Monday, December 22, 2025
Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube
Home Blog Page 1671

Satellite communication can help to train village students: APJ Abdul Kalam

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

President of India, A.P.J Abdul Kalam on 1 March 2007 called upon the Sangeet Natak Akademi to see how satellite communication could help performers and teachers in training talented students in the rural hinterlands.

APJ Abdul Kalam informed that the new multi-media systems had become great tools for learning. He emphasized on updating the website of Sangeet Natak Akademi to provide information on arts, artists and related research and documentation. He asked for a sustainable growth in the field of performing art forms.

Euro-Indian ICT Coperation Initiatives in Progress

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The two workshops organised in January 2007 by the Euro

Learning Object Recommender System for Personalised Learning

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Learning process includes three components- they are students, teacher, and learning materials. From teacher's point of view, teaching is an activity to deliver information and skill to students with some goals to be achieved. From students' point of view, learning is an activity to acquire information from teacher to achieve goals set by the teacher. Students with their prior knowledge acquire new information from teacher. Here, social constructivism paradigm can help students learn collaborative and sharing knowledge each other. Basically, knowledge, which is needed to be achieved according to the course, mainly does not get influenced by how many Learning Objects (LOs) the students have read, but how relevant Learning Objects that have retrieved and learned. Student who has high prior knowledge according to the course, need LOs that is different from other student who has low prior knowledge. Hence, personalisation features are needed which adaptively facilitate student in monitoring their learning progress and provide any resources or learning material that suitable to what they need. This personalisation feature implemented in the e-learning system developed in Faculty of Computer Science (Fasilkom) University of Indonesia (UI) has been named SCELE.

This is always assumed that students have the prior knowledge to any course. However, in reality it is not always the case. Hence, Learning Object Recommender (LOR) is needed in order to enhance quality of discussion in building new knowledge by improving student's prior knowledge. This research In the University of Indonesia in line with the running system, Student Centered E-Learning Environment (SCELE) is built based on open source LMS, Moodle. SCELE is integrated with digital library system called Library Automation and Digital Archive (LONTAR) and Learning Object Manager (LOM). LONTAR can handle resources sharing and LOM manages resources, like upload, search and update resources. From Social Constructivism's perspective, SCELE has features to facilitate discussion among students and teachers (instructors).

The Existing System: SCELE, LONTAR, and LOM

Faculty of Computer Science (Fasilkom), University of Indonesia (UI) implements LMS called Student Centered E-Learning Environment (SCELE) for e-learning which is developed using enterprise resource planning approach. SCELE is developed based on open source LMS, Moodle. Moodle's main features support SCELE, such as communication tools synchronous (chatting) and asynchronous (news and discussion forum), user management, assessment, and also course management. Moodle has been so that it can meet the student-centered learning model requirements. The works are development of space for integrating course graph and assessment graph, integration LONTAR digital library, and integration of Learning Object Manager (LOM) module to SCELE.

Student-centered learning paradigm has been adopted through SCELE as an attempt to change old learning paradigm, which focus on teacher to focus on student. According to R. Cannon in Guide to support the implementation of the Learning and Teaching Plan Year 2000, ACUE, The University of Adelaide, 2000, definition of student-centered learning is:

“Student-centered learning describes ways of thinking about learning and teaching that emphasise student responsibility for such activities as planning learning, interacting with teachers and other students, researching, and assessing learning.”

By using this approach, it is believed that student can meet new learning experience and can exercise active and collaborative learning.

Goals of teaching-learning activities especially in higher education are not only knowledge transfer, but also the development of analytical-thinking (soft skill), that are very useful to face and solve the complexities of real world problems.

The idea of student-centered learning is not limited to campus-based teaching and learning but it can be extended to distance learning.  Overall, establishing student-centered, e-learning systems for distance learning will improve the quality of education, at the same time as increasing the possible number of students' participating in higher education. In order to accomplish such objectives, digital library application LONTAR and LOM module are integrated.

Architecture of Learning Object Recommender

Based on the existing curriculum and analysis on SCELE, Learning Object Recommender's architecture has been designed that focus on prior knowledge assessment. Writers propose four main components:

Prior knowledge assessment engine: This function is used for generating instrument of assessments, such as pre-assessment, mid-assessment, and final-assessment. An assessment contains several questions related to the course and type of assessment.

Records of students' performance: Used to collect all results of assessment; then the data of all assessment for each student can be analysed for tracking student's learning progress. Measuring student's learning progress can be done by comparing results of assessment.

LO repository: Used to manage LOs after creation and manage their version.

LO recommender: This function used to provide LOs for students based on result of assessment.

LONTAR: Library automation and digital archive

Digital library is a system, which has various service and information object to support users who need the information object. The information object can still be a book or paper, but the metadata is formatted electronically which can be accessed through digital devices. Digital library feature is integration of LONTAR digital library into e-learning system, SCELE. By using this feature, users can search documents in the library.

