National Policy on ICT in School Education

National Policy on ICT in Education

Suggestions / Recommendations

Paper by M K Senthil Kumar
Azim Premji Foundation

National Policy on ICT in Education: Suggestions / Recommendations

1) Situation analysis

a) The current education system in India has a number of infirmities that remain despite a number of attempts to cure the same over the last many years

b) Efforts have been made to enable access, incentivise children from the disadvantaged section to regularly attend schools etc. the quality of education in most Government schools is abysmal.

c) Everyone accepts that though there are several factors that influence child’s learning, the critical crucible of learning is still the classroom and the teaching learning process as well as the teacher constitutes the most critical part of learning for the child

d) Educationists often emphasize the need for child centric, interactive, experiential, participative, integrative and self paced learning process that also provides a joyful experience for the child.

e) In India the daunting canvass of 1.3 Mln schools, 200 Mln children (6-14 years age group) and 6 Mln teachers poses a challenge of an entirely different complexity.

f) In the context of the Government schools teachers, three most critical issues emerge: (1) lack of subject matter expertise (b) lack of understanding of pedagogical science and (3) lack of motivation.

g) Several different strategies are required to address the problem of less than satisfactory classroom culture and teaching learning processes.

h) Deployment of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is one such strategy.

i) Research and global experience of using ICT has revealed the following:

i) If used creatively, technology can help educate children in novel and engaging ways and results in learning attainment
ii) Technology makes positive difference in learning and makes learning enjoyable
iii) Supports personalized learning
iv) In an emerging technology enabled world, technology will one day enable teacher student relationship flourish on line in ways we cannot even yet imagine.
v) ICT could aid collaboration between teachers – allowing for creation, storage and sharing of lesson plans and best practices – thereby reducing burden and moving towards raising education standards.
vi) In contrast to the involved and transformative process of making child literate, the use of ICT is intuitive and can be very pleasurable for the child.
vii) Teachers’ understanding and skills as well as their inability to practice pedagogy that suits individual child is a major barrier to quality education in India and ICT has a potential to significantly supplement a substantial part of teaching learning
viii) Technology helps the teachers to teach more effectively and also helps to track learner progress

j) Education Perspective of Technology

i) Parental feedback indicates strong demand for English language and computers to be included in the schooling process
ii) Information technology to strengthen the efforts for universalising primary education
iii) Information Technology will have a number of application ranging from global access to knowledge to self based/paced learning for children
iv) Information Technology could also be the solution to a uniform high quality of instructions without replacing the teachers or reducing the flexibility of teacher in any manner.
v) Technology helps to create better culture of learning
vi) Technology benefits learners with special educational needs

k) Long term purpose of Technology in Education

i) Global Access to knowledge
ii) Sharing of experiences and best practices
iii) Consistent higher Quality education possible
iv) Self paced and self based learning
v) Effective learning for solid fundamentals early in learning life cycle, through:

(1) Virtual world of information
(2) Simulations
(3) Experiential learning

vi) IT will become a fundamental literacy for the world
vii) Information Technology makes distant education a reality through elearning -- encourages self-convenience based learning
viii) Consistent experience reveals potential of multi-media tools for easier and joyful learning

ix) Virtual tours can increase level of understanding -- scuba diving, flying an airplane or driving a car
x) Special learning tools for the disabled -- voice based learning for blind or speech recognition for physically disabled
xi) Cost effective learning

l) Immediate purpose
i) Attracting children to the school
ii) Creating excitement in and around the school
iii) Simplifying difficult concepts, thereby making learning exciting and fundamentals strong
iv) Laying a sound foundation to IT literacy
v) Enhancing teachers subject and pedagogical knowledge

2) ICT in Future Schools of India

a) Role of a teacher: The National Curriculum Framework 2005 has envisaged a
paradigm shift in the role of teacher from an instructor to that of a facilitator.

