Technology in School Education: To Outsource ICT or Not « Educational Technology Debate
A very interesting piece of write up on Outsourced versus Integrated Apparoach in Computer Aided Learning, which brings out in stark contrast the advantages of an Integrated Model like the ICT @ Schools Program in Kerala, over and above a Vendor Driven Model like the Mahiti Sindhu Program in Karnataka. The advantaged of a Integrated Model needs to be seriously considered by Policy Makers and Practioners alike while planning to implement a Computer Aided Learning Program in large scale mode. The model has clearly discernable benefits as mentioned below:
1. Higher level of teacher engagement
2. Integration of Computer Learning with regular learning processes
3. Greater per-learner availability of computers
4. Significant cost efficiencies and development of teacher networks
5. Collaborative content creation processes, which support teacher professional development
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Right to Education Act- Challenges of access and use of ICT to accelerate goals - Advice, Examples
Solution Exchange for the Information Communication Technology for Development Community
The notification of the Right To Education (RTE) has generated much debate and discussions on the promises given in the RTE. State Governments, NGOs, CBOs and multilateral agencies such as UNICEF and other UN agencies are having to consider and address the new dynamics of education in India.
The Right To Education act needs to be converted into a realistic implementation strategy to be able to reach the last child at the last mile. Moreover, any implementation of the RTE will take years to make any impact taking into consideration, the sheer numbers, shortage of teachers and the challenges of access.
Given that, ICTs have the potential to accelerate development goals and hold the promise to reach large numbers of stakeholders simultaneously.
India’s new age development has been built on innovative IT solutions through which the world has become more efficient and productive. From Nandan Nilikeni to Naryana Murthy to Bill Gates everybody has talked of how IT can be used to meet the education challenge. At the conceptual level, IT is supposed to be that Magic Mantra which can help leapfrog national development in a shorter period of time. The mobile phone penetration offers another opportunity for India to bridge the development divide.
Can all these be meaningfully used for Right To Education for all children in India. I request members of the Solution Exchange community to discuss and offer possible solutions so that implementing agencies can consider them for their current projects and if possible, incubate pilots, which Sate Governments could scale up.
In this regard:
- How could ICTS be used to implementation the RTE to enable access to the target age of six to fourteen years. Are there any examples that can be studied?
- There are many technologies ranging from computers to mobiles today, which offer possible solutions. Could members provide solutions of the most appropriate technology to reduce the cost of implementing the RTE by State Governments?
- Are there any examples of use of ICT in education, which would enable quality learning at a large scale and at an affordable cost.
Check out the link below for the consolidated reply
I found the entire discussion extremely interesting as AIF is setting up an apex level resource-cum-training centre, for training teacher educators and administrators, of the School and Mass Education Department (SME), (Govt. of Orissa) in SCERT, Bhubaneshwar while six other resource-cum-training centres will be set up by the SME Dept, in three Revenue Divisions and I am exploring how best to use the resource centres as sensitization-cum-dissemination centres for RTE apart from their techno-pedagogy training part.
Secondly the training provided for the selected teachers in the six resource centres is a pilot in the sense that the eighteen days training module on techno-pedagogy focuses on capacity building through skills up gradation, in line with the requirements of RTE. This is urgently required in view of the fresh appointments which has become necessary, in the light of the teacher-pupil ratio which needs to be maintained as part of the RTE requirements.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Using eclipses to see | Punya Mishra's Web
Extracted from Punya Mishra's Web - an extremely interesting write-up on the shape of the Earth and Sun. From Tech to Ed-Tech.
Let me start with two questions: First, what is the shape of the Earth? And two, what shapes does the sun cast on the ground when filtered through the leaves of a tree? Of course we know the answer to the first question. The pictures from space show clearly this almost perfect circle or “pale blue dot” that we live on and in an age of Google Earth such questions seem moot. But it is still interesting to think about ways of figuring out the shape of the Earth, from right here on the surface.
In answering the second question, what most people don’t know is that the shape the sun casts on the ground are perfect circles too – though few of us have paid much attention to it. And the reason this happens is because the gaps between the leaves act as little pin-hole cameras casting little images of the sun on the ground below. Now you don’t have to take my word for it. But the question then becomes, how can we prove this pin-hole phenomena is actually happening. Well, one way is to change the shape of the sun. You may think this is kind of hard to do… but as it turns out this does happen (at least its perceived shape from the earth). The answer, as you may have guessed, has to do with eclipses.