Learning Object Manager

Learning Object Manager (LOM) is a feature used as repository of learning materials (LOs) which has upload, download, and searching facility. The definition of LO from Learning Technology Standards Committee – Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, is:

“

Rethinking the Asian ICT and Education Agenda

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

One Objective- ICT and Education- Opportunities for Digital Asia Several approaches- online and offline discussions, paper presentations, plenary, round tables, interviews, and many more

a study on the Asian minds on education technology, a reference note towards policy level preparations, and an approach for the development of the education community.

The journey starts: The Minister of Water, Energy and Communications, Malaysia accompanied by others to join the conference
Digital Learning Asia 2007, which was a part of the three days umbrella event eAsia 2007, was the culmination of five months of planning and collaborating among CSDMS, Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications, Malaysia (KTAK) telecentre.org, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and key partners like, Microsoft, Nokia, SEAMEO, National University of Singapore, Universiti Technologi Mara, University of Uttara Malaysia, and several others to bring together the key stakeholders from Asia and beyond. The Digital Learning Asia planned as a consultative forum for discussion and collaboration was designed to engage the participants representing organisations involved in or interested in ICT and education activities in and around Asia.
Digital Learning Asia 2007 is the third in the series of such consultative forums organised by CSDMS in Asia. While for some participants this was the first time, they met the Digital Learning community at large, for many, it was a place to meet old friends, make new acquaintances and forge news partnerships. The three days of the forum saw participants engage in several planned and adhoc discussions on the way forward for the ICT and education community in Asia.

Breakthrough!

Cognitive gaps among different stakeholders in ICT in education continue to be an area that needs attention. The call is for strengthening of cooperation and linkages between educational institutions and organisations across the globe.

Governments need to form smart partnerships with vendors and non-profit organisations to help bridge the digital gap between students from urban and rural schools.

Dedicated classroom technology has to be promoted rather than moving from one classroom to the other as practiced in several countries.

Leadership within the schools has to be emphasized.  Recognising, training and supporting teachers who are champions within the schools system will be a boost to promote digital learning.

The first day also saw the launch of the ITU-Universiti Uttara Malaysia partnership on Asia-Pacific Centre for Excellence for Rural ICT Development. The Minister along with Dato’ Dr Nordin Kardi, Vice Chancellor, Universiti Uttara Malaysia inaugurated the launch.The inaugural day saw a key session by the Government of Malaysia on Malaysian ICT vision that included key experts from KTAK, and Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

Breakthrough!

Continuous professional development of teachers is very important to ensure that they are being updated with new ICT tools and innovative teaching methodologies. There is richness of content available for schools to purchase and use, and governments should seriously consider whether there is any need to do in-house development of materials for schools. There is a need to reveal and revise the mode of assessment, and set mechanisms within the evaluation system that are representative of the changed environment.

The Global Knowledge Partnership had put together a plenary session drawing expertise from Microsoft, Ministry of Communication, Government of India, Omar Dengo Foundation, Costa Rica, EPFL, Switzerland, Foundation ChasquiNet, Ecuador, Community Informatics Research, Network, Training and Development, Canada and Friday Solutions, India. The session hosted by Walter Fust was framed around experiences of multi-stakeholder partnerships and addressing three key questions of poverty reduction, scaling models and government policy involving multi-stakeholder partnerships.
As a part of the overall eAsia themes, the Digital Learning Asia 2007 conference took prominence due to the importance of ICT-enabled learning in an increasingly knowledge driven global economy.  In the next two days of the conference, the participants tried to learn about experiences that have enabled change conducive to the new environment of knowledge society as the instruments to bridge the knowledge and education divide. The purpose of this conference was to identify new ICT and education related questions, roadblocks, progress, and debatable issues, and to provide new impetus to the digital learning discussions. The second day began with the plenary session titled ‘ICT in Education: Opportunities for Digital Asia’. The forum participants learnt about national level ecosystem of ICT-enabled education. Understanding the fact that the developing countries are facing today the challenge of preparing their societies and governments for globalisation and the information and communication revolution, this plenary session showcased some emerging application areas and the new potentials of ICTs that can bring in dramatic changes in There emerged a number of methods of re-skilling educators to adopt roles of an administrator, facilitator, technical support and evaluator, to build buy-in and ownership qualities among educators and motivate them to spearhead the ICT-based education process. Many models and practices of teachers’ training and capacity building industrial requirements, challenges of inter-ministerial collaboration, and private sector participation.
With the scope of varied digital opportunities available or can be made available in learning, the hunt for the best of technologies and best of practices intensified in the following session ICT in education: Theory and Practice that resulted in a number of shared experiences on what exists, the availabilities, preparedness, various practices and the shortfalls on the front of ICTs and education influencing the education system of many countries. MyGfL (Malaysian Grid for Learning), a national e-Learning initiative by National IT Council (NITC) and undertaken by MIMOS Berhad to promote and support the lifelong learning agenda in Malaysia reflected some very useful pilot observations and outcomes.

Dr Norrizan Razali, Senior Manager, Smart School Department, Multimedia Development Corporation Sdn Bhd (MDeC) spoke on optimising digital content in classrooms by demonstrating the Malaysian Smart School experience. The challenges with digital content this flagship project of Ministry of Education experiences can be a lesson for others. Pedagogical aspect in digital content encourages teachers to adopt only. Teachers and students find cosmetic aspect attractive; and although cosmetic aspect is attractive, teachers are not compelled to use the digital content. Other challenges include the curriculum-based and exam driven content, and some technical challenges.