b) Pedagogy that learner friendly:

i) Presenting concepts relating to real life situation
ii) Promoting constructivism
iii) Technology to serve different needs of various children
iv) Triggering creativity and innovative thinking
v) Self paced learning

c) Assessment reforms: Technology can provide effective non-threatening diagnostic feed back of every child to the teacher to be able to guide the learner to appropriate learning outcomes. Availability of record child wise.

d) Equity: Technology provides similar opportunity to all children to learn. Content can also be developed to address several equity issues.

e) Learning Management systems: Technology has very useful applications for the same. It can also support the school leadership in several school management aspects.

f) Monitoring: Technology can reduce huge expenses on monitoring and yet provide real time and indisputable data on the basic functioning of schools like teacher attendance, children attendance, content accessed by teachers and children, completion of projects, etc

3) Suggestions for ICT Policy for Education:

a) Vision: Fully harness the potential of ICT for Universal quality education by transforming the school culture and paradigm shift in teaching learning practices

b) Objectives: The objectives of the Policy should be:

To combat large numbers of illiterates and reduction of illiteracy

To provide access to basic education in remote and inaccessible areas, and for disadvantaged and marginalized

Create a new learning environment and build the skills required for 21st century

ICT enabled pedagogy practices

Capability development of teachers, teacher support system and educational administrators and also as reflective practitioners

c) Guidelines / Directions for implementation

i) A Paradigm shift in learning environment by using ICT: The ICT in education should enable the school to realize the set out vision. The paradigm shift by using ICT enabled education is described in the following picture.

ii) ICT as pedagogical tool: Create a new learning environment by using ICT tools and transform the pedagogic practices to become more interactive and processbased so that students acquired the technical, methodological and social competencies spelt out in the NCF 2005

iii) Capability Development of Teachers and Teacher Educators: Teachers role is very important in achieving the quality universal education hence focus on teacher’s capability development on both ICT as all we use of ICT in education is very important.

a. Capacity building of teachers to use Technology: Capacity building of the teachers is necessary to not only make use of technology and the digital content it offers, but to enable them to become judicious users to achieve curricular objectives, bring about social and pedagogic changes in the classroom and address equity issues. Further, teachers should be capable for discerning useful and quality content; use ICT not only as users of defined content, but also as capable of generating their own content at the local level.

b. Capacity building of teachers through Technology – Technology has the potential to reach large number of people in short span of time and also standard content and training can be imparted across large number of teachers. ICT tools, Edusat programs, video content and Radio content can be planned to impart training modules to the teachers and interactions with experts can be facilitated.

c. Capacity building of the teacher educators; To design, implement appropriate training to the teachers and also support teachers at the school level

d. Technology enabled DIET as a resource centre to build capacity for the teacher educators, BRCs and CRCs etc.

Further details provided in Annexure 2

iv) Network and experience sharing among the teachers: In addition to developing teachers capabilities, providing an ongoing support is also an important aspect of empowering the teachers. The ongoing support should enable the teachers to become proficient ICT users and thereby enhancing their pedagogy effectiveness, lesson preparation, teaching, communication, administrative purposes and courseware development.

v) Curriculum-related Digital Content Resources. Content for the students to interact and learn as well as content for the teachers to use it in the classroom process. The digital content in the form of graphics, animations, interactive and self paced activities can be developed by the state curriculum development bodies and the same can be delivered to schools. A typical multimedia content development process, attributes, framework and specifications are outlined in the attached Annexure 1 based on our 6 years of e-content development

vi) Technology Infrastructure: The suggestive electronic infrastructure requirement per school along with costing details are as below:

Note:

It is assumed that the required civil infrastructure and electricity connection is available in the school

There is a possibility of reducing the indicated cost based on the volume discount

The number of computers/terminals deployed in a school should facilitate that all the children of a given class are engaged with educational content in a single period at the ratio of 3-4 children per terminal. This will assist the teacher in facilitating the learning for the entire class in one single period and will also pave the way for considering the CAL period as part of the unit/lesson plan prepared for the concept. Other periods like Physical Education periods need not be utilized for computer aided learning

The cost towards content (child centric, teacher centric, hybrid, video/audio content for children and teacher’s capacity building) is not considered – This could be developed / procured at state level

The computer aided learning model has to be school specific and hence the costs of this component may vary from school to school.

