Date:27/02/2011 URL:
http://www.thehindu.com/2011/02/27/stories/2011022764911200.htm
Front Page
Boom in education to bridge the gap
Ramya Kannan &
Ajai Sreevatsan
The products range from high-end to open source, free material
Samsung India's 'e-board' and other applications will make classroom experience
more interactive
Question and answer guides are hot property
CHENNAI: The utility of technology and its ability to adapt itself to multiple
formats and requirements are s what have given it the near omnipotence it
has now. And tech watchers say the next IT boom is going to be in the education
sector.
Already, products that ride on technology have begun to walk out of
manufacturing plants and websites aimed at making a difference in education and
teaching.
They range, as most things in the market do, from high-end, premium products to
open source, free material available on the web.
Samsung India has recently unveiled its 'e-board,' its digital display
solution, and customised applications on the Galaxy tablet that make the
classroom
experience more interactive and smarter.
Ranjit Yadav, Country Head- Mobile and IT, Samsung India Electronics, says the
company's complete portfolio in the display arena - digital signage, thin
clients, e-boards and video wall solutions - would serve the education sector
well. Add to this the company's interactive e-boards and customised tablets,
and anyone who can afford them is no doubt going to be in a very smart
classroom.
Anti-reflection coating
The Samsung Interactive 'e-board' has an anti-reflection coating to facilitate
clear display even in bright light or sunlight, has a built-in PC with embedded
windows XPP to remote-access and manage content directly on the display, and a
built-in speaker. There are a webcam and a dummy pen to enhance interaction
between students and teachers.
Mr. Yadav says the aim is to target more than 20,000 educational institutions
(both schools and colleges) in the country. In the first phase rollout of
its plan to tap educational institutes, Samsung plans to focus on nine cities -
Delhi/National Capital Region, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad.
The question and answer guides are hot property on the education scene. Shiksha
Cafe has recently launched Reputation Index to give the advisers recognition
for providing the answers and to ensure quality answers to users. The system
works on the principles of self-learning and community moderation to bring
the high-quality content on the top layer, while suppressing the contributions
of lower quality.
RI's algorithm has the following principles built-in: answers with more upvotes
(thumbs-up) and 'best answer' selection fetch reputation points, while answers
with more downvotes (thumbs-down) are penalised reputation points. Contributors
with more followers are treated as influencers and get additional reputation
points.
Furthermore, a vote from a user who has written good answers in the past
(higher reputation) carries more weight; a strict anti-spam policy discourages
spammers and marketers from gaining any kind of influence in the system; and
the system automatically minimises the voting weight of people indulging in
collusion and collaborative voting, according to Prakash Sangam, business head,
Shiksha.com
Books for free
And then, completely in the 'free' realm is the International Children's
Digital Library. ICDL [en.childrenslibrary.org/] was initially created by an
interdisciplinary
research team at the University of Maryland in cooperation with the Internet
Archive. It now hosts a collection of more than 4,000 books in 54 different
languages. Tim Browne, executive director of the ICDL Foundation, says the aim
is to build the world's largest online multicultural repository of children's
literature.
Gautam John of Pratham Books, a non-profit trust that publishes children's
books, says access to books at a young age has a measurable impact on
educational
outcomes. Pratham Books, for example, has been putting up its content on Scribd
[http://www.scribd.com/group/2183-pratham-books] so that anyone can access
it for free. Since all the books are licensed under Creative Commons, the
content has been translated, transformed into audio books
[http://soundcloud.com/prathambooks]
and converted into Braille for the visually impaired.
Renuka E,
Section Officer,
ICT Centre for Visually Challlenged,
CHMK Library,
University ofCalicut,
Malappuram Dist.,
Kerala.
Get numbers right this time, help the census with correct disability info!
Question 9 relates to disability.