Dr Ashish Garg, Programme Coordinator, India, Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) founded by the UN ICT Task Force, pointed out that adhoc policies that never have explicit connection with the national goals and visions often hamper the ICT in education process. She emphasised that  all the best education practices with ICTs can work wonders only if supported by purposeful end-to-end policy.

Zainab Hussain Siddiqui, Sr. Asst. Director (Programmes), COMSATS Headquarters in Pakistan discussed on status of e-learning in Pakistan by citing a case-study: Alliance Fran

A Virtual Learning Centre for Tsunami Affected Students

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The article presents the Virtual Science Learning Centre (VSLC) model setup by Annamalai University for strengthening and popularising science information and education among rural youth and school students in Cuddalore district in the Southern Indian state Tamilnadu. Although several remarkable achievements have occurred in the sphere of science education system in India in the last decade, studies have reported that polarisation exists between the urban and the rural students, and situation is still worse in the case of girl students in the rural set up who would like to start their academic pursuits as the first generation candidates. In an attempt to address this, VSLC promotes the capacity building, confidence building and the personality development of the rural youth especially the young girl students. It builds a “Partnership in Learning” (PiL) Programme between the university and school girl students community through  telecentres and  web portal.

There is a growing  tension among  majority of the   rural   students in not being able to cope with the expected level of mastery in certain core subjects like Science, Mathematics and English at the HSC examination levels and also to prepare them for the entrance examination in order to get access to institutes of higher education of some order. “Partnership in Learning'- is an attempt of Annamalai University in Southern India to address this problem statement, the goal of which is to design and develop the ICT based Information Support system to enhance the skill and expertise of High School Students (10+2) in the Tsunami Affected Regions of Cuddalore district. It is intended to deliver science Educational contents based on their curriculum, through various network delivery channels.

It is proposed to mobilise the existing learning resources and to customise the pedagogy with the support of voluntary work from the university academic community along with the district administration and corporate. The purpose is to tailor-made the contents to suit the requirements of student from different socio-economic communities.

Building a synergy between community, university, industry and high school system

The aim of this project is to establish a twinning programme between the university and the rural schools surrounding the university in order to strengthen the university-community learning centre activities with the sole motto of empowering the girl students belonging to the deprived and downtrodden communities in the rural regions who cannot afford to continue their school education.

The objective is to build a university based online-support system through special coaching to the girl students pursing higher secondary education at Cuddalore District in Tamilnadu. The reason for choosing this particular region can be explained by the fact that it is one of the 13 districts in the state of Tamilnadu (World Bank Report) where the gender gap is prominent in the higher secondary schools. Out of the 1,13,268 students enrolled in 97 schools in Cuddalore District, the gender ratio is about 65:35. As HSC is considered as a stepping-stone for pursuing higher education and employment, the Government of Tamilnadu is taking measures to provide free education to all girl students. Priority is given to the SC/ST students and those who are 'single child' in their families. However, there are a number of exogenous and indigenous factors like the availability of schools within neighborhood, the quality of teachers, the level of motivation and coaching, family support and the prevailing social norms still have not allowed many of the girls to take school education seriously at their young age which leads to a social malady later.

To bridge the urban and rural divide and to offer the urban educational facilities to the rural students many efforts have been taken by the Annamalai University. One such effort is to build an Internet-based learning resource centre at the University as part of the community-university extension activities. The high school girl students in the rural regions surrounding the University will be the targeted beneficiaries through this pilot programme.

Secondly, the project aims to uphold the ideals of the President of India in bringing the urban learning facilities to the rural students and to be a partner in the “Mission 2007” agenda of the nation.

The project also aims at building a university centered-village community network that promotes the capacity building, confidence building and the personality development of the rural youth especially the young girl students who have limited opportunity to interact with their peer-groups. It will encourage girls to take up Science, Mathematics and technical subjects.

The project aims at building a university centered-village community network that promotes the capacity building, confidence building and the personality development of the rural youth especially the young girl students who have limited opportunity to inte ract with their peer-groups. It will encourage girls to take up Science, Mathematics and technical subjects.

This aims at building a “Partnership in Learning” (PiL) Programme” between the university and school girl students community-based telecentres will be established by the university that has to run on 24X7 hours basis via a web portal using the cutting-edge technology of the broadband satellite.

Methodology

Identification of target population

The AUWTC will be identifying the higher secondary girls students in the age group of 15-18. Priority is given to the SC/ST students and those who are 'single child' in their families. Then the Centre will collect baseline information about the target population in 13 blocks (viz., Kattumannar koil, Kumarachi, Annagaram, Nallure, Vridhachalam, Kammapuram, Panruti, Keerapalayam, cuddalore, Kurinjipadi, Parangipettai and Mel buvanagiri) of Cuddalore district in Tamilnadu.