Tracking equipments like bio-metric finger printing devices for tracking the attendance at the school and centralized server for remote collection of data/reports from schools

vii) ICT infrastructure deployment plan for 1 Mn schools over 5 yrs period:

Rationale for year wise coverage and distribution of schools:

As per Analytical Report 2004, Elementary Education in India, 75,000+ schools have been computerized. It is assumed that; out of 1.3 Mn schools, 0.3 Mn schools have ICT infrastructure as of 2007

If we need to provide ICT infrastructure to remaining 1 Mn schools, we shall prioritize with the sequence of;

o Higher secondary school
o High schools
o Upper primary schools and
o Primary schools

Considering the equal distribution of financial outflow, we recommend;

o During the Year 1, we shall cover 14% of total schools by covering all the Higher secondary school, High school along with attached Upper primary and Primary schools as well as stand along upper primary schools and also start preparing the e-learning content
o In Year 2, we shall cover Upper Primary schools attached with Primary schools, which is 17% of the total schools
o From Year 3 to 5, we shall cover all the primary schools. The total 69% of the schools could be covered over a period of three years by covering 23% per year

viii) Monitoring and support services:

Install appropriate monitoring software on all the ICT equipment to track utilization and understand the usage pattern

Orient Cluster Resource Coordinators / Block Resource Persons to provide refresher inputs to the teachers as well as monitor the program

Use Satellite channel to provide program support to the teachers and periodical review of the ICT based intervention

ix) Evaluation: Evaluation has to be an integral part of ICT implementation plan.

Capability Development Programs: At the end of each training program, feedback (either through questionnaires or focus-group discussions) on the effectiveness of the program and suggestions for improvement is to be gathered from the participants. These feedback and suggestions would help to refine the capability development programs in terms effectiveness as well as usefulness

Feedback on Teaching-Learning Environment: The periodical feedback is to be collected on the culture change in school due to the deployment of ICT in the Schools

Content/Resources: Periodical review and checks required on the content deployed in the schools. The need assessment and contextual enquiries should be carried out on periodical basis to feed relevant information for creation of digital content resources.

Impact on learning gains: There should be a periodical assessment on both cognitive and non-cognitive areas of impact due to the intervention of ICT in the teaching learning process.

d) Way forward:

i) Where technology is effectively used in classrooms, learners are more likely to be motivated and enthusiastic about their work hence ICT in Education should be taken up on priority basis across all the schools in India

ii) To develop creativity and problem-solving skills, ICT in Education will complement existing school environment with avenues for enhanced effectiveness

iii) In the two years period, every child in High school would have access to ICT in the school premise for a minimum of one period a week each for Mathematics and Science and one period a week on internet linked computer for Social Sciences and exploration into the external world of knowledge

iv) In the three year period, every child in Upper primary school will have access to ICT in the school premise or off the school premises for at least one period a week as a part of Technology Aided Learning supplement to the curriculum

v) In the three year period, every community in which the school is located will have meaningful interaction for mutual benefit initiated by the presence of technology in schools

vi) In the three year period every BRC and CRC will be equipped with ICT resources, and every teacher will be taken through ICT assisted inservice teacher development

vii) A Knowledge Portal is recommended to be setup. This knowledge portal would be available to local education authorities at State, district, block, cluster and school levels. This portal would host all the education related material, for example, building case studies and regional/local planning/demographics information; news articles from national, regional and local press, policy areas such as academies and other educational material

viii) It has been found that usage of one computer by more than three children per computer at a time makes it very difficult for each of the children to use the device directly. As such, a maximum of three children to a PC is recommended

ix) There are a number of organizations in India that are developing curriculum based or non-curricular education software content. Many of them are doing so on commercial basis. Therefore, especially in the context of Government schools and Government aided schools, it becomes necessary to allow only such education software content that meets certain pre-determined criteria defined by each state content validation panel

x) All education software content used in the Government and Government aided schools should require prior approval of “Content Approval Committee” (CAC), an autonomous body, which could be located under SSA.

