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Microsoft and Google to support open access to books

Microsoft and Google both are supporting open access to books from major libraries of the world. Both companies are digitizing books in very large leading American and European libraries. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Prof. N Balakrishnan is working for digitalising a million million books in different libraries in India in different languages. All books are available at the NSA and IASc journals to open access. NIC and MedKnow are bringing out 78 OA journals. Institutes like IISc, RRI, NIO, NAL, NCCR, and NIT-Rourkela have accepted the open access of books.

Becta publishes ICT funding guideline for schools in UK

Becta has published a guidance document for schools and local authorities on the usgae of ICT skills. Becta has published the document entitled 'Learning, teaching and managing with ICT: Funding guidance for schools and local authorities 2007-08'.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

This is the first time, Becta has released the funding guidance for schools and local authorities. The document places the guidance on funding within the context of the Government's e-Strategy delivery plan and Becta's role in leading and co-coordinating it. It also emphasises that ICT spending should be seen as a key driver to help achieve e-Strategy and wider Government objectives. The document explains the details of the five grant areas available to schools as well as providing advice on how to use them. Becta is playing major role in leading the educational community in applying and embedding new technology in learning, teaching and institutional improvement. 

Bangladesh citizen runs library for villagers

Bangladesh citizen is helping villagers by distributing them books. Polan Sarkar, tax collector at Bausa village in Rajshahi district, 270 km north-west of the capital Dhaka is helping villagers. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

He is distributing books among villagers, who don't have money to buy books. In Bangladesh, more than 140 million people are illiterate. He has around 2000 books in Bengali. Recently, popular television programme “Ittadi” or “Et cetra”, ran a documentary on Polan and gifted him two wooden book shelves. 

 

IT industry adopts e-Learning solutions

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Companies like Dr Reddy's, IBM and Wipro are adopting e-Learning solutions to provide peer-to-peer learning solutions to their employees in India.

 

In peer-to-peer learning, employees across all hierarchical levels share knowledge freely with each other. Even they can exchange ideas, meet online through in-house technical journals. IBM's online tool for peer-to-peer learning named Expert-and-Knowledge Tracker is supporting collaboration, knowledge re-use and question answering. Another tool called Learning@IBM enables employees to subscribe to learning feeds i.e. they can receive recommendations from experts inside and outside of IBM. IBM also has an online tool called “The Learning Suite” that provides quick and easy access to a range of learning resources on a topic. The construct helps designers blend topics through diverse learning resources be it traditional, work-based and collaborative learning strategies in the context of their alignment with business strategy. Wipro has four forums, including Konnect, Knetworks, War Rooms and RFP Kwest through which employees would be stay connected. Konnect is an application that helps employees reach out to each other in technology, domain or process areas.

IGNOU plans to set up 8000 Tele-Knowledge Centres in rural India

Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU) is planning to establish around 8000 Tele-Knowledge Centres in rural areas of India.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

The main aim of the centres is to make villagers understand that technologies can be harnessed for sustainable development of rural areas. According to V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice-Chancellor of IGNOU, these centres would disseminate information about the need of sustainable development to rural and under privileged regions and groups.

A Mind for Globalisation with Localisation : Supam Maheshwari, CEO, Brainvisa Technologies, India

bridging this gap. A big investment towards innovation and new indigenized product development is required to cater to Indian markets like retail,  insurance etc.
How meaningful have been the domestic market opportunities for you?
Although in our journey so far, we have not focused towards the domestic  arket, lately, we have seen a sudden potential for growth of eLearning in India. To tap this potential, Brainvisa has innovated a product called RapideL, a rapid
eLearning tool which has proved to be a boon to the Indian training community. We have also invested in vertical specialisation to tap verticals
like aviation to begin with. There are significant opportunities forinnovating and building products around insurance, retail and manyother booming sectors.

What needs to be done to promote elearningin India?
A huge e-learning funding initiative from the Government could propel the looming domestic talent shortage. This kind of concept prevails in countries like Australia where the Government has budgeted and pays for professional re-skilling. Also, large Indian universities could follow the path of University of Phoenix to again propel good e-learning initiatives. Such large initiatives  sually require government or large private funding. Very recently Brainvisa has made a partnership deal to extend the educational services to South African market.

Could you throw some light on how different or similar are the Indian e-learning initiatives and the foreign ones?
Well, our product RapideL has created waves the world over. We have received a large number of enquiries from various parts and hence we have appointed various resellers to provide local presence. We have recently signed up with resellers in UK, Portugal, South Africa, Germany, Italy, Australia, and Switzerland. Our direct custom learning solution services however are focused for the USA, UK, UAE and Australian market where we have our local offices.
Our offices are located close to our customers as it gives us a chance to learn their business problems more like their employee rather like an external vendor, and this enables us to work closely to serve them beyond their  equirement.