Course design

The Centre will design the courses to update with new syllabus framed by the government of Tamilnadu through the e-learning tools in the subjects are Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Science and Technology and English. Coaching by the well-known language with students' favour of used by Internet and handling e-resources for enhancing their learning skills.

Lesson material

A team of women volunteers at Annamalai University representing students and research scholars attached with the department of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Science & Technology and English will be engaged to develop a web-based tutorial materials for the higher secondary girl students in their regional language and also in the multimedia form.

Multi-channel delivery mechanism

It is proposed to adopt a satellite digital network and cable TV network for the transformation of course materials. A ku-band satellite channel at a speed of 6 Mbps will be established at the Information Technology Training Centre (ITTC) at Annamalai University to ensure real-time course delivery to the local virtual science-learning centres in the selected villages. The courseware also will be transmitted through the local cable TV network. By the end of 2006, it is proposed to establish a minimum of 13 virtual science-learning centres in each blocks. By using a variety of network-based and more traditional distance-education tools, each course involves learners in both independent and group learning activities. Electronic communication occurs between geographically separated learners in using a range of technologies including computer conferencing, audiographic conferencing and web-based delivery. The choice of technology will be based on the subject matter. For instance, application-sharing whiteboards will be preferred to teach Mathematics to show the working of the equations in real-time. Learners at any site can see on their screen what someone at another site writes, and they can also write on, change and augment what has been written by others. The ITTC centre will be fully equipped to provide online teaching, and also online monitoring of the students performance through email. The project identifies three phases: Phase-1 (Pilot Phase) to develop the content, build the partnerships, arrange the availability of the existing delivery channels in one selected village, and perform a proof-of-concept study for the implementation of the computer network link. Phase-2 (Trial Phase) – During this phase, the content and the computer-assisted learning will be introduced into three selected villages. Phase-3 (Roll-out Phase) This stage will master the connecting of individual villages to the learning network.

Strategies

It is proposed for creation of Virtual Learning Center in each block in selected district.  The web based learning setting supports question and answer, online discussion, bulleting boards, web courseware download and e-mail communication, thus supporting real time and non-real time interaction on the Internet. Face to face tutoring is made available on the weekends at all local learning community centers in the respective villages.

The strategies will also include online learning resources covering (i) their lesson materials in the simulation and multimedia forms, (ii) question banks, (iii) text books and audiovisual resources (iv) CDs in the various subjects and (v) CAI (Computer Assisted Instruments) course ware.
This project will illustrate the responsibilities of the universities to (re) build communities, responding to local needs and expectations especially in the areas of capacity building and upskilling the youth. It will also showcase how the technology can be used as a strong catalyst for improving the academic interaction freely, openly, in many different ways between student communities in the universities and in the rural regions which would lead to a lot creativity and innovation in the field of STEM.  

Mark Your Calendar

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

march

International Conference and workshop on e-Learning strategies: Edutainment 2007
12 – 17 March, 2007
Bangkok and Surin Island
Thailand
http://www.elearning.dusit.ac.th/

Research-Based Creative Teaching Strategies
19 – 20 March, 2007
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
http://www.bobpikegroup.com

TxDLA: Discover the Treasures of Distance Learning
27 – 29 March, 2007
Galveston, Texas
United States
http://www.txdla.org/conference/2007/index.html

april

2nd International Conference on Engineering Education & Training, ICEET-2
9 – 11 April, 2007
Kuwait City, Kuwait
http://www.iceet.org

eLearning Guild Annual Gathering 
10

Tracking Student&rsquo:s Class Attendance Using Wireless PDA

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

SmartChecker is the innovative platform that integrates mobile technologies into teaching and learning environment for the particularly tracking and monitoring of student's class attendance. SmartChecker, exploits the use of personal digital assistance (PDA) to provide mobile and instant graphical display. It also furnishes reports and progress tracks for determining student class attendance baselines, and improves the quality of monitoring and data captured technique, data-driven decision making and school accountability.

When Kamri, the head-teacher of class 5 AMANAH in Kompleks Gong Badak Primary School in Malaysia just finishes the morning session and is rushing to have a meeting with the headmaster, he suddenly sees Aminah, Asri's student in 5 SIDIQ, is crying in the corner. “What's up?” But Aminah refuses to say a single word. Kamri is in a hurry to the meeting, so she quickly takes out the SmartCheker. “Aminah is crying in the 3rd floor corner”, she marks down the message and then transfers it to Asri.

SmartChecker retrieves all recent information relating to Aminah from the school database, and starts to analyse if Aminah has been behaving atypically for a period of time.

Now Kamri has arrived at the president's office, where the school master is evaluating his performance. The headmaster turns his attention to the PDA screen that is now showing a system generated alert together with the ranking variation graph of the student. “I think we should pay more attention to him. He was our best student, but now I am a little disappointed about his performance in the past two months based on his attendance. SmartChecker alerted me last night, telling me his overall performance is atypical these two months, and we should find out what is wrong with him.”

Why SmartChecker useful in school environment?