xi) A system of monitoring the health and usage of ICT hardware and software should be laid down, including its upgradation and replacement.

xii) A Research & Evaluation cell should be in place for ICT in Education to guide the efforts for ICT deployment

xiii) Policy should encourage public-private partnership in deploying ICT in Education

xiv) Higher subsidy for deployment of solar power in rural areas, where grid power is available for less than 12 hours, should be available to make usage of ICT in Education possible

xv) ICT policy should allow citizens and civil society organizations to use information which becomes available to them strategically to influence or broaden their participation

xvi) Commence the local content creation by the teachers and children once they are familiar with basic operating skills

e) Challenges

i) Availability of Quality electricity for sufficient duration to ensure usage

ii) Availability of Education Technology specialists and good instructional designers

iii) Infrastructure uptime in the rural areas

iv) Freedom for states to pilot innovative models

v) A monitoring mechanism which can provide information on status of resources and its usage. Guidelines to monitor the health of hardware/software as against contracted terms and transparent reporting.

vi) Public awareness of the status of ICT resources in schools/departments

vii) Free access to kiosks/service centers etc for schools to use them to upload/send regular reports.

viii) Freedom for schools/Cluster etc to hire local maintenance

ix) Varying degree of teachers motivation level

x) Special concessions for ICT deployment in rural areas and for education – say higher subsidy for solar etc

xi) A well developed ICT curricula (many states already have) which will have to be revised almost every year given the continuous developments in technology

xii) Educational perspective/vision for introducing ICT to schools

xiii) Approaches and standards for using ICT for school development

xiv) Content, standards and guidelines

Annexure 1

Content Development Process, Specification and Framework

A. The concept:

Computer Aided Learning Program (CALP) seeks to create an environment, where learning and assessment is fun and the opportunities to learn is equitable among all children. CALP is introduced in rural government elementary schools covering the classes 1 to 8 to attract & retain children and enhance their quality of learning by making “Learning Play”, “Assessment Fun” and “Equal opportunity for all”

CALP objective is sought to be achieved through story based, animated cartoons, interactive games and riddles with the use of multimedia features in local languages. Spontaneous, self initiated and self regulated, the three critical aspects that make an activity play. CALP to make Learning Play uses cartoons, story line and music as attractions for self initiation and engagement in learning.

CALP is about encouraging the use of technology in class-rooms and NOT necessarily just about children using the content in isolation in Computer Aided Learning Centres (CALC). However, in CALP, the child cantered multimedia interactive content is at the core and forms the nucleus.

B Approach to content development:

Content is at the core of Computer Aided Learning Programs. In year 2002, the Foundation organized a National Level Teachers workshop to understand content requirements for the CALP. In the workshop recommendations were finalized about the use of computers and the nature of content required for rural government elementary schools. Some of the key recommended are listed below:

Use of computers:

Content to be used directly by the children

Use computers for Computer Aided Learning and not computer literacy

Content should be in regional language / medium of instruction

Nature of content:

Opted for Competency based content and not textbook based content

Prioritize on topics that are hard to teach/learn

Content should also have an opportunity to learn in Hindi and English

Co-curricular content to address critical areas

On Pedagogy

Content to supplement / reinforce the competency / concepts taught in classroom

Use of story, riddle, game, animated, interactive, self paced content with rural context to engage the child

Use of language and voice over support to assist child yet to learn to read

Weave in values through characters in the content

Provide Non-threatening and Motivating feedback

CD should have Beyond classroom activities for children and teachers reference material

The content delivery in the form of CD till the schools gets reliable connectivity Based on the recommendation the Foundation devised an approach to create multimedia content leveraging the academic expertise available in Bangalore and the technology companies working in Education, Learning and Animation fields.

