 21 for India’, • Organized sensitization and regional workshops on the five priority areas highlighted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002 i.e. Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management, • Spreading Public Awareness, • Research and Development, • Networking and building databases.

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May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

There are more than 5 million unemployed graduates in the country. We have to find out what skills they lack - based on regional, national and global requirements - and prepare modules of training, for upgradation of skills and knowledge subject wise, taking inputs from students and prospective employers In other words, open and distance learning should have a major role in capacity building, rather than just awarding degrees. But of course the Open University system should give the student a chance to earn the degree if he cannot afford to get it from the conventional stream for reasons beyond his control.

There are more than 5 million unemployed graduates in the country.

We have to find out what skills they lack - based on regional, national and global requirements – and prepare modules of training, for upgradation of skills and knowledge subject wise, taking inputs from students and prospective employers. This can result in complete revamping of the education system. A graduate in conventional stream can take an add-on course related to his subject, in the distance mode. Then there will be a natural convergence of open stream and conventional system.

A society’s wealth and welfare are determined by its capacity to train and educate its people to share in generating and applying knowledge in all spheres of life. Institutions in the world over are competing with one another to embark on technology-enhanced 12

learning environments in order to take robust learning experience and learning activities to the doorsteps and living rooms of learners, who due to various factors are not able to be physically present in classrooms at the stipulated timings but are eager to update their knowledge and skill bases, considering the tremendous growth in information and the dictates of knowledge-driven markets.

Despite the growth in the ODL systems, misconceptions abound in the society and particularly in the employment market. There is still a stigma attached to distance learning that it is for those who are not capable enough to go to the regular institutions. This is mainly because ODL is thought of as a continuation or extension of the

private registration mode. It is assumed that there is no face-to-face interaction, and people get their degree by registering. There has to be vigorous interaction between the teacher and the taught.

With satellite and online classes, interactive classes should become the norm. In the technology-led learning, main concern is bridging the divide.

The teacher’s writing on the blackboard, his notes, the students’ questions, all this can be converted into digital form. “Education for technology and technology for education” should be our slogan. With the use of technology, it is possible to teach the individual rather than the class, at the pace of the individual rather than the class average.

Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai is the Vice-Chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. He is also the Chairman of the Distance Education Council( DEC), which looks after the co-ordination of standards, quality, recognition and developmental assistance to all the 13 State Open Universities, over 150 Distance Education Institutes in the Conventional Universities and in other private Open and Distance Learning institutions in the country. Prof. Pillai has been at the helm of affairs of many higher education institutions during his career spanning over 37 years. His experiences and contributions to the field of science and educational administration are rich and varied. He has served as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi; served as the Director of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Bangalore; he has been the Vice-Chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, Vice-Chancellor of the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Founder-Director of the School of Chemical Sciences, Dean of Faculty of Science, Controller of Examinations, Director of College Development Council, Founder-Director of the School of Professional Distance Education and Chief, Employment and Information Guidance Bureau of the Mahatma Gandhi University. He is a Fellow of the prestigious Indian Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Senior Fellow of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

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Reaching the Unreached with

e-Learning

The Indira Gandhi National Open University in its 22 years of existence has emerged as the single largest University in the democratic world. It serves the educational aspirations of more than 1.8 million students in India and 32 other countries through the 21 Schools of Study and a network of 58 regional centres, more than 1804 study centres/tele-learning centres and around 46 overseas centres. The University offers 138 CertiďŹ cate, Diploma, Degree and Doctoral programmes comprising around 1300 courses.

Conventional teaching learning methods are being effectively supplemented with Information and Communication Technology and Satellite-based teaching-learning systems.

multiple media teaching-learning packages in the form of selfinstructional print and audio/ video materials, radio and television broadcasts, face to-face counselling/ tutoring, laboratory and hands-on experience, video conferencing, interactive radio counselling, interactive multimedia CD-ROM and internetbased learning. Apart from the print based self instructional material, the educational programmes are reaching over 5 million homes through the Gyan Darshan Channels, via the DTH (DirectTo-Home) platform and webcasting. The University is now gearing towards the development of interactive multimedia content and learner support through web-based platforms.

The University provides multi-channel,

The e-Learning market is booming

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

world over and is predicted to follow an upward swing with more and more institutions, organisations and individuals implementing and adapting to this mode. The power of e-Learning lies in its potential to provide the right information to the right people at the right time and place. With advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the delivery of educational programmes has witnessed a paradigm shift from print based teaching-learning to e-Learning. The learners having access to the internet and those who have adapted to learning through computers have shown their preference for e-Learning over print.

Web that gives information access to users who are physically remote from resources is emerging as 13

a democratising, emancipating, empowering force facilitating selfpublishing, knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer networking. It has now shifted from being a medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into a platform, where content is created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along. In the same spirit e-Learning has moved from being merely a content repository and emulating classroom teaching to more dynamic concepts of Social Networking, Do-It-Yourself (DIY), Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and Mobile Learning.

The ICT led initiatives in the form of eLearning, online student support, digital repositories, open source courseware, etc. are now part and parcel of the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) systems.

The earlier generations of ODL has given way to new generations which are ICT dependant for dissemination of knowledge without compromising on the quality and being more cost-effective.

e-Learning has moved from being merely a content repository and emulating classroom teaching to more dynamic concepts of Social Networking, Do-It-Yourself (DIY), Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and Mobile Learning materials have restricted use by the registered programme specific audience only. Some of the materials especially the audio visual ones do not even reach the targeted audience. Considerable

by IGNOU to store, index, preserve, distribute and share the digital learning resources developed by the ODL institutions in the country.

In the first phase IGNOU course materials are being digitised for uploading on the repository. This will be followed by incorporation of course contents of other Open and Distance Learning (ODL) institutions in the country.

At present a centralised model of implementation is being carried out where servers are located at a central location in the IGNOU campus and content is being digitised and uploaded in the eGyanKosh unit of the University.

There are plans to move on to the decentralized structure where the other ODL institutions will be participating in uploading material on the repository.

The content and the metadata will be moderated at IGNOU before uploading on the repository. The long term plan, however, is to implement a distributed

Realising the potentials of e-Learning to reach out the un-reached, IGNOU has recently embarked on a few major initiatives towards developing online learning environment for distance learners. eGyanKosh: a national digital repository, e-Learning platform for LIVE (Library and Information Virtual Education), PAN- African E-Network and Sakshat a one stop education portal of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), are some major initiatives of the University in this direction have been discussed here. eGyanKosh: A National Digital Repository of learning resources eGyanKosh is an effort towards developing a national digital repository of learning resources. Over the years, a vast amount of self instructional materials, audio and video programmes have been generated by the open and distance learning (ODL) institutions in the country. Huge wealth of structured knowledge is available which is very difficult to access and reuse. This results in duplication of efforts in developing learning materials and wastage of valuable resources. These learning 14

eGyanKosh Main Page (www.egyankosh.ac.in)

amount of money is invested for the purpose but most of the materials remain under-utilised. Moreover, the audio visual programmes stored in analogue form have a limited life span. Keeping these issues in mind, eGyanKosh, a national digital repository was initiated

model once the ODL institutions have acquired necessary infrastructure and expertise in developing repository at their own end. In the distributed model the repository will have an interoperable architecture with the facility of cross collection federated searching.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

IGNOU Adopts ERP To Strengthen Organisational Capabilities

Dr V S P Srivastav (vijaysrivastav@ignou.ac.in), Head, Computer Division, IGNOU In the 1960’s when programming as a discipline came to be advocated in office processes, efforts were made to develop standardised software solutions. Initially, software was developed for processes like payroll, inventory and storage management etc. This automation process was termed as Electronic Data Processing. Later on, other tasks in the production system like purchases, billing, customer requirements, etc too were integrated, which led to development of Material Requirement/Resource Planning (MRP) software.

With the advancements in IT, an improved ICT tool ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ has come up which integrates all processes at the organisational level. The ERP integrates several data sources and processes of an organization into a unified system of back end database to store data.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has also embarked on an initiative to adopt the ERP to enhance individual competencies and strengthen institutional capabilities. The move will facilitate availability of consistent and integrated data to all concerned. The ERP will be further extended to cover IGNOU study centres, regional centres and concerned service divisions and schools at the headquarters.

Through the ERP programmes of Peoplesoft and ORACLE, the back-end processes for HR, finance, works, purchase and inventory departments have been taken up in first phase. The HR records are being digitised using the Documentum software with heavy duty scanners. Access controlled Data Centre, with many blade servers and storage systems, will provide all the requisite support for customisation/ development, testing, training and further implementation of integrated management solution. The second phase is intended to cover all other stakeholders, up to the study centres. Web enabled integrated solution will thus provide a single platform for all to communicate and retrieve information online.

e-Learning initiatives at IGNOU Several e-Learning initiatives were experimented by the University earlier but they could not take off very well.

The Virtual Campus initiative launched in 1999 by the University for the Bachelor’s Programme in Information Technology (BIT) had great promises.

But the programme was discontinued in 2006. Another programme, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, ‘RR online’, started as single online mode academic programme in 2002, later made as dual mode (online and offline print based) simultaneously.

Reflecting on the experiences gained in these programmes, one finds that they could not sustain mainly due to their replication of the print based content into e-learning materials. Though, some interactivity was introduced in the form of chat and e-mail, they were not sufficient enough to retain a continuous learning interest in the pedagogy. The content software was mainly text based with additional PowerPoint presentations and online quizzes. These were followed by a few more motivational initiatives at smaller scale. Not withstanding the setbacks in the initial phases in the e-Learning front, the University is surging towards developing complete virtual learning Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

environment to facilitate reaching the un-reached especially those located in far flung areas. From the management angle, a decision has been taken in the IGNOU’s Planning Board to incorporate online delivery of its new academic programme parallel to the print based mode.

Experience from the earlier experiments clearly indicates that a more learner and learning centric approach is required for successful implementation of eLearning environment. While certain learning functions can be best performed

by Learning Management Systems (LMS) based on structured content, higher learning that is based more on discovery and exploration require

learner-centric, pick-and-choose tools.

E-Learning technology can be put to good use by enabling blended learning through information, interaction and collaboration. Therefore, apart from the course based structured e-Content, an e-Learning environment requires the following features: • personal knowledge management tools- RSS feed, bookmark, tagging • platform to Interact with the instructor and connect with fellow learners- e-Mail, chat or VoIP, discussion forums, blog, social networking (Orkut.)

• constructivist content development platform- Wiki platform for learner expression- blogs or portfolios.

LIVE Main Page (www.ignouonline.ac.in/live)

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The platform for e-Learning delivery at IGNOU is now being developed integrating third generation e-Learning tools. An agreement has been signed with Google Inc to integrate Google Apps with the system facilitating collaboration and real time interaction Most of these tools are now available as open source, which facilitates easy integration with the existing e-Learning platforms. The platform for e-Learning delivery at IGNOU is now being developed integrating third generation e-Learning tools. An agreement has been signed with Google Inc. to integrate Google Apps with the system facilitating collaboration and real time interaction.

LIVE (Library and Information Virtual Education) is an initiative of IGNOU to develop an in-house Learning and Content Management System for imparting online education.

It is envisaged as a complete virtual learning environment suite covering all the activities from registration to certification. In the first phase only the Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science (MLIS) is being announced at international level. The virtual learning environment has the following features and processes involved in it: Walk in admission - admission will be available throughout the year. The Registration form has been specially devised with the facility of uploading scanned certificates, other required documents and photograph. Registration will be confirmed only after verification of the certificates and payment of the required admission fee. Facility 16

for online payment gateway is being integrated for the purpose.

Integrated multimedia coursewareonce registered, learners will have access to personalised learning space (My Page). This includes self instructional material, related audio/ video, slides, self check exercises, etc. weaved in one platform.

Online counselling and mentoring - webcast based counselling integrated with text based chatting facility to be used for counselling purposes.

Distributed model is to be followed with e-Counsellors available in remote locations.

24Ă—7 learner support- asynchronous and synchronous modes of interaction will be used to provide just in time support to learners.

Portfolio based continuous evaluationportfolios with individualised randomly generated assignments (both objective and subjective) automatically generated from question bank. Portfolio space for keeping track of course status, assignment status and grades.

Assignment Management System- in the first phase a question bank has been created with five hundred questions in each course. In the next phase web ontology/semantic web methods are

to be used for automatic question generation. Complete automated system will be used for creation of individualised assignments and further distribution of completed assignments to concerned counsellors for evaluation.

Assignments will be of two types, objective and subjective. Objective part will be evaluated automatically by the system and subjective part by the eCounsellors online. e-Tutor based practical- online instructions and e-Tutorials for hands on practice of WINISIS and Library Automation Packages. Multimedia manuals for self learning will be also provided.

Group based online seminar- Blogs, chat rooms and discussion forums are to be used for group based seminars.

Possibility of integrating EDUSAT based videoconferencing facility is also being explored for Seminar component.

Online Project platform- templates developed for synopsis submission, project uploading and evaluation.

Viva voce will be conducted through Skype or through web based video conferencing tool.

Online Term End Examination- same pattern to be followed as in the case of assignments. However, examination will

Sakshat: One Stop Portal Main Page (www.sakshat.ac.in) May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

be conducted in specified centres for proper monitoring.

The same platform is now being replicated for running other programmes of the University. The MLIS programme will be followed by Post Graduate Certificate in Cyber Law in near future.

Sakshat: One Stop Education Portal, a landmark initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to address all the education and learning related needs of students, scholars, teachers and lifelong learners has been developed at IGNOU. The portal envisages providing one stop solution to educational requirements of learners ranging from Kindergarten to higher education and education covering all fields of study including vocational education and learning for life skills. The pilot was inaugurated by the President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam on October 30, 2006. The portal has three tier architecture with user interface, content management system including built in learning object repository and administrative module.

The user interface provides basic five modules viz. educational resources, scholarship, testing, super achiever, and interact. Apart from this, it has an inbuilt virtual class which follows four quadrant approaches, facilitating single window topic based access to learning material. The ‘interact module’ provides facilities like talk to a teacher, blogging,

discussion forum, career counselling, etc. The content generation module follows a Wiki approach of content development and deployment facilitating storing of content based on metadata in the repository.

Under the PAN-Africa e-Network Project of the Government of India IGNOU has been given the responsibility of meeting the educational requirements of African learners in all the countries of the African continent through the tele-education mode. Under this pilot project, IGNOU has signed an MOU with the Universities of Addis Ababa and Haramaya, Ethiopia for offering the IGNOU MBA programme to the students of these Universities. The forty students admitted in the project are taught by IGNOU’s core faculty through e-network system, established by TCIL. Efforts are on to extend the project for other programmes of the University and develop SCORM compliant content for e-Learning delivery mode.

As the University is surging ahead with e-Learning mode of delivery the real challenge is to develop e-Content at mass scale. As more and more

programmes will be offered online in future, immediate attention needs to be paid for preparing the faculty for digital environment both in terms of content generation and programme delivery. The sustainability of the online programmes will depend on the accessibility to the basic infrastructure on the learner side.

University has initiated a major effort in this front by equipping the regional centres and study centres with necessary hardware/ software and bandwidth.

Sustainability of the online programmes will mainly depend on the equity and access to rich learning content and 24 × 7 online support. Mere duplication of print material into e-Learning content will in no way be beneficial to the learners. An integrated approach is needed where in one window operation learner has access to course content, and other learning resources in the form of e-Books, e-Journals, educational multimedia programmes, radio and TV channels, etc. along with complete support service. The University recognises this and is trying to harness the capabilities of the ICT in education to fullest extent to reach out the un-reached.

Prof. Uma Kanjilal is Professor of Library and Information Science and currently Director of School of Social Sciences in Indira Gandhi National Open University.As Coordinator of eGyanKosh she has been instrumental in developing the digital repository and e-learning platform LIVE. She has also played a major role in designing and developing the Sakshat Portal of MHRD. Prof.

Kanjilal was a Fulbright Scholar in the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA in 19992000, where she worked on multimedia courseware development. Her area of interest are digital libraries, e-Learning and multimedia courseware.

In search of constant innovation in distance education: National Centre for Innovation in Distance Education The National Centre for Innovation in Distance Education (NCIDE) at IGNOU has been established to encourage innovations for the system. The aim of the Centre is to develop a culture of constant search for new and innovative solutions towards the University’s mission of seamless education, cost efficiency and borderless access to quality education. NCIDE promotes, develops and pilots innovations in all aspects of the ODL system and works through the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mechanism. It provides intellectual and technological support to the stakeholders, for the growth and development of the ODL system.

NCIDE also encourages innovations in distance education through collaborations within IGNOU and with other institutes in India and abroad.

Distance Education Incubator The Distance Education Incubator (DEI) is an innovative effort of NCIDE to provide technological and intellectual assistance to the different stakeholders and collaborators at the nascent stages of ideation. These new ideas are converted into innovative practices and techniques at NCIDE through the BOT mechanism. These are then built into a working product through technological and intellectual inputs at NCIDE. The resultant product operates initially at NCIDE, and subsequently, it is transferred to the stakeholders.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

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TRY N COU CUS FO

The former President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, while addressing during one of the sessions of the Pan-African Parliament held at Johannesburg proposed a programme to connect all the 53 African nations by a Satellite and Fiber Optic Network that would provide effective communication and connectivity among the Nations, a network to primarily provide Teleeducation, Tele-medicine, Internet, video-conferencing and VOIP services.

Launched first in Ethiopia, the project is seen as Africa’s biggest ICT project ever, with online education and telemedicine programmes expected to extend ICT infrastructure to rural areas and other underserved communities.

During 2006, based on the expression of interest submitted, Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) was identified as a nodal agency to evaluate a teleeducation component of this project.

The network is designed to have 169 VSAT terminals, with 3 VSAT terminals in each country to provide Teleeducation, Tele-medicine and Heads of State (VVIP) connectivity with a Satellite Hub earth station in Senegal.

The Tele-education services are to be provided from 7 reputed Universities in India and 5 leading regional universities in Africa. The project is conceived as a turnkey solution to provide e-Education services and make it sustainable so that Pan-African countries will be able to carry on with their own services after 5 years duration.

As a precursor to the Pan-African eNetwork project, Ethiopia Pilot project was initiated to provide Tele-education services from IGNOU at New Delhi.

The project is commissioned in 2006.

As part of this project, 40 students of Addis Ababa University and Haramaya University are taking MBA course from IGNOU through tele-education.

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Pan-African e-Network Heralding New Era in Tele-Education

The interactive educational content from IGNOU is transmitted to Ethiopia on submarine cable based 2Mbps International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC) between India (landing station Mumbai) and Ethiopia (via Djibouti).