Turns out that eclipses are a great way of perceiving things that may be difficult to see and can help us answer both these questions (both of which I have written about before – but for some reason I had never really put them together).
Here is a time-lapse photo of a lunar eclipse! Can anyone miss the shape of the shadow of the earth.
Image credit: Renato S. Passos, Brazil
What a powerful way of seeing the shape of the Earth!
As for the second issue, that of the sun forming images on the ground. Here is an image that may make the point more powerfully.
How cool is that. So the next time you walk through a sun-dappled woods, remember what you are walking through are thousands of images of the sun splattered all over the forest floor!
Tall Eye - If I walk in a straight line around the world, where will I pass?
Tall Eye - If I walk in a straight line around the world, where will I pass?: "Transform your daily workout in a big adventure!
Tired to walk on the same places everyday? Everytime you go walk, you don't know where to go? So... Walk in a straight line!
It's very easy and you will never get lost, because you always will arrive in the start point after walk around the whole world.
An interesting way of knowing that the world is round.
Tired to walk on the same places everyday? Everytime you go walk, you don't know where to go? So... Walk in a straight line!
It's very easy and you will never get lost, because you always will arrive in the start point after walk around the whole world.
An interesting way of knowing that the world is round.
DaylightMap
Daylight Map
Daylight Map shows the pattern of night and day on a Google map, for any area of the Earth, for any date and time. It also allows you to select up to ten locations on the map; in addition to seeing at a glance whether it's daytime there, you can show their local time, sunrise and and sunset times, and length of day. These locations can be remembered for future visits, saved as a bookmark, or sent to other people as a web link. This site can thus function as a graphical world clock, and can be used to show relative times of any future or past event.
It can even show just the night-time city lights, correlated to the base Google satellite view (on better browsers). Which has nothing to do with daylight per se, but is pretty cool to look at nonetheless.
There's also a near-real-time view of global cloud cover available, updated every hour from weather satellite imagery. It's interesting both for looking at the big-picture patterns, as well as a more localized picture of what the weather is doing in your part of the world. A specialized cloud-cover view is available as well, my Hurricane Watcher.
Interesting site. Try it out yourself.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
DE Launch Ceremony - 21st June 2010
The DE Decentralized Resource Centre Training Model covering 104 schools spread over 6 districts of Orissa, was formally launched on Monday the 21st of June 2010. A inaugural function was organized in The Hotel New Marrion, Bhubaneshwar. The event was attended by the Shri Pratap Jena, Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education, Govt. of Orissa, Smt. Vandana Kumari Jena, Principal Secretary, School and Mass Education Department, Govt. of Orissa, Smt. Aparajita Sarangi, Special Secretary, School and Mass Education Department, Govt. of Orissa, Prof. (Dr) Sebak Tripathy, Director TE and SCERT and Tarun Vij, Country Director, AIFT.
As part of the expansion of the Digital Equalizer Program to 104 Govt. Upper Primary and Secondary schools from the academic year 2010, American India Foundation, will set up an Apex Level Computer Resource Centre in SCERT Bhubaneswar. This will serve as a feeder centre to the six new resource/training centre’s to be set up by the SCERT in all the three Institute of Advanced Studies (IASE’s) (RNIASE, Cuttack, PMIASE, Sambalpur and DPIASE, Berhampur) and three corresponding DIET’s (DIET, Dolipur, DIET, Sambalpur and DIET, Khalikote) spread over three revenue divisions.
The SCERT Computer Resource Centre will work for the capacity building of SCERT staff, teacher educators and administrators of the School and Mass Education department. The six centres comprising of the three advanced centres and three DIET level centres, will serve as teacher training centres, for the respective schools, within their catchment area. AIFT will impart training in computer fundamentals and techno-pedagogy with the objective of effective integration of technology in teaching through these centres. The hundred schools, will comprise of 52 Secondary and 52 Upper Primary Schools spread over 6 six districts. 646 teachers and 31,761 students will be trained as part of the program. 128 teacher educators and 124 administrators of the School and Mass Education Department will be trained at the apex level resource centre, in SCERT to be set up by the American India Foundation.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Baseline Results - Overall for 52 Secondary Schools spread over 6 districts
Have a look at the interesting results of the baseline study conducted by the American India Foundation Trust, in 52 Secondary Schools spread over six districts. The baseline questionnaire was administered to 121 teachers.