Azim Premji Foundation has classified the content into curricular, co-curricular and local content. In the four year period since 2002, the foundation has created over 100 master titles.

Curricular Content:

The objectives for developing academic curriculum based content are as follows:

Provide additional learning tools to children in the form of multimedia interactive content for the rural government school children to reinforce their learning in the traditional classroom.

Equip teachers with more ideas on the frequently asked questions by children regarding the topic under discussion

Create a self-paced, non-threatening, learning environment online that will enable “slow-learning” children to learn about the topic, as well as high achievers to go to higher levels of difficulty in any topic. The content in this case, is therefore a learning aid and not a teaching aid.

Provide additional information to children, beyond what is required as part of the prescribed curriculum, about the topic of the CD.

Provide ideas to teachers on how to help children understand and learn the same topic without the use of a computer.

Based on our experience, the main features of the software content to be used in rural government schools are as follows:

1) The content can be used directly by children with the help of a facilitator
2) The multimedia interactive content is seen as a supplement to the traditional teaching-learning process
3) The content is set in the local rural context and is developed in local languages so that rural children can easily use them
4) The content enables peers to discuss the learning as they try to use and navigate the CD
5) Topics for various standards are arranged in an increasing level of difficulty in the textbooks
6) The teachers are trained to integrate the content with their teaching learning process

Co-curricular content:

There are a number of aspects of a child’s access to information that are taken for granted in the case of an urban middle class child. In the case of a rural child, there is little or no access to general awareness reading material. Even if the child wants to access the same, the language barrier immediately comes up. The rural child is at a tremendous disadvantage with respect to co-curricular aspects of learning both because of the language barrier, as well as lack of physical access to such resources.

Local Content created by Children:

The purpose of creating local content is to encourage teachers and children to proactively explore and capture local realities into the computers and use this process as a learning opportunity. It is anticipated that the excitement of working with a new medium and creating “their own thing” might excite children to learn more. The local content program initiated in 48 schools across Karnataka. So far, 120 projects have been created by the children.

Content development process:

Foundation has come up with a process for developing curricular and co-curricular CDs which is illustrated below:

The curricular and co-curricular CD contains:

1) The Main Story / Menu: This part of the CD will focus on covering all the academic aspects as outlined in the Scope Definition submitted by the Foundation. This part of the CD is expected to cover nearly 30 minutes of runtime of the CD.

2) Teachers’ Resource Bag: Online Teachers Resource Bag to provide additional ready reference material to equip teachers in handling some difficult questions that may be asked by children. This section of the CD will need about 5 minutes of run-time of the CD.

3) Beyond the Curriculum Activities: This section is designed to provide children, an opportunity to learn more about the topic of the CD than is expected from a curriculum/ textbook point of view. This section of the CD will need about 5 minutes of run-time of the CD.

C. Specifications for creating multimedia interactive content:

The specification for the interactive multimedia content is categorised into functional, technical, design and program specifications, which are outlined below:

Functional Specifications:

Use of background music, jingles and sound effects to be included as appropriate as a part of the scope.

The content that needs to be developed for rural government schools has to be child-centred, i.e. children will need to be able to use the content on their own, with or without the help of the facilitator.

The contents have to be mapped as per state curriculum

The education content in the CD has to be creatively designed in a manner in which the child will be attracted to use the CD voluntarily.

The games introduced in the CD should attempt towards learning, assessment of the topic and also to enhance the psychomotor skills of the child

The CDs should introduce assessment requirements into games and activities through out the CD without making it very obvious to the child that he/she is being tested.