Tele-education Services: An integrated Tele-education delivery system software has been provided to bring virtual remote classrooms in a multi-studio and multi-class environment with seamless two-way interaction between the teachers and students through collaborative tools. This system provides seamless, one-to-one, one-to-many connectivity through heterogeneous network platform in an IP-based multicasting mode of delivery.

The infrastructure consists of one Application server, one Database server, one Control server, one Agent server and one workstation for the Tele-Education applications. These servers are capable of running on Windows and Linux Operating system. The Application server, Database server and workstation for live streaming purpose (Total of three servers) are connected to the Storage Area Network (SAN).

A dedicated website www. panafricanenetwork.com/.org/. net/.in has been hosted to facilitate dissemination of information to various countries of African union and interested groups.

Tele–Education centre at Addis Ababa University and Haramaya University, Ethiopia have successfully got installed and commissioned the equipment at both the centres. Tele-Education content is received by the students at University center at Addis Ababa and Haramaya learning center in Ethiopia.

Professors from IGNOU are delivering lectures on MBA course from the Studio of Tele-education set up at IGNOU, New Delhi. Acoustically designed studio environment has been created at the learning centre at Addis Ababa University which in future can be utilised for transmission of learning material or courses from Addis Ababa University.

The Tele-education project provides a universal platform for distance learning with a synchronised multimedia delivery in number of platforms to the remote end through VSAT, Broadband and Internet coupled with collaborative tools, Return video and audio, eLearning and campus management system, Integrated digital library and content management system as an integrated package under the educational portal. The educational portal comprising the above-mentioned modules installed at the University centre and a centralised management system provided at for scheduling, organising and managing the Teleeducation system in co-ordination with various universities in Africa and India.

May 2008 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Everyone's Listening!

Vice Chancellors of Top Universities on Panel School Leaders Forum on Leadership Challenges Industry Players Talking on Technology Trends Government Planning Imperatives for Today's Oppourtunities

Come, Join and Listen to Them

From 29 to 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan New Delhi

ing y n r Lea unit m c om

Building an Online Learner Support System

www.ignou.ac.in

Dr Vijay Srivastav [vijaysrivastav@ignou.ac.in], Head, Computer Division, IGNOU, New Delhi

Indira Gandhi National Open University is the largest university in the world today with more than 1.8 millions of students enrolled. There are more than thousand academic courses offered under the umbrella of about 140 academic programmes. Meeting the student requirements at such level is indeed a great challenge. Information prior to admission, admission details, SIM (Self Instruction Material) despatch details, examination date sheet, examination results, on line forms submission are some major requirements which IGNOU has to meet timely. Having perceived the demand, Computer Division at IGNOU started developing and putting online solutions through www.ignou.ac.in.

D

istance education was started in India in 1962 in the form of a pilot project through correspondence course in the University of Delhi. Having discussed at many forums through various committees, a recommendation was made to set up an “Open University�. The very first step towards this was made in 1982 by Government of Andhra Pradesh, one of the States in India, by setting up an open university to strengthen non-formal education in the state and to provide access to higher education to the adult population of the State. The model chosen was that of the British Open University.

Soon, Govt. of India decided to have an Open University at national level and a bill was moved in the Parliament to set up Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The bill addressed education for all, life long education, weaker and disadvantaged section of the nation. As the result, IGNOU, which is one of the most popular and pioneer 20

open institution in the world, was set up on September 20, 1985 by an Act of Parliament. It combines in it the functions of a regular university and a national body to promote, coordinate and determine the standards of distance education in the country. With the evolution of new methodologies in imparting education and aid to both learners and the teachers distance education is proving to be boon in providing access to the spatially and geographically disadvantaged.

To promote education at state levels there are about 14 state level open universities. Distance Education Institutions (DEI) which offer courses in dual mode of educational delivery has grown from one in 1962 to 132 in 2007. The programmes on offer cover all from certificate to doctoral degree.

To take care of the need of further marginalised group National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has been in existence with state level branches. All the distance education programmes in

India are promoted and maintained for their standards by Distance Education Council. It was established by IGNOU in 1992 with unique mandate to focus its role as an apex body of distance education in India. It supports State Open Universities (SOUs) and Correspondence Course Institutions (CCIs). Programmes offered by CCIs are through the dual mode universities and they impart education through correspondence/ distance mode. Under the Convergence plan efforts are being made to achieve more and more educational requirement goals under joint collaboration of conventional and distance mode of imparting education.

Courses and Programmes IGNOU academic programmes on offer vary from community based short term to doctoral level. They cover a wide spectrum, starting from awareness courses, say, on Internet and eMailing or a course on office automation tool. Other programmes are related to certificate, PG certificate, diploma, advance May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

diploma, PG diploma, bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degree. Course design and development procedures are rigorous, based on the principles of good practices in curriculum development and Self Instructional Material (SIM) design. In order to accomplish the mammoth task it utilises the expertise available in-house and with international and national institutions and non-government organisations in the team approach. The programmes are developed for the various fields to cover learners from rural and tribal areas, disability groups, jails and rehabilitation houses, government and non-government sectors, parents and home-makers, employers and the employed. IGNOU offers today a total of about 140 academic programmes, altogether offering about 1050 courses.

The remarkable achievement in students’ enrolment and their interest is not only because of one reason. While the IGNOU programmes are seen to be popular and attractive for all in the country, the course delivery and services to student through IGNOU site are equally found to be contributing multi fold. This happens because of innovations almost in all respect for better and better delivery and support.

With the objective of making the course delivery at the door-steps all efforts are put in to facilitate the students through IGNOU website for static and dynamic information.

Services to Students An open and distance delivery system has a number of activities required to be performed, like Admission, Academic courseware production and distribution, Pre Examination,

Performance Evaluation, Post Examination, Multimedia production and Communication facilities.

The very first requirement is that of bridging the gap of distance between learner, teacher, and the service provider. Once student takes admission, then making available SIMs to the right address at the right time, that is, well before conducting the counseling session is the next challenge. Bringing out regular updated SIMs, Multimedia CD’s, web contents etc. are another challenges need to be addressed time and again for updating the materials.

Target group may not have access to library system, whether online or offline in their neighborhood. Hence SIMs have to be self-explanatory and presented in concise and precise manner.

Performance evaluation in terms of assignments and examinations are required to be carried out in each semester (term end). Evaluation activities, as such, are further required to be met. Preparing for appearing examination (pre-examination) invites requirements like : getting registered for those many courses in that particular semester, submission of examination form for writing examinations for the courses (at most) registered for, preparation of Examination hall ticket/Admit card and making the same available to eligible students, apart from other administrative and monitoring reports for arranging examination halls and preparing hall wise list of students/ invigilators/assistants and so on. Once the evaluation of examination papers has been accomplished, it requires to prepare the result, semester wise and

comprehensive, and then informing students through post or through web site. Further preparing convocation list, and for others like list of awardees etc. may be required towards postexamination activities. Meta data maintenance has to be sufficient enough for meeting all kind of requirements including management reports for day wise operations, MIS and others for the apex body at the top management level in terms of strategic reports.

Communicating with students is yet another aspect to be met preferably, through e-Communication. Addressing general queries, timely feed back, and communication with students/teachers/ coordinators/service providers and so on using the state-of-the-art technology in terms of e-Communication, tele/ video/radio conferencing should have sufficient coverage for effective delivery. Hence, virtual campus setting up, their running, maintenance and management has to be efficient and effective enough to interact with students, time and again for occasional address, orientation, and imparting education in ODL.

Student Support through IGNOU Website Regional Centres, Study Centres, and Tele Learning Centres all over India and in other countries come together through Internet using web based applications running at IGNOU headquarters in New Delhi. As stated above, both static and dynamic information are made available with frequent updating of the site. After the students are admitted at the country wide Regional Centres, they are allotted Study Centre in their neighborhood at

When planning about technology for distance education we must keep in mind that the distance learners need clear goals and objectives. Websites and on line service deliveries must be congruent with the course and course goals Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

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on various schedules like: Practical examination, TEE, TV channels , Radio Counseling, Edusat programmes apart from other which are required to be provided, now and then, for the benefit of students and also for those who wish to be IGNOU students.

the nearest location of their residential addresses given while applying for admission As in other ODL institutions, IGNOU students admitted are from various background - some may be working on transferable job, some with parent’s transferable job, some may be female students married while pursuing the course and so on. Hence there is requirement of “address changes” around the year. Similarly when Term End Examination (TEE), at the end of each semester, is held in June and December every year, results are required to be put at IGNOU site so that students could know about their performance from any where they have access of Internet. Prior to conduct of the TEE Hall Ticket, for appearing in the examination, is required to be made available online. Input to the Hall Ticket comes from the earlier submitted Examination Form, provision for which has also been made through the IGNOU site with payment gateway, apart from off line submission of the form. Comprehensive Grade Card, which reflects all the courses in terms of marks/grade obtained by individual, is also required to be made available through IGNOU web site.

Similarly when Entrance Tests are conducted, as the pre requisite for taking admission in some IGNOU’s programmes like: Management Programme, Bachelor in Education, Bachelor in Nautical Science and so on, then, respective results are required to be put on site. Other applications through virtual data base which are required to be put on IGNOU website are study material dispatch status, final certificate/diploma/degree dispatch details (if not collected in person on the convocation day) and notifications 22

Having seen the enormous requirement towards student support services as above IGNOU developed the very first application for the comprehensive “Grade Card” and “Address Checking”.

The response in terms of access to IGNOU site was overwhelming.

Demand started pouring in for further coverage in terms of wider applications for student support services. The next application in this internet based virtual data base approach was declaring the semester wise “Term End Examination Result”. This had further better response through the website hits.

Today, applications corresponding to all requirements as enumerated broadly in previous paragraph are available on line. This has resulted in great demand of frequent updating which takes place almost daily. Once the data is available from Service Divisions, they are prepared and uploaded, in most of the cases, on the same day. The IT Division runs all seven days a week.

A tour to IGNOU website will enrich with all such facilities being delivered online. The latest additions are online examination form submission with payment gateway, online grievances redressal, alumni details, and additional information (eMail, Mobile number etc.) submission through www.ignou.ac.in.

Further, online admission with payment gateway is targeted from July 2008. For the forthcoming term end examination to be held in June 2008, a total of 93357 forms have been received online.

Metadata is maintained separately for Student Support Services in Microsoft environment. Integrated modules talk to each other for data sharing. Application servers are maintained and populated by in house team. There is a separate in house team responsible for maintaining and managing browser/ mail/DNS/Web and other project related servers.

To have integration at the organisational level covering all processes, IGNOU has started implementing ERP modules. To cover such functionalities it has started from back offices automation which is targeted for implementation by October 2008. Further processes are under study for integration and incorporation to have integrated management solution through a world class data centre and storage system at Computer Division in headquarters.

Advantages of virtual data bases and Internet applications can be planned and worked out for bringing more and more facilities to ODL learners and making the delivery system friendly, in time, and demanding. When planning about technology for distance education we must keep in mind that the distance learners need clear goals and objectives.

Websites and on line service deliveries must be congruent with the course and course goals. Such services must be prompt enough in responding to all queries. System design, as such, must be exhaustive to accommodate total and prime requirements with enriched metadata. Alternate solution for the system, proper and sufficient manpower support, adherence to time frame are some of the vital issues which require attention of one and all in providing support services. System should be flexible enough to meet the demand based requirements from learners for delivery, answering to queries keeping in mind the various needs and motivations for enrolling in distance education.

Above is modified version of the paper presented by the author in 4th Pan Commonwealth Forum held in Oct-Nov 2006 in Jamaica.

Dr.Vijay SP Srivastav is working as Head, Computer Division in Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi since September 2000.The Division is the main IT service provider in IGNOU. Dr. Srivastav has about 27 years of experience out of which initial three years have been as research scholar at JNU, New Delhi and 12 years in IT industry. He joined IGNOU in 1996 as the Joint Director, Computer Division. As the Head of the Division he is responsible to get IT infrastructure created for one and all in IGNOU including Regional and Study Centres across the country.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

News india SC allows 27% quota for OBCs The Supreme Court upheld OBC quota in central educational institutions clearing the way for reservation of 27% seats for ‘backward’ castes over a period of three years from the academic year 2008-09.

affirmative action with the concern that quota should not result in merit being jettisoned altogether. It said that the cut-off marks for OBCs could not be substantially lower than that prescribed for general category candidates. On the creamy layer, the court suggested that the government should include the children of former and present MPs and MLAs to the ‘creamy layer’ list by amending the 1993 office memorandum issued by the ministry of personnel.

The court also clarified a confusion regarding applicability of creamy layer criteria to SCs and STs, as was observed in an an earlier judgment. Chief Justice Balakrishnan and Justices Raveendran and Bhandari concurred through their separate judgements that the creamy layer criteria could not have any application to SCs and STs as they were a separate category altogether.

From this year three new IITs at makeshift sites

However, what would have been unadulterated joy for the OBC leadership which campaigned relentlessly for pushing the frontier of the backward quota to educational institutions has been tempered with the five-judge constitution Bench headed

by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan unanimously deciding to keep the ‘creamy layer’ out of the purview of the quota, and recommending review of the quota every five years.

The court also said that the quota would not extend beyond graduation courses, in a ruling which created doubts whether reservations could be extended to the prestigious IIMs. This means that while 27% OBC quota could be applied for MBBS and graduation degrees in IITs, it would not be available for postgraduation and other higher courses like PG in medicine and master’s courses in IIMs. The court also tried to balance provisions in the Constitution for Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

There is some good news for the 3.2 lakh students who just took the IIT joint entrance exam across the country. There will be three more IITs - in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan taking off this year which will translate into 360 more seats.

IIT-Andhra Pradesh, will operate out of an old Delhi Research and Development (DRDO) ammunition laboratory in Medak while IIT-Bihar and IIT-Rajasthan will work out of rented premises for two years.

IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Delhi have been asked to ‘mentor’ the new IITs coming up in Bihar and Rajasthan, respectively.

Each of these three new IITs will ultimately have to grow to accommodate a student strength of about 3,000 (approximately 2,000 seats in BTech, 500 in MTech, 400 seats for PhD and 100 for post-doctoral fellows).

Reliance Communication launches education portal on mobile phones

In a trail-blazing initiative, Reliance Communications announced the launch of an exclusive educational portal on Reliance Mobile Phones.

This unique portal offers a bouquet of useful information on exam results, college admissions, event calendar of exams, admission deadlines, mock tests and tips for performing well in exams. It also contains the list of top universities, colleges, secondary education boards as well as career options. While the educational portal is an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based service, it also offers SMS alerts on subscription for exam preparation, performance and even tips for de-stressing to enhance performance during exams. The service will be made available to both prepaid and post paid subscribers.

Students and their parents can access exam results available on this educational portal of various Educational Boards instantly on their mobile phones any time, anywhere in India. Over 100

Committee to select SC/ST students for study abroad Madhya Pradesh government has constituted a committee for selecting candidates belonging to backward classes for higher education in foreign countries.

Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary of Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare would be the Chairman of the committee.

Principal Secretaries of Higher Education, Technical Education and Medical Education have been made members of the selection committee while Commissioner Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare would be its Convener.

The screening committee would present enlisted application forms before the selection committee.

Five candidates belonging to backward classes would be finally selected from among the applications after interviews.

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Exam Results are scheduled to be displayed on Reliance Mobile World’s application suite ‘Exam Results’ with Haryana Board’s-subject to Haryana Board Policy- is slated for mid April (Reliance Mobile World<Exam Results).

RCOM’s subscribers can also access the results via SMS.

After IIMs, IITs propose fee hike With IIMs hiking their fees, the IITs have proposed a similar step to augment their resources.

The students in all the seven IITs are now paying INR 25,000 per annum as fees. It could be increased upto INR 50,000.

The proposed fee structure, once accepted, will be implemented in the seven IITs. Over 4,000 students take admission to courses in the IITs at Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati and Roorkee every year.

The move to hike the fee comes a few days after the IIMs decided to increase their fees for their two-year postgraduate programmes.

While IIM Ahmedabad has decided to increase the fee from the current INR five lakh for both the years of the course to INR 11.5 lakh, IIM Bangalore would increase its fee to INR nine lakh from INR five lakh.

TNAU introduces online examinations Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has introduced on-line

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examinations for first year students.

TNAU conductedthe mid semester online examination in all campuses of the University and about 800 students were taking the examinations.

The students were provided with Wi-Fi connectivity in their laptops.

They could view the question paper only during the time set by the teacher after entering the password as announced in the examination hall. After the examination, the answers would be stored in a separate file and mailed to the mail ID of the teacher concerned for evaluation. e-Education consists of e-Teaching, e-Learning, e-Communication, e-Assignment, e-Examination and e-Evaluation. The new global economy poses more complex challenges to workers requiring higher level education, computer literacy, critical thinking, information analysis and synthesizing skills. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based teaching was being implemented in the TNAU, adding, an e-Learning lab had already established in the University.

Higher education to get more accessible\

Spiralling prices have disturbed budgets in majority households, but the middle and lower income groups can hope of some relief in the near future at the education front with the Government of India planning to provide subsidy on education loan interest rate.

Prof Sukhadeo Thorat, Chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC), told reporters that under the 11th Five Year Plan, GoI has decided to create a Higher Education Loan Guarantee Authority (HELGA), which will come up with various provisions to help students, particularly of the middle and lower income groups, in securing education loans and

scholarships for higher and professional education.

The idea is to increase the overall enrollment rate in higher education to 15 % from the existing 10 %. Prof Thorat said, in order, to make higher education more accessible, plans are to disburse scholarships to at least two % of the total students. Further, he said, GOI will itself become guarantor for the student applying for higher education loans and provide subsidy in the rate of interest during the moratorium period. Banks, at present, provide loans without collateral securities up to Rs 7 lakh but for a loan above Rs 7 lakh students have to arrange for guarantors, which in many cases are not available because applicants come from middle or low income groups.

Hold UPSC exams on pattern of GMAT, IIM, says Committee To check “enormous wastage of time” between advertising vacancies and declaring results, a parliamentary standing committee has recommended that UPSC should consider conducting its examinations on the format adopted for GMAT, IIT and IIM entrance tests.

The Union Public Service Commission conducts various tests for recruitment to government services like civil services, forest service, engineering service and defence services and most of these are annual, conducted in various phases.

“The committee is of the view that this would prevent wastage of resources and time and would ensure transparency and instill greater confidence of candidates in the examination system,” said the parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice in its report presented to Rajya Sabha. The panel also favoured increasing the number of UPSC members.

