We have returned just this morning from a good holiday in Hampi (http://www.hampi.in/) with a couple of friends - three peaceful days that gave us lots of exercise and good sightseeing. Four of us traveled around in one auto-rickshaw, sometimes using a “big” auto, which is said to take ten people with some compression :=) Memorable was the trip to the Daroji Bear Sanctuary (http://www.karnataka.com/slothbear/), about 25 kilometers away.
We stayed at the Ranjana Guest House, the house of the Doraisamy Dass family offering a few rented rooms. We managed to get two rooms on the first floor, where we could climb a ladder to get to the terrace with a great view of the city. We enjoyed that view almost as much as we enjoyed the good breakfasts :=)
Mr Dass is the publisher of a popular tourist guide booklet on Hampi. His daughter, Kala, teaches forty to fifty young students on the terrace, in the evenings - students ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 10, who attend various schools during the day. The evening classes provide supplementary education.
My wife Usha and I asked Kala if we could spend sometime teaching her students, and were delighted when she agreed. We then spent an hour with ten bright-eyed students, who were in the grades from 6 to 10. They were relaxed and were very attentive and responsive to our questions. Not having learnt the local language Kannada as yet, I could only speak in English. Usha could do better as she knows some Kannada. One student, Rehmoo, was very clear about what he wanted to be when he completed high school – a tourist guide. He wanted to learn some French, German and Spanish. There were girls who wanted to be doctors and software engineers. One boy wanted to be a police officer and another a military officer. Many of them studied in schools that used English as the medium of instruction. However, no one was willing to tell us a story in English. So, we used the time available to engage them in English conversation and to encourage them to be less hesitant to speak in English.
Next morning, we were walking down the street when we heard a cheerful voice greeting us. It was Rehmoo who was selling copies of a tourist guidebook. “What about school?” we asked. He said that he would return home at 9:30 and get ready for school.
Hundreds of tourists come to Hampi every day. Some of them obviously like to do some teaching. This often has led to amusing results – like local boys with a smattering of English speaking in very noticeable foreign accents!
I have always wanted to teach students outside the big cities. This experience showed me how I could combine an interesting holiday with a bit of volunteer work. Usha and I hope to return to Hampi soon, better prepared to do some useful teaching. I should perhaps plan to give them a simple demonstration illustrating a scientific principle, a sky-watching session on the terrace, a session in mathematics and a session in English. A written quiz at the end may not be a bad idea. I must also see if I can buy a portable data projector for use with a laptop computer.
Srinivasan Ramani
December 28, '08
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Grand Challenge – Advance Personalized Learning
Grand Challenge – Advance Personalized Learning
The National Academy of Engineering in the US has selected fourteen grand challenges to focus on http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/challenges.aspx
One of these is “Advance Personalized Learning" http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9127.aspx
I posted some comments on the discussion page and I present a copy of my comments below.
1. Improved in education could have as large an impact on societies around the world as abolition of slavery had two centuries ago. It could form the basis of an international initiative, increasing prosperity all over, and reducing human misery.
2. Online learning has so far been a technology without an adequate scientific base. Expanding and strengthening this base will require advanced, multi-disciplinary research.
3. You cannot have systems which help a learner about which you can say "forgive them; they not what they are doing". Representations of knowledge that needs learnt, its links with outside representations (including web pages), representations of a student’s current knowledge, his learning context, links to various learning resources, etc. are all necessary. These will lead to personalized learning on a grand scale. A whole new part of the service sector will emerge, as big as the traditional education sector or the financial services sector, contributing to a worldwide economic boom.
4. There is a hope that significant advances can be made in the near future with a concerted effort.
5. As action points I would suggest
a) creation of a forum and its popularization, for interested researchers to network. Perhaps the National Academy of Engg website http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9127/9736.aspx?notifyComment=1 where this would be posted could be that website
b) Identification of one or two international conferences and/or workshops (or creation of a new series) for specialists addressing this grand challenge to gather and exchange thoughts.
c) use of technology for sharing all kinds of content, including videos, open access tools and software, etc., relevant to this grand challenge.
d) identifying or creating journals to serve specialists working on this grand challenge.
