UNICEF ambassador Priyanka emphasises girls education

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August 11, 2010

Sharing her priorities, bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra mentioned that it is observed that affluent people often think higher education is not required for their girls but as the brand ambassador for UNICEF, her top priority will be educating young and underprivileged girls in slums and villages.

She mentioned being proud of being the brand ambassador of UNICEF, and can lend her voice to this cause of girl education. She also mentioned that its is due to her parents gave her value of education and standing on own's feet. She wishes that she can extend her support to this cause by encouraging education of the girl child. The 28-year-old, who worked worldwide for various causes when she won the Miss World title in 2000, pointed out that there are affluent Indians who feel higher studies are a waste for their girls.

Asian Science Camp to be hosted by India

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August 11, 2010

An Asian Science Camp is being hosted and organised by India, where scientists and students from across the world will participate, for the first time from Aug 17-19. The objective of the camp is to enlighten talented science students through discussions and dialogue with top scholars of the world.

Some of the expected eminent digniteries include Nobel Laureates Prof. Richard R Ernst (Switzerland) and Prof. Makoto Kobayashi (Japan) mentioned HC Pradhan, Director of the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. It is expected that over 200 science students and 30 teachers from more than 20 countries of Asia will be participating in the three-day event. This is the first time that the science camp is being held in India. The previous ones were held at Taipei (2007), Bali (2008) and Ibaraki, Japan (2009).

IGNOU quiz witnesses participation of 92 teams at Bangalore

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August 11, 2010

Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) hosted a quiz contest at Bangalore with a total of 92 teams of two members, each participating in the first-ever multi-city inter-school general quiz contest. Sri Kumaran's Children Home (SKCH) comprising Milind Hegde and Vikas Kashyap bagged the Winner's Trophy and individual trophies.The runners-up were also from SKCH, with Aditya Hebber and Shishir Bhardwaj walked away with individual trophies and book vouchers.

At this keenly-fought competition that was held at Yavanika in the heart of the city to create greater awareness about IGNOU and its contemporary courses with potential to benefit millions of young Indians, prize was distributed by IGNOU Vice-Chancellor VN Rajasekharan Pillai. The third spot was shared by two teams – Anurup A.K. and Nanjundeshwara N of Deeksha Centre for Learning, and Arun S and Ameya M. Talanki of Christ Junior College. An exhibition was also organized at the venue to enlighten students about IGNOU and its several programmes.

Boosting support to states, Obama signs a bill

Policy Matters

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August 11, 2010

On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a 26-billion-dollar bill in order to extend support to states, to prevent teacher layoffs and make their Medicaid payments. This happened within hours after the House of Representatives passed it. The House, with a count of 247 to 161, in afternoon gave a green light to the bill that has been designed to ease the tight state budget, in between a decline in tax revenues and worst recession since 1930s. Last week, the Senate voted 61 to 39 to approve the measure.

The US president made a last-minute pitch for the bill hours before the House took the final vote. The bill includes US$10 billion allocated to school districts to help states avoid layoffs of teachers. The White House estimated that would save about 160,000 teachers' jobs. In the year ended June 30, more than 85,000 local-government education employees lost their jobs. There is also an additional $16 billion allocated in the bill to help states make their Medicaid payments.

Delhi Technological University goes live through Freedocast

Higher Education

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August 4, 2010

Freedocast, a high quality live broadcasting platform by Global Takeoff Inc, today announced successful completion of first ever broadcast of Delhi Technological University's Orientation session 2010-11 addressed by Prof. P.B.Sharma, Vice Chancellor, Delhi Technological University for new students joining the session. The broadcast reached DTU alumni and parents of students worldwide. The program was accessible live on TV, PC and iPhones. Commenting on the broadcast, Udaynandan Reddy, CEO and Founder, Global Takeoff Inc. said, 'Our constant endeavour has been to use technology to break commuting barriers in the field of education. Broadcasting through freedocast can be used as a convenient, interactive and affordable platform for distance education. We are glad to broadcast DTU's Orientation session this year. We are looking forward to strengthening our relationship with DTU by providing them a live broadcasting solution for creating Live Virtual Interactive classrooms over internet.' Prof. P.B.Sharma, Vice Chancellor, Delhi Technological University opined, 'This is a great initiative by our distinguished alumni Uday Reddy Padi, CEO & Founder, Global Takeoff Inc. and his team to cover the events live and webcasting it on Internet. We would like to strengthen the relationship with Global Takeoff and broadcast workshops, seminars, lectures in classrooms, and all the events happening inside the campus LIVE over internet. My very best wishes to Global Takeoff for the excellent work they are doing to the community of learning.'