The committee said the state public service commissions also needed to be “toned up” and the personnel ministry should evolve a mechanism to ensure that the state PSCs were free from “shackles of nepotism and favouritism” so that they functioned independently and transparently.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearninG.in

ICT:The Greatest Equaliser www.nos.org

School Track

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), formerly National Open School (NOS), with approximately 1.5 million learners on roll, has emerged as the largest open schooling organisation in the world. Initiated as a project in 1979 by the Central Board of Secondary Education, the Open Schooling programme has now taken shape as an independent system of education in India.

Power Schooling

What is the guiding mission of the National Institute of Open School (NIOS)? Please elaborate on the vision of the institute vis-Ă -vis open schooling in India.

The NIOS is globally recognised for providing sustainable learnercentric school education, skills up-gradation and training through open and distance learning, and also for ensuring convergence Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issu 5 May 2008

M C Pant, Chairman, NIOS shares the journey of evolution of open schooling programme at NIOS.

of open schooling organisations.

This has resulted in getting closer to an inclusive learning society, human resource development, national integration and global understanding.

direction, has been in place for development, training, delivery, networking, extension and other programmes required to best promote open schooling at the national and international level.

We envisage substantial upscaling of the open schooling at the national level. A vision document, which provides a framework and

NIOS aims to work as a resource organisation for open schooling with usual programme delivery role. The State Open Schools (SOS) are required

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to assume major responsibility for expansion of open schooling in India as prospective learners would opt for regional languages as medium for instruction.

In your understanding what ails India’s school education system?

How is NIOS planning to address this?

Our education system is facing three major challenges: The challenge of numbers; the challenge of credibility and the challenge of quality. The formal education system is attempting to address these challenges through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) A number of hurdles, like the choice of study courses, differential pace of learning, varying needs and requirement of infrastructure, make it difficult to address the educational

needs of the millions of children and adolescents, particularly at the secondary level. The open school system is needed to address these challenges of mass and universal education.

Although the efforts under SSA have given good results, there is still a challenge of universalisation of secondary education. Both formal schooling and the open schooling systems are required to meet this challenge of education on priority basis.

How NIOS plans to bring changes in the vocational educational system?

Acknowledging the fact that the young entrepreneurs are the wealth of the nation, the learner friendly vocational education programmes of NIOS provide excellent prospects.

It offers as many as 75 vocational

NIOS has introduced an innovative ICT based ‘On Demand examination system’, a significant step towards establishing autonomy of a learner

education courses in areas like agriculture, business, commerce, engineering technology, health, paramedical, home science and hospitality management. In order to upscale and improve these vocational courses, NIOS is forging collaborations with reputed institutions and organisations in various sectors like medicine, IT and industry. It is planned to make Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses modular and creditbased with features of vertical and lateral mobility. Work is already underway on preparation of modular courses in the area of computer education. The curriculum framework for open vocational education developed by NIOS takes into account the curricular diversity by conforming to various target groups of learners.

How many regional centers does NIOS have?

There are 11 regional centers: These are at Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Guwahati, Patna, Jaipur, Delhi, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Hyderabad, and Kochi. Besides these, regional sub-centres have been established at Dehradun, Bhubaneshwar and Darbhanga.

Which are the most highly soughtafter courses?

The secondary and senior secondary courses and several vocational education courses of NIOS are popular among learners. Vocational education courses in the following areas are very popular: Computer and Information Technology sectors, Home Science and Hospitality Management, Business and Commerce , Early Childhood Care and Education.

How are examinations conducted

by NIOS? NIOS is the only national level board that conducts two public examinations in one academic year.

The first public exam is conducted in April-May, while the second is held in October-November. These exams are conducted like any other public

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May 2008 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

exam of Central Board for Secondary Education and other state boards.

However, considering the nature of learners and the need for flexibility, NIOS examinations allow as many as nine attempts for completion of a five-year course; accumulation of credits and papers cleared and transfer of credits from CBSE and state open schools.

NIOS has also introduced an innovative ICT based On Demand examination system. It is a significant step towards establishing autonomy of a learner. A learner can appear in examination as and when he/she is ready to appear in examinations as per his/her preparation in one or more subjects.

How does NIOS manage its finance?

NIOS charges a fee of Rs. 1000 for secondary courses and Rs. 1150 for senior secondary courses. The students are supplied full set of study material free of charge. An amount Rs. 250 per student is given to each centre for organising personal contact programme.

A part of the fee collected is used to meet substantial expenses of NIOS. A grant is extended by from the Ministry of Human Resources Development for conducting the academic programmes.

Facts Sheet •

The largest Open Schooling system in the world: more than 22,35,000 learners have taken admissions since 1990.

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More than 20,000 learners take admission every year in Vocational Education Courses and more than 2,50,000 in all courses.

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63,728 learners have been certified in different Vocational Courses since 1995.

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Reaches out through a network of more than 900 vocational centres spread all over the country and abroad.

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In all there are more than 2,800 centres centres for all the programmes.

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Imparts education through distance mode using a media mix of self-instructional print materials, audio, video and CD-ROM supported

by Personal Contact Programmes and Practical Training Sessions. These are further supplemented by Radio Broadcasts and T.V. Programmes.

The open school programme of NIOS is self sustaining. It is worth mentioning that NIOS gives about 30 % to 40 % fees concession to underprivileged sections like Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and persons with disabilities. These concessions are also given to women and former defence personnel.

What are major highlights of NIOS that make it different from CBSE system?

NIOS provides its students flexibilities pertaining to place and pace of study.

Hence it is less rigid compared to the CBSE system. Moreover, the credits are accumulated. A student can complete a course within a span of Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issu 5 May 2008

•

NIOS also offers: - Open School Basic Education Programmes - Secondary/Senior Secondary Education - Life Enrichment Programmes

one to five years depending on his or her preparation. So it is a viable mode of education for those who are unable to attend conventional schools for various socio-economic reasons or those who have missed out on opportunities to complete school and developmental education.

It also meets the educational needs of children with disabilities and provides a ‘safety net’ to drop-outs so that they do not remain alienated.

Open schools also address the needs of children from the minority communities. Talks are on with madarsas for using the NIOS system.

In its effort to further the national agenda of Universalisation of Secondary Education, NIOS has started on-line admission, which is open round the year under On Demand Examination system. Last year, more than 30,000 children registered on-line for various courses.

Provision has also been made to pay fees on-line while the study material can be downloaded from the NIOS website.

For over many decades, NIOS has been at the forefront of open education in India. Please elaborate on the journey hereafter for open schooling.

There is great scope for open schooling in India; not only for ‘reaching the unreached’ but also for providing relevant and need based educational programmes for different clientele. Programmes offered by state open schools in the regional medium of instruction is bound to attract more students into the open schooling fold.

Taking note of the potential of open schooling system, the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) has suggested that 15 % of the students at secondary level may be covered by the open schooling.

Keeping this in view, NIOS is endeavouring to substantially upscale its programmes as well as those at the state level. Those states which do not have open schools are being provided with consultancy and resource support for opening them.

27

News Open & Distance Learning Haryana Urdu Academy To Begin Distance Courses In Urdu Haryana Urdu Academy has decided to offer Urdu medium distance education courses in order to promote Urdu language and literature. The Academy will prepare text books from class I to class V for certificate and diploma courses. This decision was taken in a meeting of annual award committee of the Academy that was presided over by Haryana Education Minister Mange Ram Gupta.

Students Learn English Through Radio

Hundreds of thousands of students in Class 1 and 2 across Bihar, one of the most underdeveloped states of India listen to the radio as it begins its lessons in spoken English.

The programme is broadcast three times a week during school hours.

The programme covers nearly six million primary school students in 37 districts in the state and is broadcast through radio sets in government schools. ‘English for Fun’ was launched by the Bihar government in December last year at a cost of Rs 40 million in collaboration with a Bangalore-based NGO, Education Development Centre, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

It teaches spoken English and grammar through 50 songs and simple lessons aired by All India Radio in a 50-minute capsule

y Universit g to the — in rd o c c method grees, a t their de ssroom learning e g to e m cla ) program entional mg On e education (DE sin’ of the conv in h tc a C me in ou nc program preneurs. ecutives using the dista d as the ‘poor c e x v E ti r u c fo e tre ex rde ntly tion ne-year essful en still rega are curre e Educa ) offers o lopment of succ Distanc million students data. Yet, DE is -C IM (I ) for deve -Calcutta Over 2.8 mmission (UGC tions IIM d a programme tu o ti C s in ts . r n hers Gra skills an e premie y for fres red by th ment of strategic e ff especiall o s e rs p r develo nline cou UNESCO Guidelines In Distance Education host of o nt, programme fo e th g n Amo eme g a Educationists from countries like Britain, Australia, Malaysia n a m business and Canada who met along with those from India to discuss the need and advantage of providing higher education through private distance educational institutes said India should follow UNESCO guidelines to weed out unscrupulous players.

Distance learning center launched in Mozambique Organised by the Commonwealth Education Media Centre, A newly launched distance learning center will help train future leaders New Delhi and the Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning, of The United Methodist Church and connect its Mozambique Annual Pune, the two-day conference will address how India Conference to the rest of the world. can follow the example of developed countries that have succeeded in providing quality.

After three years of planning, the Africa Training and Learning Center was dedicated March 31 as a satellite campus of Africa University, a United Methodist-related school in Zimbabwe. The center is housed in the church’s Mozambique conference offices in Maputo.

The center will enable Africa University to connect with potential students in Mozambique who are now without access to traditional learning. It also will offer affordable higher education to people in diverse geographical locations and environments.

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At present 1.75 million students are pursuing higher education through Indira Gandhi National Open University, which is 18 percent of the students enrolled for higher education in India.

There are 35 private open distance education centres in the country. Moreover, 15 state supported and 60 conventional universities in the country have departments that offer distance education.

April May 2008 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

A Question of Balance!

CENTRE

STATE

Meet the Government, the Leaders, the Decision Makers at

eINDIA2008 Panel

'Centre Vs State' From 29 to 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan New Delhi

INN

ON I T OVA

Equiping Teachers to Unleash Learners’ Creativity EasyNow!

D

espite great advancement in information and communication technology, its use in facilitating quality and accessible teaching experience has been very minimal in the commonwealth countries of Asia and South East Asia.

This has resulted in a large number of institutions and teachers being left out of the ambit of the best and the latest standards that these technologies have to offer.

For instance, a wonderful class lecture on Newton’s law of gravity delivered by a trained teacher in a well-equipped city classroom may never reach the students of a school in a poorly connected part of the country. Similarly, a villagebased educator may find it difficult to create a teaching process based on new ICT tools for a more comprehensive delivery of some educational concept, due to limited resources and poor technical skills.

An attempt is now being made to address the need for creating and capturing delivered lessons using affordable multi-media tools for taking them to wider audience and region.

Although the written, aural and visual media have hugely expanded the range of delivery mode of education, there has hardly been any serious effort to integrate the ICT practices into the training of teachers. Many teachers are either not aware or are untrained in various modes of communication technology to reach a wide variety of learners in remote areas or those who do not have access to formal schooling.

30

Moreover, not all schools in these countries have teachers well-trained in subjects like science and maths. Hence students may not perform consistently in these subjects. Other stumbling blocks are inaccessibility of formal schooling to the marginalised and high drop-out rates among students.

The education system also needs to cater to multiple learning modes as some students may learn by reading while others learn better in the audio-visual medium.

To address these issues, the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) has prepared a unique and cost-effective training package ‘Easy Now’. This short-term module equips the teacher to handle simple and inexpensive ICT tools to replicate quality learning materials in as many as nine different multiple media modes, which will go a long way in unleashing the full potential and creativity of the learner.

The package has been developed taking into account the merits of open and distance learning (ODL) and on-campus learning (OCL). It encapsulates the steps of ‘capturing, preparing and delivering’ high quality course contents in multiple modes of media for a richer and more interactive learning environment. This in turn initiates the learner into a process of life-long learning, even after leaving the school.

The concept of Easy Now came up in mid-2007. It was initially felt that the training module should target the secondary school teachers. However, during consultations May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), with which the CEMCA had collaboration for the preparation of the sample kit, it was felt that tertiary level teachers in ODL and OCL institutions should be targeted in the first phase.

These teachers were believed to have better access to ICT in these countries. And these 150 master trainers from the tertiary level would then return back to their countries to train more teachers from the primary and secondary level. Teachers and learners are presumed to be the immediate beneficiaries of this project while establishments employing ICT-efficient task force will be the ultimate beneficiary. The consequent output by sufficiently trained task force is likely to have an impact on the socio-economic development of the region.

The project training comprises a series of six workshops during the span of two years from January 2008 to December 2009. The selected 25 teachers will participate in each of these workshops, which will be of ten-day duration. Based on the feedback received from two workshops held this year, necessary modifications in approach, content and method of conducting workshops may be carried out in the next four workshops in 2009.

Training to be imparted by appointed resource persons will be in three phases. In the first phase, teachers will be trained to capture lessons given in a conventional classroom using

question-answer and discussion sessions.

Till March this year, two ODL institutions - Open University of Sri Lanka and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, Nashik, Maharashtra, have successfully undergone training and integrated the ICT tool in their teaching module.

However, the path to incorporating ICT tools like Easy Now project in the education systems in the Asian and South East Asian countries is strewn with various hurdles as it is still a novelty here.

First of all it may be difficult to locate suitable trainees, who can get sufficient time to spare from their already overburdened schedule of duties. As it takes extraordinarily long time to develop contents, planning should be made to select quality courses in printed or oral lecture form as the basis for training. Teachers are not among the highly paid employees in these countries and hence may expect financial incentives from their employers for undertaking the training and also in applying it in their teaching modules. So concerned educational bodies need to keep this constraint in mind.

Another significant constraint is the lack of systemic and institutional support to the application of ICT for delivery

Till March this year, two ODL institutions - Open University of Sri Lanka and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, Nashik, Maharashtra, have successfully undergone training and integrated the ICT tool in their teaching module. However, the path to incorporating ICT tools like Easy Now project in the education systems in the Asian and South East Asian countries is strewn with various hurdles as it is still a novelty here blackboard and chalk, through voice or speech-text recording of the audio and complemented with screenshots or electronic documents of the blackboard content. Another method is to video record the whole session.

The second phase involves preparing captured material in several ways like digital audio with paper copy of board content, slide shows of board content synchronised with the audio for use on a computer. Slide shows of the board content can also be made along with audio input for use on a computer. Board screenshots can be converted to movie form and integrated with audio. Video-recorded lessons can be edited and published. The quality of the output can be modified to meet the constraints of delivery and costing. In the third phase, the output thus created can be delivered in many ways, like individual viewing using cassette/CD players, video players/TV and computers. Mass delivery can be made through radio, television and the internet. Using the internet, the teacher can also host online classroom support to conduct Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

of course contents. Easy Now project involves a series of multimedia that teachers can easily deploy, provided the institutions make available necessary infrastructure.

Further, the training will have to be content with the use of basic and relatively less expensive equipment for converting the course content into audio format and its presentation as radio programme. With government support to institutions in the form of funding, teachers can also convert their course contents into visual formats.

Following the completion of the training in the participating institutions, concerned stakeholders in each country, participating in the project, are expected to commit to carry the project forward. As more and more teachers get trained, the use of ICT for imparting course content in quality starved OCL centres as well as good learning material starved ODL institutions in the Asian and South East Asian region is expected to get an impetus.

31

V Krishna Moorthy Consultant, CEMCA, the brain behind Easy Now!

or data between the teacher and students. Through this technology students could communicate with the teachers by typing in queries and receiving answers. However, during demonstrations I realised that the teachers found it difficult to utilise to make drawings. So I created a product for them called Easy Now! Tell us about the idea behind the innovative training module Easy Now!.

I am basically a nuclear scientist and have worked in BARC. In the 1960s, our digital struggle was to convert some numbers into a meaningful model by which we could run our nuclear reactors.

Then India made a computer CDC-12, in which you could feed the data and have the desired models on a teleprinter. We were on top of the world. That is how my association with computers started.

Between 1969-73, I went into an ad agency, where my training as a nuclear scientist was put to good use. I started using mathematical calculations in market research to establish consumer choices, patterns and standard sizes of products. I also worked with an engineering consultancy helping people solve practical problems using mathematical models. Then I joined a company called Computronics India where I was involved with various projects for for different groups of clients across the globe. I realised then that although we have made technological advancements, these are not being used for right applications.

When computers came to be used extensively, the ability of calculating simulation through graphics, etc was of direct interest to education. At Computronics, we were involved in the development of a software called the White Board. The software allowed simultaneous transmission of messages 32

Please elaborate on the concept of Easy Now. Using the Easy Now! module, teachers can create a slide show for students, which would be optimum so that it could go up on a regular dial-up line net connection. This would allow the teacher to record the lecture in an audio,

Using the Easy Now! module, teachers can create a slide show for students, which would be optimum so that it could go up on a regular dial-up line net connection match it with video of the lessons on the whiteboard and deliver it in no time.

Through this system, almost 120-150 hours of classroom teaching can be recorded in one CD and disseminated to students who may not be in quality schools. Similarly, lectures by a good teacher can be archived for future use for the benefit of a large number of students. This method is also very cost-effective as it requires simple tools for recording a classroom lecture.

Moreover, this innovation is friendly to persons with disabilities and can be used by the visually challenged as well as hearing impaired.

How can the learning divide be surmounted using Easy Now? Through the Easy Now! one can archive a classroom lecture and use it for educating students in a remote village or inaccessible place or even children who cannot afford quality education. The product is also inclusive in nature as it can be used by the visually challenged or hearing impaired. The learning divide can thus be surmounted by empowering the marginalised sections to use this costeffective open source. All one needs is simple technological tools like the VCD or MP 3 player to play high quality classroom lecture. For example, we have conducted training sessions for the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU), Nashik, Maharashtra and the teachers there are now trying to reach out to the tribal population there using this method.

So Easy Now! is going to be a big revolution in terms of its reachability and affordability and further the mission of open and distance learning.

How has the response to this product been?

