Last month, president Pranab Mukherjee unveiled
Aakash 2, the second iteration of the low-cost tablet that the government wants
to put into the hands of students in the country. Unlike its predecessor,Our
technology gives rtls systems
developers the ability. the Aakash 2 has a better screen, processor and memory,
making it a viable tool for the classroom.
It’s difficult not to get excited. Tablets have the potential to transform education. First, since they are cheaper than computers, students can own individual tablets, instead of having to share a computer in a lab. Second, video lectures by good teachers, can be beamed to students in rural areas, improving access to good teaching. Third, interactive textbooks using animation and internet resources, are more engaging. And finally, tablets open the window for adaptive learning. For instance, Acuity, developed by McGraw Hill in the US, tracks how students interact with digital textbooks. Teachers can then help out students with concepts they’re having trouble with.
However, researchers across the world haven’t yet come up with a definitive model that taps into the tablet’s potential. Some educationists in India feel that the government should have tackled issues of pedagogy rather than the hardware. “A successful education initiative is not hardware-specific,” said Sharat Chandra Ram, faculty, Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore. “We need to study digital pedagogy first. What are the effective ways of using tablets? What parts of syllabus should be on tablets? The government should initiate research to answer such questions.”
Chandra’s point of view was echoed recently by Microsoft founder Bill Gates who in an interview said, “You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher... The device is not the key limiting factor at this point. If we ever get the curriculum to be good, then the access piece, which is the most expensive part, will be challenging.”
India’s track record with ‘schemes’ that distribute hardware for free in schools is not promising. If today’s flavour is tablets, yesterday’s was PCs.
According to Arundhati Chavan, president, PTA United Forum, Mumbai, PCs donated to municipal schools under various schemes simply lie underutilised.High quality stone mosaic tiles. “Teachers need to be motivated and trained to prepare study material and lesson plans using technology. In our experience, teachers don’t want to do extra work.”
However, with enough time and effort, teachers can be convinced to incorporate technology in their lessons. The Digital Equalizer Programme, run by the American India Foundation, trains teachers to integrate technology and teaching in public schools, once a week, every week, for three years. “I don’t believe in intensive training where teachers are trained for 15 days and then left alone. You need to follow up with them to ensure that the training is applied,” says J Sundarakrishnan, director, Digital Equalizer Programme. It takes nearly a year to build rapport with teachers and convince them that new technology can be useful, says Sundarakrishnan. They are then given smaller goals that are achievable. “The idea is to empower teachers so that they can be the judge of how computers can be used to explain concepts to children.”
The government seems aware of the problems that e-learning has faced in the past. Which is perhaps why Aakash 2 is first being rolled out in select engineering colleges, which have a comparatively tech-savvy faculty. The distribution of the tablets is being overseen by IIT Bombay, which will also train the faculty at these colleges.“We conducted our first two-day workshop in November which was attended by faculty from around 250 colleges,” informs Deepak Phatak, who is heading the Aakash project at IIT Bombay. The workshop focussed on the apps developed by IIT Bombay for engineering students, and gave pointers on how the tablet can be used in the classroom. By December, teachers will submit a proposal for their plans. The implementation will take place between January to April. This programme will be run by IIT Bombay for two years.
But there is no estimate on when the tablet will be fully integrated into the classroom. “India has 300 million people who are under 19. That’s more than the population of the US. You cannot make any predictions. The usage of Aakash tablets could take 2-3 years. It could also take 10 years. It’s not something that the government alone can do. We need the private sector to step in,” says Phatak. The Aakash programme, he hopes, will encourage private players.
Smaller content developers, however, see the Aakash 2, as yet another mega project, full of bureaucratic procedures such as submitting tenders.“Marquee investments like Aakash only make headlines. The government needs to create an ecosystem which includes smaller content developers,” said Rupesh Kumar Shah,Klaus Multiparking is an industry leader in innovative parking system technology. CEO and co-founder, InOpen, which develops e-learning solutions for schools.
Clearly, while Aakash is an ambitious project, it is just a small part of digital learning. We need to realign the entire education system if we are to derive the true benefits of tablets — from teachers to teaching methods to syllabus, and assessment practices. It’s high time government schemes tackle this challenge.