Schneider Electric to set up

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August 2, 2010

The Bangalore based M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT), run by the Gokula foundation, which offers several courses in engineering, and the global electrical major Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management, have joined hands to promote 'technical excellence' in the field of electrical, electronics, software and control engineering. The two have signed a MoU today covering 'University partnership for curriculum development'. Through this program MSRIT with technical inputs from Schneider has deployed two courses, namely 'Advanced Industrial Automation and Modern Controls' and 'Energy Management'.

Schneider and MSRIT feel that this will go a long way in developing young engineers who could be productive from day one as they will have enough 'hands on' experience when they leave college. The MOU was signed by Daniel Gheno, VP-Engineering for Schneider Electric and Dr. K. Rajanikanth, Principal, MSRIT at Schneider's R&D facility today. Apart from providing technical knowledge, Schneider will be setting up a modern lab with the state of the art electrical and electronic equipment with associated softwares, covering industrial automation, control systems and power monitoring. These Schneider manufactured equipments will be given free of cost to MSRIT. The institute on its part will provide the infrastructure and other associated equipment to set up the 'Schneider Centre of Excellence' in its campus.

Said Dr. K. Rajanikanth, Principal, MSRIT, 'It is a great pleasure for us to be associated with Schneider on this University Partnership. It is also a major step forward in the industry- academia partnership which would be beneficial to both industry as well the student community.' 'The faculty from MSRIT underwent week long training at Schneider's R&D facility at Bangalore. This agreement is timed to last three years, thereby ensuring active participation between industry and academia.' added Dr. Rajanikanth.

ICT in Education

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August 1, 2010

A Core Driver of Globalisation

Switching from manual to CAE is not only about technology.. Switching from manual to CAE is not only about technology—it is also about content and effective instructional practices. The focus is on curriculum and learning, where the curriculum should be redesigned giving equal importance to use of the educational videos, lab sessions, projects, student driven activity such as power point presentations, and educational games….
The education world has been
greatly infl uenced by rapid development in information and communication technology (ICT) and increasing availability of information. Schools and universities have advanced by leaps and bounds when it comes to incorporating technology into the learning environment. Government as well as private organisations like Intel, NIIT and Microsoft is taking enough initiatives to encourage the use of technology in the education system. Schools and universities are using educational tools like Moodle, iCore, Thinking Cap and Microsoft Silverlight which not only helps in delivering classes but also in automating the complete educational system.

As the access to information continues to grow exponentially, educational institutions cannot limit themselves to delivering a prescribed syllabus from teacher to student over a fi xed period of time. Even after sixty years of independence, India is home to 66% literates. Computer Aided Education (CAE) includes but is not limited to multimedia presentations, interactive digital books, video conferencing, educational games, whiteboard and Internet based learning. Individual instructors can use these tools during the knowledge delivery process. For a successful CAE, it is important to have an effective integration of the educational tools and the knowledge delivery process at each level, be it schools, colleges and universities etc along with the involvement of key stakeholders. This calls forth and proposes a “layered approach” to technology aided education system that primarily entails the correct fi t of technology in the teaching process and the initiatives taken by government and private organisations towards technology aided education system.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL
The ‘ICT in Schools’ scheme, an Indian government initiative dates back to December 2004, which supports computer aided education process and enhances computer knowledge among the secondary school students. 2365 schools were sanctioned under outright purchase and 7200 schools on BOOT model. Andhra Pradesh was the fi rst state in India to offer ICT education to its entire 1.8 million school going children.
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

With an aim to impart technical education by using technology, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), in 2003 had initiated– National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) that is a joint initiative by the seven Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bangalore. The objective of NPTEL is to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country, along with the focus on developing curriculum based video courses, web based e-courses, digitally taped classroom lectures and additional study materials in every subject possible. Another scheme like e-shiksha initiated by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) is an e-learning portal that supports learning – anytime, anywhere with a multilingual subtitles thus supporting students of various demographics. Some of the other prominent initiatives undertaken by Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women’s University (SNDT) Pune, the Pay Phone Welfare Association (PPWA), and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) have been remarkable and unique in imparting mobile education on music, dance, art and craft, nutrition, public health and AIDS awareness.