The response to Easy Now! has been very encouraging. Students find the whole concept of teachers preparing the lessons and archiving them very interesting. This year we have already conducted training sessions in YCMOU, Maharashtra, Sri Lanka Open University (SLOU) and the Bangladesh Open University (BOU). We would now be going to Tamil Nadu Open University (TNOU) and Malaysia for holding such sessions. We have also conducted classes for a private organisation â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Chanakya Mandaliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in Maharashtra, which provides education to almost 4000 students. The Mandali feels that they would be able to reach out to more than 50,000 students through this technique.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

knowledge for change

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

Co-Organisers

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

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

Supporting Partners

速

The World Bank e-Thematic Group

eINDIA2008 Thematic Tracks

INDIA

INDIA

2008

2008

INDIA

INDIA

2008

2008

Introduction

Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) announces and invites you to join the premier ICT4D (Information and Communication Technology for Development) event - 'eINDIA2008'. The event aims to examine the myriad challenges which appear in integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) with different spheres of life, to share and work together, to analyse and assess, as well as to work towards realising a technology enabled knowledge society.

Important Dates Call for papers: Open now Submission of Abstracts: 30th May 2008 Notice of Selection: 10th June 2008 Submission of Final Paper: 20th June 2008

Important Links eINDIA2008, the fourth annual ICT4D forum in India will be convened at New Delhi, India from 29th to 31st July 2008. The three day forum aims to render active conferencing, networking and showcasing, while organising six seminal tracks- egov INDIA, Digital Learning INDIA, Indian Telecentre Forum, eHealth INDIA, mServe INDIA, and eAgriculture INDIA. As an international event, apart from the general public and the media, the eINDIA2008 Conference and Exhibition expects to bring together 4000 high level representatives of the ICT industry, government, civil society, academia, and the private sector, from all across the globe to share the best practices and digital opportunities for development, to discuss and exchange knowledge and ideas that will shape the future of global ICT development.

The Conference offers a perfect platform for establishing and fostering high level networking contacts with leading representatives of the world's ICT sector on both governmental and business levels.

Conference Objectives •

Provide a collaborative forum to participants to share knowledge and ideas, enabling them to develop cross-

Abstract Submission: www.eINDIA.net.in/abstractonline.asp Delegates Registration: www.eINDIA.net.in/register

sectoral contacts and partnerships, as well as to enhance their knowledge, expertise, and abilities; •

Give a reference framework for describing impact, and looking at approaches and methods currently used in the ICT4D sector, and their suitability;

•

Highlight barriers of ICT integration in India and other countries, and identify gaps in current research;

•

Synthesise the main results of experience sharing and the progress made in recent years to provide a baseline for discussion with policy makers, and community of practitioners.

Organiser Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (www.csdms.in) is a leading Asian non-governmental institution engaged in advocacy, research and community building in e-Government, ICT for Development, and knowledge management issues, through capacity building and media initiatives. .

Programme Advisory Board Chair

Co-Chair

R Chandrashekhar

S C Khuntia

Additional Secretary, DIT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

Joint Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of HRD, Government of India

Today, technological implementations may reach across campuses, institutions, departments, offices and other workplaces and often require the integration of systems involving both academic and business units. It is a collaborative approach, that needs not only technology, but also strong leaders who know how to engage whole communities as well as top-level strategists. We invite you to join us for Digital Learning INDIA2008 in New Delhi, from 29-31 July 2008 to examine the myriad challenges that appear in ICT and Education, to share and work together and to analyse assess, and create actionable plans for leading technology- enabled education. The conference follows three previous ICT in Education conferences in India and two in Asia. It will provide a unique opportunity to interact with education leaders and decision makers from around the country and beyond, who have a shared interest in improving educational achievements with the integration of ICTs.

Key Themes

Who will attend

School Track • Introducing ICTs into the School System: e-Education Policy and Practice • Building the ICT Infrastructure : Flexible Integration Solutions in a Dynamic Environment • e-Content and Open Source • Empowering Educators with ICTs • Improving Technical and Vocational Education • Quality Development, Quality Assurance, and Quality Education • Smart Classrooms with ICT • e-Education and the Global Network

Higher Education Track • Unleashing the Strength of Universities Through ICTs • Policy Issues and Large-Scale TakeUp of ICT Education • Digital Higher Learning Through Partnerships • Empowering Educators • Improving Technical and Vocational Education • Quality and Education Standards • Teaching and Learning Online • Alternative Assessment Strategies, Innovative Approaches in Evaluation • Global Perspectives to Higher Education

• • • • • •

• • • •

And also • Partnership Sessions Focusing on Critical Issues Hosted by Education Movers and Shakers • Corporate Best Practices and Professional Learning Sessions

Vice-Chancellors, Principals, Directors, Deans and Registrars School Principals and Administrators, Teachers and Trainers Policy-makers & Regulators Senior Staff from Government Departments People from International Development Cooperation Agencies Representatives of International Education Missions and Leaders of Professional Associations, and NGOs Corporate Training and Development Executives Human Resources Executives, and IT Managers CEOs, Technology and Service Providers Publishers, Instructional Designers and Content Providers

Call for Papers!

The organisers invite papers on the above mentioned conference key themes. Abstracts should be submitted, in no longer than 400 words, at www.eINDIA.net.in/abstract. Last date for submissions is 30 April 2008

®

Supporting Partner The Global eSchools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI), the Dublin-based United Nations ICT Task Force provides strategic advice to Ministries of Education in developing countries on the effective use of Information and Communication Technologies for educational and community development. GeSCI will provide strategic partnership in eINDIA2008 event and help conceptualise and build the agenda of the conference. The eINDIA conference will provide the right context to take forward the discussions and.recommendations of stakeholders, in line of the ICT in Education Policy formulation.

www.eINDIA.net.in/digitallearning Contact Person: Siddharth Verma: Mobile No: +91-9811561645, Email: DL@eINDIA.net.in

Exhibition Floor Plan

Conference Hall

132 No. of Seating

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Everonn

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Cambridge University Press

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

48 sqm 54 sqm

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

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S Chand

ACTIS

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

Ceeco

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18 sqm

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Inter Systems

Digital Learning Exhibition Area

Sudiksha Learning

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egov, eHealth and mServe Exhibition Area

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u G O L

DIA

With Scale

Come Challenges!

Interview with Pial Islam (pial.islam@weforum.org), Project Manager, Digital Ecosystem, World Economic Forum (WEF) Tell us a bit about your role with the World Economic Forum?

Primarily, with the World Economic Forum, I do two things: one is, we lead an initiative called digital ecosystems which looks at the convergence of IT, telecommunications, media and entertainment industry at a global level. The other side is the Global Education Initiative, with projects in Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and the Rajasthan education initiative (REI) in India specifically. I interface and manage the Rajasthan piece.

Within the REI, we have a number of core partners, CII being one of them, and so is Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI). Then we have a number of private sector organisations, some that the WEF brings, for example, the Intel, Cisco, Microsoft and IBMs of the world but there are also a lot of interesting local organisations that are a part of it such as the Aziz Premji Foundation, NIIT and others. My primary role is to make sure that the partners that are there from the WEF side are able to get what they expected to get out of it, are able to contribute in meaningful ways.

Tell us a bit about the REI agenda. What has your experience been in the implementation of the initiative?

The primary role is to help support the government of Rajasthan’s EFA goals. The MDF goals and EFA goals tailored specifically for India would be quite different from the EFA goals tailored for, say Egypt. In the WEF we work with the private sector, government and civil society. Whenever we talk about policies, we are referring to the government sector.

I find that in our flagship events like in Davos where we have many heads of state coming in, it is a combination of two things: from the private sector side, they want to understand the market. Obviously, for good business reasons such as market access while the ministries of ICT and education that attend are trying to understand best practises and what they can get out of it.

We try and find a meeting ground between the two diverse needs. How does Intel help the Rajasthan government by spending over a million or two on CSR kind of initiatives? At the same time, if the intent is long term, a lot of those people who get computer literate may lead to purchasing more PCs Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

that are using Intel chips, so there is that inherent need. Its not always a bad thing as market expansion involves a lot of local people in the process. For the Rajasthan government, it is two fold: best practices from other regions, what have you done in Jordan, what worked, what didn’t work, how can we avoid some of those pitfalls; and at the same time access to expertise. In addition to the private sector, we also have a very strong network of academicians and experts throughout the world who come in from time to time. For example, there is someone from Harvard that we bring in to Rajasthan every year.

What are some of the challenges faced in dealing with governments, ministries and policy makers?

It’s been the change in people. There is this rotation within the public service and we’ve found in the past that once we have built a relationship with a certain person with whom we come to a level of understanding and then the person gets 37

The scale in Rajasthan is fairly large, we are talking about 4,300 schools, which by itself is much larger than our Jordan initiative and quite a bit bigger than the initiative in Egypt as well

What about the kind of data that you gather from the field, is it easy to get or difficult?

They have launched a monitoring and evaluation programme, but there has not been much data collection yet. They are counting, in my opinion, some wrong things. They are saying, ‘how many computers’ and not necessarily what the outcomes are. They are focussing a lot on the output, such as ‘how many teachers trained’ but they are not counting if the teachers are going back to train others, which is where the impact comes from; then they find jobs elsewhere and they go off into other lines of work instead of teaching.

It is not really the overall agenda or impact that we expect, which is not just to do with tracking the output but equally connected to the broader framework and also getting into the impact. The scale in Rajasthan is fairly large, we are talking about 4,300 schools, which by itself is much larger than our Jordan initiative and quite a bit bigger than the initiative in Egypt as well. With scale, come challenges.

posted somewhere else. The other part that I find personally challenging and difficult is lack of project management understanding and skills. Once I was quite surprised to see a project plan which said ‘activity to be completed soon.’ What is ‘soon’? Is it two weeks, two years?

What challenges you face, specific to a country like India?

From a global perspective, not just in education, but broadly speaking in ICT, India has and will continue to play a big role. I think India needs to move from being the outsourcer of world technology to being an innovator of world technology.

There is the intellectual capital, I remember reading somewhere that a good 20-30% of the innovators in the US are of Indian origin. There is that talent and capability; it just needs right infrastructure, economic and political environment in order to thrive in that space.

It’s really encouraging to see that a lot of private equity firms have opened shop in India, not just from outside, but a lot of Indian private equity firms as well are doing a lot of interesting work in ICT. The one challenge, and its nothing new, is the divide between India. As your middle class gets bigger and bigger, a significant portion is left out.

Specifically in Rajasthan it’s the political situation. As you know, the Chief Minister has just recently let go of the Education Minister, who is going to be running against the CM in elections. From a purely political perspective, to ask the CM to be closely associated with REI, and she was when we launched it but it’s less likely now since it is in her opponents ministry.

The smaller challenges are to do with lack of project management, tracking and monitoring but those are much easier to resolve that the political ones.

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What are your future plans for REI? How does the REI initiative compare with other WEF initiatives in other countries?

Currently the REI is a three-year project initiative that we helped launch with the Government, that ends in October 2008. The idea is that the initiative should be self-sustaining beyond that period. With the kind of partnerships that are in place, we are somewhat hopeful if many of the bureaucratic things could be ironed out, we would see that. Like our Jordan initiative has been tremendously succesful, we started five years ago, we completed it two years ago and it’s running on its own. Egypt started after Rajasthan, but unfortunately for India and fortunately for them, they are further ahead. Simply because of very strong government support, which we found very difficult to achieve here, at least in Rajasthan.

So our goal and vision is to do whatever we can between now and October to establish at least that baseline so that it can go on by itself.

What do you envision in terms of Public-PrivatePartnerships in the future?

Certainly, REI is a good example of that where you have many private and non profit organisations and the government playing a key role, mostly in the infrastructure area and in the opening up of markets. There is a talented pool of public servants in India but I think their hands are tied because of bureaucracy. This is not just in India, you will see the same situation in other countries as well. If you could unlock that somehow and I’m not sure exactly how, the potential will be tremendous. On a separate note, India needs to play more regional role in South Asia, the SAARC countries in general. Because India has a super-large market, the tendency is to concentrate only on India. Coming originally from Bangladesh, I see a lot of Indian organisations that are just beginning to get into that space. India needs establish itself as a regional power in a more firm way, to balance out the China effect.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

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SNDT: Empowering Women Through Distance Education http://sndt.digitaluniversity.ac

Digital Learning talks to Dr. Chandrakant Puri, Director, Centre for Distance Education, SNDT University The SNDT Women’s University, first of its kind in India, was established in 1916 by social reformer Dhondo Keshav Karve in Pune, Maharashtra on the model of the Japanese Women’s University in Tokyo. From a single college with just five students, the SNDT university has come a long way with over 2000 teachers and more than 60,000 students enrolling every year throughout India.

The university is committed to women’s empowerment through education with emphasis on higher education through relevant courses in formal and non-formal streams.

It aims to provide a range of professional and vocational courses to meet the changing socio-economic needs and creating employment opportunities for women across the country.

In pursuance of its single-minded mission of women’s empowerment, the university set up the Centre for Distance Education (CDE) in 1979 along with the open university programme. Over the years, the CDE (www.cdesndt.org) has made significant contribution in providing women access to high quality education, irrespective of age, region or formal qualifications, through need-based academic programmes.

Every year more than 11,000 women on an average pass out of the CDE. It has introduced several new initiatives like ‘Education on Wheels’ and ‘Mobile Education’.

Keeping pace with the IT revolution in today’s world, SNDT has introduced professional IT courses in distance education.

It has introduced the first diploma in BPO skills (call centre management) in the distance mode along with six technical graduate and post-graduate courses in IT. Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

What according to you is the essence and meaning of distance education?

We at SNDT believe that education has to be affordable, manageable, and student-friendly. Distance education is not just the physical distance between the educator and the student. It is giving education anytime, anywhere and in whatever format the learner wants. Education has to be flexible, and that is its future. Recently, we had an 86-year-old lady who was keen on pursuing education through the distance mode. Educational institutions under the distance education mode have to go beyond the buildings and make education open in the true spirits by taking educational opportunities to the community and weaker sections of society.

Can you share with us CDE’s transition from conventional to ICT based learning systems?

SNDT has a strong social mandate. We aim towards the inclusion of not just techno-savvy women learners but also those who are not well-versed with the medium. So we conducted a small survey among the students to find out the facilities they have, in order to gain an idea before starting the e-learning course.

The survey was done to assess the availability of computers, connectivity options and most of all the availability of electricity. And it was found that few students were ICT-enabled to undertake online courses, so we formulated a blended approach strategy.

Can you elaborate on the steps taken in integrating ICT in its distance education mode?

Radio was the first technology option SNDT made and programmes were broadcast through Gyan Vani channel in 2004. But there was a hurdle as the broadcast was done from Churchgate, Mumbai and its range was only 30 km. Churchgate being a high profile area was not a viable option in terms of its reach among the weaker sections of the society. So we started recording speeches and lectures series for students to have instant access to course modules. We have also used the visual media to make films and video clippings for communicating subjects like heritage management.

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Apart from teaching, in what other areas of CDE functioning have you integrated ICT? We have incorporated ICT in providing basic information to our students.

Our website has an interactive forum primarily to resolve students issues and grievances. Our study material is also available in e-format and self learning mode on our website to make education accessible. Since the conventional postal mode would take almost a month to reach the students, we have a download section on our website, wherein lots of course modules have been made available.

We also have e-groups and chat rooms on our website which are very cost effective and also save time. All the teachers are part of these e-groups which are active discussion boards to help students share knowledge and ideas and also seek counselling from teachers.

We have been continuing our engagement with more than 10, 000 students Computerisation of the departments was the next step towards integrating ICT in the functioning of the CDE. We have complete information database available with us and also ensure that all studentrelated information is centralized. This includes sending regular updates to students on events, contact programmes, announcements and other academics related information.

In what ways have you ensured direct access of university resources?

We have launched six IT programmes

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under the SNDT Digital University, the content for which was developed in collaboration with the six IITs. Resource made available at the university becomes a liability unless the software to access it are available with students. Since setting up labs inside the campus is not at all cost-effective and also reduces the flexibility of the learner by making it inaccessible, we plan to provide CDs and softwares to students. We have a content committee comprising experts from the subject areas and educationists, who are responsible for building comprehensive and student friendly content in the selflearning mode.

Please elaborate on the ‘Education on Wheels’ project.

Distance education is going to be the future. And ‘Education on Wheels’ is our pioneering programme in bringing education closer to the community.

We have a mobile bus, equipped like a virtual classroom, which goes to doorsteps to provide education to those women who are keen on pursuing education. The bus is fully equipped with all facilities, including an LCD projector, to support lecture delivery.

Tell us about your latest initiative.

‘Mobile education’ is our latest initiative in the introduction of technology at SNDT. Through the SNDT server one can log in and take the basic entrance examination. The server has a database of questions which can be used in a quiz format for conducting the exam.

The students can obtain instant results on their aptitude and competency in a relevant subject. We plan to use this technology extensively for admissions for those students who want to pursue higher education from SNDT after completing schools.

Dr. Chandra Krishanmurthy, Vice Chancellor, SNDT University

‘Education on Wheels’ is our pioneering programme in bringing education closer to the community We have been continuing our engagement with more than 10, 000 students and believe that education opportunity and access should reach all in the coming years with the proactive engagement of the distance mode of education.

Please shed some light on the new IT courses that CDE has initiated.

The distance education centre of SNDT has started a variety of IT courses to keep pace with the professional job requirements, the latest being a course on BPO skills. It aims to provide students skills in macro and micro scenarios of organisation and operation of a call centre. The university has also launched a series of technical courses beginning this January, which include B.Sc (IT), M.Sc (IT), BCA and MCA, B.Sc and M.Sc (Computer Science) to widen the scope of distance learners beyond traditional courses and thereby opening new avenues for the women to participate in the IT revolution.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

From Products to Solutions

HP has it all for Learning V Sukumar represents a division called HewlettPackard (HP) Personal Systems Group. It is one of the three divisions of HP, the other two being the Imaging and Printing Group and Technology Solutions Group. The PSG focuses on the personal systems group ranging from the desktops, laptops, iPods, work stations.. that are used for commercial and consumer purposes. PSG in India, as part of the strategic initiative for the coming years, has taken education as one of the key focus areas. V. Sukumar, Country Manager,Education Solutions, HP, says the new initiative will now focus on the company’s reach to the education institutions in the form of a solution, rather than merely offering products.

How do you see your educational offerings transformed from products only to solutions?

We look at the requirements of the schools and then talk to them. Similarly, we list the requirements for the colleges. It took us almost 6-8 months to find out what they need, and more importantly, understand their challenges, if they feel the need to introduce technology in their system. The whole srategy fails when you introduce something for the sake of introducing, but it succeeds if it is introduced in an area where it will alleviate the pain.

Most of the teachers spend close to 30-40 % of the time on non-academic work, like charting, preparing question papers, declaration of results, marksheet preparation, correction of papers, activities in the school function, identifying children with dancing and music skills, etc. So in every academic aspect they spend 30 % of their time for doing non-academic activities. That eats into their time for academic preparation.

