Education Reforms: Curricula, Teachers, Parents, Children – Itihaas Annual Summit

Yesterday was a very insightful, introspective and compelling morning, being at the ITIHAAS’ 9th Annual Summit of Teachers and Educationists. Over 250 of them congregated in this annual immersion from across the country. Prof Poonam Batra, an eminent professor who has contributed immensely to the education space in the country, and Ms Prachi Agarval, noted developmental psychologist were the first ones to address the esteemed audience on the issue of, “Teachers and Curricula in the times of Educational Reforms”

It was a pleasure listening to Prof Poonam Batra of Delhi University on the shifts in the outlook towards education as the nation went on a roller-coaster ride that the ruling dispensations took the nation through, with their concept of nation and nationalism, paradigms of developmental economics, notions of secularism and tolerance! Here are a few of the salient points I managed to capture and tweeted live too.

Prof. #PoonamBatra #Teachers&CurriculaInEducationalReforms @ITIHAASKiBaat

• Teachers have become one of the most marginalized, in a society that is hierarchical! #EducationalReforms are driven by #EconomicReforms. what are the #HumanIndicators? #Health #Education sliding further
• #Teachers are catalysts in societal transformation. But #liberalization made the schools a market place #lessonplans, #studentprojects are being bought! #Teachers become #laborers #corporates who don’t understand #children and #education are packaging
• #EducationPolicy is being pushed by #VentureCapitalists. #Teachers are no where in deciding what, why, when, where and how of #curriculum. #market has taken over #love, #affection too. Where is #Education? Where is development of #people?
• We are focusing on #learningOutcome than #LearningExperiences #joy #child #Centricity has vanished! #Education has to be contextual, you cannot have global uniformity. Marginalization of #knowledge #context of course #Teachers.
• #Child-centred vs #Discipline, #traditional vs #modern, why do we see only #polarity? Best way to learn is to have a non-threatening environment? Freedom means free to make mistakes, air opinions! Children observes your walk, do not talk!

Here are few points that I captured from Prachi’s sharings – @PrachiAgarval

• Why do we go to #school? How many of us as #Teachers promote #questioning? Do we help the child to #realize his #potential? #developmental #relationship
• Are we listening, understanding children? Are we co-creating? are we making children comfortable in committing mistakes? Helping them be compassionate? how many of us use our potential? How will we help children unearth theirs? #ExpressCare belonging, #ChallengeGrowth

Singers from TONK who have been championing the cause of education in country side, championed by dear friend Amir Abidi and his movement. The audience had the privilege of listening them.

I had short engaging interaction with the audience on  “#Perspectives, in the rapidly changing #world”.

Thanks to my dear friend Manohar Khushalani, an eminent theater personality and a Professor at IIIT Delhi, who went live on FACEBOOK while I was engaging the keenly learning facilitators and mentors in the auditorium.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fmanohar.khushalani%2Fvideos%2F10155891765792943%2F&show_text=0&width=267

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fmanohar.khushalani%2Fvideos%2F10155891777857943%2F&show_text=0&width=267

#Education is so much more! It is not about syllabus and marks for sure!

I am summing up the three things that any #educationist or #institution should strive to facilitate in a #child………………………..

1. Desire to #learn, through life: Life-long #learner
2. Have #courage to push boundaries: #Discover more of self. Dare to make #mistakes.
3. Be #humble whatever you achieve: #humility

These will not only help one in the changing times, but also #facilitate one ride the #change. Be the #master of your journey and destiny. Be the #change-maker. #Impact the #world.

#Shivani  of @ITIHAASKiBaat nicely summed up. If you do not know #where you are #coming from; if you do not take pride in who you are,  #why and #How will you know where you want to go? Do we facilitate #integrity #compassion #courage #humility?

Smita Vats, the founder of ITIHAAS concluded in her inimitable style, exhorting the teachers to create their own stories that they and also the society will be proud of, and also facilitate children in a manner that their stories too become legends.