PRIVATE SECTOR INITIATIVES
Amongst the private sector initiatives, Intel India has been playing a pertinent role since past ten years with various central and state education bodies in offering programs in higher education, teacher training, informal education and science promotion. The Intel Learn Programme focuses on project based learning enabling the youth aged 8 to 18, to develop critical thinking, problem solving and collaborative learning attitude.

Microsoft is also actively involved in encouraging the use of technology use in learning and education through the “Partner in Learning (PIL)” which is a global initiative that aims to provide a better access to technologies, teacher’s training and use of an innovative method to impart knowledge. Further, Educomp smart class, mathguru, edulearn, iCoreTM (an educational software by iCore ), Thinking Cap, NIIT educational products are some of the key educational products that encourage the use of technology use in teaching in a single integrated solution to all school activities like interactive classroom for teachers, math lab and IT wizard for the students and quick school for the school management.
ROLE TRANSFORMATION
Unlike the traditional education system where an instructor delivered a lecture, technology aided education system has enabled the instructors to become more responsible in the knowledge delivery process and the participation of the students participate in the knowledge gaining process becomes two ways where they too are encouraged to contribute their view point on the topics. With the new defi ned role, the instructor becomes a part of the class and there is a dual sharing of knowledge by both instructor and the student. With the use of ICT, the students no more remain confi ned to the classroom teaching and prescribed books, but rather make an extensive use of the websites, magazine article and newspaper readings and real life examples
LAYERED APPROACH
For those who are currently operating on a manual basis but is now moving on to integrate ICT in educational organisation, the proposed architecture (refer to Figure1) outlines the layered approach. Switching from manual to CAE is not only about technology—it is also about content and effective instructional practices. The focus is on curriculum and learning, where the curriculum should be redesigned giving equal importance to use of the educational videos, lab sessions, projects, student driven activity such as Power point presentations, and educational games. Further continuous evaluation should be adapted rather than class tests and exams. Integrating technology in the education system needs planning, analysis (hardware, software, network and administrative support) and timely implementation. Technology integration can also lead to re-engineering of the education, administrative process. Training should be rendered to the instructors as well as the students on the usage of the tool. The success of CAE will depend on the acceptance of the tool by the instructor and the students. Challenges of ICT integration in education system: Absence of a top leadership, proper management and acceptance of the new work environment Improper investigation and monitoring Need of re-engineering before fi nal adoption
WAY AHEAD
Apart from imparting knowledge through Internet and integrating educational tools in the educational process, technology aided education also includes mLearning and Direct to Home (DTH) learning. (For example, Apple encourages mLearning through TuneU; Digital cable TV operators like Airtel, Tata Sky and Reliance) The system should be alert to the new developments happening in abroad and in India in telecommunication and educational domain. Organisations should adopt available technologies and facilities to develop new product from time to time.
CONCLUSION
IT has helped organisations to think beyond traditional learning method and redefi ne the concept of education. CAE helps students to focus more on knowledge rather than learning.Technology has no doubt opened the gateway to various educational resources but for teaching communities it is important to acknowledge that it is not the silver bullet that will solve all the academic problems, rather the instructors, students and the school management need to join hands to make the difference in the process and improve quality

Just-in-Time

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August 1, 2010

A Pedagogical Shift Integrating e-Tools, e-Resources and e-Knowledge

“Just-in-Time” (JIT) is a pedagogical shift towards problem and competence-based learning environments. It's a holistic approach that involves new pedagogical strategies, processes, people and systems to deliver knowledge and skills required by academia and organisations, in a timely and cost-effective manner

Web-based technologies embedded with vast, and easily accessible online content have brought about a metamorphosis in learning paradigms. Community activities such as Blogs, Wikis, and Moodle have effectively leveraged on technological advancements and inter-connectivity, promoting collaborative enhancement of knowledge on a scale never seen before. What's needed today, however, is to map content to context, on the fly.

“Just-in-Time” (JIT) is a pedagogical shift towards problem and competence-based learning environments. It's a holistic approach that involves new pedagogical strategies, processes, people and systems to deliver knowledge and skills required by academia and organisations, in a timely and cost-effective manner. JIT requires a well-knit assemblage of atomic learning assets and runtime creation of coherent learning content that's aligned to learner's needs and preferences.

In a business environment, time is the essence. An organisation therefore, would seek to provide access to right information, at the right time, leveraging on latest technology and systems. Role based performance support, just-in-time, and on “just enough” basis is preferred over conventional linear course based learning pattern.