SmartChecker is a mobile student performance monitoring system using wireless mobile handheld devices like PDAs that facilitates real-time access and analysis of the formative and summative performance data of students graphically. At the same time it supports performance prediction based on the heuristic information, and facilitates the improvement of the quality of teaching, learning, data-driven decision-making, monitoring and school accountability. In our work, the Data source of SmartChecker the SMM (Sistem Maklumat Murid) system, which is an online school management system and a city-wide learning data archive for all school students in Malaysia maintained by the Education Ministry. SMM maintain the student learning data for all the primary and secondary schools, storing the learning records and personal information for about all students in primary, secondary schools, as well as teaching staff.

Multipurpose functionality for school and teachers

In a school environment, there are two distinct user groups: school administrator and teachers. SmartChecker is composed of two distinct parts to serve the needs of the different groups. SmartChecker provides global views and analyses of the school performance for this group of users. The main focus is to enhance the school accountability, and to access the school continuous improvement data. Based on the quantitative analytical results, SmartChecker helps to develop teacher professional programmes that would have a quick effect in the classroom and in student monitoring. Basically, two levels of analysis results can be presented for the administrator level users. The analysis for this group is focused on the attendances scores. There are form level analysis and class level analysis. At the form level, the mean, standard deviation, and other statistical factors of the attendance results can be shown graphically and compared across years. The trends of the attendances scores of a form or the whole school can also be visualized graphically. At the class level, statistical factors of each subject within each class will be presented, which helps to facilitate the performance assessment of the students.

Framework for SmartChecker
The pilot project will help determine and confirm the following issues before developing full scale data collection software around the PDA: 1.Real-time or Batch data exchange: Is real-time sending of information to the main server really needed? How much traffic in Kilobytes will be generated? How much will that cost? Will real time information exchange help in data collection monitoring? Will daily batch information interchange suffice, or should the enumerator in the field be connected to the main database all the time and perform all information update on it directly? 2.Synchronization with main database: Will the main database be MySQ L? How will the mechanism of integration between received data from PDA, if in batch mode, occur with the main database? 3.How well will the adopted PDA perform in the field: Will the battery be enough? How will recharging happen? Is the PDA easy to use? What will be the optimum procedure to follow for its use in data collection? Will the PDA memory be enough to handle the client-side application and data storage (if batch mode is used)?

Three major technical issues needed to be addressed in any PDA system development: (a) Multiple user environment – how to categorise users into different groups with different information needs. (b) Data privacy control – how to ensure data can only be seen by the right person, and prevent from the man in the middle attack. (c) Interface designs- how to show a large amount of graphs and information efficiently and ergonomically on a very small screen.

Data privacy control

Due to the inherent data privacy concern, it is important to protect the data in SmartChecker at three levels. (a) Physical security: Protecting the device from loss or theft, and preventing access to the device operating system (OS) and the SmartChecker application if the device does fall into the wrong hands. (b) Data security: Ensuring that if the device does fall into the wrong hands and the OS is accessed, the data stored in the device cannot be accessed. (c) Network security: Preventing eavesdropping during data transmission between the device and the system server. RSA is the most widely used algorithm for public key encryption, and is believed to be secure given sufficiently long keys. Here we modify the classical protocol to take into account of the limitations of hand held devices.

The idea of this protocol is to use public key encrypting data files on server before transformation, and to decrypt by the private key stored on the PDA. Different from the classical RSA, this private key is further encrypted by a session key, keeping it from being disclosed.

System architecture and implementation

This system was developed using three tier architecture that has been chosen for monitoring of system using Internet technology. This architecture provides greater application scalability, high flexibility, high efficiency, lower maintenance, and reusability of components. In this design, each tier can be run either on a separate machine or on the single machine. It improves system processing performance. These tiers do not necessarily communicate to physical locations on different computers or networks. A typical three layer architecture is divided into Client or presentation tier, Application tier and Data tier.

Presentation tier

This tier enables user to interact with the database through the web browser in a user friendly manner from remote location or using wireless device like PDA.

Application tier

Application tier consists of web server and application logic for data monitoring. The logics and rules are separately stored in the files
using Web scripts. These logics and rules are properly interfaced with the main Web server in this tier. In the current development of monitoring system, Apache Server has been used as Web server.

Data tier

This tier concerns with persistent data usually stored in a database or in permanent storage. MySQL database has been used to store the entire student's class attendance data collection by wireless PDA via online application. The major benefits of three tier architecture are reusability, flexibility, manageability, maintainability,
and scalability.

SmartChecker report and alert system

SmartChecker consists of the following main functions: Querying of data in a city-wise learning data management and archive system such as the Malaysia SMM system, and facilitating comparison of data scattered across multiple databases, generate and display the results of formative assessment and summative assessment in different graphical formats, like bar-chart and scattered diagram. Users can simply navigate and hyper-linking through different graphs and data points to gain a thorough understanding of each student's class attendances, from the detailed scores, comparison to the average to the overall ranking, perform trend analysis by a set of pre-determined rules. The prediction modeling is conducted according to the trend analysis, and instant alert will be pop up. The alert consists of the detailed information of an atypical student who may need special care, on-site input of additional formative assessment data by database has been used to store the entire student's class attendance data collection by wireless PDA via online application. The major benefits of three tier architecture
are reusability, flexibility, manageability, maintainability, and scalability.

