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Kotak planning education foray

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Mumbai (in India)-based banker Uday Kotak is now eyeing a role for himself in the education sector with plans to set up a foundation for promoting education for under-privileged children.

Kotak's initiative will be spearheaded by his aide Shivaji Dam, who was instrumental for setting up the group's life insurance arm, and is, currently, a member on the board of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Talks are on with some NGOs for possible partnerships. While the size of the corpus is not known, it is believed to be over Rs 100 million. Efforts are on to provide language training (notably in spoken English) to help under-privileged children so that they could be employed in sectors like ITeS.

Kotak, an alumnus of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Sciences, is best known for his involvement in financial services sector having set up Kotak Mahindra Finance in 1986. This foray into the bill discounting business was followed by entry into several other segments like investment banking and securities trading.

Microsoft boss Bill Gates has a foundation which funds AIDS/HIV prevention, while back home the Azim Premji Foundation (APF) is in the education sector. Incidentally, Kotak's decision to bring on Dam is akin to the APF where Dileep Ranjekar, a career Wiproite plays a key role in the running of the foundation. 

UGC bid to retain the best in research, teaching in India

By
digitalLEARNING Network
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The University Grants Commission (UGC) has embarked on an ambitious project to retain the best talent in the research and teaching of higher education and to promote quality faculty in universities and colleges. The Commission has taken an initiative to expand its fellowship programme substantially to encompass Central and State universities, general students as well as those from socially disadvantaged groups.

The UGC also appointed a sub-committee to explore options. At the moment, the UGC offers about 1,600 Junior Research Fellowships under National Eligibility Test (NET) in Humanities and Social Sciences and Sciences, and another 50 in Engineering and Technology. It also operates about 2,000 fellowships for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes sponsored by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and 1,000 post-doctoral fellowships.

The expansion plans include fellowships for students pursuing M.Phil. and Ph.D. for all Central universities. The fellowship amount would be provided under development grant to be placed at the disposal of the Vice-Chancellors of the Central universities. There will be at least 3,000 fellowships for Ph.D. students in State universities. There will also be 1,500 fellowships for science education and more fellowships will be provided for social sciences. The UGC is also implementing the Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship for SC/ST students pursuing their Ph.D.

E-volution of schools in Sydney

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

A 24-hour school with no traditional classrooms and where students use mobile phones and laptops to learn is being built in Sydney.

Designers of the Catholic school for 1700 pupils say it will keep students interested in learning and reduce truancy and behavioural problems. Pupils from kindergarten to year 12 can attend the school – being built at Stanhope Gardens, in Sydney's north-west – between 6am and 10pm. They can also have access to their work and lesson material at any time on the Internet. Staff will provide online tutorials from 8pm to 10pm.

At a cost of more than $40 million, the school is a significant investment in the community. The traditional classroom concept will disappear, replaced by “learning spaces”. The school will be referred to as a “learning community” and teachers will be known as “learning advisers”. Technology would be a major focus of the school that will boast a “meshed wireless environment”. It will be an e-learning environment using m-learning [mobile technology] tools. This could mean a student might be sitting in the playground carrying out school work via a mobile phone. Laptop computers will be another learning tool. Parents will be encouraged to come in and work with their children and the community will also be able to use the facilities. The traditional lesson timetable, where students might move from maths to science to English class, will be overhauled. There will be integrated lessons where students will still learn according to NSW Board of Studies guidelines, but may be taught in mixed age groups.

Work on UNESCO

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

A groundbreaking international standard for integrating ICTs in teaching, will soon be available as the extensive work on the “ICT Competency Standards for Teachers” that UNESCO is preparing together with several partners from academia and the private sector including Microsoft, Intel and Cisco, enters its final phase.

The new standard is designed to contribute to the professional development of teachers, mainly on primary and secondary levels. The standard combines methods for improving ICT skills with emergent views in pedagogy, curriculum and school organization. The overall objective of the project is to improve teacher practice to contribute to a higher quality education system that can, in turn, produce a better informed citizenry and higher quality workforce that can, as a result, advance a country's economic and social development.

More specifically, the “Competency Standards” will constitute a common core syllabus defining various ICT competency skills for teachers that professional development providers can use to prepare learning materials, which can be shared at a global level. In addition to providing a basic set of qualifications that allows teachers to integrate ICT into their teaching, the standard also aims at extending teachers' professional development so as to advance their skills in pedagogy, collaboration, and school innovation using ICT. While the new UNESCO standard specifies the competencies needed to implement these changes, it will be up to approved governmental, non-governmental and private providers to deliver the training for these competencies. The project also includes a mechanism for reviewing and approving the curricula and course offerings of these providers.

e Competency for teachers by UNESCO in its final module

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

UNESCO's concerted effort of integrating ICTs in teaching and the resultant work 'ICT Competency Standards for Teachers' in partnership with academia and the private sectors including Microsoft, Intel and Cisco has reached  its final stage.

The overall objective of the project is aimed at improving the teaching practices and contribute towards a higher quality of education system that produce a better informed society and higher quality workforce that boosts a socio-economic development of a nation. This e-New standard is especially aimed at primary and secondary levels.The standard includes a combination of methodologies in improving ICT skills with emerging views in pedagogy, curriculum and school organisation. Though UNESCO's specified standards suggest to the needed changes, it will be up to approved governmental, non-governmental and private providers to deliver the training for these competencies.