You start to wonder how one team could be so much better than the other three for such an extended period of time, and you quickly realize it boils down to two things: stability and an elite quarterback.
Having one or the other is fantastic. Having both can make a team great.
Look at the teams mentioned above as being strong in their division: Indianapolis had the same general manager,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers Bill Polian, and the same quarterback, Peyton Manning, for 14 years. One Super Bowl and two AFC championships later, the franchise and the duo parted ways.
Kevin Colbert has been the general manager of the Steelers since 2000, and the team has had the same starting quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, since 2004. Pittsburgh has made three Super Bowl appearances in that time, with two wins, though it was done with two head coaches.
Philadelphia’s Andy Reid is likely in his last season with the team, but he has been with the Eagles since 1999, and that same year Donovan McNabb was drafted to be the franchise quarterback. They were together for five of those six NFC East titles, five NFC Championship games, and one Super Bowl.
The story is no different in New England. Bill Belichick arrived in 2000, and a year later a twist of fate led to Tom Brady becoming the starting quarterback three games into the season.
Since Brady took over in 2001, only one other quarterback has started a game for the Patriots: Matt Cassel, who was forced into duty in 2008 when Brady suffered a torn ACL in the season opener.
In that same time span, the Jets have had seven quarterbacks start at least one game. In that same time span, the Bills have had eight quarterbacks start at least one game.
In that same time span, the Dolphins have had 16 quarterbacks start at least one game. Really, 16.
The most successful of those 31 QBs was Chad Pennington, who was the primary starter for the 2002, ’04, and ’06 Jets teams that went to the playoffs and also was the starter for Miami’s last postseason appearance in 2008.
Pennington, not surprisingly, is also the only one of those quarterbacks who put up a respectable touchdown-to-interception ratio during his time as a top signal-caller, one of the better indicators of success at the position.
Knowing who will be manning the most important position on the team week after week and season after season is a big plus, Belichick acknowledged.
“The ball runs through [the quarterback’s] hands on virtually every play, one way or another,” said Belichick. “What the player does well, what his strengths are, being able to build around them, whether it’s personnel or scheme.
“Likewise, things that that player doesn’t do well or maybe aren’t his strengths, working around those and not emphasizing those things but emphasizing something else.If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses,
It’s difficult not to get excited. Tablets have the potential to transform education. First, since they are cheaper than computers, students can own individual tablets, instead of having to share a computer in a lab. Second, video lectures by good teachers, can be beamed to students in rural areas, improving access to good teaching. Third, interactive textbooks using animation and internet resources, are more engaging. And finally, tablets open the window for adaptive learning. For instance, Acuity, developed by McGraw Hill in the US, tracks how students interact with digital textbooks. Teachers can then help out students with concepts they’re having trouble with.
However, researchers across the world haven’t yet come up with a definitive model that taps into the tablet’s potential. Some educationists in India feel that the government should have tackled issues of pedagogy rather than the hardware. “A successful education initiative is not hardware-specific,” said Sharat Chandra Ram, faculty, Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore. “We need to study digital pedagogy first. What are the effective ways of using tablets? What parts of syllabus should be on tablets? The government should initiate research to answer such questions.”
Chandra’s point of view was echoed recently by Microsoft founder Bill Gates who in an interview said, “You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher... The device is not the key limiting factor at this point. If we ever get the curriculum to be good, then the access piece, which is the most expensive part, will be challenging.”
India’s track record with ‘schemes’ that distribute hardware for free in schools is not promising. If today’s flavour is tablets, yesterday’s was PCs.
According to Arundhati Chavan, president, PTA United Forum, Mumbai, PCs donated to municipal schools under various schemes simply lie underutilised.High quality stone mosaic tiles. “Teachers need to be motivated and trained to prepare study material and lesson plans using technology. In our experience, teachers don’t want to do extra work.”
However, with enough time and effort, teachers can be convinced to incorporate technology in their lessons. The Digital Equalizer Programme, run by the American India Foundation, trains teachers to integrate technology and teaching in public schools, once a week, every week, for three years. “I don’t believe in intensive training where teachers are trained for 15 days and then left alone. You need to follow up with them to ensure that the training is applied,” says J Sundarakrishnan, director, Digital Equalizer Programme. It takes nearly a year to build rapport with teachers and convince them that new technology can be useful, says Sundarakrishnan. They are then given smaller goals that are achievable. “The idea is to empower teachers so that they can be the judge of how computers can be used to explain concepts to children.”