The granularity and associated self-organising capability of learning object architecture in line with the learner's preferences is the key to JIT learning – a learning system that integrates the e-tools, e-resources and e-knowledge with the learner preferences minimises the gap between the learning and application offering context-oriented help and providing a tie-in to knowledge base of the organisation.

A successful JIT-Learning system needs emphasis on key topics that aids a learner to obtain better insight of underlying concepts and promote reaching plausible solutions appropriately supported with business processes and knowledge domain.

A seamless integration of work skills, system requisite and interaction can aid knowledge acquisition, improve learner's decision making skills in work related tasks, and help resolve expert scalability problem.

Project Name
Just-in-Time Learning – Effective
& Efficient Pedagogy of Future

The Organisation
CIHL, MSIT Division, IIIT-Hyderabad

Key people
Padmaja Naraharisetty, Principal Mentor

Tools facilitating just-in-time learning

Virtual conferencing
Threaded discussions
Electronic resource repository
Simulation based learning modules
Electronic administrative tool

“The context of operational learning is changing due to a no-time-to-spare pace of today's work environment. Event-based or “just-in-case” learning is no longer adequate; now, employees need knowledge, data and tools integrated into the workflow so that it is available at the moment of need.”

With an aim to gauge the efficacy of different learning interventions and pedagogical constructs (both used in MSIT programme and those popular in the Industry), the authors conducted two surveys in October 2008 on following sample populations: Internal participants of the MSIT programme and Industry professionals (43% from IT/ITES, 10% from engineering sector, 21% from academics, 26% from other professions). The survey results highlighted that JIT, if suitably encapsulated in a Learning System Design, can enhance and accelerate the learning experience. In a knowledge economy, where learning demands are dynamic, flexible and are required to be delivered at fast pace across distributed geographies, JIT surely provides a focused approach that leverages on technological advancements and reduces cognitive load on the learner. Specifically, a JIT approach would create a learning ecosystem that is: just enough, just for me and just in time.

The quote from Gloria Gery captures the very relevance and significance of JIT Learning:

“The context of operational learning is changing due to a no-time-to-spare pace of today's work environment. Event-based or “just-in-case” learning is no longer adequate; now, employees need knowledge, data and tools integrated into the workflow so that it is available at the moment of need.”

e-Teaching and e-Learning through Classroom Windows

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August 1, 2010

The neologism 'eLearning' is the technique of Learning through the use of electronic devices where live teaching is facilitated through electronic media extending beyond the reach of the classroom, popularly termed as Class Room Window (CRW). The unique aspect of CRW is the ability to transcend space anywhere

The neologism 'eLearning' is the technique of Learning through the use of electronic devices where live teaching is facilitated through electronic media extending beyond the reach of the classroom, popularly termed as Class Room Window (CRW). The unique aspect of CRW is the ability to transcend space anywhere, whereby the system enables expert lectures of renowned professors of leading colleges and universities to get connected to the rural area students. A CRW is typically a teacher-centred technology that can be created by streaming a live classroom activity from one place to another using the broadband Internet and innovation in ICT.

The CRW facility if extended to universities or colleges, the campus of global Universities, maximises reach of the classroom of renowned colleges, university and resource person globally, by optimising the use of ICT facilities. This provides a gateway to active and live learning facilities effectively than distance learning, learning through podcasts or conventional eLearning. This CRW facility can be extended to provide effective tutorial tables' room for the students after university working hours for additional guidance. The CRW facility can also be applied to form effective university clusters, which will result in resource, cost and time-sharing. These facilities, if extended to the rural colleges, where resources are not easily available, would bridge the digital divide. Instead of podcasting a lecture, another time in a different environment and classroom, the live lecture can be streamed through digital equipments at another classroom. This helps the rural engineering college classroom to log on to another live classroom. A research study conducted on remote classroom concept through tele-lecturing system during the year 1970 reveals that the student's attitudes improved considerably. Further, substantial research on media assisted teaching at the University of North Carolina, showed that such classes were as effective as those taught in traditional environment (Figure 1).

CRW Tutorial Tables Room provides effective tutorial tables room for the students after university working hours. A CRW tutorial tables' room, is a room with tables that will hold 4 to 5 students through CRW technology, whereby students needing additional coaching meets the Professor at the CRW tutorial room on invitation which can be either a free entry or an entry through payment gateway. After entering the Tutorial tables' room, a student searches for his professor and clicks to sit in one of the chairs of the table where the professor is seated following which the students are then taken into a separate room where the tutorial begins as in the Figure 2.