When less is more
As another academic year begins, education still remains a race against others as well as against time in a spiralling frenzy to learn more things faster, earlier. We need to slow down and let children learn at their own pace so that their understanding of themselves and the world becomes richer and more nuanced…
A very interesting article by ARUNA SANKARANARAYANAN, in the Hindu, Sunday, June 13, 2010.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
"Most investment in technology in schools is wasted."
On 21 April, 2010 infoDev launched its Survey of Information and Communication Technology for Education in India & South Asia. The launch in Delhi , India was marked with a lively Oxford style debate on the motion: "Most investment in technology in schools is wasted."
http://www.box.net/shared/fugzgb8old
DE Seminar
On February 5, 2010, the American India Foundation (AIF) organized a knowledge event titled as above. This seminar was sponsored by Hewlett Packard. The objective of this seminar was to bring to a common platform domain experts and stakeholders in the “ICT in education space” in order to provoke a discussion on the challenges and successes of implementing computer-aided learning in India’s under-resourced government schools, and to facilitate cross-sharing of learnings from the various experiences.
The issue was widely debated and several perspectives were put forth by the four panelists who expounded on the subject. Mr. Mark Walker, MD, Global Community Affairs, Applied Materials Inc., Ms. Vandana Kumari Jena, Principal Secretary, Government of Orissa, Mr. Dileep Ranjekar, CEO, Azim Premji Foundation, and Mr. Sanjiv Verma, officiating Principal, Government School, Randhawa (Fatehgarh Distt.), Punjab were the panelists during the seminar.
As part of the seminar, Mr. Vinod Dham, popularly known as the “father of the Pentium processor”, who has been associated with the DE program since its inception, was felicitated for his immense contribution to AIF. The seminar was well attended by senior representatives from corporations like Intel, HP, AMAT, Yes Bank, GE Infrastructure, Honeywell, etc. Members of civil society participated actively in the discussion, including representatives from TIE, CARE India, Dell Foundation, Ashoka, Teach for India, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mobile Crèches and USAID, along with the representation from the State Governments.
CM Inaugurates Computer Lab
Secondary Board High School had all reasons to be happy, for it recently celebrated its Golden Jubilee between 22nd and 24th Dec 09. What's more, Shri. Naveen Patnaik, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Orissa himself participated in the event to inaugurate the lab.
There are two state-of-the-art air conditioned computer labs with 25 computers in each and with all arrangements for LCD projectors for each of the rooms. Apart from this there is an air conditioned audio visual room with arrangements for a LCD projector, where teachers will be taking classes.
There are two state-of-the-art air conditioned computer labs with 25 computers in each and with all arrangements for LCD projectors for each of the rooms. Apart from this there is an air conditioned audio visual room with arrangements for a LCD projector, where teachers will be taking classes.
Given the expertise of AIF team, Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education had requested AIF to give a final approval as far as the lay out of the computer lab and the audio visual room were concerned which included everything from the arrangement of computers to electrical fittings. Selected members of the DE team participated in this exercise and oversaw the setting up of the lab. Additionally, AIF also assisted in making a presentation about the school on the insistence of the minister and has been requested by the Govt team to do training in the school based on the DE model. This will be rolled out shortly.
Shri Pratap Jena - Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education, Shri Prafula Chandra Ghadei - Hon'ble Minister Finance and Excise, were some of the other dignitaries present.
DE Facilitator wins Best ICT Coordinator Award
Roopashree Panda, DE Facilitator, Gadadar High School, Puri won the Best ICT coordinator in Orissa. The felicitation was part of the two day workshop on the "Connecting Classroom Program", conducted by the British Council on the 6th and 7th of Nov, in Bhubaneshwar. Since the event attracted a lot of media coverage and since AIF was involved with the organization and coordination of the event right from the beginning, AIF's mention was made several times. The fact that Roopashree belonged to a DE school only added to this.
As part of this workshop, various photo essays were made and the best ones were presented during the valedictory function, chaired by the Hon'ble Minister for School and Mass Education and presided over by the Principal Secretary, Vandana Kumari. It is heartening to note that as part of her address, Ms.Vandana Kumari mentioned that she first came to know of a "photo essay" concept only from AIF and was very impressed to see some of those made by students, during one of her meetings with the Orissa team. The fact that students are now in a position to make photo essays is a big development for Orissa's ICT program and DE program, in particular.