Smart Checker report and alert system
SmartChecker consists of the following main functions: Querying of data in a city-wise learning data management and archive system such as the Malaysia SMM system, and facilitating comparison of data scattered across multiple databases, generate Why SmartChecker useful in school environment?

Users can simply navigate and hyper-link through different graphs and data points to gain a thorough understanding of each student's class attendances, from the detailed scores, comparison to the average to the overall ranking, perform trend analysis by a set of pre-determined rules.

SmartChecker is a mobile student performance monitoring system using wireless mobile handheld devices like PDAs that facilitates real-time access and analysis of the formative and summative performance data of students graphically. At the same time it supports performance prediction based on the heuristic information, and facilitates the improvement of the quality of teaching, learning, data-driven decision-making, monitoring and school accountability. In our work, the Data source of SmartChecker the SMM (Sistem Maklumat Murid) system, which is an online school management system and a city-wide learning data archive for all school students in Malaysia maintained by the Education Ministry. SMM maintain the student learning data for all the primary and secondary schools, storing the learning records and personal information for about all students in primary, secondary schools, as well as teaching staff.
Multipurpose functionality for school and teachers
In a school environment, there are two distinct user groups: school administrator and teachers. SmartChecker is composed of two distinct parts to serve the needs of the different groups. SmartChecker provides global views and analyses of the school performance for this group of users. The main focus is to enhance the school accountability, and to access the school continuous improvement data. Based on the quantitative analytical results, SmartChecker helps to develop teacher professional programmes that would have a quick effect in the classroom and in student monitoring. Basically, two levels of analysis results can be presented for the administrator level users. The analysis for this group is focused on the attendances scores. There are form level analysis and class level analysis. At the form level, the mean, standard deviation, and other statistical factors of the attendance results can be shown graphically and compared across years. The trends of the attendances scores of a form or the whole school can also be visualized graphically. At the class level, statistical factors of each subject within each class will be presented, which helps to facilitate the performance assessment of the students.

Framework for SmartChecker

The pilot project will help determine and confirm the following issues before developing full scale data collection software around the PDA: 1.Real-time or Batch data exchange: Is real-time sending of information to the main server really needed? How much traffic in Kilobytes will be generated? How much will that cost? Will real time information exchange help in data collection monitoring? Will daily batch information interchange suffice, or should the enumerator in the field be connected to the main database all the time and perform all information update on it directly? 2.Synchronization with main database: Will the main database be MySQ L? How will the mechanism of integration between received data from PDA, if in batch mode, occur with the main database? 3.How well will the adopted PDA perform in the field: Will the battery be enough? How will recharging happen? Is the PDA easy to use? What will be the optimum procedure to follow for its use in data collection? Will the PDA memory be enough to handle the client-side application and data storage (if batch mode is used)? Three major technical issues needed to be addressed in any PDA system development: (a) Multiple user environment – how to categorise users into different groups with different information needs. (b) Data privacy control – how to ensure data can only be seen by the right person, and prevent from the man in the middle attack. (c) Interface designs- how to show a large amount of graphs and information efficiently and ergonomically on a very small screen.

Data privacy control

Due to the inherent data privacy concern, it is important to protect the data in SmartChecker at three levels. (a) Physical security: Protecting the device from loss or theft, and preventing access to the device operating system (OS) and the SmartChecker application if the device does fall into the wrong hands. (b) Data security: Ensuring that if the device does fall into the wrong hands and the OS is accessed, the data stored in the device cannot be accessed. (c) Network security: Preventing eavesdropping during data transmission between the device and the system server. RSA is the most widely used algorithm for public key encryption, and is believed to be secure given sufficiently long keys. Here we modify the classical protocol to take into account of the limitations of hand held devices.

News world

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Over 400 000 learners to get free education in Africa

Over 400 000 learners in Mpumalanga in Africa stand to benefit from the government's “no-fee schools”. This is apart from the introduction of ICT in public schools that has received impetus by the launch of the provincial ICT Strategy. Currently the province had 983 “no-fee schools”. School principals are not allowed to charge school fees in these schools.

The government would enroll 26 000 participants in the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) courses in the 2007-2008 financial year, at the cost of R90 million. A total of 45 public schools in Mpumalanga have each been allocated 25 computers for the introduction of an ICT laboratory.

USA Government gives funds for videoconferencing in schools

USA Government agencies are giving funds to put video conferencing system in schools. The Rural Development under secretary Thomas Dorr, has given US$25,853,991 funds of 103 distance learning and telemedicine to provide educational and medical services to citizens of 38 states.  

Futurelab offers learning via mobile phones in UK

Futurelab, an education innovator has published a new handbook for students of United Kingdom, which will allow students to use mobile phones, PDAs and pocket PCs for learning.
 
Handhelds-learning with handheld technologies is packed with practical advice and is a must for any school or local authority considering using mobile devices for learning. The handbook is a result of 2-year research programme, involved 26 schools across two local authorities. These handheld devices have the potential to enable personalised, collaborative learning, and facilitate new relationships between teachers and pupils as well as between home and school.