Linux, PDAs, storage, and portable consumer products drive ICT growth

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The ICT industry is expected to grow by 6% in 2006, mainly driven by Internet-related investments, Linux servers, digital storage, personal digital assistants and new portable consumer products. But any return to the heady days of 20% and 30% growth in many products and market segments in the 1990s are unlikely, according to the latest edition of the OECD's Information Technology Outlook 2006.

Many new technology applications may have major economic and social impacts. Among these emerging technologies are ubiquitous networks, which make it possible to follow persons and objects and provide real-time tracking, storing and processing of information. Applications of enabling network technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and other sensor technologies are increasingly affordable, investment is rising and applications are moving into commercial use. Location-based services use a variety of position-determining technologies to follow the location of objects and users. The two most common applications are navigation and asset tracking.

Natural disaster prevention and warning technologies (tsunami early warning systems)are becoming more important for preventing disasters that result in large economic losses(USD 170 billion in 2005). Participative web (Web 2.0) refers to the active participation of Internet users in creating content, customising the Internet and developing applications for a broad variety of fields. Blogs are one of the most popular forms, with around 50 million in mid-2006. In Asia, the number is disproportional to the general use of the Internet.

Open source (the 'Linuxeffect'), online delivery of IT services (the “Google” effect) and new digital products are also disrupting how technology is developed and delivered. Widespread restructuring is expected to continue in IT services, telecommunications and digital content as industries and firms adapt to changing technologies and markets.

With the emergence of new growth economies in Eastern European and non-OECD developing countries, world ICT spending was up 5.6% a year between 2000 and 2005. China was the sixth largest ICT market in 2005 at USD 118 billion (after the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and France), although total ICT spending there is still only about one-tenth of the United States but about two and a half times the spending of India (USD 46 billion). ICT spending in non-OECD countries is still more focused on hardware than on services as the basic physical ICT infrastructure is still being built.

After overtaking the United States in 2004 as the world's leading ICT exporter, China has continued strong ICT exports in 2005 and 2006. China imports electronic components

e-Education package begins in Ghana

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Accelon Ghana, a broadband via satellite service provider in Africa, is partnering with Standard Trust Bank Ghana Limited, one of the latest financial institutions in the country, to provide Internet connectivity to basic and secondary schools in Ghana. The package under the brand name, “The e-Educational Package” is an initiative designed to facilitate the creation of computer laboratories in educational institutions to provide Internet access and connectivity.

This would be made possible through a flexible loan scheme for interested basic and secondary schools, provided by Standard Trust Bank and complemented by the technical and infrastructure support of Accelon Ghana for broadband Internet connectivity. Interested schools would benefit from free web design and hosting, free domain name registration, free e-mail account and cost effective broadband Internet access via VSAT anywhere in Ghana.

Information literacy programme in Indian colleges

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

The Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kerala in India is preparing to place before the Syndicate a proposal for implementing an information literacy programme in colleges affiliated to the university.

The programme aims at bridging the awareness divide between colleges in the urban and rural areas and to enable students in the latter category of colleges access subject-related information across a variety of formats. The Information Literacy package will aim to provide students the basic information about IT tools, to introduce to them electronic sources of information, train them in searching for information stored in a multi-media format, train students to use computer-aided instruction packages, introduce various online search programmes and methods to identify sources of information, including subject gateways, in the Internet and train students to use the `Online Public Access Catalogue. The proposed literacy programme will combine lectures with audio-visual presentations, computer-assisted teaching and printed course material.

Periyar University library soon be digitised

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Periyar University at Salem district of Tamil Nadu in India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre, UGC and ERNET for getting the UGC-Infonet connectivity in a phased manner. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Accordingly  the university library would be soon digitised ensuring its status in select group of higher education centers. The traditional library, already has 22,000 books, subscribing to 147 national and international journals. Once, digitised it would be a major resource centre for the researchers and scholars for tapping the up-to-date information. It will also help the students to access more than 2,600 e-journals on various subjects. The university also facilitates the students in the affiliated colleges to access the database of the digital library through the Internet in near future.

 

Nepad e-Schools Project launched officially

By
digitalLEARNING Network
-

Rwanda is the fifth country to launch the project after Uganda, Ghana, Lesotho and Kenya, but is the first country to have completed implementation in all the six schools.

The NEPAD e-Schools Project is led by the NEPAD e-Africa Commission-the NEPAD Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Task Team responsible for developing the NEPAD ICT Programme and implementing related projects. The project focuses on providing end-to-end ICT solutions that will connect schools across Africa to the NEPAD e-Schools Network and the Internet. Solutions also include the provision of content, learning material and the establishment of health points at schools.

This is the first time that African governments, NEPAD and the private sector are cooperating on an ICT Project of this scale and scope in the NEPAD framework, developed and driven by Africans, and for African people. The CISCO Systems and Microsoft Consortia, and a number of other private companies are sponsoring the Demonstration Project, consisting of six schools in each of the 16 participating African countries, for a period of 12 months. In each country, the project aims to transform all African secondary schools into NEPAD e-Schools within five years of implementation start date and all African primary schools within ten years of implementation start date. In total, more than 600 000 schools across the continent will enjoy the benefits of ICT and connectivity to the NEPAD e-Schools Satellite Network upon completion of the project.

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