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Technology is an innovation amplifier – Industry and Institutions together can bring transformation : Prof Sadagopan, Chairman, MeltingPot2020 2017 Edition

It was an honour to have Prof S Sadagopan, Director IIIT Bangalore, as the chairperson of the Meltingpot2020, a landmark movement, an initiative by CL Educate, that is working towards bringing youthful, research-oriented entrepreneurial education institutions and innovation fostering industry players.

(Prof Sadagopan interacting with Dr. Mashelkar, former chairperson of CSIR, the keynote speaker at MeltingPot2020)

Prof Sadagopan, in his opening remarks spoke about how the time has come for both, educational institutions and industry, to work together with technology playing the role of innovation amplifier to solve problems that will change the nation.

• IT as innovation Amplifier
  • Core competence of most of us who started in 1960s –
  • We digitized everything over the forty years
  • Changed industry after industry
  • 2Ts were the largest exports
    • Tea, to drink
    • T for textile
  • IT is the largest now
    • 8bn dollar revenues today
    • MMT changed how travel industry works
    • Today innovation has changed how governments functioning
    • IT has been enabler and amplier of innovation
    • Kapital needs is much smaller in tech space compared to other spaces

NEXT PRACTICE, from CK Prahalad, one of the foremost thinkers India has produced in the modern times spoke about how next practice is what we need to focus upon

For the youngsters, your time has come, with all humility we can change the world

• Our generation went to the US, worked for the best, for the US and Europe
• We contributed a lot, that shows up… GOOGLE and Microsoft
• SATYAM, SIVAM, SUNDARAM….soon we will have a SIVAM joining Satya of Microsoft and Sundar of Google

Solving problems in India

• From 2010 things have changed
• Indians solving India’s problems, in India
• They have global reach
• Tweak the innovations with price-performance parameters
• Examples
  • Railway reservation
    • A 60 kg human being had  to go 16kms for reserving his seat, one day gone
    • Now we can have it in a jiffy, from anywhere. With millions doing reservations every day; imagine the man days saved, at one-tenth cost
  • Travel-khana
    • Food delivered at Train stations – priced at 29,49,69 rs
    • Delivered to your seats – breakfast, lunch and dinner
    • 33 million people travel every day on trains
    • Investment is a pittance
  • Redbus
    • Organizes small bus operators
    • Handling 2 buses to 6000 buses today
  • A Stanford undergrad student of sociology
    • Heard about India’s innovation explosion
    • Landed in Blore at my office
    • She was fascinated how they were using Egipura
    • They were using missed call
      • Husband comes up picks her on cycle when he receives a miss call
      • Missed call service offered by banks
        • 1 for balance in account… 2 for ….blah blah
    • She starts a business in Thailand and Malyasia – Valerie is her name

Can we make a difference to our neighborhood, that is happening

It can make a big difference

We need to make a delta difference, not just an epsilon

Indian Education Congress 2017 : The Digital Transformation in Education & Training

Session Highlights:

• Is Digital Transformation only for the big institutions
• Should we transform a Training Organisation in totality or only the skill learning component
• Are schools ready for MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
• Should we integrate Student Management with LMS in Higher Education

Session Moderator: Mr. Aditya Malik, CEO & MD-Talent Edge & Senior Partner-Lumis Partners

• Dr. Antriksh Johri, Director-IT & CISO, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)
• Prof. Dr. Dwarika Uniyal, Assistant Dean, & Executive-Education, IIM Kashipur
• Mr. Gopal Devanahalli, Senior Vice President, Manipal Global Education
• Mr. Sreenivasan Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder, CL Educate (Career Launcher)

As an introduction to the session, a short film about a toddler playing with an IPad thrown among a few print magazines, was shown; and naturally the toddler liked the response of the icons on the IPAD that open new windows when pressed upon and not the print media that was passive and did nothing on pressing the photos on it! And was told that child of future will naturally make his choices….

