IT Solutions for the Education Sector

Educational institutions are fast turning to IT solutions to simplify the

management of the entire process that encompasses education, starting from

admission to examinations and also to make the teaching/learning process

interactive and interesting. All this while the teacher and student community is

expanding beyond classrooms into virtual space. Here we look at some interesting

IT solutions that are increasingly catching the attention of educational

institutions and students.

Avoiding Paper Leaks in Examinations



It's not unusual to hear of incidents where major examinations have been

postponed due to question paper leaks. A solution that seems to address this

issue is the examination management solution called intelliEXAMS by Mindlogicx

which delivers the question papers with authorized access just 30 minutes before

exam starts via an intelligent integrated system. This software solution enables

automation of the complete process of examination, whether online or offline,

starting from online registration of candidates, online scheduling of

examinations, examination fee management, internal mark uploading, online hall

ticket generation, web-based authoring tool enabling setting of question papers

by subject experts across the globe, secured question paper delivery, multiple

digital evaluation, tracking of students performance & performance analysis to

publishing of results and printing of mark sheets and certificates. The work

flow system integrated in the system provides instant access to the university

authorities for managing the whole process. Once the question paper is set using

the web-based authoring tool, it is encrypted (128 bit encryption) and then sent

to remote examination centers from where the authorized person uses a key to

decrypt and then print the papers. Further, the hardware-based authentication

makes the entire process foolproof.

Preventing Fake Student Marksheets



Students faking their mark sheet is also a very common malpractice that

generates a lot of concern amongst universities and recruiters. intelliCAS, a

certificate authentication system by Mindlogicx,  a value added tool to

intelliEXAMS,  also available independently, is a solution in this direction,

under which each student will have a unique 12 digit ID,  for his/her

certificate, called the Global Access code (GAC).  Using this solution, the GAC

of a candidate can be used by the employers to check the authenticity of the

credentials provided by the candidate, using a standard browser or a mobile

browser. Each GAC assigned to a certificate are randomly generated,

non-sequential and alpha-numeric, and can produce 131 quadrillion codes per

prefix which makes it very difficult for anyone to break the codes.The

examination management solution by Mindlogicx has been deployed by Anna

University, Coimbatore. As a part of the implementation Network Operating Centre

(NoC) was set up in the university campus, which was then connected to all

examination delivery centres across colleges where examinations happen.

Enhancing the Teaching-Learning Experience



It is challenging for educators to capture the attention of students with

scribbles on the blackboard or a whiteboard. It is equally challenging for the

students, with their short attention spans, to focus on what is being taught and

simultaneously take notes. Many IT solutions are now emerging for the

classrooms, that are set to enhance the entire teaching-learning experience and

encourage learning and retention by understanding and interaction, rather than

by rote. We look at some such technologies.

A teacher using whiteboard to teach lessons to little children in one of Educomp's centers.

SmartClass



Educomp's Smartclass initiative is bringing the benefits of technology to the
classrooms of K-12 and is capturing the interest of the tech savvy generation.

The initiative constitutes the following —

1. Creation of a knowledge center within the school that is
   
   equipped with smartclass digital content library consisting of 3D and 2D
   
   multimedia modules for different classes.

2. Connecting this knowledge center to classrooms through
   
   Intranet.

3. Equipping classrooms with required IT infrastructure
   
   complete with custom designed electronic interactive white boards, projection
   
   systems, PCs and UPS.

4. Enabling teachers to instantly assess the understanding
   
   of the students by creating smart tests using a test authoring tool and
   
   enabling students to answer to these using individual hand-held remote
   
   answering devices.

5. Smartclass system also functions as a virtual school,
   
   where parents, teachers and students can exchange information. For eg ,
   
   teachers can upload assignments for students to download, and make important
   
   information available for parents to view.

6. Schools like Padma Seshadri Group of Schools, Chennai and
   
   Kalpa School, Hyderabad have implemented this solution.

Connected classrooms



Dell's Connected Classrooms slated to be launched later this year in India,

is a bunch of technology products, services, software and training, aimed at

empowering students to express themselves creatively and share their learning.

They include technology that enable capturing and sharing information, like

interactive white boards and instruments to interact with these white boards,

technology to track student's progress through response systems and explain

concepts to students using multi-media technology.

The American School of Milan in Italy is one of the first

schools in Europe to implement the 'connected classroom'. Students at the school

use mobile technology from age 3 to 18. Using touch interfaces, they collaborate

on multi-input interactive whiteboards to create animated storyboards and

explore virtual 3D worlds. Together, they develop digital works of music and

art, and use integrated Webcams to talk to peers all over the world. They use

netbooks to use Web 2.0 tools via optional touchscreens and the IT staff manages

the netbook software and upgrades remotely from a central hub.