Technical Specifications:

The CDs developed should be compatible to Celeron 300 and above with 128 MB RAM with a CD ROM drive 482x and above

The CDs should install necessary plugins required for viewing the CD and should be auto run. They should be designed so as to accommodate Hindi language. In case of English language learning CDs, the approach will be advised by the technical advisory panel. The content should be done using dynamic text and audio

The CD should be compatible to be best viewed in 640 x 480 resolution.

Design Specifications:

1) The multimedia content software should be designed in a way such that a child can identify himself / herself with it

2) The characters used in the software should mostly cover Rajasthan look and feel in additions to Indian attires

3) The content should be designed in such a way that the child can learn the contents while playing the game

4) The language and the elements used in the game should be crisp and it enables the child to understand and comprehend easily. Long winding conversations and sentences are a major distraction for the child.

Program Specifications and other information:

xv) The software should have minimum conversation and more of content, which the children can use, immediately after entering the game. The instructions have to be clear for the child to play the game. Wherever possible, the visual demo has to be enabled for the instructions

xvi) The programs and games should be designed in a way wherein at least 2-3 children can play at a time. Solitary games should be totally avoided

xvii) The time gap between a question and answer in a game type session should not be more than 45 seconds and not less than 30 seconds

xviii) Uniformity should be maintained in using the keyboard and mouse movements

xix) The latest interface, information architect and interaction design could be included on mutual

xx) Summary of script for the scene - What is happening on the screen related to story, characters and subjects. Details of static and animated elements. If animated what kind of animation. Details of sketches should be provided to each activity/game and continuation of game. Sketches of all characters, icons and things used in the CD. Movement of characters from screen to screen

xxi) Text on screen - A) All texts including pop ups if any B) All dialogues between the characters

xxii) Text - Audio/VO - Text as per voice over

xxiii) Sound effects - All sound effects as applicable to the sketch

xxiv) Interactivity - A) Between user and computer (B) inputs required by user to play the game (Eg: enter name/age/class etc.). Interactivity b/w characters

xxv) Navigation - A) Keys used while playing the game B) Movements that happen when use right keys and wrong keys C) what happens in the next screen D) Beyond Curriculum activities links should be included in the script format

xxvi) Results - A) Increase/decrease in scores B) Feedback (Eg: Well played/good move etc)

xxvii) Help - A) How the help screen appears and icon for help. Any voice over help (if applicable)

Specification for Character and graphics:

1. Character should be age specific (like children, Adult, Kids, Animals, Mascot, Parents and grand father and so on)

2. Character look and feel should be specified to story board

3. Character should be attractive and get along with the background environment

4. Character’s should be appropriate in size and length according to the surrounding characters

5. Character should be of a rural look and feel and also the back ground should depict the same

6. Contractor should send the sample of character’s along with their names as per the story board and should also have an alternate character ready if any replacement is required

7. Character should be made more emotional and expressive

8. Main characters should have more focus (like close up’s and fades effects) to show its importance and relevance in the story

9. Character’s should not be duplicated by just changing the dress or hairstyle

10. Fantasy character’s can have varied proposition, but it should not distract the attention of the user

11. Character quality and finishing should be clear and crisp

12. Character colour combination should be pleasant and attractive

13. Character’s should be child friendly and commonly seen by the user in their daily life (optional)

Specification for Animation:

1. Length of animation should be maintained according to the requirement. Unwanted animation to be cut down which helps the user to complete viewing the title efficiently. This in turn will reduce the file size and increase the performance of the title

2. Animation speed to be in sync with the Voice over and should be more realistic. This helps the user to view the title at his / her pace. And also user would not miss out on some important aspects

3. Quality of animation should be clean, clear and smooth with out any jerks. Minimum of 16 frames per second should be used

4. Perspective of animation should be taken care to show important aspects in the title

5. Effects in animation to be improved to show learning objects more impact

6. Animation area to be fixed much in advance so that we get more text area and a balanced layout

7. Consistency in animation is very important that is all the screens should have the same flavour and flow

8. Background screen should be relevant for a better and pleasant animation

9. Direction in animation is a must as this will reduce a lot of man hours and also give scope for more fine tuning time

10. File size of the animation is to be kept very low so that there will be a lot of smoothness in running the animation.