Srinivasan Ramani
May 3, 2008
The National Academy of Engineering in the US has selected fourteen grand challenges to focus on http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/challenges.aspx
One of these is “Advance Personalized Learning" http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9127.aspx
I posted some comments on the discussion page and I present a copy of my comments below.
1. Improved in education could have as large an impact on societies around the world as abolition of slavery had two centuries ago. It could form the basis of an international initiative, increasing prosperity all over, and reducing human misery.
2. Online learning has so far been a technology without an adequate scientific base. Expanding and strengthening this base will require advanced, multi-disciplinary research.
3. You cannot have systems which help a learner about which you can say "forgive them; they not what they are doing". Representations of knowledge that needs learnt, its links with outside representations (including web pages), representations of a student’s current knowledge, his learning context, links to various learning resources, etc. are all necessary. These will lead to personalized learning on a grand scale. A whole new part of the service sector will emerge, as big as the traditional education sector or the financial services sector, contributing to a worldwide economic boom.
4. There is a hope that significant advances can be made in the near future with a concerted effort.
5. As action points I would suggest
a) creation of a forum and its popularization, for interested researchers to network. Perhaps the National Academy of Engg website http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9127/9736.aspx?notifyComment=1 where this would be posted could be that website
b) Identification of one or two international conferences and/or workshops (or creation of a new series) for specialists addressing this grand challenge to gather and exchange thoughts.
c) use of technology for sharing all kinds of content, including videos, open access tools and software, etc., relevant to this grand challenge.
d) identifying or creating journals to serve specialists working on this grand challenge.
Srinivasan Ramani
May 3, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Education related to Disaster Management
This note is in response to a question by Dave Grey on the Disaster Management Community discussion list (see
http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/en/Disaster-Management/introduction.html )
One of the questions posed by Dave Grey was
What are the best methods, tools and technologies available to do so, keeping in mind the rural and remote locations that these children live in? Here is the answer I sent out on that list. This is in no way a complete answer. My intent was only to make a few relevant comments.
Quote from my email
1. Obviously, awareness that disasters can hit any time and its likelihood depends upon a set of variables (like rainfall) is valuable. I have some suggestions in regard to rainfall, particularly in the context of hilly areas in India. Merely educating children in this matter will not do. The country has to create appropriate facilities to disseminate information in a timely manner.
2. Children should be aware of weather news and forecasts coming over the radio, TV, newspapers and the Internet and be encouraged to use this information. Precipitation is a major cause of landfalls. Information of the kind I have mentioned would obviously help anticipate problems, though it would require significant education and training. Such training given to teachers in local schools would help a lot. I give the following two URLs as examples of what information is available. (http://www.weather.nic.in/; http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/INXX0140.html)
3. Why such forecasts are not widely available in Indian languages needs to be examined.
4. A news report in The Hindu newspaper deals with an exciting and simple solution to the problem: Interactive Voice Response systems giving weather forecasts for selected locations in a region, giving a choice of languages. Read here: http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/09/stories/2008020957070300.htm. With hundreds of millions of cell phones in India, this technique is very attractive.
5. Cell phone coverage in hilly areas does get to be very poor. There is a Universal Services Obligation Fund of the Govt of India to subsidize telecom facilities in relatively remote and sparse population areas. Some of these funds should be utilized to provide dependable connectivity to areas where disaster risks are known to be high. Items 3 to 5 need to be taken up by state governments. Paucity of resources is a not a valid excuse any more.
Thanks
Srinivasan Ramani
http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/en/Disaster-Management/introduction.html )
One of the questions posed by Dave Grey was
What are the best methods, tools and technologies available to do so, keeping in mind the rural and remote locations that these children live in? Here is the answer I sent out on that list. This is in no way a complete answer. My intent was only to make a few relevant comments.
Quote from my email
1. Obviously, awareness that disasters can hit any time and its likelihood depends upon a set of variables (like rainfall) is valuable. I have some suggestions in regard to rainfall, particularly in the context of hilly areas in India. Merely educating children in this matter will not do. The country has to create appropriate facilities to disseminate information in a timely manner.