The Role of Social Networking



Education is not just a one-to-one affair that flows unidirectionally from a

teacher to a student. It is in fact multi-directional, flowing between educators

(sharing resources and teaching techniques), from educators to students

(teaching), from students to educators (doubt resolutions, clarifications) and

between students themselves (sharing of resources). Now with the Web 2.0 buzz,

enabling active participation of the users and collaborative and interactive

information-sharing, the age-old classroom teaching that was conceived of as

'boring' by the students is slowly getting a facelift. This is promising a 'fun'

teaching-learning experience, that is far more interactive and enriching, not

only for the students but also for the educators. Some of the Web 2.0

applications like blogs and wikis are being tried by many educational

institutions to facilitate the teaching-learning process. But of late, something

that's catching the attention of the educators and the tech-savvy Gen Y

students, is social networking.

An educational network is essentially a social network that

connects educators and students, and differs from a generic social network, in

the sense that the drive to join such networks is to facilitate better learning

and sharing of resources. They may be either be public social learning networks

that are open to educators and students across the globe or private social

networks that are specially developed for a school, college or a university,

enabling better control and privacy. Such virtual learning networks are made up

of most of the following:

A Profile Page that displays information about you, your

academic/employment history, educational goals etc.

• Friending, through which you connect to
  
  students/educators.

• Forum where discussions about various topics can be
  
  carried out.

• Groups where people sharing common interests in different
  
  topics can meet virtually, discuss and share thoughts.

• Photo/Video/Audio/document uploading and tagging of
  
  people, whom you want to notify.

• Events Calendar

• Chat/e-mail etc

Exploring Social Learning Networks



Let's explore some popular social learning networks developed:

LearnHub (learnhub.com)



LearnHub is an online social learning network run by Savvica, a Canadian
company, majority being owned by Educomp Solutions. Students and educators,

anywhere round the world, can simply sign-up, as in any other social network,

create their own home page and profile, join communities built around a specific

subjects (ex. Algebra, Education, History, Software Development) or specific

exams like CBSE, CAT, TOEFL, AIEEE etc and access a wealth of freely available

information, that ranges from pages, videos, presentations, concept games, free

test papers, etc created by experts, and other students. Students can also find

a marketplace, where they can find courses and tutor offerings from expert

teachers. There are separate sections for exploring colleges across the globe,

career guidance articles, education related alerts/news, and expert question and

answer, where a LearnHub expert resolves questions ranging from a study abroad

query to a test prep problem. These features make these websites highly

interactive and of high interest amongst the student-educator community.

LearnCentral (learncentral.org)



This is a social learning network for the educators, students, curriculum

designers instructional technologists, administrators, etc,  sponsored by

Elluminate. Once signed-up, every member can create their online portfolio, and

have their own wall, blog, network and calendar. They can join groups of their

interest and contribute to discussion, invite colleagues, connect to other

educators, share resources an teaching methodologies, attend events and

collaborate in real time.

As a member of this educational network, educators can make

use of free, virtual, real-time collaboration tool for upto 3 people, called

Elluminate vRoom powered by Elluminate Live! functionality, which is a virtual

environment optimized for learning. This collaboration environment enables

delivery of live, online learning, training, coaching, mentoring, and meetings,

except recording and integrated teleconferencing. Participants can talk over the

Internet (with full, 2-way audio), exchange text messages, display live video,

share whiteboards, multimedia files, and applications-all in one intuitive,

graphical interface. Elluminate's Collaborative Communications Framework (CCF)

ensures that everything is in the right place at the right time and they claim

to provide superior quality, high performance, and dependability-with no lag

time, whether you have a dial-up modem or high speed LAN. For larger sessions

and to enable the recording feature for later viewing and sharing the member has

to upgrade by paying for it. Also if an educational institution wants to have

their own LearnCentral community where all member profiles, content, groups, and

discussions are completely private or have to create a hybrid community where

members and/or the community manager choose which resources are made available

in the public LearnCentral network, they can go for LearnCentral Private

Community. This is a custom-branded version with highly configurable privacy

settings.

Open Source Social Networking Software



There are some open source social networking software that can be utilized

by educational institutions to develop their own private social learning

networks, connecting educators and students. Some of them  are:

* Mahara - Features that this software offers,

ranges from blogs, resume builder, file manager, institutions detail and

friending etc

* Elgg — Software offers features like blog,

networking community, file sharing, news collection using feed aggregation etc.