I was not in consonance to this way of looking at digitization of education. It is very important to really understand a human being first, to know where to introduce, what to introduce and when to…

About a decade or two, children were branded as couch potatoes addicted to television. A family had one television and every one fought for the remote. Circa 2017, there are as many personalized entertainment gadgets in hand, as as many people in the home !! Children do not want to move out to play….. on the other hand, a young doctor of 24 complains about 72 hours of non-stop duty in the hospital. Imagine the fitness needed from a young doctor ! Will you get that if you thrust the Ipad to a 7-month old?

The human being is the most creative and intelligent being that has ever been created by the almighty. A child has so many intelligences and we intend to confine the child to playing with icons? One of the popular theory of Multiple intelligences propounded by Mr. Howard Gardener, talks about eight of them that a human being is naturally born with –

• musical-rhythmic,
• visual-spatial,
• verbal-linguistic,
• logical-mathematical,
• bodily-kinesthetic,
• naturalistic
• interpersonal,
• intrapersonal

Unless we do not facilitate the child to blossom in all these intelligences, we lose out on of the greatest creation that god has bestowed on this world – creative, thinking human being.

Of course, digitization can help in personalization of learning, but we should know when we should introduce and what quantum and which features.

A FEW FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS you need to ask yourself, to understand underlying principles of learning-

• What percent of what we have been taught we apply? What do we apply?
  • The audience responded …less than 20%
  • We apply more of what we learnt in the playgrounds and other arenas where we were involved in action and learnt a great deal.
• What percentage we learnt from teacher, what percentage we learn from friends?
  • Here again, majority of what we learnt is from discussions and interactions, not from a lecture that is made boring by most teachers. Of course, there are brilliant exceptions
• How many teachers do we remember fondly and why?
  • We were very good in those subjects where teacher showed affection and compassion.
  • We naturally want to perform well in those subjects and took interest

And HOW MUCH do we retain or recall of what we have been exposed to?

• What we hear….10% retained
• What we read….30% retained
• What we see…..40% retained
• What we do……70-80% retained

So whatever we create in the learning process, we need to lay emphasis on hard-core hands-on experience that the learner will retain for his life-time.

Why do we need Digitization of Education?

1. To learn at your own TIME and SPACE
2. To reach the best of the faculty and learning process to the remotest learner
3. Revisiting the important or to understand, as many times as you want
4. Engaging the learner enough to help him understand and imbibe
5. Ability to create a variety of resources at the learners disposal

As CL Educate what has been your experience?

• 2000 AD: compasscom : The supplementary and complementary web-based facilitation for school education beyond class VI
• synchronous and asynchronous modes
• 2001 AD Facilitated Live sessions on various subjects . …even biology, with a lot of animation and graphical representation of processes was used then
• engaging content, desktop/laptop

In 2005 created even a virtual chemistry lab – catering to the US schools under no child left behind program

Over the years mobility has come to play a central role

• Over the last two decades the digitization processes in CL Educate has helped to
  • Create enough resources online to engage every learner
    • conceptual learning, demonstrating the concept
    • applying to understand
    • practice to master
    • engaging with fellow learners to feel good and also share and learn
      – discussion rooms, forums,
      – gaming!
  • Ability to facilitate upward of 3000 students in a single session, at times
  • Enough Success stories created
    – across the segments
    – study at home students CAT/ LST…
    – schools …using

What is the Role of a teacher in the digitized world? One has to be a
– An eager learner all the time;
– courage to fail as he pushes his boundaries
– Have humility to unlearn and learn, even from students
– Ability to be an ideator, generate ideas and implement them
– Of course a facilitator to even those who are learning from huge geographical distances
– Create MOOCs
What sort of Impact on learners in CL Educate endeavours
– test prep … Night classes, huge numbers attend to these classes every day from comfort of home
– any time anywhere… having mobile resident modules as well as ability to log into live sessions even while on the move
–

What Future trends do you see…..