How do you see the global market for e-learning?
Globally, even today, 25-30% of a company’s training blend is eLearning and the remaining is predominantly Instructor Led Training. Global companies budget 3-4% of an employee’s annual salary for training. With the gradual shift towards elearning in overall training spend, we feel e-learning has a long way to go. Your services cover a diversified sector of the market (K-12, higher education, corporate learning etc).

immerse are your learning solutions for  hose markets and which sector do you think will see the maximum growth in next few years? Brainvisa builds and will continue to  build learning solutions for all these categories. In my opinion, the category growth is more country specific. Currently, there is a large demand and supply gap in the corporate training market in India. K- 12 and higher education market are lagging but has the potential be the largest growth segment in years to come. In developed economies, corporate training market will continue to grow faster than K12.
What have been the critical roadblocks for you in this sector? Building deeper, integrated partnership with clients take enormous amounts of time in the
industry. Our most critical and the biggest road block has been to try to reduce this time-frame. We can work with a client on any spoke of this wheel to begin with, and would like to transition it towards completing all spokes of this wheel and meet our objective of building a long term partnership. As the CEO

where do you see Brainvisa five years from now?
Size does matter. Five years down, we plan to be one of the most dominant players in the learning industry globally.

UK Junior school offers learning through video conferencing

Essex Junior school of UK is using online learning platform with its own webspace, e-mail, chat and video conferencing tools. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

The school has been working with the London Grid for Learning (www.lgfl.net) to enhance ICT across the curriculum and encourage collaboration between pupils, staff, governors and parents. London Grid for Learning will provide the safe, secure and high-speed broadband connection to the National Education Network (NEN). The NEN provides schools with access to a consistent set of resources, services and applications and is available through LGfL to every school across London. Teachers are using the learning platform on a daily basis to create new resources from the online content supplied by LGfl, including lesson plans, activities and revision materials. Over 80 schools in the borough and over 100 schools are currently using Ardleigh Green's ICT scheme of work nationally. 

DyKnow software links 250 students through wirelessly

Virginia Tech is linking more than 250 engineering students on wireless Tablet PCs synchronously to provide an interactive environment between the professor and the students. The new software, named DyKnow will provide unique interactivity between the instructor and the class via the Tablet PC.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

DyKnow software allows a professor to write on their Tablet PC, using words similar to written on a conventional blackboard. As the text places in computer, it automatically appears on each of the students' wireless machines, also equipped with the software package. The students are then able to add notes as the professor lectures, and save them for future reference. The combination of the visual, the auditory and the actual note-taking combine to increase the students' retention capabilities. DyKnow provides an intuitive interface to transmit teacher content to student computers for annotation. This eliminates manual copying and gives students more time to focus on understanding concepts. A professor can also poll the students, receiving instant feedback, and even collect student work written in class on their tablets. Recently, Virginia Tech's Alliance has partnered with Fujitsu Computer Systems and Microsoft Research Corporation continues to support its Tablet PC initiatives. Microsoft Corporation is funding the Tablet PC Assessment team. 

Socitm partners with Easy-i to deliver e-Learning on information security issues

The Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm) has partnered with Easy-i, a division of SAI Global Limited to deliver cost effective e-learning courses to public sector managers and staff around issues like Information Security, security for mobile working, Data Protection and the Freedom of Information Act.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Easy i's e-Learning courses will bring a fully managed online learning resource to people in the public sector who need to gain and maintain knowledge in these vital areas. Easy-i training programmes are highly interactive, visually stimulating and present information in a clear and compelling manner. Socitm members would be able to take benefit from gaining Continued Professional Development (CPD) points upon completion of courses.

Microsoft plans to launch e-Newsletter for Asia-Pacific teachers

Microsoft is planning to launch an e-Newsletter and an Internet portal for teachers in Asia-Pacific region as part of its Partners in learning' programme. This initiative will enable sharing of the best practices among teachers and education officials of the region. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

While inaugurating the Microsoft 'Regional Innovative Teachers' Conference 2007 in Combodia Managing Director-Public Sector, Peter Moore made this announcement. The e-Newsletter, entitled 'Perspectives' would be written by educators for educators. The first issue of the newsletter would be released in April. The portal will enable users to share class notes, lesson plans and other learning and teaching resources. Users will also be able to create communities on the portal and invite other users to collaborate. The company has invested $50 million for the `Partners in learning' programme. 

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