When we talked to them, we identified a lot of needs and areas where we really feel that technology can make a difference.

That is how we decided to identify solutions that will take care of these challenges. For instance, when we talk about teachers using technology, the first thing arises is the fear- will I be able to use technology, how can I be exposed in front of the children who are very good at computers…! Now our job starts in convincing them that technology is not rocket science to be used for teaching purposes. We give a solution that will Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

V Sukumar, Country Manager, Education Solutions, HP make your teaching easy with technology.

We have identified their needs in two areas- one is purely academic and the other is administrative. In the academic area, the solution should address both teaching and learning requirements, as we need technology for teachers to teach and for students to learn. In the administrative area, right from school admissions to fees management and marking systems, scheduling of teachers, classes, scheduling of exams, etc, the school management feels the need of technology everywhere.

So we build solutions around our hardware, which will be like an anchor, addressing most of the infrastructure requirements.

The other requirement is of maintenance. Everything in the begining is hunky. When you run it, you face problem. You want to maintain it, you want to look for one/two persons to take care… Schools are educational institutions and their core competence area is to deliver education. So it’s easy for them to become fed up with technology after 1 or 2 years.

So, we have two brand promises. One, you come to us for all your requirements, as HP Learning Solutions is like a supermarket for any need of a school, to deploy tehnology in their schools, in the academic area and in administration. Two, we will not sell and go. Our job is to maintain and run it for at least 4 years and develop a long-term relationship with the school.

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You talked about the hardware. What about the solution part of it?

The software part is in alignment with two software companies. We call them ‘Partners in Progress’. They provide us solutions under the banner HP Learning Solutions, among which one is the academic software and the other is school ERP software. These are bundled alongwith our software.

HP is known for the brand promise on their mission, their reliability. So we install the software with this reliability. We provide the schools annual training to prepare the teachers, while also providing annual maintanance. We make all these as an upfront brand commitment. It’s more of understanding the needs of the customer, realising their pain areas and giving them a one stop, trouble free, and long lasting solution. We have been tied up with the ICICI bank for funding to schools under HP Smart Finance Scheme.

buy, and has the resources to buy, we are talking about 20,000 schools, which is a fairly big number. And looking at all the players together like DPS, Amity, DAV, etc, there will not be more than 1,000 schools that are computerised. So this is an untouched market, that comprises almost 90 % of the market. The thousand schools that I mentioned whom we met at the road shows are from the elite class and also regular private schools, like Calcutta public school, Delhi DPS, Amity, etc. All of them are scouting for more and more information. We have a very strong product offering. And then its a question of trust. With the HP brand support and with the backing of the country wide network, our two letters have become four letters - HP Learning Solutions.

Are you concentrating in India only? How about the global presence of HP? How many schools have you already reached with the We have started with an Indian focus and this will pave way soluti on? for other markets as well. Its a question of market response We have launched it in January this and how we want to scale year. We launched it with 20 it. We have the solution in With the HP brand support and with the city road shows, starting on 31st hand. Now before entering backing of the country wide network, our January and every week we other countries India has two letters have become four letters - HP would go to 2-3 cities. We have certainly taken the strategic covered cities like Lucknow, initiative.

Learning Solutions Guwahati, Chandigarh, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hydrabad, What is your target in the and Bhubaneshwar, and have met more than a thousand Indian education market in terms of revenue and what is schools who have given a tremendous response. the market share you are looking at?

While launching we are keeping it open, because we want to Are they all government schools? What kind of responses understand the market for may be another six months to you have received so far? one year.

This is a question of the process of buying and affordability.

The government schools buy through a tendor process, and we How is the market force and the competition? do not get into that at this point. But we will certainly get into Competitors are quite a lot, infact, there are regional and that space during the course of time. other players who make the force. But if you look at a comprehensive solution covering all the aspects, we dont There are more private schools, international schools, and really have competition. I would call it an individual foray. those that are run by trusts. We set up the infrastructure. And We are unique with the hardware/software support, and brand we are quite hopeful that soon we will be in the small school trust of HP. categories also as we have the necessary overall solutions with a brand promise like HP. And we are eagerly looking forward Other than the challenges of teachers’ unpreparedness, to being a part of the education society. what are some of the other big challeges?

The schools have a fixed payment structure and so affordibility What are the other educational products or solution that is a question. The schools in metro cities have funds, but they HP has? have certain other set of priorities. That is the reason we have HP was definitely selling as a hardware and infrastructure been associated with ICICI. provider in schools and colleges, like a college requires 200 desktops, a school requires 20 laptops, and so on. So it was Do you plan to go into the higher education sector? essentially a hardware driven solution.

Yes, this is there in our agenda. We are launching another product for the college sector called HPSL. How is the educational market for you in terms of penetration, potential and adoption rates?

What is there in your personal agenda?

India is the right kind of field for us, as a market. We are My personal agenda is to have a single minded focus on talking about 200,000 schools in the counrty. Even assuming HP with education as a focus area. I wish to contribute very base level assumptions of 10 % as a market that can significantly to it.

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May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Revolutionalising the Face of Digital Learning http://www.schandgroup.com/

HMH International Publishers are often associated with the two print publishers that make up its name – Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt. But HMH is also one of the world’s leading educational digital content providers, with a number of exciting e-Learning products for different educational spaces and initiatives, and an aim to revolutionise the face of education.

HMH International Publishers’ flagship core-curriculum products – Destination Math and Destination English – provide audio-driven, graphic-rich, curriculum-based lessons and activities that engage and motivate learners. The activities offer a high level of interactivity, with customised feedback and specialised tools that allow students to practice, apply and extend their learning. The Math lessons offer real-life problem-solving narratives that have been proven to retain students’ attention and have been used to improve understanding and test scores in a number of different countries and learning environments. And the readingimmersive English programme has been expertly designed to allow for fluency in English language and reading through phonemic awareness, reading across a number of genres, and audio-driven text passages. Increasingly teachers throughout the world are turning to Destination Math and Destination English to supplement their textbook teaching. They firmly believe that a digital offering can reach a greater number of students and can show measurable improvement in tests in math and English.

HMH also offers a number of other exciting digital educational solutions. Their Edmark House Series is a collection of four delightful pre-school educational offerings in English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies that has been specially designed for early learners and learners with special needs. Millie’s Math House, Bailey’s Book House, Sammy’s Science House, and Trudy’s Time and Place are four of the most popular and best-selling pre-K educational products in the world. Online products such as SkillsTutor offer a wide variety of activities not only in Math, Science, and English grammar and usage, but also in social studies, core-competency skills, and career development. And products such as iSucceed Math offer a tried and test assessment-based system by which a student’s progress from Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

With supplemental products, management systems, and tools such as Earobics, SkillSurfer, MegaMath, and online levelled readers, HMH is well positioned to understand how technology, animations, virtual tools and management systems can assist beleaguered teachers who are keen to make their students even better learners than they currently are one level of learning to another can be accurately monitored and measured. With supplemental products, management systems, and tools such as Earobics, SkillSurfer, MegaMath, and online levelled readers, HMH is well positioned to understand how technology, animations, virtual tools and management systems can assist beleaguered teachers who are keen to make their students even better learners than the currently are.

Recently, HMH have joined forces with one of India’s largest publishers (S Chand) to create an exciting venture within the digital learning space. HMSC aims to combine the digital expertise of HMH with the local knowledge and educational networking of S Chand to give Indian teachers and students the kind of innovative learning opportunities from which many other countries are currently benefiting. In order for India to truly flourish in this new century, its educational opportunities must meet the digital age.

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Tracking on Merit and Evaluating Abilities A skill assessment company, MeritTrac, designs tests to evaluate abilities, skills and knowledge for corporate, academia and individual customers since 2000 has assessed over three million candidates for more than 150 clients cutting across industry sectors like IT, BPO, BFSI, engineering, FMCG, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, PSUs and education among others.

Digital Learning finds out more in an interview with Madan Padaki, Co-founder & CEO of MeritTrac.

How did MeritTrac come into being?

MeritTrac started in 2000 as a skill assessment company catering to BPO and IT companies. As skill levels go up, it has become imperative for companies to conduct skills tests before recruitment in order to ensure quality. So we offered to design and roll out the tests for them across the country. MeritTrac is totally into testing and not into training and placements.

What are the criteria you have set for assessments?

Assessments fall into four broad areas: • Communication skills like written and spoken English.

• Inherent skills and abilities, analytical thinking, problem solving ability, learning ability, process orientation, etc.

• The domain, that is, accounting, technology, engineering, and so on. We do tests across domains. We have tests in around 200 technology areas, 20 engineering areas, and 20 to 30 areas in accounting.

• The fourth area is the behavioural orientation. We do not 44

conduct psychometric testing, only orientation tests. We categorise candidates depending on their inputs in fields of interests like customer service, sales, etc.

How are the tests conducted? Who are your clients?

The tests are designed by a team of designers led by Dr Natrajan, a reputed name in the field of skill testing. All the tests are delivered in both online and offline modes, under supervision. The online tests are delivered using OnTrac, a web-based testing engine. Our delivery team has administered tests in over 120-130 cities in India throughout the country. IT giants like Microsoft, HP, Wipro have used these tests. In the non-IT sector, we have several customers like the ICICI bank, Hindustan Petroleum, HCPA, ITC, etc.

Please tell us about the initiative ‘TracSkills’.

A recent industry survey has revealed that only 15 % of the graduates in the country are fit to be employed. So what May 2008 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

happens to the rest 85 %? MeritTrac’s individual certification programme TracSkills seeks to bridge this gap by assessing candidates across the country and providing structured feedback on their ‘employable skills’ - those skills that are critical to performing well in any job. The programme started two years back.

Apart from over 150 client companies across sectors, the programme also has partnership with academic institutions like Bharathiar University, Visvesvaraya Technological University, among others to help the academia understand, improve and demonstrate employable skills of students.

TracSkills is being used in the IT, BPO, services and MBA talent pools. The IT TracSkills is now called the NACTECH (Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) test) and was launched a month back in collaboration with the NASSCOM.

A recent industry survey has revealed that only 15 % of the graduates in the country are fit to be employed. So what happens to the rest 85 %? MeritTrac’s individual certification programme TracSkills seeks to bridge this gap by assessing candidates across the country and providing structured feedback on their ‘employable skills’ those skills that are critical to performing well in any job How can a single test assess candidates coming from various institutions and courses?

This test normalises scores across universities. It doesn’t matter which university you come from, what matters is your score on this common test. TracSkills measures your industrial rating, which includes basic communication skills, analytical thinking, learning ability, and process orientation. It also includes some basic domain understanding. For example if the candidate is from computer science background, he or she may be asked questions on programming, data structure, etc.

So basically, you are tested for what you know, which is a different approach from being tested for what you don’t know.

This programme works on two philosophies. One is called ‘Playing to the strength’. Typically, interviews play to your weaknesses and you are asked what you don’t know. For example, if a person’s language skill is not too good, then you try to find out if his accounting skills are good and take him on that job. We help in identifying the strengths and then mapping them to the industry’s requirements.

The second thing is what we call the ‘Shortest distance to employability’. We give short duration training in the field a candidate is comfortable with, rather than training him for a longer duration in something which he does not know. That is the shortest distance to employability.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

Are there any plans to tap the schools also?

Communication and analytical skills cannot be learned overnight by a student pursuing graduation. In order to enhance employability, one needs to start early so that the foundation is strong. We want to take MeritTrac to schools to check the gaps in skills. This way we will be able to predict a class 7 student’s employability, 10-20 years down the line.

Currently, this predictability is not there in our education system. MeritTrac can also help the student figure out his or her aptitude.

Do you foresee any challenges in taking MeritTrac to schools.

MeritTrac does not propose to change the existing systems in schools, but supplement it. Let students who are interested take the test, and in the next five-six years it will start showing results. Gradually, more and more schools will pick up the process and thereby help students make a choice.

Please tell us about the challenges faced in the initial days.

The initial few years were spent proving ourselves since we were representing a new concept. The industry had never heard of skill assessments, so we were instantly written-off. But now, people understand the need for assessment and realise that it is a science that requires expertise. The greatest achievement has been that MeritTrac now has a brand value.

Does MeritTrac enter into partnerships with governments?

Partnerships with governments are important. In 2001, we worked with Andhra Pradesh government on the Graduate Employability Test where McKinsey was also involved.

In 2006 we had partnership with Karnataka government on something called the Computer Skills Proficiency Test (CSPT). We have also worked with West Bengal governemnt.

Please elaborate on the CSPT. CSPT was an interesting partnership with the government of Karnataka. With the e-Governance initiative of the government, micro-finance jobs came up in a big way.

There was lot of push for rural BPOs, which meant a heavy requirement of computer skills in Tier 3 and 4 towns.

However, we figured out that there was no certification. So with the help of IT department of the state government, we launched the Computer Skills Proficiency Test. Candidates could take the test and obtain a certificate which will help them get a job.

Are there any plans to branch into e-Learning?

I believe e-Learning is an important tool in the process of self-learning. But it is not an end in itself. At the end of the day we have to see what the person has learnt and whether that knowledge is being used to gain something.

The end use of knowledge is employability. And we at MeritTrac facilitate the learning process and help the person gain employment.

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NIIT enters into an agreement with CII to help create ICT As part of this capacity building and skill development endeavour, NIIT and CII will share high quality education resources from India and involve other appropriate players from the Indian industry to help Africa develop human capital for the global IT industry.

Under the agreement, NIIT will provide relevant IT curricula in line with international IT trends, and content for IT, soft skills and entrepreneurship for training in universities and colleges in Africa. CII on the other hand will facilitate internship with the Indian industry.

English course launched online Cengage Learning, in collaboration with MeritTrac- India’s Largest Skills Assessment Company launched ‘e English’- an online product that offers learning courses in English supplemented with periodic assessments and feedback with the ultimate goal of enhancing employability. The product was launched recently by Dr Kiran Karnik, Former President, NASSCOM and Dr K. K. Aggarwal, Vice-Chancellor, GGS Indraprastha University.

HP India launched desktop PC with solid-state drive Hewlett-Packard India recently launched an ultraslim desktop PC that features a solid-state had drive. A solidstate drive (SSD) is more robust and due to the lack of mechanical parts that a hard disk has, it is less prone to failure.

The PC also includes a variety of environmental features and meets the stringent environmental requirements of the Electronic ProduC1 Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold registry.

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Chinese to learn computers from NIIT Recently, NIIT signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Wuxi Municipal Government in China, to set up IT training centres that will teach computer programs to the locals. Under the MoU, NIIT and Wuxi Government will work together, to develop a talent pool to cater to the demand of IT industy in China.

In addition, NIIT has also signed another MoU with Wuxi New District for educational purposes. Under these partnerships, the NIIT will offer IT education and training as per the industry needs, and Wuxi Government will promote its IT educational policies at all levels of administration.

NIIT is offering IT educational services and trainings in China for the past one decade. About 129 local universities and colleges have tied-up with NIIT for the IT training programmes. More than 170 centers have been setup across 23 provinces, and about 50,000 local people have been trained by NIIT so far.

‘G-Class’ to search in Indian languages

Continuing with its significant contribution to technology development, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has come out with new product, G-Class, a crosslanguage search-plug-in suit. The plug-in suit will primarily meet the complex needs of Indian languages and provide surfing facilities in local languages at available search engines.

C-DAC, also announced the launch of two new products - PARAMNet-3 and INTCOMPv1.0. CDAC has been undertaking research projects for Indian languages since last few years and Gclass is an addition to this series. The plug-in product is also a one-stop shop for search engine developers. With G-Class plug- in, the web will work like an information bureau with queries addressed in Indian languages. For example, a person can ask a query in any Indian language on search-engine to get

the answer. The in-built transliteration system in the product can translate one script to another. This will simplify surfing for users.

Mahindra MoU with Rajasthan to set up Mahindra Pride School Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Rajasthan to set up a Mahindra Pride School in Jaipur.

Mahindra Pride Schools provide vocational training and livelihood skills to the socially weaker sections of society. M&M has set up its first Pride School near Pune, whose first three batches have had a 95% placement. The Rajasthan government will provide 2500 sqm of land to M&M at Bani Park in Jaipur for 25 years and M&M will bear the cost of building construction. The school will run on a not-for-profit basis and 600 students per year from SC/ST/ OBC will be given vocational training.

Students will also be given training in spoken English, basic computer literacy, communication skills which will help them in their over all personality development.

Educomp to invest Rs 125 crore to set up over 500 tutorial centres Education services provider Educomp Solutions plans to invest about Rs 125 crore to set up over 500 tutorial centres by 2010. Its tutoring subsidiary Learning Hour will establish 50 centres by the end of 2008, taking it up to 150 by 2009 and 500 by 2010 and cover CBSE, ISC/ICSE and state education boards’ syllabii. Eight centres are initially being launched in the National Capital Region and Punjab to provide tutoring in mathematics, science, physics, chemistry, accounts, economics and English.

The facilities at the centres will include live video, two-way audio and shared whiteboards, instant messaging, application sharing, biometric attendance systems in addition to online assignment access, Learning May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Hour director Chandan Aggarwal said. Tutoring sessions will be also be recorded in the class and made available on the website so that students need not take notes in the classroom. Learning Hour also plans to launch a hometutoring service shortly. It has a library of over 16,000 interactive, multimedia modules and comprehensive test and assessment programme to track students’ progress, he said.

Reliance launches education portal on mobile phones In a trail-blazing initiative, Reliance Communications has announced the launch of an exclusive educational portal ‘Exam Guru’ on Reliance mobile phones.

This unique portal offers a bouquet of useful information on exam results, admissions, calendar of exams, mock tests and tips for performing well in exams. It contains the list of top universities, colleges, secondary education boards as well as career options. While the portal is an IVR

based service, it also offers SMS alerts on exam preparation, performance and even tips to enhance performance during exams. The service will be made available to both prepaid and post paid subscribers The application is quite simple and user-friendly. Users have to simply call 53030101 and they will be guided by an IVR instructing them to press different numbers for various category. These services can be accessed at a reduced rate of Rs 1 per minute for which the user will have to subscribe to the ‘Exam Guru’ pack which is priced at Rs 10 with a validity of 10 days. The services are also available to the users at a very nominal rate of Rs 3 per minute by simply dialing 53030303 in case they have not subscribed to the pack.

Careers,” in an effort to bring together leaders in business, education, government, and community organisations to find ways to increase the number of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math in the United States.

The effort is aimed at a looming problem resulting from the significant decline in the numbers of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM). This decline could affect America’s competitiveness in the increasingly global market.