Disruptive technologies will bring huge shifts in the entire learning cycle. We will see the impact of a few of the following technologies very soon..
– virtual reality, augmented reality
– machine learning
– deep learning

E to the power of 6 – Yadavindra Public School, Patiala – A compelling workshop by Sreeni

Chilly morning of Jan 14th, Sankranti, the harvest festival celebrated across India, also saw the first day of the new academic year at Yadavindra Public School, Patiala. All staff assembled for the initiation into the new year with a magical and compelling workshop by me (Sreeni), E to the power of 6.

The light drizzle on the already foggy, cold morning, made all members of staff, over hundred of them, huddle inside the dance room of the middle school, that was equipped with hot blowers and heaters. I, with my personification of energy and child-like spirit, sent a shocker when I asked all of them to assemble in the well of the amphitheatre. They expressed quite a few reasons why they should not be in the rain. I wanted them to be children and not teachers, and do what children would do. Finally, with great reluctance, they made it to the well of the amphithetre.

They must have wondered what this crazy, monkish creature is up to. I could see the quizzical faces, and in the few smirks. A few shared that I looked like a musician. We all carry our own perceptions! for good of course 😉 What happened for the next hour or so, in the light drizzle (smiling sun peeping from behind the dark clouds at times) has been magical. The discussion that followed about the trust walk, made them realize a lot about what it means to be visually-challenged, being a facilitator to one, feeling of responsibility, the role of trust etc. etc…

The real import of the exercise dawned upon them, when I asked them to appreciate the situation of the child (ren) that they are guiding in the class, in the school or at home, to that of the visually challenged that they guided for a while, during the exercise. It was a bolt out of blue. A few were dumbstruck, quite a few very intensely lost, and a couple could not even fathom!

The whole of five hours passed by, with a few more exercises of self-introspection, each facilitating them to peal their own layers, each helping them to show the mirror for the participants to reflect and introspect. What was more heartening was that they did not want to leave without watching a few videos of lateral thinking on academic curriculum design and pedagogy. The session had to be extended beyond the time, at their insistence. Quite a few of the teachers and also the leadership team shared that, it was for the first time such a thing happened.

I had asked, the headmaster, Mr. Stanley Vinod Kumar and the coordinator, Ms. Sangeeta, a day before that I needed at least six hours to have a meaningful session. Stanley, with his sagacity and understanding of the mindset of the participants, asked me not to exceed four and half hours. He was delighted, so were the dean and the leadership, that teachers insisted on watching more and staying beyond.

As a facilitator, of course, I am always hungry for more. It is a ‘nasha’ – addiction – to facilitate more and more, for I always feel that I have not done justice to all that I wanted to facilitate, for the long travel that I undertook to conduct the workshop.

It was indeed a pleasure to be at this institution with about 70 years of legacy; the grand stadium that it is integral to, the rich sporting heritage with legendary alumni like Milkha Singh, Navjot Singh Sidhu etc to name a few. Got to know that their students this year also have won laurels in sixteen different sports at the national level.

The institution is keenly  looking forward to becoming a full-fledged boarding school, that will enable them to make the whole environment an exciting 24 X 7 learning space. I too am looking forward to my next workshop at YPS, as much as Mr Stanley and the school leadership want me to.

I am waiting for the feedback forms to reach me from Bharat, the CL warrior at Patiala, who, in the first place, was instrumental in pulling me to the workshop at YPS. I am glad that Bharat did. It has been a very enriching experience learning during the workshop as well as visiting every nook and corner of the YPS, inhaling the air and imbibing the spirit of excellence it stands for!

Connected Bharat, Enabled Bharat, Empowered Bharat – An article for digitalEARNING Magazine!

Here was the request that came from the magazine, “After years of discussion and deliberations the ambitious ‘Digital India’ programme has been announced. What is the first step/initiative/challenges that you will address or take towards realising this goal, specifically in the field of EDUCATION?
I would request you to provide me a quote of around 100/words, along with the details mentioned below and a high resolution photograph.

Name: R. Sreenivasan;    Designation: Chief Innovation Officer; Co-Founder

Organisation: CL Educate”

————– My article to the request…..