2. Children should be aware of weather news and forecasts coming over the radio, TV, newspapers and the Internet and be encouraged to use this information. Precipitation is a major cause of landfalls. Information of the kind I have mentioned would obviously help anticipate problems, though it would require significant education and training. Such training given to teachers in local schools would help a lot. I give the following two URLs as examples of what information is available. (http://www.weather.nic.in/; http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/INXX0140.html)
3. Why such forecasts are not widely available in Indian languages needs to be examined.
4. A news report in The Hindu newspaper deals with an exciting and simple solution to the problem: Interactive Voice Response systems giving weather forecasts for selected locations in a region, giving a choice of languages. Read here: http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/09/stories/2008020957070300.htm. With hundreds of millions of cell phones in India, this technique is very attractive.
5. Cell phone coverage in hilly areas does get to be very poor. There is a Universal Services Obligation Fund of the Govt of India to subsidize telecom facilities in relatively remote and sparse population areas. Some of these funds should be utilized to provide dependable connectivity to areas where disaster risks are known to be high. Items 3 to 5 need to be taken up by state governments. Paucity of resources is a not a valid excuse any more.
Thanks
Srinivasan Ramani
Monday, April 14, 2008
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Schools
There has been an interesting discussion on policy recommendations that are to be made to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. This discussion has been happening on the discussion list named Solution Exchange on ICT in Development (see http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/ictd/cr/res28030801.doc for the discussion on ICT in Schools.) This posting brings you a copy of what I contributed to the discussion. The questions posed by the initiator of the discussion are shown to provide the context to my remarks.
Topic 1: ICT Infrastructure in Schools
1. What are some of the key challenges faced using ICT in school education with regard to ICT infrastructure?
a. Uncontrolled access to the Internet for all students is very expensive
b. Satisfactory Internet access for the students in a school is difficult to provide in most areas of the country outside the big cities
c. The Internet in schools poses problems of misuse (like visiting educationally useless and undesirable sites)
d. Attempts to use ICT in education are relatively ineffective unless the student gets content in his/her own language and content relevant to the curriculum. Suitable and adequate content should be planned for when the physical infrastructure is planned. Educational TV offers the raw material for computer based video and multi-media instruction in Indian languages.
Local Area Networks (LANs) are very important for educational institutions, particularly because Internet access is a problem. If content is available for hosting on the LAN, it would play a valuable role. Ideally a good part of the content should be in the video form. Interactive multi-media material would also be valuable. We should make such resources available over every school LAN, instead of trying to make them accessible over the Internet. The bandwidth required for these is quite high, and the LAN is the cost-effective solution to provide this bandwidth. This will overcome many of the problems listed above.
I have a few other suggestions in relation to infrastructure. India has excellent satellite TV infrastructure and has invested significantly in educational TV. Due to technical advances, a school can now spend only Rs 2500 on DTH equipment once to get a 1.5 Mbps digital link (that is what satellite TV uses), which in turn brings video content for free. Some Indian educational channels are planning to switch to DTH soon, and it is very practical for them to do this. Due to the rapid fall in the cost of servers and storage, it is entirely possible to record in digital form into a server thousands of hours of TV programs, and make it available on demand from every PC on the LAN. It is easy to make a specified program available over the LAN according to a schedule to as many classrooms and PCs as are required. We can simultaneously provide for any set of Classrooms/PCs to access programs that are required individually, without depending on a time schedule. A digital library on a server on the LAN would be a valuable asset, as it will store all types of digital content.
ICT is perceived as expensive. It need not be so, if a PC and a projector are used for a class as a whole. Such a facility should ideally be available in every classroom. The classroom PC-cum-projector facility can be used even to administer quizzes and tests. Objective type questions can be displayed on the screen and students can be asked to write down the answers. Alternatively, the teacher can call out students at random to answer a given question for the benefit of the class. The teacher can correct wrong answers, explaining why that answer was not the correct one.