Demographic data show that the Hispanic community is expected to constitute 25 % of the overall US population by mid-century.

To address the issue, IBM along with

IBM launches effort to address ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin and shortage of Hispanic students Univision, and 150 other leaders will in technology careers meet on May 5 and 6 in New York, IBM has convened an inaugural summit titled “America’s Competitiveness: Hispanic Participation in Technology

to examine the ways the Hispanic community can improve their participation in STEM.

Intel launches Wimax, Classmate PC projects in Saudi Arabia Citing Saudi government-industry partnership (or private public partnership) as successful model in advancing education, technology innovation and economic development in the Arab World, Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett, kicked off his fourth visit to the Gulf region pledging technical support for building a high-speed wireless network in the country using a long-range wireless technology known as WiMAX. Barrett also dedicated a pilot project for e-Learning at a Saudi Arabian public school, which is becoming a top priority in many educational systems throughout the world. Barrett is traveling throughout the Middle East in his role as chairman of a United Nations panel on technology, and on behalf of the Intel World Ahead Programme. Intel’s global initiative strives to improve education, healthcare, trepreneurship and government services by accelerating access to computers, connectivity and localized Internet content. He is expected to visit the United Arab Emirates and also Kuwait to further promote “better, faster access to information and communications technology (ICT).” During his visit to the leading OPEC oil producing kingdom, Barrett signed an agreement between STC, Saudi’s telecom operator, and Knowledge Economic City, (KEC) of Medina, to deploy a WiMAX network, scheduled start running by 2011.

Joined by Saudi Minister of Education, H.E. Dr. Abdullah Bin Salah Bin Obaid, Barrett saw the e-learning pilot project demonstrated at Riyadh’s Bishr Ibn Elbaraa School, a public school for boys in grades seven through nine. The school pilot will run in two classrooms, and outfitted with notebook computers and the specially designed Intel-powered Classmate PCs. The smaller, student-sized netbooks are designed to be low-cost, wireless-capable, water- and shock-resistant and fully functional computers that are pre-loaded with standard software and locally relevant educational programmes. All computers used in the pilot project feature Intel’s skoool Learning and Teaching Technology.

Intel worked closely with a set of local businesses, including KETAB, a manufacturer of pen-based collaborative whiteboards; Binary Works, an education service provider that implemented the hardware and provided the School Management System and the Learning Management System; Semanoor, a software vendor that provided Semanoor e-content; and MGD, a software vendor that provided Crocodile Clips virtual labs.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

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e

ml

in n r a

g

Education Gets Mobility

Mobile devices have been hugely successful as a lifestyle product.

However, in the last few years, they have made a real time contribution to the teaching and learning experience through exciting technologies like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), Tablet PCs, SmartPones and modern gaming consoles.

guarantee that every operator provides necessary technological support so that the learner can continue with his/her studies through the device.

Universities can offer courses exclusively through mobile devices by developing content exclusively for such devices. Peer interaction is possible by exchange of messages as well as by posting messages to mobile blogs.

M-learning has undergone evaluation since 1990s by various universities. In 2000, European commission granted funds to M-Learning and MOBIlearn projects. The major focus areas of these projects are content development for hand held devices and delivery to hand held devices.

In fact, m-Learning enables prospective learners to concentrate on what studies to pursue rather than thinking about where to pursue studies of their interest. Even the infrastructure such as buildings, resource persons, etc. needed will drastically reduce due to m-Learning.

Challenges of m-Learning One of the limitations of m-Learning is that it may not be possible to offer some courses in totality through mobile devices as they include practical component. Courses in engineering and medicine are such examples. However, such courses can be offered through dual mode, through convergence of face-toface, distance and m-Learning modes.

The other limitation is with live streaming of content to the mobile device. Any interruption in signal to the mobile device will also interrupt the process of learning. Also, operators of the mobile services to a mobile device change as the device roams between different networks. So, there is no 48

Other limitation include smaller size of the screen, disturbance of connectivity and life of the battery, etc.

m-Learning Project

There are some major projects underway in the field of m-Learning like MLearning, Handscape and Chimer. m-Learning aims to improve the levels of literacy by delivering interesting content through mobile device. This is a project that is being supported by European Union.

Some of the various software developed for mobile devices as part of m-Learning project are quizzes in Java, MediaBoard, SMS quiz author, games and quizzes for Pocket PC, authoring software for Pocket PC. Using Java , quizzes are developed and they can be run on the compatible mobile phone for learners to test their knowledge. MediaBoard is a web based bulleting board. However, learners can post their messages onto this bulletin board using SMS or MMS. SMS quiz author enables learners to develop their own quizzes for mobile devices. Besides

games and quizzes and software with the help of which resources for MLearning can be authored is developed for Pocket PC. The software that is developed as part of M-Learning project can be used in universities, schools as well as by NGOs.

HandScape Intel corporation is funding a project at Cornell university whose aim is to is to develop software which will enable people to obtain information about museums onto their hand held devices.

Chimer The aim of this project is to develop applications for m-Learning for hand held devices based on GPS and GIS technologies. For example, if one is lost, he or she can identify the exact location with the help of this device. Route maps are also available which can be run on the hand held to know the route to a specific destination. m-learning modules for schools are being developed as part of this project. Fourteen groups from six different countries are working on this project.

m-Learning And Distance Education The relevance of m-learning to distance education is significant. Since mobile devices are within the reach of a learner, any information that is provided to the mobile device can be accessed by the learner very easily. The course materials of various courses offered by the distance education institutes can be downloaded by the learner to his mobile device and the same can be assessed whenever there is requirement.

Also, video lectures can be downloaded May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

by learners to their mobile devices and the same can be viewed by them on their mobile device without using a PC to run the VCDs of lectures.

Most of the elements of distance education can be offered through mobile devices. However, the mobile device of the learner should be enabled for compatible technology and the mobile devices should be java enabled.

m-Initiatives At IGNOU A total of approximately 1.8 million learners are currently pursuing their educational aspirations from IGNOU. IGNOU is working on offering SMS based services to its learners. Initially, it plans to send alerts to learners via SMS. Sample alerts that are of interest to all learners include the last date for submission of examination form etc.

IGNOU intends to follow it up by enabling learners to obtain information on request by SMS. For example, a learner can request for the address of his study center through SMS. This is a two-way communication mechanism where a request is made by learner by SMS and IGNOU responds by providing necessary information to that particular learner by SMS. IGNOU also intends to offer advanced SMS based student support services to its learners. This will enable learners to update information by SMS. For example, a learner can SMS his address to IGNOU which will replace his old address. Such services are expected to reduce the delay in comparison to the same requests being handled by other modes of communication.

P.Venkata Suresh received MTech degree from Andhra University,Visakhapatnam in 1997.

Currently, he is working as Senior Lecturer in School of Computer and Information Sciences, IGNOU, New Delhi. He is having several research papers in the areas of Mobility, Internet, Distance Education and Higher Education. His research paper at AAOU,China received grant from Common Wealth of Learning(COL) and IGNOU. Also, he is actively involved in Web based projects. His areas of interest include Mobile computing, Web technologies, Software Engineering and Distance education.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

There are 133 million U.S. adults or 66% of the adult population, which have Internet access today. That’s over half the entire U.S. population and serves as a strong incentive for colleges and universities to re-vamp their programs to support this untapped educational market.

According to International Data Corporation, over 90% of college students access the Internet, with 50% accessing the Web daily, and this is on a global scale. Colleges and universities have also found that to stay relevant to their traditional students, they have had to create online and distance learning programs quickly to stay up with their learning needs.

87% of four-year colleges

offer distance-learning courses in 2004, up from 62% in 1998. According to International Data Corporation, 25% more colleges and universities added distance learning programs between 1998 and 2004.

By 2004, 2.2 million degreeseeking students are enrolled in distributed courses – CAGR of 33%. The growth of distance learning on a global scale has the attention of companies as well – they plan on spending $272B in the next five years on in-house training and education programs, according to International Data Corporation.

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ICY L O P TER T MA

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

Ministry of HRD Govt. of India

How well are our schools using ICTs to assist students in learning the curriculum? Are our teachers proficient users of ICTs? What access do students have to ICTs at our school? Does our schools have a plan to support ICT resources? What policies guide the use of ICT in education?

Over time educators and policy makers recognise the need to reflect the key ICT drivers, and the necessary conditions for successful learning with ICTs in the policy guideline. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (www.education.nic.in), Government of India, has already initiated the process to formulate the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;National Policy on ICT in School Educationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (www.gesci.org), a UN ICT Task Force founded organisation, along with Centre for Science, Development, and Media Studies (www.csdms.in) provides strategic assistance to MHRD in the preparation of this policy.

The policy building process defines a national consultation process with a wide range of stakeholders whose, suggestions and recommendations are being collated towards providing a participatory and inclusive policy. As part of the different consultation processes, an e-Discussion series is running on UN Solution Exchange (www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/en/), an initiative of the United Nations Agencies in India to engage and solicit suggestions and insights from the online communities of Education and Development.

Alongside the urgings of the experts and the stakeholders, Digital Learning, the media initiative of CSDMS, is previledged to contribute to building the policy environment while sharing with its readers the discussions and input received through all these consultation forums. The aim is to engage the community in wider discussions extending to pedagogues and technology in education practitioners, as well as geographically spread pool of experts there by impacting at all levels of policy action and implementation across India meaningfully.

With the attempt of engaging the community in a multi-pronged strategy, Digital Learning in its previous issues had given a call to send suggestion and position papers on the needs of the ICT Policy for school education. It had also invited School Educators and Principals to respond to a Questionnaire to help the policy makers understanding the needs of the community of practitioners. Based on the often quoted challenges and difficultuies faced by the users and implementers of ICT in schools after reviewing the questionnaire with 1540 school teachers, we realised the further need of discussion and reviewing some of the key thematic pillars as ICT Infrastructure, Capacity Building, e-Content, Quality in School Education, Innovation and Research, Public Private Partnerships, and Monitoring and Evaluation, that are defined in the policy formulation process.

In this space, we will produce the discussions which the Solution Exchange ICTD and education Community members have reflected in a series, and to start with, we are presenting a part of the discussions on topics of Infrastructure and Quality in School Education.

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May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

INFRASTRUCTURE There were four queries on the Infrastructure issues, as mentioned below. The first round of discussion was culminated with 18 responses on the Infrastructure related queries.

Queries

Respondents

What are some of the key challenges faced using ICT in school education with regard to ICT infrastructure? Are there any good examples where these challenges were overcome?

• • • •

Can you suggest creative ideas and innovations for using ICT infrastructure and for its upkeep?

Do you have any insights about the process of setting up ICT infrastructure in schools?

Can you offer advice on ways in which school ICT Infrastructure can be used as community learning centres after the school hours?

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Vineeta Dixit, National Institute for Smart Government, New Delhi Rajen Varada, Technology for the People, Bangalore Sunill Nigandhi, M/s. Gurukul Online Learning Solutions, Mumbai Kannan Srinivasan, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum Jitendra Shah, Indictrans, Mumbai Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Dept., Government of West Bengal, Kolkata John Mathew, Business Consultant, Kochi Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Dept., Govt. of West Bengal, Kolkata Frederick Noronha, Bytes for All, Goa Venu Arora, Ideosync Media Combine, Faridabad Jitendra Shah, Indictrans, Mumbai Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation, Bangkok M V Ananthakrishnan, Developmental INfomatics Lab,KReSIT, IIT Bombay, Mumbai Srinivasan Ramani, International Institute for Information technology, Bangalore Anjela Taneja, ActionAid, Bhopal Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Dept., Govt. of West Bengal, Kolkata Binay Pattanayak, National Technical Support Group (SSA), New Delhi Anil Prasad, Finance Department, Govt. Secretariat, Kerala

Vineeta Dixit, National Institute for Smart Government, New Delhi

‘Need to know minimum infrastructure requirement of ICT in schools before understanding challenges’ Whenever such a query is raised some of the often given answers relate to ubiquitous access per child, the latest trend being the advocacy for one laptop per child. However, the reality is that in most countries (including the ‘developed’ ones) such a scenario does not exist. There are several examples from UK, US and now in Africa where even with limited access in school, the ‘real access’ is being granted over web.

So what we need to do perhaps is to rephrase the question and may ask, what minimum infrastructure is needed at school to • support and improve delivery of educational content; • support and improve school administration; and Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

•

support and improve the school outreach programme.

‘Public Private Partnership approach can be suggested as a creative idea for setting up ICT infrastructure in schools using ICT infrastructure, and upkeeping it’, Vineeta continues.

Although this is a topic that is scheduled for discussion later, I would just like to share some of our experiences in Africa.

We provide end-to-end solutions to educational institutions across African continent and currently serve over 1 million students. The key to service provision is zero-cost vendor financing model which is so popular in egovernance now.

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Basically the user pays a nominal amount to access the system. The user charge is for the upkeep and upgrades and the user in return gains reliable access and latest technology.

Depending upon the requirement of the school/college, we provide different infrastructure - sometimes it is one server supporting a multitude of thin clients and other times it a network of PCs. However, since most schools are not independent in decision making, even when they do not have to invest a penny, a lot of time is wasted in getting an agreement for the infrastructure. A possible solution to the problem may be that a price band be defined by the government which could be proportional to the infrastructurestudent ratio and the schools may decide who would do it for them. It would not only de-centralise decision making but also give schools a sense of control on the service providers who otherwise may consider themselves accountable only to the education department.

‘School ICT Infrastructure as community learning centres after school hours’ This is a tricky statement often leading to

debates about redundancy and cost sharing.

Just to elaborate, some may ask why not use the infrastructure being created under common services centre scheme? The only reason why I brought this up was to say that it may be better not have a pre-defined policy regarding such a matter because it will depend upon several factors such as who ‘owns’ the infrastructure, what is the business model, for what purpose is it being used, who benefits (especially financially) from such access and who will pay for the access etc.

What may be more effective is to let the group of schools e.g. municipal schools in a city may decide what is the best way to use the infrastructure e.g. they may wish to use it as a cyber cafe and not just community learning centre, to generate some funds. The second issue at hand here is that many schools today operate in two ‘shifts’ especially in cities and a trend that is increasingly catching up in small towns as well. So will it leave sufficient time for ‘other’ activities? There are of course many such questions and experiences that support or contradict what I have enumerated and hopefully my initial thoughts will help us crystallise them.

Rajen Varada, Technology for the People, Bangalore

‘The key challenge for infrastructure referring to computers in schools are Power, Maintenance, and Operating System software’ Power: Even today, the power situation in rural areas even in the developed states continues to affect the functioning of any ICT initiative. Power cuts with different power cut schedules each week play havoc with the timetables. Power outages and fluctuations add to the high maintenance costs of computer hardware.

Maintenance: It has three very critical components. 1.

Preventive maintenance. 2. Troubleshooting and 3. Repair.

Computer malfunction (either system software or hardware are common and it leads to costlier brakdown if without preventive maintenance. Regular preventive maintenance can address most problems and pre-empt hardware crashes.

Troubleshooting problems and identifying whether it is hardware or software at the site helps in identifying problems and reducing cost of maintenance engineers visits. Repair facilities within a reasonable distance are required to reduce the downtime of the equipment.

Without local support computer breakdowns have a long turnaround time for repair. It is essential that government put into place the maintenance backbone required to keep the 52

hardware functioning. Computer maintenance requires not only hardware but knowledge of operating system software trouble.

System software is expensive and prone to upgrades and requires resources put aside for new version upgrades- such as from XP to Vista. OS itself adds to the cost burden of the hardware. There is a need to address this issue as it has long terms affect on not only the cost component but what future generations see a “standards” in OS. UNICEF in Andhra Pradesh, tried this with the Sisu Samrakshak project in 2003 in 7 school locations of Mysore district. Issues of responsibility on who would pay for repairs was one of the key bottle necks, the schools felt they would not pay for breakdowns, if the community used the computers after school hours. Community members felt that since it was owned by the school they were not responsible. Another drawback in many rural locations is the distance from the villages to most schools which makes it difficult to include “piggy back” initiatives.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Government is very good at setting up infrastructure as it is done by selected vendors - It is for the upkeep and ongoing support that the systems are not in place. This is the area that will be a key challenge to address.

Responsibility (SSR) policy! where-in a school commits to a set of hours in a month for the community.

I leave this thought with forum members for more lucid answers.

‘School Social Responsibility (SSR) policy!’

In India there are various technology tools already in place such as satellite connectivity, cable etc, which can have dual use. The innovative use of existing technology needs to be explored.

Rajen Verada continues, seeing the hesitation in most schools to share their infrastructure with the community there is a need to evolve a School Social

Sunill Nigandhi, Gurukul Online Learning Solutions, Mumbai

‘Ready for partnership to provide ICT infrastructure’ Just for our awareness, we have roughly 6.5 million Internet users in a country of 100 billion plus, the most important deterrents to capacity building for most of the Educational Institutes can be identified as under. (This is as per our experience over the past six years, since our company Gurukul Online Learning Solutions has been in the field of e-learning & have developed major competencies on ICT platform.)

• Initial cost associated with putting up the infrastructure, which is a major deterrent for any educational institute including some of the most reputed universities. Public Private Partnership is the best alternate as per our understanding • Lack of trained faculty & lethargy on part of Management & Faculty to upgrade themselves here we felt that they need no added incentive in monetary form but more training programmes, which are not routine but offer them a chance to view the benefits of ICT based training are required.

• Initial resistance to change, since teachers believe they shall be redundant once technology comes in, they need to be convinced that technology is no substitute its only a platform of knowledge transfer in an effective manner.

• Lack of band with & other technical support functions across states including some of the so called advance states to have embraced technology.

• Lack of awareness with regards to utility of ICT for education, some places basic computer lab is enough to show that we have embraced technology.

We have undertaken major programmes with various state governments & private universities infusing technology for providing better solutions, we are the technology providers for various universities across India for offering their solutions & courses on e-learning platform, for e.g. for Amity university URL link for reference www.amityelearning.com or Bio Informatics Institute URL link www.biionline.org wherein we provide the entire content in web learning mode • With 2D & 3D effects so as to offer students a feature rich experience of learning subjects.

• Uniform level of training programme across, since best of faculty can be online & conduct virtual classrooms across India & abroad.

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•

•

• •

All assessment & assignments are offered on an online platform with tutor interface given to Institutes to monitor minute by minute progress of an individual student.

More interactivity is built in & module wise assessments are assigned to monitor progress of the students.

Reduces the cost of operation over a period of time, saves lot of energy & traveling time of students since learning can be self paced.

The entire learning process is customised as per requirement & rigour is built in to students learning.