Specification for navigation and usability engineering guidelines:

ix) Screen size should be maintained to 800x600. (auto expand to higher resolution is required)

x) The basic navigation of the CD will be linear

xi) But options of non-linear navigation can be given. Say to a particular activity or game

xii) Use “Close” or “Exit” – please don’t use “X”

xiii) The global navigation bar and buttons should be defined during script stage. It can be common for a cluster of CDs

xiv) Buttons and links should look clickable

xv) Buttons should be created uniformly and should be visible without any crack edges

xvi) Buttons should not be kept on the extreme corners of screen as it could get hidden or go out of visibility due to different screen resolutions

xvii) Text should be displayed on mouse over clearly defining the use of the button/link

xviii) Icons in the button should be self explanatory as far as possible

xix) Size, shape, colour and positions of buttons should be consistent

xx) Buttons not in use in the particular screen should be disabled (lighter colour/no mouse over effect). But don’t remove them from the navigation bar

xxi) Buttons should not be clickable only on the text part. It should be clickable all over it, like in flash (HIT frame on button options – Add a complete box for the clickable text)

xxii) No skip or bookmark options within game Skip option on academic content can be allowed for 2nd (bookmarked) time users

xxiii) No skip or bookmark options within game

xxiv) Each game should start with clear and simple instructions. The same should be available to the user during playing the game via “help” or “instruction” button

xxv) Games can also have a “how to play” Demo screen

xxvi) Pop-up should be used very effectively. All pop-up should have a “close” button and not a “x” icon

xxvii) Consistency should be maintained throughout the CD with respect to layout, font, colour, bullets, alignment, buttons and popup etc

xxviii) Global Menu should not overlap the other instruction screens, help menu, headings, texts, text windows, graphics etc and vice versa

xxix) When a popup window is active all the other buttons should be disabled until the popup is closed

xxx) Popup windows should clearly prompt to the close button

xxxi) Help popup windows should work only on the respective screen Assessment/activity/game screen: Any popup window opened like “Do you want to play again” or “Congrats - Click on next to continue”, the assessments or the animations behind these windows should stop and also the timer should stop if provided

Quality Check Parameters:

2. Buttons should be created uniformly and should be visible without any crack edges

3. Fonts size, font style, font alignment should be consistent for the content, headings, subheadings, popup windows etc

4. Screen size should be maintained to 800x600

5. Buttons should not be kept on the extreme corners of screen as it would get hidden or go out of visibility at different screen resolutions

6. Use consistent layout, font colour, bullets, alignment with close buttons and popup in all instruction windows

7. Menu (next, back, home, exit buttons etc) should not overlap the other instruction screens, help menu, headings, texts, text windows, graphics etc

8. When popup appears on the screen all the other buttons should be disabled until the popup is closed. Example – Main menu, instruction menu or ‘Game Over’ popup menu etc. Also the popup menu should prompt the close button for clarity

9. Buttons should not be clickable only on the text part. It should be clickable on all over the text, like in flash (HIT frame on button options – Add a complete box for the clickable text)

10. Help should work only on the respective help screen

11. Check the complete CD title with bookmark and without bookmark for better bug free

12. Assessment screen: Any popup window opened like “Do you want to play again” or “Congrats Click on next to continue”, the assessments or the animations behind these windows should stop and also the timer should stop if provided