Word Bank report: Nigeria not utilises e-learning programmes

The World Bank report shows that Nigeria is not utilising e-learning methods for effective and coordinated delivery of programmes.

According to the Bank report, distance learning is widespread at the time of the report but it not coordinated and limited to tertiary education programmes. Although many universities have developed the e-learning programmes, yet they have not utilised e-learning programmes properly. Under this report, only few ICT opportunities in teaching curricula existed as well as little development of ICT-based teaching and learning resources. 

Developing nations to test US$150 laptops

From Brazil to Pakistan, some of the world's poorest children are to peer across the digital divide in February – reading electronic books, shooting digital video, and chatting with classmates online. Founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology academics, the non-profit 'One Laptop per Child' project plans to roll out nearly 2,500 of its US$150-laptops to eight nations in the month of February.

State educators in Brazil, Uruguay, Libya, Rwanda, Pakistan, Thailand and possibly Ethiopia and the West Bank will receive the first of the machines in February's pilot.

Learn English grammar via mobile phones

The Mennonite Centre in United Kingdom is one where students are using mobile phones to learn english language.
 
Students are using mobile phones to download english grammar lesson and answer series of multiple choice, true or false questions. Athabasca University, a long-distance post- econdary school, created the cellphone lessons for those wanting to learn english as a second language (ESL).  Students from anywhere in world can learn english grammar, through their cell phones. 

News asia

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Google to open Singapore R&D

Internet search company Google Inc. plans to open a research and development center in Singapore, its first in Southeast Asia.

Google's research centers outside of the United States typically focus on adapting its products for local markets, but are also involved in developing new offerings and fine-tuning existing ones. Three of its eight research and development centers around the world are in Asia.

Brunei teachers win global tilt

Brunei's representatives to the Microsoft Regional Innovative Teacher's Conference in Siem Reap, Cambodia won first and third places. The event is a worldwide initiative to empower schools to increase student learning through teacher development and leadership. It was organised in partnership with UNESCO Asia Pacific and Microsoft under the flagship Partners in Learning (PiL) programme.

The representatives were Cikgu Hj Yussof bin Hj Metassim, Sr. Education Officer from the ICT Dept., Ministry of Education, Cikgu Mohd Zamri bin Hj Ismail of Sayyidina Hasan Secondary School and Cikgu Ismail bin Hj Julaihi of PAP Hjh Rashidah Sa'adatul Bolkiah Secondary School.

Intel strengthens aid in Philippines to improve education

Intel, an international computer processor and solutions developer intends to intensify its programmes to help integrate information and communication technology (ICT) in the Philippine educational system.

In its CSR 2006 year-end report, Intel Philippines highlighted three banner programmes, namely: the Intel Philippines Science and Engineering Fair (Intel Ipef), Intel Higher Education Programme (Intel HEP), and the Intel Teach Programme (Intel TP).

Intel Ipef is a nationwide competition on research and development involving students. The company will select top six entries that will compete in the Intel international science and engineering fair in May, which is expected to involve 1,300 entries from 40 countries worldwide.

The Intel HEP aims to improve the university curriculum, and research and development. Intel TP intends to teach educators how to effectively use personal computers in the classroom. The program has trained over 74,000 teachers in the country and over four million worldwide.

RIHS ties with IGNOU to offer academic programmes in Sri-Lanka

The Regent International Institute of Higher Studies (RIIHS) of Sri-Lanka has partnered with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), India to offer its academic programmes in Sri-Lanka from January 2007. 

IGNOU will prepare a comprehensive set of modules for the distance learning system and provide to students. The “IGNOU-RIIHS partnership” allow students to pay their course fees as per the SAARC norms on a semester basis. A sufficient number of contact sessions for each course and other required services including effective counseling are to be provided by the RIIHS during weekends.

Oracle's Think.com connects schools of Sri-Lanka

Oracle has launched its online community learning system 'Think.com' to connect schools across Sri-Lanka. Think.com is designed to connect students around the world and engage them in collaborative, project-based learning using technology.

Oracle's Think.com will provide a safe environment for both students and teachers to collaborate to make learning more interactive and fun. Teachers and students from member schools can enter this password-protected learning community. Currently, the Think.com is available in 8 different languages across 26 countries.  Oracle has successfully implemented Think.com in Sri-Lanka and Pakistan.

News India

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Govt. works with B-schools for e-Governanace projects

The Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India, will receive consultancy services from premier management schools like the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon for accessing its e-Governance projects.

The DIT has identified 200 to 300 e-Governance projects for external evaluation, which will include computerisation of land records, registration, income tax, commercial taxes among others. Institutes like IIM-A and MDI, Gurgaon, will be associated in a knowledge partnership and will take up roles of project leaders and validate the DIT's e-Governance projects.

Haryana State Govt. promotes soft skills in schools

Haryana State Government has launched an ambitious programme named, “Development of Soft Skills” for its schools and college students.

This programme is based on EDUSAT platform to provide information about IT and BPO sectors. The government has already invested INR 4.7 million at the school level, while INR 1.5 million is provided for college level students. Initially the scheme has covered 10 schools in each of the eight districts namely Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rewari, Rohtak, Sonipat, Panipat, Panchkula and Ambala.