The whole process of providing information, admission, generation of Id & learning is based on ICT platform, even the assessment’s are conducted online & results are immediately forwarded to the institute so as to reduce the entire cycle & give better delivery to students.

We would like to introduce the same process across in schools, in their admission process including initial information, submission & distribution of admission forms (less hassles for parents), submission of class assignments (helps by having their entire work sheets to be stored on an server a minimum price for them not having to carry heavy bags from home to school and back), assessments etc plus creating & delivery of feature rich content so as to provide them with over all better learning platform. ICT shall help reduce time, money and optimise resources to the fullest.

With regards to Infrastructure we can help in form of PPP by partnering various bodies to provide them the entire infrastructure including hosting of servers and providing last mile connectivity to the institutes.

I guess the Government with all its resources can definitely help the cause most & it has already initiated the first step by asking our suggestions through CSDMS. I hope things shall improve on all fronts given all our joint efforts & we are able to provide a healthy learning culture for our students in future.

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Jitendra Shah, Indictrans, MumbaiTechnology, Trivandrum

‘School ICT infrastructure enhancing quality education’ Learning environments Vs Delivery: We should envisage abundance of information, using satellites and cheap broadband with even cheaper devices for access. I advise against the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) model but would advise for shared lightweight laptops, without hard disks, even WI-FI mobiles, connected on a village server, mobile servers like a bus visiting for a few hours etc., we could begin with citywide WI-FI. I recommend the use TV medium too.

I wish we can make the assumption of abundance of ‘content’ and even interaction in a horizon of a few years, given the pace of dropping prices of electronics and rising cost of quality human resource. The objective should not be to replace the teacher but to support her/him by introducing learning materials and methods so she can mentor better.

Data Centres: This will entail requirements of repositories of material: make Free and open source ‘contents’ (static materials as well as programs) available on data centres (say one in each state), one could use State data Centres if

available. Perhaps a Public Private Partnership model may give better facility.

‘Idea of PPP seems workable!’

Though this is not a very creative idea of mine, the idea of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) appears workable. However efforts have to be made to make internet facility safe, guaranteed prevention of pornography can make many parents feel safe about the medium. Economics of commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may not allow them to offer such, hence, ISPs for education may have to be registered. It costs nothing much these days to get ISP license.

The key to the success of ICT initiatives and their upkeep is the trained teacher who sees ICT as a feather in her/his cap, as against an additional burden as it is often, today.

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

‘Key challenges in using ICT infrastructure in school education’ The main weapon/tool to defeat the illiteracy level for IT/ICT is a PC which is not standardised. There are no standards set for the ICT in school as the PCs get older every 6 months to upgrade. There is no pan India policy guiding the school education department on choosing the right courseware (it is practically dependent on one person who is again dependent on one technology be it Proprietary or Open Source (here as it should be Open Standards). No options have been thought of for using alternate source of power in schools where no grid power is available (fact being there are schemes for Akshay Urja Shops 100% subsidized project for such locations).

There are no set rules on re training the faculty members of such institutions as they are actually outsourced to Private partners who are more interested to earn their money back (BOOT Model).

Last but not the least the students who are the main stakeholder/beneficiary innocently are driven by the system devised by someone who thinks best, why cant there be a system which ensures that the student learns what he is most interested in [be it multimedia, programing or networking/ hardware.

‘Upkeep and maintenance on priority!’

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The upkeep and maintenance should be on a priority basis every month.

•

• •

The school should make it mandatory to use the Infrastructure to be used by the private partner for training local people or guardians/parents who are mostly unaware of the exact ICT in their kids lives.

The PCs should increase the RAM/HDD every 6/12 months.

The school should pay extra to the private partner if they can make a School Automation Software (which has happened in West Bengal and about 350 Government schools are now completely on with the database of teachers, students, parents all notices printed in Bengali/ English, the service book of teachers maintained and that too they pay for the software once the tailoring is done).

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

John Mathew, Business Consultant, Kochi

‘Need of a policy to allow private funds for infrastructure’ I’m really glad to see this topic brought out with a lot of importance by the Government of India. Being a business consultant, my ideas revolve around the movement of funds to and from ICT in Education and how the policies will help or deter the same. I also see that there are strong relations between the thematic pillars such as infrastructure and public – private partnership; capacity building and e-content; and therefore the discussion topics may overlap considerably (but this is a subjective opinion).

One of the main issues for large scale deployment of infrastructure is the lack of funds or intermediaries that can channel funds well. I think there should be a policy to allow private funds for infrastructure.

However, I’d like to caution against over - privatization of

education and therefore would suggest a cap on the profits that can be taken out of these infrastructure investments. In short, investors interested in ICT infrastructure should look at this opportunity as a stable but low returns opportunity.

Second idea is to involve each school/school district to the product life cycle of computers. Using older machines by corporations have chosen to discard, maybe a cheaper option for increasing infrastructure. Therefore, all machines that are to be disposed have to be certified that they cannot be used by schools. Some policy that will promote this movement of machines to a school would be beneficial (eg. Tax breaks for ICT goods).

Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Dept., Govt. of West Bengal, Kolkata

‘Software: An important aspect of Infrastructure’ I noticed that one of the most important aspects of infrastructure is missing from the Thematic Pillars – SoftwareI would like to highlight the importance of software when we discuss ICTs for schools.

Software to be used in the Infrastructure for ICT@Schools 1) Operating System Software XP Home/Professional Vista Home/Basic Or Open Source, if so then Red Hat Linux SuSE Linux Other Linux from Oracle, IBM, Mandrake, Fedora, ????

2) Office Suite MS Office or Open Office.org ???

3) Applications

• • •

Based on Programming Based on Multimedia Based on Networking

Some of the questions which shall be answered in the policy • How often the OS/Office Suite/Applications be updated?

• Which DB should be taught and why? (Oracle/DB2/ MS-SQL) • Should International Certifications be introduced as a “Benchmarking tool” if yes can the cost of Online Exams be lowered for school students?

• Who owns the License of the software purchased after the BOOT period is over? (As the License cannot be transferred in most cases) • Who owns the right to the applications/software developed by students?

Let us do some brainstorming over these issues.

Frederick Noronha, Bytes for All, Goa

Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation, Bangkok

‘Some interesting links’

‘Technical infrastructure resources’

FLOSS for third standard students http://divshare.com/download/4053521-61e August 2007 Providers teaching material for 3rd Standard teachers in India.

Taking Sharing to the Class Room Paper; by Frederick Noronha Available at http://divshare.com/download/3321637-94c Paper informs about Free and Open source software for use in Schools.

I have not been participating in this exchange before, assuming it was an administrative/financial discussion.

However, I’d like to share an overview of the resources I have been collating for P2P Foundation, available at this link: http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Education

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Venu Arora, Ideosync Media Combine, Faridabad

‘An urgent need to demystify technology’ In a secondary school in Kyunja, close to Mandakini Ki Awaaz Community Media centre in Bhanaj, District Rudraprayag Tehri Garhwal, there are 4 brand new PCs that have been untouched for the past year.

Reason: there is no qualified teacher and despite regular meetings and efforts to convince the school authorities will not let the community volunteers now trained in using computers to start teaching students.

The computer room has become a store room for old and new stocks of books, last I visited I waded through piles to reach the brand new PCs under cover complete with new desks!!!

We need to open out the system if there is not enough manpower and there is an urgent need to demystify technology.

Jitendra Shah, Indictrans, Mumbai

‘Free and Open Source Software is handy’ On the topic of Software as a part of infrastructure for ICTs in School, it makes no sense to spend in millions (or will it be billions if we consider the real target numbers) of US Dollars without perpetuity of ownership on the software.

Obviously, the heritage of Free and Open Source Software is handy.

Software to be used in the Infrastructure for ICT@Schools- 1) Operating System Software

Open Source: The non-commercial debian: indeed the educational version edubuntu derived from debian will be the best choice.

2) Office Suite Open Office.org 2.4 with Indian language interfaces and converters for non-Unicode to Unicode (see plugins at http://indictrans.in/en/OOopluginsWin ) 3) Applications

Based on Programming: java based or other cross

platform but ‘free’ (as in freedom) and open source Based on Multimedia Based on Networking LMS: learning management systems like moodle (http://moodle.org/) Wiki: for curriculum development Curriki.org CMS: drupal or similar GIS: FossGIS (see www.osgeo.org or http://www. indictrans.in )

Mobile applications 4) Should Cyber Law be in the curriculum?

Anecdotes may be included in story forms. These may be implying that there exists a legal framework as much as there is understanding of civic and criminal laws in curriculum.

5) Should IT Act be a part as well?

Certainly not at school level

Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Dept., Govt. of West Bengal

‘Choosing the Right ICT Infrastructure’ Choosing the right ICT Infrastructure is very essential while planning for projects, find below some suggestions and comments based on my experience in West Bengal. (You can ignore/neglect the names of companies mentioned below but this is what we experienced here in our state.)

1. An option for upgrading the Computers every 6/12 months (i.e. purchasing in lieu of the older version/storage/processor/ memory) 2. A stiff clause to set up hardware support service call centres that respond within 1/2 working days or train the trainer to rectify simple errors.

3. Choosing AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) over INTEL as processors, AMD gives a guarantee of 3 years for the motherboard and hence only the processors need to be changed in the next 3 years saving at least Rs.1800-2400/per PC. Also, internet used by students in School demands 56

for more GHz, which is seen to be best in AMD. Graphics in AMD linked with Nvidia (www.nvidia.com) is without a doubt best and on top a neat savings of 1PC for every 6 PCs bought (our own buying experience in the Panchayats & Rural Development, Government of West Bengal). I am sure you will not think me as a AMD sales guy but the truth is what we explored while procuring for our Gram Panchayats in two recent tenders on RGSY & BRGF where we procured 532 (Dell PC) and 310 (HCL PC) + 100 (Dell PC) respectively nearly 800nos.

4. It has been a practice that the schools are provided with inkjet printers but Laser printers are cheaper and better than inkjet printers (we procured HP LaserJet 2014 bearing market/ street price of Rs.13500/- for Rs.4900/- unbelievable please believe me, my department says it is my negotiation skills and my being in IT for last 17 years) 5. Lastly I recommend using alternate source of power. We May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

have had the privilege of talking to the great personality Sri. Kunwer Sachdev Managing Director of Su-Kam (www. su-kam.com/solar-products.html ) who are the leaders in exporting Solar quipments. In Rural Bengal, they have close to 360 service centers, which no one could match, and they

give a written 3 hour service guarantee. We are in fact floating an EOI (Expression of Interest) shortly for the 2% villages where there is no grid power and never will be as these are coastal areas like Sunderbans, Gosaba and some forest areas.

MV Ananthkrishnan, Developmental IN fomatics Lab, KReSIT, IIT Bombay, Mumbai

‘Vendors rarely’ include teachers in their marketing team’ All my observations/suggestions are based on a two-year study carried out in six schools in rural Maharashtra. The author led the project, implemented by IIT Bombay (IITB) in collaboration with Vigyan Ashram, Pabal and with financial assistance provided by Media Lab Asia, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.

Some of the major challenges faced can be broadly divided into schools already having computers/hardware/software/ courseware, and schools yet to go in for computers or yet to use them in real earnest and each one needs a separate treatment and analysis The common issues of concern are: 1. Seamless Integration of new technology with the existing and well-proven classroom techniques 2. Unreliable power supply 3. Timely maintenance of faulty equipment 4. Old/reconfigured computers donated by industrial houses 5. Appropriate training/orientation of teachers 6. Accommodating computer time within the normal school schedule 7. The end-users (students) being absent in the decisionmaking process.

The solutions are aplenty, as suggested, recommended and implemented by NGOs, vendors, corporate (as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility) and voluntary bodies. But, in each, the motives are self-centred, rather than benefiting the end-user (the student). Vendors send their marketing professionals, who sell “products” and not services, education being one. Such missions have strings attached in the form of setting up and maintaining a network of computers and supplying courseware, invariably syllabus-based. The deals are mostly settled with the management of the school, the teachers being often not included and the students never in the picture. Vendors rarely include teachers in their marketing team.

Issues (2) and (3) have been partially obviated by using UPS/inverters, again dependent on maintenance. Issue (4) is a perpetual problem, involving speed for multimedia applications. Issue (6) still remains, partially addressed.

Personal Examples: (From the Rural Schools Project) The issues (listed in the earlier paragraph) addressed and implemented were (1), (2), (5) & (7). The methodologies used Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

were, respectively for each issue: 1. Creating a repository of off-the-shelf courseware, and correlating each section of the prescribed subject (science & maths) with the corresponding coverage in the courseware; adding value to it by referring to appropriate websites and free downloadable courseware. Off-the-shelf coursewares were provided as a part of the project.

2. Providing each of the schools with one new multimedia computer, an inverters/UPS (not a complete solution).

Each school was to match the grant by providing one multimedia PC. 3. Conducting a series of workshops for teachers on (i) integrating courseware with classroom teaching; (ii) teaching methods and their relevance to adding value to knowledge; and (iii) using tools to develop additional resources. Awards were given to the two best teachers during the workshops in each of the schools.

4. Demo lessons were conducted, using courseware, for the students in order to make them realise the value/ knowledge addition to classroom teaching. Further, they were shown how courseware could become sources for revision of classroom lectures and, sometimes, classed missed.

A website has been created that provides the teacher/student with a section-wise link of the science syllabus and the social studies syllabus of Class VII with relevant sections of courseware, websites and free software.

The website is available at the following link: www.shiksha. dil.iitb.ac.in The website, www.shiksha.dil.iitb.ac.in, could be used by schools, teachers and possibly, students, to enrich the contents of the website, share ideas, solve conflicts and pose problems.

There are ways by which the school facility could be made use of by the community at large. Among them are: Adult Literacy Programmes, using the TCS’ CBFL Package (of which I was also the Leader of the Development Team); Computer Literacy for unem-ployed youth, making them employable; Computer usage for elders and women-folk to help them keep records, save ideas, save designs and distribute knowledge and wisdom; Cyber-cafes for people to send emails, take photographs/printouts and get local newsletters/ invitations/brochures prepared by local youth and…legal phone calls. Students and teachers could use them to surf and get valuable add-ons to textbook information.

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Srinivasan Ramani, International Institute for Information technology, Bangalore

‘A good part of the content should be in video form’ Uncontrolled access to the Internet for all students is very expensive. Satisfactory Internet access for the students in a school is difficult to provide in most areas of the country outside the big cities.

The Internet in schools poses problems of misuse (like visiting educationally useless and undesirable sites).

Attempts to use ICT in education are relatively ineffective unless the student gets content in his/her own language and content relevant to the curriculum. Suitable and adequate content should be planned for when the physical infrastructure is planned. Educational TV offers the raw material for computer based video and multi-media instruction in Indian languages.

Local Area Networks (LANs) are very important for educational institutions, particularly because Internet access is a problem. If content is available for hosting on the LAN, it would play a valuable role. Ideally a good part of the content should be in the video form. Interactive multi-media material would also be valuable. We should make such resources available over every school LAN, instead of trying to make them accessible over the Internet. The bandwidth required for these is quite high, and the LAN is the cost-effective solution to provide this bandwidth. This will overcome many of the problems listed above.

I have a few other suggestions in relation to infrastructure.

India has excellent satellite TV infrastructure and has invested significantly in educational TV. Due to technical advances, a school can now spend only INR 2500 on DTH equipment once to get a 1.5 Mbps digital link (that is what satellite TV uses), which in turn brings video content for free. Some Indian educational channels are planning to switch to DTH soon, and it is very practical for them to do this.

Due to the rapid fall in the cost of servers and storage, it is entirely possible to record in digital form into a server thousands of hours of TV programs, and make it available on demand from every PC on the LAN. It is easy to make a specified program available over the LAN according to a schedule to as many classrooms and PCs as are required. We can simultaneously provide for any set of Classrooms/PCs to access programs that are required individually, without depending on a time schedule. A digital library on a server on the LAN would be a valuable asset, as it will store all types of digital content.

ICT is perceived as expensive. It need not be so, if a PC and a projector are used for a class as a whole. Such a facility should ideally be available in every classroom. The classroom PC-cum-projector facility can be used even to administer quizzes and tests. Objective type questions can be displayed on the screen and students can be asked to write down the answers. Alternatively, the teacher can call out students at random to answer a given question for the benefit of the class.

The teacher can correct wrong answers, explaining why that answer was not the correct one.

I believe that the most useful way would be to have a trained person there after office hours to offer training on the use of the PCs and any available Internet connection to interested people in the local community. We need to train several million people at that level, and trainers working out of school facilities can easily run a sustainable training program.

People will pay a lot more for training and education than for mere access to hardware and software. We will need several hundred thousand trainers to do this work. Therefore a big project in this direction will create a large number of valuable job opportunities for teachers and others. These opportunities will arise wherever there are schools in India.

Anjela Taneja, ActionAid, Bhopal

‘The successful casestudies that are ususally cited are often not representative of the reality in rural schools’ 1.

2.

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My first thought was a question: Is this policy supposed to apply to computer education for all schools in the country or intended to be applied selectively for private and/or elite government schools (KVs, SVs, schools in district HQs and above). The infrastructure constraints would be dependent on that. My sense is that a policy should apply to ALL schools; however, this raises a whole range of other questions.

What mode of funding do you visualise for ensuring that a relative degree of equity is ensured? I assume an element of PPP is being envisaged; I have serious reservations as to the degree PPP would be able to reach the most interior rural areas and would be enough for ensuring operation on a massive scale (to cover the entire

country). PPP undertaken from philanthropy or tax saving wouldn’t be enough to ensure investment on this scale and no business can forego the need to produce some return on the investment made which would translate into increased user fees for schooling. Lets not forget that a large number of schools still lack basic (and cheaper) facilities like blackboards, books and charts.

There is also the challenge of where we are starting from- currently only 13.43% schools have computers (how many of them are used, and used by children is an even smaller share) (all figures, latest District Information System for Education (DISE) data). If the government May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

3.

4.

5.

has to pay for it, they claim they don’t have the money to supply these basics- private sector wouldn’t fund anything on this scale either without user fees or demanding government subsidy.

There is the relative question of cost. Currently the total cost for all the teaching learning material is Rs 500 per teacher (amounting to Rs 1000 per school for a school which isn’t a single teacher school). Even if we adopt the one laptop per child model and apply it as one laptop per SCHOOL, this is 120 dollars= 6000 Rs per school (6 times more). While I don’t deny that computer education is essential, one needs to make sure that the investment in computers for some elite schools doesn’t happen at the expense of funds for the very basics in the rural schools (which lets not forget form the majority of schools in the country by a huge margin).