The workshop was almost like a DE ceremony since more than 50% of the participating schools were DE schools. Finally, 16 schools from out of this list will be chosen and divided into two clusters to work on an inter-cultural dialogue with their assigned respective clusters in UK. The program involves travel/exchange visits funded by the British Council & a selected group of people may get an opportunity to visit partner schools during next year as part of the pre-c
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Web Quest maker
Zunal WebQuest Maker is a web-based software for creating WebQuests in a short time without writing any HTML codes.
http://www.zunal.com/
http://www.zunal.com/
Education World: The Educator's Best Friend
Description: The site contains information that helps any teacher or administrative staff with the everyday challenges of being a teacher. Lesson planning, ways to motivate staff and career development are just some of the information an education professional can find on the site. I believe the information is clear and complete as it allows the user to select from a variety of articles that suites them.
Funbrain
Description: This site is a source for children of many ages to learn while playing games. There are games for math, grammar, reading, and sports trivia. I think that this website could be useful for teachers, parents and the students. Parents could use the website for learning outside of the classroom, and teachers could use the website for print offs, or for extra class time. I think that games are a very effective way to learn, so I think this is a great website. The information is very complete. The website does a very good job of presenting the material and information, and the material is very easy to locate.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Meeting with Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education
Today I had a long meeting with the Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education Dept, Govt. of Orissa, on the status of computer aided learning program in Orissa as a whole and the Digital Equalizer Program in particular. The discussion focussed on issues underpinning computer aided learning programs in general and the necessity of a supporting back end ecosystem in particular, on which the success of a computer aided learning program is ultimately predicated. The Hon'ble Minister was quick to grasp the issues critical to the success of effective integration of technology in teaching and was extremely supportive as regards the implementation of the DE Decentralized Resource Centre-cum-Training model, which is going to be implemented in selected Secondary and Upper Primary Schools spread over six districts of Orissa, for the academic year 2010-2012. I came back from the meeting feeling highly motivated.
DE State Level Steering Committee Meeting
DE State Level Steering Committee Meeting under the Chairmanship of the Principal Secretary, School and Mass Education Dept, Govt. of Orissa, was held on the 13th of May 2010, in the chamber of the Principal Secretary, Orissa Secretariat, Bhubaneshwar. The meeting was attended by Commissioner-cum-Director SSA, Director Secondary Education, Director TE & SCERT, Director Elementary Education, FA-cum-Additional Secretary, SME Dept, Joint Secretary SME Dept, Asst. Director MIS, SSA and the State Team Leader, American India Foundation Trust. A detailed presentation on the DE Decentralized Resource Centre-cum-Training Model, to be implemented in 102 Secondary and Upper Primary Schools of Orissa, spread over six districts (Bargarh, Sambalpur, Cuttack, Kendrapada, Ganjam and Gajapati) for the academic year 2010-2012, was made by the State Team Leader, American India Foundation Trust. A number of critical issues were discussed as part of the meeting and decisions were taken based on a consensus.
BLACK SWAN
"Black Swan" is one of the most profound books I have read in the last couple of years. Thought provoking and brilliant, a landmark book - which can turn out to be an outlier, a "Black Swan."
Naomi Klein - No Logo and Shock Doctrine
No Logo: One of my favourite author - Naomi Klein's brilliantly written book "No Logo" describes the competition among corporates to capture the minds of people through brand space - the art and science of brand management. The book is extensively researched and describes in detail the reality behind big brands. As Naomi Klein ...mentions in her book - "the bigger the brand the more fragile is it at its core." A must read for anyone and everyone who want to understand the increasing reach of corporates, in our daily lives, whether we realize it or not.
Shock Doctrine: The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conser...vative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.
Was searching for this book for a long time and ultimately was lucky to get hold of a copy from Crossword Bangalore. It was worth the search - the book is brilliant and terrifying and traces the origin, growth and all encompassing nature of disaster captilasim, fuelled by corporate greed and malice.
South Asian Tsunami - Raw Footage
An excellent unedited footage of the South Asian Tsunami in Sri Lanka. Notice the unusual phenomenon as the sea recedes exposing sand banks never seen before. This is because the trough of the wave reached first followed by the crest in a matter of minutes.