Chennai engineering college to get digital library

Chennai based Salem Government College of Engineering, will soon get a digital library to access vast collection of e-resources on various subjects. The library would be subscribed to the Indian National Digital Library in Engineering Sciences and Technology (INDEST), All India Council for Technical Education consortium to get access to the e-resources.

The total investment on the project is around INR 2 million. Students would be able to access about 170 online journals through the consortium. The college has already networked the departments functioning in various blocks. The server at the digital library will also be brought into the network, enabling the students to access the resources through computers in their respective departments. A few computers will be installed in the library building also. 

Indian students use Internet radio to stay connected

Students at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad have found a new way to be connected with their faculty and teachers through Internet Radio on the campus.

The institute is using the local area network (LAN), which has the band-width of 100Mbps in the campus. The total investment to set up a radio station is around INR 55,000 with a personal computer, a headphone and speaker set. Currently, there are more than 50K Radio Stations, which are broadcasting over the Internet. Accor-ding to Bhuvana Ramalingam, Director communication, ISB, e-radio encoura-ges students to exchange information on varied areas, discuss issues and keep everyone informed on the comp-anies, which come to the campus. 

IISc, Bangalore offers US$100 laptop for Sakshat portal

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, India has designed a prototype laptop for US$100 for recently launched Sakshat, the one stop portal on education.

IISc Bangalore has come with a prototype design for the laptop that all have in mind that currently costs US$100. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has offered a laptop for US$150 for the Sakshat programme.

Meanwhile, the ministry is planning to create virtual laboratories and a virtual technical university to combat and mainstream the battle to bridge the digital literacy gap. Major institutions, including IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, and IIT Bombay are involved in the project.

IIT Delhi will anchor virtual labs, while IIT Kharagpur will anchor cognitive learning and the virtual technical university and IIT Bombay will provide robotics for this project. IGNOU will provide online courses, while NIOS will offer online-testing on demand. 

Read newspaper on mobile phone

Pressmart, a subsidiary of Bodhtree Consulting Limited, and IMImobile, has announced the availability of mPaper, making newspapers available for Indians to read on mobile phones.

The mPaper technology will enable newsreaders to read and access their favourite newspaper content, while they are traveling also. The mPaper technology also allows user to use features like archives and options to search and save news reports and it would be available on monthly subscription. Pressmart is a new media delivery partner of leading newspapers and magazines published in over 15 languages across 21 countries. IMImobile is a next-generation end-to-end enabler of Mobile Value Added Services (VAS) for mobile operators, media companies and enterprises.

Pressmart will provide mPaper facility in 9 major newspapers of India, including, Hindustan Times (Mumbai and Delhi editions), Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad and Chennai Editions), DNA, Indian Express, The Asian Age, The Financial Express, The New Indian Express, The Telegraph and Pioneer.

Sarva Shiksha spending on right track!

Spending on the government's flagship elementary education programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan at the end of December 2006 accounted for 70% of its annual allocation.

In the first nine months of the current fiscal, nearly INR 10,000 crore of the budgeted INR 13,750 crore has been spent. The Human Resources Development ministry hopes that the good show will result in increased allocation for the forthcoming fiscal. This fiscal, the programme has already utilised 75% of funds available, which is a little over INR 13,000 crore. For the first nine months (April to December) of the last fiscal, the all India spend was 54.2%.

Assam and Orissa, which continue to be areas of concern, have shown an increased utilisation of funds. Tamil Nadu, which had performed poorly in the quarter ending September 30, has improved on its expenditure. It May be recalled that Tamil Nadu, which has traditionally been one of the better performing states, had slowed down due to management problems and local body elections, which meant that funds couldn't be disbursed. From the current year, the Punjab government has taken over the responsibility of paying salaries to teachers. This would mean that a portion of the SSA funds earmarked as teacher salaries would remain unutilised.

The SSA has earmarked the percentage of funds that can be spent on each component-salaries, civil works, etc. For the forthcoming fiscal, the programme will be given INR 8,000 crore, which with a 50:50 ratio would mean that the annual budget for the programme – Centre and state share put together – will be INR 16,000 crore.

IGNOU launches smart card system for Indian students

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is planning to launch a smart card system for Indian students.  

IGNOU will give the smart card system to each student, which will carry information on admission, projects, assignments, attendance, practicals and semester results.The card will help students to keep record on their study activities.
Each student would be issued a
smart card with a unique password, which can be used by specified computers having the software to read the data. IGNOU has
already issued 100 cards on trial basis. 
Cambridge College plans to launch e-learning centre in Mumbai
Cambridge College is planning to launch e-learning centre in Mumbai. The college will establish the centre with the association of Indian Universities.
The idea is to provide the opportunity for higher education to the workforce there, plying them with the skills needed to join the ever-growing international business world. The centre will provide education and training in leadership, entrepreneurship, and international trade and practices.

1...1,6701,6711,672...1,754Page 1,671 of 1,754

LATEST NEWS

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

© Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.