I would want to call it, ‘Connected Bharat, Enabled Bharat, Empowered Bharat’ rather than DIGITAL INDIA. India has been in the digital era for the last three decades with only the URBAN INDIA making something out of it, and to some extent impacting larger masses too. We have had significant success in rail reservation, telephony etc, but mostly the service providers made use of it to deliver reasonably better services.

Now, the mobile revolution, especially the smart phone capability, in the hands of the ‘AAM ADMI’ is making the big difference now. I can see the impact happening in Education, Health and Sanitation, transportation while being connected with families live 24X7 from anywhere.

Having been at the forefront of web and related technology in the education space since 2000, I see now, the light at the end of the tunnel that we have been passing through over the last decade, to reach out to the real masses. The last mile connectivity is getting cleared now with Mobile technologies empowering their finger tips and their endeavours.

CL Educate started delivering live, interactive courses empowering Indian Children who used to log in from their homes in the middle-east (Indian expatriate population) in 2001 and have been doing so with fair amount of success since then. I can vividly recall one of the faculty, Mr. Pankaj Kumar, taking a session over the web,  on botany with a lot of animation built in, from his home in Patna, and students in Dubai, Manama and Kuwait city were enchanted and enthralled! Since then we have facilitated hundreds of children from the Middle-east to reach the sought after portals of IITs and IIMs and also the best of the universities abroad. Pankaj Kumar and his colleague, VM Sharma are reaching out to children in the remotest schools of Andamans, now!

Only in the last 4-5 years we have been able to generate the same momentum in India through better last-mile web connectivity, with about 3000-4000 students regularly logging in from homes across the country to attend one single session from the best of the masters in the test-prep space. But what is really transforming today, is the mobility – any time, any where – possibility. This year we have been able to reach tens of thousands with mobile apps within twenty four hours of launch of the courses on the apps – Truly enabling every Indian.

This morning when, I wrote this article, and was to upload on my website, I noticed a huge spurt, that happened yesterday, in the visitors on my site ! and I amended this article!!

 

Over 900 visitors hitting the site in one single hour, to read an article on Piyush Tiwari and his endeavour, SAVE LIFE FOUNDATION – https://swamanthan.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/act-promptly-save-life-piyush-tiwari-founder-save-life-foundation-indialogues/”. Most of these hits have been from mobile, immediately after watching a reference to Piyush on television in the programme, “SATYAMEVA JAYATE”, powered by Amir Khan. So television and mobile together created this tsunami on www.sreeni.org.

Similarly, classes on the web and mobiles in hand to attend them and respond, creates quite a few tsunamis, every now and then!!

These tsunamis are bound to grow in magnitude pretty soon. I see the mobility dimension impacting the real masses with every human being in the remotest part of the country enabled. If we are able to ‘power’ the country with alternate sources of energy – solar charging panels, solar powered lights etc, then the boundaries will vanish sooner. There are endeavours in that direction by brilliant set of ‘energy’ enablers.

If world class education facilitation reaches every family, the nation will be enabled and empowered. We are heading in the right direction. We will see the impact in the next three to four years; 2020 will see a different dawn!

know more about http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/

looking forward to your feedback. Humble thanks.

DU first cut-off list…… Was on DD News Night : What should be the way ahead for INDIA?

Sreeni was in the panel discussion on Delhi University cut-offs of 2014 and way ahead …

Once again it was that time of year when the Delhi University announced the first cut-offs for various colleges under it, late last night and was made public this morning by the newspapers.

This year was more special because the date for announcing was deferred following the chaos created by the UGC vs DU wrangle on scrapping Four YEAR undergrad prog! UGC under the very same Chairperson who was praising the FYUP last year, did a volte-face on FYUP this year. The govt changed and so did the sing-song! When will our ‘EDUCATION LEADERS’ and ‘POLITICAL LEADERS’ see education as key to eradication of all ills? As long as education system is a tool in their hands for personal fights and glory, nothing can improve.

Anyways, after the roll back of FYUP, the cut-offs were announced and lo behold, again 100% was the cut-off for a few courses in a couple of not so sought-after colleges! How? Why?