The government seems aware of the problems that e-learning has faced in the past. Which is perhaps why Aakash 2 is first being rolled out in select engineering colleges, which have a comparatively tech-savvy faculty. The distribution of the tablets is being overseen by IIT Bombay, which will also train the faculty at these colleges.“We conducted our first two-day workshop in November which was attended by faculty from around 250 colleges,” informs Deepak Phatak, who is heading the Aakash project at IIT Bombay. The workshop focussed on the apps developed by IIT Bombay for engineering students, and gave pointers on how the tablet can be used in the classroom. By December, teachers will submit a proposal for their plans. The implementation will take place between January to April. This programme will be run by IIT Bombay for two years.
But there is no estimate on when the tablet will be fully integrated into the classroom. “India has 300 million people who are under 19. That’s more than the population of the US. You cannot make any predictions. The usage of Aakash tablets could take 2-3 years. It could also take 10 years. It’s not something that the government alone can do. We need the private sector to step in,” says Phatak. The Aakash programme, he hopes, will encourage private players.
Smaller content developers, however, see the Aakash 2, as yet another mega project, full of bureaucratic procedures such as submitting tenders.“Marquee investments like Aakash only make headlines. The government needs to create an ecosystem which includes smaller content developers,” said Rupesh Kumar Shah,Klaus Multiparking is an industry leader in innovative parking system technology. CEO and co-founder, InOpen, which develops e-learning solutions for schools.
Clearly, while Aakash is an ambitious project, it is just a small part of digital learning. We need to realign the entire education system if we are to derive the true benefits of tablets — from teachers to teaching methods to syllabus, and assessment practices. It’s high time government schemes tackle this challenge.
You start to wonder how one team could be so much better than the other three for such an extended period of time, and you quickly realize it boils down to two things: stability and an elite quarterback.
Having one or the other is fantastic. Having both can make a team great.
Look at the teams mentioned above as being strong in their division: Indianapolis had the same general manager,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers Bill Polian, and the same quarterback, Peyton Manning, for 14 years. One Super Bowl and two AFC championships later, the franchise and the duo parted ways.
Kevin Colbert has been the general manager of the Steelers since 2000, and the team has had the same starting quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, since 2004. Pittsburgh has made three Super Bowl appearances in that time, with two wins, though it was done with two head coaches.
Philadelphia’s Andy Reid is likely in his last season with the team, but he has been with the Eagles since 1999, and that same year Donovan McNabb was drafted to be the franchise quarterback. They were together for five of those six NFC East titles, five NFC Championship games, and one Super Bowl.
The story is no different in New England. Bill Belichick arrived in 2000, and a year later a twist of fate led to Tom Brady becoming the starting quarterback three games into the season.
Since Brady took over in 2001, only one other quarterback has started a game for the Patriots: Matt Cassel, who was forced into duty in 2008 when Brady suffered a torn ACL in the season opener.
In that same time span, the Jets have had seven quarterbacks start at least one game. In that same time span, the Bills have had eight quarterbacks start at least one game.
In that same time span, the Dolphins have had 16 quarterbacks start at least one game. Really, 16.
The most successful of those 31 QBs was Chad Pennington, who was the primary starter for the 2002, ’04, and ’06 Jets teams that went to the playoffs and also was the starter for Miami’s last postseason appearance in 2008.
Pennington, not surprisingly, is also the only one of those quarterbacks who put up a respectable touchdown-to-interception ratio during his time as a top signal-caller, one of the better indicators of success at the position.
Knowing who will be manning the most important position on the team week after week and season after season is a big plus, Belichick acknowledged.
“The ball runs through [the quarterback’s] hands on virtually every play, one way or another,” said Belichick. “What the player does well, what his strengths are, being able to build around them, whether it’s personnel or scheme.
“Likewise, things that that player doesn’t do well or maybe aren’t his strengths, working around those and not emphasizing those things but emphasizing something else.If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses,
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