4. Can you offer advice on ways in which school ICT Infrastructure can be used as community learning centres after the school hours? I believe that the most useful way would be to have a trained person there after office hours to offer training on the use of the PCs and any available Internet connection to interested people in the local community. We need to train several million people at that level, and trainers working out of school facilities can easily run a sustainable training program. People will pay a lot more for training and education than for mere access to hardware and software. We will need several hundred thousand trainers to do this work. Therefore a big project in this direction will create a large number of valuable job opportunities for teachers and others. These opportunities will arise wherever there are schools in India.
Topic 2: Capacity Building for Use of ICT in Schools
1. What are some of the key capacity gaps facing ICT in school education? Are there any good examples where these capacity gaps have been addressed?
A key issue is the scarcity of effective teachers who can handle ICT infrastructure and utilize it for educational purposes. Any training we give such teachers is lost within a couple of years as many of these teachers move out of educational institutions and go to business and industry. We could modify an idea of the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai and use it to solve this problem. SNDT offers a Master of Educational Technology (Computer Applications) (http://www.sndt.ac.in/det/METCA%20Prospectus%202007-08.pdf ). IGNOU could offer a “Diploma/Degree for ICT Teachers in Schools” to start with, for the benefit of teachers working in schools. This would be a part time course spread over two or three years, giving significant credit for effective performance as a teacher using ICT. Practical work specified to the participants could be teaching assignments, which could be graded by local senior teachers or other administrators. In addition, the participants would be learning in the distance education mode and taking examinations. Those enrolled would serve the school during their education, and get the greatest reward – getting better educated. If they leave the school system after qualifying for a Diploma/Degree, that would be fine. The economy needs such people too.
2. Can you suggest creative ideas and innovations for building capacity for ICT in school education?
We could announce an award of Rs One Lakh per author for a hundred authors a year for creating educational content in the form of e-books in Indian languages. This may be any one, not necessarily a teacher; for instance it could be a college teacher writing for school students. Those whose books are selected for the award should put the e-book in the public domain, so that any one can use it. This would be a method of providing inexpensive content for digital libraries at schools. If 50,000 schools use an e-book and it has a notional value of Rs 50 per copy, the value created by the proposed “Indian Language e-Book Award Scheme” would be Rs 25 Lakhs. Public libraries should also be able to use public domain content in Indian languages, thereby doubling the utilization of e-books created. The scheme should not exclude books in English.
MHRD’s National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) has created thousands of hours of video lectures, covering a lot of the four-year curriculum in four disciplines of engineering at the university level. The valuable experience gained in this project can be used to create video content to cover school curricula in all Indian languages. School-teachers can be trained and invited to create video content in their areas of expertise, and in their own language. The best teachers can provide inspirational lectures and model lectures. This content can also be packaged as short video clips which a local teacher can use in the class, offering his/her own lecture livened and enriched by the video-clips.
Submitted by
Srinivasan Ramani
Topic 1: ICT Infrastructure in Schools
1. What are some of the key challenges faced using ICT in school education with regard to ICT infrastructure?
a. Uncontrolled access to the Internet for all students is very expensive
b. Satisfactory Internet access for the students in a school is difficult to provide in most areas of the country outside the big cities
c. The Internet in schools poses problems of misuse (like visiting educationally useless and undesirable sites)
d. Attempts to use ICT in education are relatively ineffective unless the student gets content in his/her own language and content relevant to the curriculum. Suitable and adequate content should be planned for when the physical infrastructure is planned. Educational TV offers the raw material for computer based video and multi-media instruction in Indian languages.
Local Area Networks (LANs) are very important for educational institutions, particularly because Internet access is a problem. If content is available for hosting on the LAN, it would play a valuable role. Ideally a good part of the content should be in the video form. Interactive multi-media material would also be valuable. We should make such resources available over every school LAN, instead of trying to make them accessible over the Internet. The bandwidth required for these is quite high, and the LAN is the cost-effective solution to provide this bandwidth. This will overcome many of the problems listed above.