University Clusters

CRW develops a healthy interaction between the higher education technical institutes, where India would soon be witnessing University Clusters (UC), which means a group of Universities come together to promote resource, time and cost sharing, while optimising the available time and resources, using CRW concepts.

Creating a True Cloud

True Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public utility. The University clusters in this context can build together one educational cloud exclusively for the CRW implementation. Fostering the state-of-the-art technology at the academic level, to build a healthy interface between the university clusters and the rural colleges is to provide all the information communication technology relevant to an active classroom and the classroom window, through a True cloud using Remote Infrastructure Management technique (Figure 3).

Benefits and Scalability

Enable effective interaction with the peer urban group

Brings about new ideas and innovation due to the mix between rural and urban

Extend the reach of the classroom of renowned colleges, university and resource person globally, by optimising the use ICT facilities

Facilitate podcasts and replay of the lectures at leisure for the students

Better evaluation through a regular assessment via software, like, moodle software

Impact and Challenges

The integration of Information and Communication Technologies with broadband Internet has led to an explosion in the use of digital media in higher education both locally and globally. However, frequent emergence of cutting edge technologies in the communication and computer-engineering field and the global e-learning raises hurdles in communication, culture, and technology that must be addressed before successful implementation and effective outcome.

But in spite of this, CRW has marked the beginning of a new era in today's world of ICT enabling many educationalist, policy makers, industrialists, higher education department, department of science and technology and others to come forward to foster CRW technology.

Some Highlights

Transcends space anywhere

Provides live classroom atmosphere at remote locations

Opportunity to undertake innovative projects and research initiatives by the rural and urban students combined via interactive sessions with the professors from abroad

Enable selection of international supervisors on account of its participative interaction ability

Planning of frequent meeting between the supervisors and the research scholars

Promote active collaboration between universities after signing the memorandum of understanding

iTunes U becomes more popular for students and lifelong learners

iTunes U, the educational side of iTunes by Apple, is going strong. The Open University has hit a milestone, reaching 20 million downloads. iTunes is a proprietary digital media player application, used for playing and organising digital music and video files. Additionally, iTunes can connect to the iTunes Store via the Internet to purchase and download music, music videos, audiobooks, podcasts etc. Apple delivers university lectures through a format called iTunes U. iTunes U brings the power of the iTunes Store to education, making it simple to distribute information to your students and faculty

Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools for Class Rooms

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August 1, 2010

Web 2.0 has revolutionised the education world and brought the world closer. Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them

The Internet has undergone a revolution since the 1990s and early 21st century. Earlier, the World Wide Web was mainly used to surf and find information where the information streamed in only one direction. Websites were typically made by people who had mastered HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) coding and knew FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site management.

However, in 2004 the Internet began to change its appearance and gave birth to new web tools that allowed ordinary people to dynamically work on the web. This enabled people to add and delete the contents to already existing websites and hence websites became more dynamic and information flowed both the ways. People, who did not belong to the programming world were rapidly editing and adding public contents to the web in the form of their own periodicals, podcasts, videos, wikis, photographs, slideshows, auctions, and more.

The second generation of the web had taken birth, named Web 2.0 making websites more attractive and user friendly. As per Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is “commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web”. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to passive viewing of information that is provided to them.” Web 2.0 technology is also known as the Read/Write or the interactive web, as the users are able to read the content and at the same time able to make changes to the content as per their requirements and hence this serves as a great platform for educational purposes.

Today, teachers are using the Web 2.0 tools to introduce lessons in their classroom. Students are collaborating with other students around the world, creating online content and displaying their work to a global world. Web 2.0 facilitates professional collaboration, networking, critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, creativity, global understanding and multicultural learning. Various tools for collaborative writing and editing, private communication, online conferencing, file sharing, and desktop sharing enable teachers to effectively collaborate with the students beyond school hours thus making optimum use of the technology available.

It has been truly said “Power comes from effectively combining information with technological capacity and the creative capacities of human beings.” Google Docs

Google Docs is a free service provided by Google to its users. It serves as an excellent application for collaboration where teachers and students can use it to share documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Professionals can too collaborate with their teams and clients in real-time

Skype

Skype is an application that allows making voice calls over the Internet (the technology is called Voice over Internet Protocol

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