Doordarshan had called me to be on the panel to discuss the issue of DU cut-off list this year. In the DD studios I was with Dr. Pradhyuman Sharma, Principal, The Hindu college in the Hindi news bulletin, while I was with Dr. Varshney, Dean, Student affairs, South Campus of Delhi University in the English bulletin; while Mr. Ashok Ganguli, ex-chairperson, CBSE linked from Lucknow; We also had a student, who have had tough times in the DU admission process, in each of the bulletin, in the studios.

Issues discussed –

High cut-offs? When students get 100% in Psychology and English, obviously the colleges have to keep the cut-offs at the maximum. Otherwise they may be inundated with so many forms and if they have to accept all of those who apply, then they had it. I got to know during the interactions, that a couple colleges were at the receiving end last year – over 1200 had to be admitted, when they thought an in-take of 180 for a particular course, as the college’s cutoff was low! So colleges are playing safe this year.

Mr Ashok Ganguli spoke – in the CBSE results, over 60000 student scored more than 92% in Maths; many got 100% in English! He was talking about the grace marks being given, liberal corrections etc that has made it worse..

Education and Curriculum! Should our school education not orient towards skills and problem solving than rote learning and re-production. That is the only way to get out of this madness of 100% scores and Merit lists!! And get students with capabilities into higher education..

Applications : Every student hedges. Most students do not really know what they want to do in life. Hence they apply to inexplicable number of courses in as many colleges..This year there were 2,75,000+ applications for mere 54000 seats…. In all possibility the number of applicants may be 1.5 lakh, if we consider each one applying for multiple courses / colleges!

Elimination vs Selection Why should the DU admissions be an elimination process? why cannot it be a selection process? why should it not have entrance exams for every course? In fact, the existing entrance exams for courses in English, Journalism too got abolished!! The entrance exams may get even not so high-scorers in board, but better off for the course!

Why only Delhi? Why should DU get applicants from Dibrugarh, Ladakh, Pondicherry, chennai, Bangalore……. Is Delhi University, only centre for excellence? Do we as a nation lack any other centre of excellence?

• In the nation rankings of colleges, about only 20% of the colleges from DU come in the list, eighty percent are from other centres of excellence. Then why such a rush to Delhi? Should we convert a few of those outstanding colleges across the country to convert into universities with a few more colleges under their wings to mentor to increase their quality and standings.
• Is it the eco-system around the Delhi University that is most attractive and productive? or Is it a life-style choice? Is it the centre-of-power of the nation….Is there more opportunities here for student?

More colleges? Is having more colleges in Delhi university the solution? How many more colleges will we have? Should you convert top colleges into universities with multiple campuses across the country?

Why only a few courses?  Do only these courses offer potential employment? Is it a flock mindset? How do we counsel and mentor students, their parents and families to opt for those courses and subjects that the students have natural flair for? Can the universities / colleges work with schools to help them facilitate this process? Should it not be the role of every faculty / professor to mentor students in the class?

Entry of TOP foreign universities a solution? This has been lying in the cold storage for a long time. With middle-class families having more and more disposal income in their hand, with crunch of quality colleges, are looking at top universities of the world. Indians spend about $20 billion annually to get their education abroad! The universities abroad are eyeing Indians along with Chinese to fill their coffers! Will these families look at the best of the colleges setting up campuses in India? Of course, there are issues of – which universities will come to India? What is the pricing point at which families lap it up? How will we ensure quality of world standard? How will we attract the FACULTY of that caliber?

Is TECHNOLOGY the way ahead? The numbers in the future are going to increase for sure, with 75% of the population expected to be under the age of 24 by 2020! The problem is going to get compounded as we go along. Should as a nation we not look for solutions that will address this issue. This can be addressed with a two pronged approach –

Can we not lay emphasis on exit exams than the entrance gates?