Electrification: 85% of India’s villages appear to be electrified at this time (read 15% villages where we are potentially considering setting up computers don’t have electricity; whether the electricity has reached the school, works during school hours is a different issue or comes at a steady and right voltage are all different matters). The % schools effectively without electricity is likely to be much higher. UPSs aren’t a sustainable solution since they cannot be recharged and are difficult to maintain if something goes wrong in interior areas. Generators are prohibitively expensive.

Teachers: 12% schools are single teacher schools. 16% schools have more than 60 students per teacher (rising to 67% in Bihar for example). 5% schools have 1 teacher for 100 children. My point here is before we talk about teachers trained in ICT, we need teachers period. Computer education requires a certain amount of individual instruction and on-machine time. However, this is difficult to maintain at the kind of pupil teacher ratios

present in India at present. And lets not forget at least 1:10 teachers in the country are para-teachers- untrained and underpaid.

Now what I am saying is not that the challenges are insurmountable. There are islands of excellence of computer programs working on a small scale. However, these are usually in better off schools (more teachers, closer to the highway, village fully- not partly- electrified, financially better off community, or where there is a motivated NGO). The challenge is to ensure children in areas without adequate teachers, in interior areas, in villages with not enough electricity, whose parents are poor and without NGOs/having a committed corporate in the vicinity are not deprived of opportunities which are available to their luckier counterparts. I am introducing a note of caution saying that the successful case studies that are usually cited are often not representative of the reality in rural schools but are introduced in the schools which are the best functioning anyway (better infra, more motivated teachers, actual parental demand from an active panchayat/better off parents, etc).

In my view, it all boils down to money to ensure that all the 11,96,663 schools presently in the country are not denied atleast some opportunities for computer education through largely government funds. I am, however, far from sure there is a will on the part of the government to achieve this task. Consequently, some amount of costing would ideally need to be done along with the policy to make sure that the government is ready to back this with resources. Too many great policies flunked since the government simply didn’t have the money for it (the Right to Education Bill comes to mind; if we are talking universalisation of ICT in schools that may need to be built into the CABE norms of schools- just a random afterthought).

Binay Pattanayak, National Technical Support Group (SSA), New Delhi

‘SSA and CAL initiatives can be followed’ Additional points, IT infrastructure upkeep. I have seen far too many computers that have become unusable in a couple of years. This is usually largely because the materials are made available under some scheme or through an NGO, and its maintenance stops after the project period is over. A grant for maintenance would need to be built into the SSA to ensure that it is relatively universally available and sustained. Of course, this raises the question of finances after the SSA period.

One idea would be to link it up to e-Governance & other such initiatives. However, the question of maintenance still remains- computers that are shared usually have a lower life.

At the same time, it would only be available after like 5 PM when the school has been fully closed by say 4 PM. That doesn’t leave much time. A random possibility is linking up to continued education for adults. However, the experience of adult education in villages has been even worse. Linking up with processes already in place in that particular village would be essential for the system to work.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

Whatever requirements that a particular school has in terms of ICT or otherwise should in theory be fed into the school micro plans that are supposed to be prepared under SSA. This process is currently being followed more as a formality. A challenge would be to active the process through empowered Panchayats and ensure that ICT budget heads are introduced in the plan. Under the SSA it is planned that use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and computers in the form of CAL may help in achieving the said objectives. Keeping this in view, a component of computer education was kept under the Functional Head of ‘Innovation’ in the framework of SSA. Under this component there is a provision of Rs. 50 lakh (INR 15 lakh till 2007 - 08) per district per year available to the States for CAL. Under this programme Public Private Partnership (PPP) is encouraged.

To facilitate such partnership, four workshops with the State Project Directors and the representatives of private firms have already been organised.

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Some of the examples of Public Private Partnership under this programme are as under: • The States of Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Nagaland and Assam have adopted a BOOT (Build on Operative and Transfer) model.

Private firms have been given the responsibility to install hardware/software and provide approved e-learning material and teachers training for a fixed period, mutually agreed upon.

• In Delhi, the Earnest and Young Foundation has offered to voluntary support the pilot phase of Education Department of NCT of Delhi’s efforts to introduce a complete set of animated learning and study material called CALtoonZ. This has helped for innovative learning and teaching practices in the schools of Delhi.

• The Rajya Shiksha Kendra, Madhya Pradesh in association with Bhoj University has developed interactive lessons for students at Elementary School level in Video CDs titled ‘Headstart’ in Hindi. These CDs are also being used by other Hindi speaking States in the country.

• In Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu, training on CAL has been done in partnership with Microsoft.

• Teachers’ training is being imparted with the help of HARTRON in Haryana, INTEL in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

• In Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Orissa, Azim Premji Foundation has been associated in developing Computer Aided Learning material.

More than 50,000 primary/upper primary schools covering

good number children have benefited under CAL component of SSA during the year. Department of School Education & Literacy, MHRD with the objective to strengthen the CAL programme, some time back constituted a Committee for formulation of Guidelines for Computer (IT) Education under SSA at elementary stage. The Committee, in its report has deliberated on the national and international status of CAL at elementary and primary level, suggested interventions for CAL under SSA, provides estimates of population which needs to be covered under the programme, the level of infrastructure and hardware needed, analysis of available resources, possibility of mobilisation of additional resources and strategy for implementation of the programme.

• The main interventions required for introduction of CAL and making use of ICT in Elementary Education, are training of the teachers, creation of infrastructure, development and production of State specific e-teaching/ learning material in local language and sensitisation of the State-level statutory bodies like Board of Education and SCERT. The first tier is for training of teachers and necessary sensitisation of States and their statutory bodies. The second tier suggested included creation of infrastructure, development of e-teaching/learning material and formulation of scheme for making available additional resources. It was suggested that pending formulation and approval of the scheme to mobilise additional resources, the available resources may be utilised for CAL and use of ICT in elementary education.

• Role of private sector is also considered equally important in not only implementing CAL in elementary stage but also for mobilising additional resources.

Anil Prasad, Finance Department, Government Secretariat, Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram

‘Standardisation of physical requirements to be done first’ Physical Infrastructure: We should keep in mind that we are not supposed to start from ICT Infrastructure but from the overall infrastructure of each institution. The question we should ask is whether suitable physical infrastructure is available to upkeep the ICT Infrastructure? Therefore standardisation of these physical requirements (minimum) should be done first and institutions may be surveyed against such standard physical infrastructure requirements needed for ICT infrastructure.

Categorise the institutions based on the survey and formulate different strategies for each category. In the case of institutions require physical infrastructure, prepare a plan to coordinate with other potential agencies like Local self-government institutions (LSGIs), NGOs etc to build the physical infrastructure with minimum time. In areas where electricity supply is not feasible in immediate future alternative ways may be explored.

ICT Infrastructure: What are the minimum ICT equipments required at each level of institution? What should be the configuration of equipments? Always updated documentation is required in this respect. What is purchase/supply plan?

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It should be made very clear in the plan. What is the maintenance plan? Annual Maintenance Charges? – Continued support service after warranty/guarantee period may be linked to some self employment programmes – that is; we have to prepare a collaborative development plan. What is the network connectivity plan? Here also the Virtual Class Technology on Edusat for Rural Schools (VICTERS) project in Kerala can be taken as a model www.victers.kerala.gov.in/ Manpower: A suitable programme may be launched to train all the teachers in basic ICT including awareness on hardware upkeep (the models like IT @ School project in Kerala can be replicated www.education.kerala.gov.in/itschool/index.htm) Community Learning Centres: The ICT infrastructure in Schools can effectively used for community learning.

Priority may be given to the family members of the students so that it will better the study environment of the students in their homes. Teachers may take-up this assignment on rotation basis, so that it will become an ideal demonstration of volunteerism for social service. The relationship between the local community and the institution will also strengthen by this.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearning.in

Quality in School Education Queries

Respondents

Suggestions on enhancing the quality of teaching-learning process through the use of ICTs? Are there any impact studies/good practices that we can learn from?

•

Suggestions on enhancing the quality of teaching-learning process through the use of ICTs? Are there any impact studies/good practices that we can learn from?

• •

Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Panchayats and RD Department, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata A Prabaharan, Public Action, New Delhi M V Ananthakrishnan, Developmental Infomatics Lab, KReSIT, IIT Bombay, Mumbai

Key challenges in ensuring quality in education delivery using ICTs?

The e-Discussion generated three responses on the thematic area ‘Quality in School Education’.

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

‘There are great number of motivated, dedicated teachers but not more than 5% in rural areas’ There are good amount of content for trainers too but they need to be authenticated by the respective boards before delivery. Project Siksha from the #1 software company Microsoft Train the Trainers can be a good example where a lot of teachers are trained to use ICT for delivering best results

insentivise the education delivery system so that the trainers deliver the best to achieve the best pay cheques. I see no other way to get things delivered may be there are a great number of motivated, dedicated teachers but not more than 5% in a school in rural areas and hence they do tutions to make ends meet after all let us remember one fact “Middle Class are the people who look for jobs mostly and in India they live Hand to Mouth thinking of what they would eat the next day/week/ month”

I am sure all members will agree that to ensure quality we need to rethink of a good trainer who has a good earning to deliver good things in a good way. Or else we need to

A Prabaharan, Public Action, New Delhi

‘Cater to the tastes of e-Content recipients’ Since 1998, I have been involved with a multi-national higher education project. This is known as M.A Global Studies programme www.gsp.uni-freiburg.de offered by Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg , Germany with University of Natal, South Africa and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. It was one of the first programmes to offer P.G degree with startup through Internet. The foundation for this degree was laid through Net chat.

2.

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

4.

3.

The delivery should be followed up with phone call or letter. The popular expectation of e-Communication is not working to the level of estimation by scholars Allow the students especially in government schools and rural schools to play with the computer Internet. Hole in the wall project of NIIT www.hole-in-the-wall.com/ clearly demonstrates that even illiterate students can become experts in cyber surfing through carefree playing in the Net To put it in our words, speed, innovation, follow up and targetting the needy should be the hallmark of your efforts

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

‘Getting students to revise or prepare for lessons can help’ Technology in the form of courseware, videos, virtual worlds and real-life experiences can all enhance the teaching-learning process. This can be made possible by (a) Disciplined usage of ICT in the regular classroom teaching by the teacher (showing simulations, animations, videos) (b) Getting students to revise or prepare for lessons, by going through ICT-based courseware (c) Getting students to interact with the computer and learn/ revise (d) Getting students to see videos of real-life examples of science in action followed by an instructor-led session Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

where questions are asked on relevant phenomena/ examples seen in the video. (e) Taking students on field trips and getting them to write down/identify real-life examples of concepts taught in class (f) Getting students to carry digital cameras/videocams and snap up pictures of natural phenomena as examples of concepts/principles taught in class. Value could be added by asking the students to develop a picture-story. Worthy attempts could be suitably rewarded and possibly shared between schools.

Look out for the discussions on topics of capacity building, e-Content, and Innovation and Research in the next issue.

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milestones 1991 Jan: AIR started broadcasting IGNOU programmes from Bombay and Hyderabad.

May: Doordarshan started beaming IGNOU’s video programmes.

1992 Feb: IGNOU’s Degrees, Diplomas and Certificates were commended by the UGC as being equivalent to those of other universities in the country.

Mar: The Distance Education Council (DEC) started functioning from IGNOU for coordination and determination of standards of distance education systems in the country.

1993 May: In the international arena, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Canada designated IGNOU as a Centre of Excellence in Distance Education.

Aug: The Staff Research & Training Institute in Distance Education (STRIDE), with support from COL, was established for development of human resources in distance education.

1994 IGNOU manifested its presence in the national educational scene with the proposal for a joint IGNOU-ISRO project for establishing a one-way video, two-way audio teleconferencing network and the establishment of audio-teleconferencing facility connecting all Regional Centres and 3 State Open Universities with IGNOU headquarters in 1994.

1998 December: A Letter of Agreement was signed between DOPT, Govt. of India and IGNOU. STRIDE, in collaboration with EMPC, organised training of trainers programmes on ‘development of self-instructional training package’ and ‘development of audio and video training packages’ for the senior faculty and officers of central and state government training institutions, sponsored by DOPT, Govt. of India.

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May 2008 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

1999 March: The Commonwealth of Learning, (COL) conferred upon IGNOU the ‘Award of Excellence for Distance Education Material’ (CPA) for the course titled ‘Education and Training of Elected Members of Panchayats through Distance Mode.

2001 January: Gyan Darshan became 24 hour channel.

2002 August: IGNOU’s proposal to set up National Centre for the Differently Abled(NACDA) announced.

September: Memorandum of collaboration with UNESCO. December: Vice-Chancellors of Open Universities and Heads of Distance Education Institutions of SAARC countries met at the University for the two-day conference on `Borderless Open and Flexible Learning’. SAARC Consortium of Open and Distance Learning (SACODiL) established.

2003 January: Two-day nation-wide induction programme for IGNOU learners through teleconferencing mode.

The country’s first technology channel Gyan Darshan III, called Eklavya formally inaugurated. Four FM Radio Stations at Bangalore, Lucknow, Vishakhapatnam and Coimbatore were also formally inaugurated.

August: MoU with Prasar Bharti.

2004 January: Kisan TV Channel was inaugurated.

The Higher Education channel, a joint initiative of UGC-CEC and IGNOU-EMPC was launched.

July: IGNOU developed a virtual campus website for mid-career training programme for Foreign Service Institute (FSI).

September: EDUSAT, the dedicated satellite for education was launched.

November: The Mizoram University accorded recognition to IGNOU programmes as equivalent to other universities in the country for seeking employment under the state government through direct recruitment.

2006 November: IGNOU - ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) decided to form an Alumni Association so as to bring together all the ex-students of IGNOU.

Digital Learning | Vol 4 Issue 5 May 2008

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News world CBSE move to rank schools sparks debate in UAE

The decision of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) of India to rank its affiliated schools based on the performance of students in Science and Mathematics has Sparked a debate in the United Arab Emirates. Parents and principals here are debating whether it is fair to judge students based on their performance in only two subjects.

CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly had said that the new ranking system would help schools in India to compete better internationally. According to the new system, schools will have to submit 20 of its best pupils from grade 4, 5 and 8 for a special test. Schools will then be rated based on their performance.

Some feel it was unfair to rank schools because not all have the same quality of infrastructure and accessibility to learning tools. Rani George, principal of the Global English School in Al Ain, was of the opinion that all subjects should be given equal importance.

Of the 9,581 CBSE-affiliated schools worldwide, 50 are in the UAE and most children of the 1.4 million-strong expatriate Indian community in this Gulf nation attend these schools.

NASA gets serious about educational gaming

NASA has moved a step closer to branching into educational gaming.

The agency presented its vision of a science education-focused massively multiplayer online game to more than 200 potential software development partners in a workshop sponsored

by NASA Learning Technologies, an educational technology incubator project.

The idea of the MMO educational game is to present NASA content in 64

such a way as to draw students into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning and to spark interest in STEM-oriented careers. It will be aimed primarily at teenagers, according to NASA, focusing on middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students.

“The use of online educational games can capture student interest in NASA’s missions and science.” The game will be designed to act as a virtual laboratory, a visualization tool, and a collaborative workspace.

John Hopkins univ goes mobile on uPortal

Johns Hopkins University has chosen Unicon to develop and deploy the school’s new mobility theme based on uPortal, the open source enterprise portal for higher education.

The mobility theme is designed to enhance the functionality and content of Johns Hopkins’ campus portal to make it accessible by mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and PDAs. The mobility development work and testing is scheduled to be completed and go live in the summer of 2008. The university plans to donate the mobile development work back to the uPortal open source community. uPortal is an open source enterprise portal collaboratively developed by higher-education. Using Java, Extensible Markup Language (XML), JavaServer Pages Technology (JSP) and Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technologies, the uPortal framework enables standards-based integration with authentication and security applications, single sign on secure access and end-user customization.

volunteer programme with INJAZ alArab to help educate Arab youth.

Working with local governments and Ministries of Education, Sheikh Muhammed’s foundation and Intel plan to train more than two million Arab teachers by 2011.Training will occur throughout Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen. The programme aims at developing Arab talent and improving education in the region.

“Every young person deserves a chance at the kind of education that helps them prepare for competing in our 21st century knowledge-based economy,” Craig Barrett believes: “We think teacher training is a significant start. This is a prime example of the potential of public-private partnerships in changing the lives of people, particularly through the adoption of technology.”

Malaysia to upgrade 40 Tamil schools

In a significant decision to boost education in Tamil Nadu, the Malaysian government has agreed to a proposal to spend 41.5 million ringgit (RM41.5 million) which is approximately USD 13 million for the purpose of upgrading 40 Tamil schools in the country.

Intel to expand its Teach programme in Arab countries Under the proposed funding, 40 Intel Chairman Craig Barrett used his fourth visit to the UAE to release his programme of education and training.

More specifically, Barrett intends to work with the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation to expand Intel’s Teach programme across other Arab countries, and to bring in a

government-aided Tamil schools throughout the country will be refurbished and upgraded at a total cost of RM41.5 million.

The projects would be implemented under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP). The projects will begin in July.

May 2008 | www.digitalLearninG.in

Mark Your Calendar may ACA European Policy Seminar: Exporting education: Europe’s role in transnational education.

16 May 2008 Brussels, Belgium http://www.aca-secretariat.be/08events/upcoming.htm

13th International Conference on Education 20-23 May 2008 Brunei Darussalam, Brunei www.ubd.edu.bn/news/conferences/webice08/ index.htm

Higher Education: Spaces and Places for Learning, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer” 21 - 23 May 2008 Helsinki, Finland www.highereducation.fi.

Fifth EUREDOCS conference “Modernising European Higher Education: Priorities, Ideas and Challenges” 23 - 25 May 2008 CIPES, Porto, Portugal http://www.euredocs.sciences-po.fr.

TL2008 - Teaching and Learning 2008 26-28 May 2008 Aveiro, Portugal www.iask-web.org/tl08/tl2008.html

e-Learning Aprica 28-30 May 2008 Acra, Ghana www.elearning-africa.com

june

Embracing Innovative eLearning Technologies 2 - 4 June 2008 Sydney, NSW, Australia http://www.arkgroupaustralia.com.au/events-c018embracingelearning.htm

IEEE International Workshop on Mobile, Ubiquitous and Classroom Technology Enhanced Learning 11 - 13 June 2008 Taichung, Taiwan http://muctel2008.nutn.edu.tw

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

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