Climate Debt
Avi Lewis travels to Bolivia to explore the country's climate crusade from the inside.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjHrVJPb-g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjHrVJPb-g
Blinding the Witnesses
Cross-posted with http://mondoweiss.net/ There is something way too literal about Israel shooting out the eye of a witness to its crimes. This photograph of Emily Henochowicz's bandaged face needs to be seen by the world. ...
Photo Essay - Drought in Khaira
An excellent photo essay by the trainees of LOKDRUSTI, Nuapada. What is most interesting is the fact that these people who were novices twenty days ago could pick up computer fundamentals fast as part of our rigorous training program and could make this excellent photo essay. Although some more finesse was required as far as the voice over was concerned as a first photo essay for the group it is definitely great going. The local dialect and the photographs make the photo essay transport you to Khaira village, in Boden block of Nuapada district and makes you understand and empathize with the hardships faced by the people due to extreme heat and drought conditions.
Check out the link below:
"Student Learning Study - Status of Student Learning Across 18 States of India in Urban and Rural Schools."
I just went through the the latest report published by "Education Initiatives" titled "Student Learning Study - Status of Student Learning Across 18 States of India in Urban and Rural Schools." Orissa ranks third on the Composite Performance Index. To know more visit: http://www.ei-india.com/research-student-learning-study
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Quick Guides to ICT
infoDev publishes and maintains informal 'quick guides' and 'knowledge maps' to various topics and issues related to the use of information and technologies in the education sector. These short briefing sheets are meant to help people quickly get 'up to speed' on various topics. They are not meant to be an exhaustive catalog of everything that is known (or has been debated) about the use of ICTs in education in a particular topic; rather, taken together they are an attempt to summarize and give shape to a very large body of knowledge and to highlight certain issues and resources in a format quickly accessible to busy policymakers.
Noetic Science
Interesting area of study with cutting edge research leading to pathbreaking conclusions having the potential to alter your life and shift it in the right direction.
NOETIC SCIENCE
Gunadhar Majhi
Gunadhar Majhi, age-9 years has been awaiting the return of his parents since the last 3 years. His parents had left Khaira village in Boden block of Nuapada district, in 2007, to work in the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh and have not returned since. LOKDRUSTI has been taking care of Gunadhar, who has been a resident of the Khaira Residential Resource Centre, since 2007.
DE-LAMP Pilot, LOKDRUSTI, Nuapada
A 15 day training program on computers fundamentals for the teachers of the 13 Residential Resource Centre's run by LOKDRUSTI, got over on 29th of May 10. DE Trainers Sanjay Kumar Biswal and Mohan Chand Padhan, slogged on an average of around ten hours a day in converting people completely ignorant about computers to ones who are now comfortable plotting graphs on MS EXCEL. I personally visited LOKDRUSTI on the 24th of May 10 and was astounded by the transformation. Each of the trainees will be given a Laptop, provided by the American India Foundation Trust, to be used for teaching children, in the Residential Resource Centre's. The children in these residential centre's are left behind by their migrating parents who mostly go to work in the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh. Migration starts from November and peaks in December with the parents returning in May-June of the following year. This is distress migration at its worst, affecting parts of Bargarh, Bolangir and Nuapada districts.
Learning ICT in Schools - DE Program in Orissa
This article of mine co-authored with my colleague J.Sundarkrishnan, Director Operations, DE, American India Foundation, was published in Management and Labour Studies, Vol. 33, No. 4, November 2008, XLRI, Jamshedpur. To read the article try out the link.
Abstract: http://www.box.net/shared/92j196ffcx
Article: http://www.box.net/shared/54tfjfrzmr
DE Working Group Meeting
DE Working Group Meeting under the Chairmanship of Director TE and SCERT was held on the 5th of May 2010, in the chamber of Director TE and SCERT in SCERT Bhubaneshwar. Other members who attended the meeting were Director Elementary Education, State Team Leader, American India Foundation Trust, Deputy Director (Academics) SCERT, Deputy Director Science, SCERT and Asst. Director MIS, SSA. A brief presentation on the DE Decentralized Resource Centre-cum-Training Model which included the training calendar - for the administrative and academic staff to be trained at the SCERT Resource-cum-Training Centre and selected teachers to be trained in each of the six zonal centres (Two in Sambalpur, Cuttack, Dolipur, Khalikote and Berhampur), was made by the State Team Leader AIFT.
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