• Can we not allow students to apply for any course of his or her choice irrespective of what scores they get?
• Can we not create Exit examination tough enough to award only those who are really good.
• Let the duration of the program be decided by the quality of the student… one may finish the program in two years, while a few may take even 7-10 years

Can we have an outstanding HYBRID model (BEAM-CLICK-Brick & Mortar) with a huge emphasis in virtual facilitation

• Pool the outstanding faculty talent from across the country to create / can video sessions on every subject and upload on the web to access
• Have all the contents / notes online for students to peruse and study
• Have doubt clearing sessions live with faculty to interact ; thousands can attend these sessions at one go, with a good mechanism
• Have surprise tests, short and long tests, and track performances
• Unsatisfactory performances should compel the student to repeat that segment/course of the programme
• There can be a few contact sessions with eminent faculty…

For me it will not be a wonder if quite a few who undergo the technology-facilitated programme out-perform those who are admitted to campus-based  programmes. I have had an exposure of over 14 years in this space of tech-facilitated learning and I can vouch for this way! Indeed there will be a great opposition for this model – one of the co-panelist was very vehement! But that is the way… Best of the world universities (MIT, Stanford, Harvard…) are going on to this platform, launching their MOOCs – ….. Phoenix set the tone!

Our own IITs and IISc came together to initiate NPTEL (https://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd) to provide learning resources to Engineering students from those engineering colleges across the country that lack quality faculty and learning resources. This can be made more interesting and compelling…… by integrating with compulsory hands-on-learning with SMEs in such a way that the students get practical exposure while the SMEs get keen manpower….

We certainly need someone at the HRD ministry with a grand vision for our nation! Else we will be doing the delta changes and will go back and forth with protestations coming from all directions. This government has a mandate, it needs to take those bold steps to make a bit difference to the real driver – EDUCATION – for the nation’s excellence in every space.

I rest my thoughts here…..kindly share your thoughts here …

Can we be masters of the technology rather than slaves – ICT in Education Summit

“Learning has hugely shifted online and is no more restricted to schools and colleges. The modern ways of learning have evolved with technology with a variety of tools and resources available online to facilitate this learning. It is to understand and deliberate on this that the 4th ICT in Education Summit was conceptualized and organized, which was attended by around 200 guests comprising of academicians, think tanks from the corporate world and government representatives.” – VAR India, who organized the event. The report is on 4th ICT in Education Summit

The afternoon panel discussion was themed around “Education in India merits Change.”  It was moderated jointly by Mr Vijay Shukla, Managing Director, Eduvisors, and Mr Sujit Panigrahi, CTO, Convergent Technologies. The panelists included, Mr Adil Usman, Business Head, iProf Learning Solutions; Mr R. Sreenivasan, Co-Founder, CL Educate (career Launcher); Ms Vineeta Mittal, Principal, The Millennium School, Gurgaon; Mr Gaurav Tomar, Director, Rabindranath World School, Gurgaon; Mr Varadarajan Sridharan, Fellow, Ed Tech; and Ms Sara H. Basson, Ph.D., Worldwide Program Director, IBM – TJ Watson Research Center.

The panel, discussing “Education in India merits change”

Topics for discussion revolved around the present education system in India, spanning from how to make Schools’ ICT Investment Count and technology-led disruption for Indian education ecosystem to upgrading ICT infrastructure to make learning environment fit for the future and safeguarding devices and prioritizing cyber safety and security.

Opening the session, Vijay set the tone for the panel discussion ..

– How does ICT impact the three dimensions of quality, access and equity
– Is the school space or higher Education radically impacted
– with just 18% gross enrollment ratio for higher education in India, what is the game changer

Varadarajan shared

•  ICT challenges and compels improvement
•  21^st century saw ICT push, because of quality – as tool to enhance
•  Most technologies and tools have evolved in the last decade
•  The hole in the wall experiment by Dr. Sugata mitra, showed how ICT can make a difference
• So, teachers’ role has changed – It is a question of how fast you adapt, what do you do as a facilitators
• It all boils down to how do you, as an institution empower the mentors
• concept of learning environment, home work and evaluation change
• Policies of the state has to keep pace with this change in the outlook and environment

