An analysis of the changing dynamics of education services distribution system due to the entry of IT and how this mechanism could be used as an advantage to promote education

1. IT in education Arindam Das Sec-D, PGPBM ISB&M-Kolkata

2. What is IT ? Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information. Now a days Information Technology (IT) is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information. Presumably, when speaking of Information Technology (IT) as a whole, it is noted that the use of computers and information are associated.

3. Using IT in education sector Various uses Developing a wide network using concepts like ‘Internet Communication Technology’, ‘Education Collaboration Network’ Virtual classroom concept Development of easily understandable models and audio-visual content Using networking and applications for better and efficient use of resources and better management Benefits Increasing the reach of quality education and improvement in distance education concept Audio-Visual learning experience Better co-ordination among education institutes and teachers leading to development and expansion of knowledge-pool Improved special education Easy availability of wide variety of quality educational resources Improved teacher training

4. Indian education scenario..some information All data presented are of 2004-05 Source: MHRD Source: MHRD Marks obtained by students Source: SES, MHRD Source: NCERT

5. Some uncomfortable truths: Primary Education

6. IT..current usage Greycells 18 Media, a JV between ‘TV18’ and education service company ‘educomp’ launched a 24hr. channel ‘Topper TV ’, for senior school students. The channel has faculty from IITS, IIMS and foreign university. It is broadcasted using DTH Services. Subscription of students is between 40,000-90,000 already. Everron systems Chennai, has signed an MOU with IIM Indore for offering management programmers using theVSAT Technology.

7. IT..current usage Srinivas Adepalli senior VP, Tata communications wants to launch educational courses for engineering and management courses through net using the help from Pune based Tata management training centre Amity university has launched youth TV, to cater to students needs. Virtual classrooms like ‘extramarks.com’ and ‘classroomteachers.com’ will touch 8.5 million households by 2010 as estimated remarked V.K.Arora director (electronic and system administrator head) of IGNOU.

9. Training teachers to use ICT infrastructure

10. Providing different learning resources which include different education tools, course curriculum & other learning materials

13. Network Printer

14. 10 Multimedia P-IV Personal Computers with Web Camera

15. 29” Flat Screen Color TV

16. 5 KVA UPS with 15 minutes power back-up

18. Core CAL

19. Visual Studio

20. Encarta Reference Suite & Online Deluxe

21. Magic School Bus

22. Web Hosting Software

23. Software Tools (MS VISIO 2002) – to prepare proper documentation like flowcharts, graphs, organizational planning, etc.

24. CBSE/State Govt. approved course curriculum

25. Education Software Tools

27. Teacher’s training lab: A teacher training lab, a replica of the installed infrastructure is created every district to train teachers Source: Dept. of education

28. VidyaVahini…central authority The entire project has been implemented by ERNET India, an Autonomous Scientific society under Department of Information Technology. ERNET is a nodal network connecting education and research institutions in the country. A Central Portal (www.vidyavahini.ernet.in) has been hosted. The Portal contains-

29. EDUSAT EDUSAT is the first Indian satellite built exclusively to serve the educational sector. EDUSAT or GSAT-3 was launched in September 2004 by the Indian Space Research Organization EDUSAT carries five Ku band transponders providing spot beams, one Ku band transponder providing a national beam and six extended C band transponders providing national coverage beams A joint-initiative by IIT-Bombay & ISRO was launched on Jan1,2008 using EDUSAT network.

30. EDUSAT..contd. It started with 13 full-fledged courses on this channel and other institutes(e.g. other IITs, NITs, etc.) are enabled to receive it. Other institutes joining the program will be provided with ground equipments In this network, ISRO already set up 45 broadcast & interactive network covering 20 states including North-Eastern states and Islands. More than 30,000 classrooms have been equipped with connectivity through EDUSAT.

32. Collect some primary data about perception of students about use of IT in education.

33. The following are the details results of the survey- Sample size: 30, All PGPBM students of ISB&M Questionnaire consisted of 10 question Likert’s scale was used for taking responses, i.e. as follows

34. Survey...results

35. Survey..results

36. Survey..results

37. Survey..results

38. Survey..results

40. Teacher training: Large number of teachers are under-qualified and many more need professional training.

42. Data: Though there is some system in place to collect data about primary education but no such thing present for other levels. So all planning are based on performance of individual institutes which is difficult and inefficient.

43. Lack of support materials: Teachers are not equipped with any supplementary helps and no system is in place to share resources and ideas.

44. No standardized system of evaluation of performance.

46. Probable IT solutions..contd.

47. Education Collaboration Network

48. ECN-Architecture Figure: A physical view of ECN

49. ECN-Architecture..contd. Architecture of the system will be ‘Client-Server Architecture’ Software will be split between computer processes called ‘client task’ and ‘server task’ Client side will have facilities like ‘offline content access’, ‘content authoring and collaboration’ depending upon he infrastructural support Client will be able to send and receive data from one or more server System will be independent of any hardware and operating system limitation

50. ECN-Architecture..contd.

52. ECN-Architecture->Some key points:

53. ECN-Facilities

55. Thank You