13. Keep all the VO levels balanced through out the recording with out any disturbance

14. Reduce background music when there is a VO

15. Source files should be of same as Release version

16. Files like fla or swf should not be protected (what do these mean? Explain)

17. Graphics should be clear and clean

18. Make only EXE file visible out side the folder and all the supporting

19. All the files should be inside the folder.

Annexure 2

ICT in Teachers Education

A. Introduction:

The term ‘ICT in Teachers Education’ evokes a myriad of thoughts on various aspects starting from role of technology in teachers education, ICT as part of curricula in teacher education, training teachers in the use and integration of ICT to facilitate learning by children, empowering teachers to choose appropriate technology, etc – all these thoughts presupposes that ICT in teachers education means preparing teachers in the use of ICT to supplement their teaching and to make them understand the deployment of technology from the perspective of an effective pedagogical tool.
However, another equally important use of ICT would be its use for the capacity building of teachers. The capacity building is not restricted to improving the ICT skills of the teachers but more importantly the intention is to exploit the potential of IC technology to build the professional competence of teachers, to develop their proficiency in class room management practices, to enhance the quality of instructions, etc.

B. Issues:

Presently the approach to build the capacity of the teacher is to train teachers during their service which is called as ‘in service training’. We also have the ubiquitous refresher trainings for teachers.

There is a widespread belief that more often than not teachers training lacks rigor, is more of a ritual, is of abysmal quality, that the resource persons lack facilitation skills and usually are perfunctory in their approach to training, there is dilution of inputs in a cascade model, extended duration of training resulting in cognitive overload, no follow up to assess training impact, no monitoring to ensure that inputs provided to teachers during training are reflected in improved quality of teaching processes, lack of up dated subject matter expertise in trainers etc.

Some of the tough challenges in current Teacher Education process are:

xxxii) Large number: More than 5 million teachers to be trained in 1.2 million schools spread across the country in different geographies and inhospitable terrains.

xxxiii) Absence of large number of master facilitators: Difficult in finding and developing a large base of master resource people who can contribute to Teacher Education.

xxxiv) Lack of uniformity and consistency in quality of development: Lack of uniform availability of experts’ guidance to enhance teachers’ capability in delivering improved quality of teaching.

xxxv) Real time sharing of best practices: Present traditional training does not envisage disseminating of best practices or real time sharing of new principles derived from experimental research

xxxvi) Lack of ready access to vast knowledge: It is stated in UNESCO’s document ‘ICT in Teacher Education’ that knowledge base of humanity doubles every two to three years and there are 7000 science and technical articles being published each day.

C. Suggested solutions:

Technology has a potential to address all the challenges listed in B 1-5 above.

Large number: Technology could be used to reach all the teachers in real time. States like Karnataka have several times used this to contact all BRCs and large number of teachers at the same time. A detailed network with communication center at every cluster can be established with combinations of several communication technologies including satellite network, TV, video, audio, LCD projectors etc.

Absence of large number of master facilitators: Preparation of teaching learning aids in the form of audio-visual equipment, detailed facilitation guides including films, print material etc. can significantly address the quality master facilitator issue.

Lack of uniformity and consistency in quality of development: top quality teaching learning aids that are based on technology such as audio-visual CDs, digitized textbooks, TV, Power Points Presentations etc. can support the uniformity and consistency aspect.

Real time sharing of best practices: Web-based portals that facilitate interaction among schools and teachers can address this challenge.

Lack of ready access to vast knowledge: Digital libraries are easy to build, can store huge data in a smaller space and are convenient to use/access. Internet connectivity can provide a real time access to world knowledge.

D. The Technology:

E. Deployment:

The Satellite interactive terminals are proposed to be deployed in Block Resource Centres (BRC’s). There are around 5000 BRC’s across the country. The deployment will be interactive both on audio and video.

It is also proposed that each of the school to be equipped with a 29” TV with IP-ROT/set top box to receive content which are disseminative in nature and which are basically to reinforce or refresh the earlier trainings and also to provide learning content to children at school. At school there will be no provision for interactivity.

F. Costs: Rs. 175 Crore

Note:

Under budget for ICT in schools costs of TV/IP-ROT/set top are accounted

Costs of setting up Hub is not taken into account

Costs of developing appropriate content is not taken into account.