Vineeta Mittal

• It is a tool, definitely required
• What all needed to change in a school context –
  • Teachers have to move from content delivery to being facilitators
  • From memorization to giving conceptual clarity
  • life skills to be inculcated and taken forward
  • The learning will become interdisciplinary
  • May help children to evolve as out of the box thinkers

Gaurav

• Only compelling reason I found was, every school in the vicinity is placing hoardings all over about ICT, whether they understood or not
• Could procure hardware from Nehru place, software home grown
• But one significant shift that technology demands is the cultural change
  • How fast people in the system orient themselves to the shift
  • Is it imposed or embraced
  • The leadership has to facilitate the whole process

Sreeni

Tech or ICT is only an enabler. If I look back at our journey in CL Educate

• Launched compassbox in 1998, reached thousands of homes, initially mostly the MENA Region for curriculum support
• Then we went on to introduce classrooms on the desktop in the MENA region – 2001, teachers teaching from remotest parts of India. Pankaj, an amazing teacher with passion for tech, used to take biology from Patna in 2001, when internet penetration in India was miniscule. But Indians abroad lapped it up
• CL – we have sessions in the career and test prep space – webinars – attended by about 6-7k participants from nook and corner of the country and abroad too

The important challenges to focus in schools these days –

• To make the learning environment and processes that stroke the right brain, any ways we are masters of clerical faculties
• Idiot box was a challenge, it became a baby sitter… Now lap top, palm top… Whatsupp (FB acquired it for $19bn yday).. they all end up making  people unproductive, if not realized their role..
• I had shared about a film that I had come across, in which the grade 4 curriculum was completely taught through a project to design the furniture for the classroom, during the academic year. Here is the film..

What is very important is how do we use it, where and when to use it.. Possibilities include

• collaboration among mentors across geographies
• collaborative learning among students,
• customizing learning to differently-abled children in the same class
• promote interdisciplinary work
• bringing world class open source learning resources to the child and mentors

We need to be master of technology rather than ending up as a slave…. Hope the laptops distributed by the UP govt is being put to good use, not just for watching movies!

Sara

• education is the next big thing for ICT
• analytics holds the key to facilitate students
  • personalizing – individualized attention
  • Georgia school research. – with the data, can you predict the student where will he be?
  • enabling careers – education and the world – marrying the two
  • best innovation is pause and start buttonChallenges
    – complete info about the student
    – how did you know that he is going to succeed; analytics of historical data
    – we have technology, trying to find the solution; not the other way around

Adil

Problems that can be solved by tech

• check a few industries – health…. Tech has changed paradigm
• we need to think how tech can be used in the
• Challenges
  – shortage of quality teachers – people
  – access to high quality content and tools
  – customized learning paths
• We have deployed tools in – Meghalaya, Mauritius, now 15 million in CBSE
  – increase efficiency, reduce unwanted workload
  – tablet and online learning
  – Offline, online, in lass, outclass
  – mentors can be better facilitator

Vijay

– what is the matrix of success?

Q & A

Dr jayaprakash – I used IBM 1620 in 1964 first time; retired as Principal Baskara charya college

in Delhi and NCR ….
– quality of the student? How does it change? In NCR we do not have shortage of resources…what about the interiors of the nation

Vineeta
Kind of learners – visual, kinesthetic, …. Figure out what kind of learner and use it
Any where and any time learning

Varadarajan
– do we have a road map for ICT
– quality vision and road map
– Dmitry, a thought leader is working on Preserving his brain
– large hadron collider, whole movie has been made. How many get access to it

– failing to plan is planning to fail

Sreeni

• Having batted other way around let me bat for ICT
• In IWS, our schools, the best of the resources from the universities of the world is on the tabs for the students – imagine MIT, CALTECH videos to understand the concepts of specific gravity, viscosity..children get to see the experiments recorded
• Come to the class and faculty does only practical to help you understand better
• It is all about how best we use and we need to stroke the imagination of mentors first, then children will be take care off

Vijay
I sum up the discussion with a question

Can we strike a right balance both in creation and consumption of technology?