I have a few other suggestions in relation to infrastructure. India has excellent satellite TV infrastructure and has invested significantly in educational TV. Due to technical advances, a school can now spend only Rs 2500 on DTH equipment once to get a 1.5 Mbps digital link (that is what satellite TV uses), which in turn brings video content for free. Some Indian educational channels are planning to switch to DTH soon, and it is very practical for them to do this. Due to the rapid fall in the cost of servers and storage, it is entirely possible to record in digital form into a server thousands of hours of TV programs, and make it available on demand from every PC on the LAN. It is easy to make a specified program available over the LAN according to a schedule to as many classrooms and PCs as are required. We can simultaneously provide for any set of Classrooms/PCs to access programs that are required individually, without depending on a time schedule. A digital library on a server on the LAN would be a valuable asset, as it will store all types of digital content.
ICT is perceived as expensive. It need not be so, if a PC and a projector are used for a class as a whole. Such a facility should ideally be available in every classroom. The classroom PC-cum-projector facility can be used even to administer quizzes and tests. Objective type questions can be displayed on the screen and students can be asked to write down the answers. Alternatively, the teacher can call out students at random to answer a given question for the benefit of the class. The teacher can correct wrong answers, explaining why that answer was not the correct one.
4. Can you offer advice on ways in which school ICT Infrastructure can be used as community learning centres after the school hours? I believe that the most useful way would be to have a trained person there after office hours to offer training on the use of the PCs and any available Internet connection to interested people in the local community. We need to train several million people at that level, and trainers working out of school facilities can easily run a sustainable training program. People will pay a lot more for training and education than for mere access to hardware and software. We will need several hundred thousand trainers to do this work. Therefore a big project in this direction will create a large number of valuable job opportunities for teachers and others. These opportunities will arise wherever there are schools in India.
Topic 2: Capacity Building for Use of ICT in Schools
1. What are some of the key capacity gaps facing ICT in school education? Are there any good examples where these capacity gaps have been addressed?
A key issue is the scarcity of effective teachers who can handle ICT infrastructure and utilize it for educational purposes. Any training we give such teachers is lost within a couple of years as many of these teachers move out of educational institutions and go to business and industry. We could modify an idea of the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai and use it to solve this problem. SNDT offers a Master of Educational Technology (Computer Applications) (http://www.sndt.ac.in/det/METCA%20Prospectus%202007-08.pdf ). IGNOU could offer a “Diploma/Degree for ICT Teachers in Schools” to start with, for the benefit of teachers working in schools. This would be a part time course spread over two or three years, giving significant credit for effective performance as a teacher using ICT. Practical work specified to the participants could be teaching assignments, which could be graded by local senior teachers or other administrators. In addition, the participants would be learning in the distance education mode and taking examinations. Those enrolled would serve the school during their education, and get the greatest reward – getting better educated. If they leave the school system after qualifying for a Diploma/Degree, that would be fine. The economy needs such people too.
2. Can you suggest creative ideas and innovations for building capacity for ICT in school education?
We could announce an award of Rs One Lakh per author for a hundred authors a year for creating educational content in the form of e-books in Indian languages. This may be any one, not necessarily a teacher; for instance it could be a college teacher writing for school students. Those whose books are selected for the award should put the e-book in the public domain, so that any one can use it. This would be a method of providing inexpensive content for digital libraries at schools. If 50,000 schools use an e-book and it has a notional value of Rs 50 per copy, the value created by the proposed “Indian Language e-Book Award Scheme” would be Rs 25 Lakhs. Public libraries should also be able to use public domain content in Indian languages, thereby doubling the utilization of e-books created. The scheme should not exclude books in English.
MHRD’s National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) has created thousands of hours of video lectures, covering a lot of the four-year curriculum in four disciplines of engineering at the university level. The valuable experience gained in this project can be used to create video content to cover school curricula in all Indian languages. School-teachers can be trained and invited to create video content in their areas of expertise, and in their own language. The best teachers can provide inspirational lectures and model lectures. This content can also be packaged as short video clips which a local teacher can use in the class, offering his/her own lecture livened and enriched by the video-clips.
Submitted by
Srinivasan Ramani
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