Capacity Building for Teachers

   Capacity Building or Training has been one of the prime activities of IT@School Project since its inception in 2001. The Project has bought in a new culture of learning wherein the teachers would transform themselves into IT enablers, wherein they are capable of handling their subjects more efficiently using ICT. This new culture would also pave way to a situation wherein in the near future, students would themselves become the IT enabler, with the support of these teachers. As IT education is provided by subject teachers (who need not be experts in IT), there is a need for providing training to impart adequate IT skills to teachers and support them with content and support systems to help them transfer this learning to the students.

    During the first phase of the Project, it was understood that even though some of the schools had appointed a separate person as IT instructor for their computer labs, it was learnt that a huge gap existed between the so-called instructor and teachers as well as students. It was evident that by posting an IT instructor would in no way help in facilitating ICT education in the schools but indeed would negatively affect the entire learning system. The subject teachers in schools themselves had to assume the role of the IT enabler and this core principle of empowering the existing teachers to use IT as an educational tool was a major strategy adopted by the Project.

So far, the Project has trained over 2 lakh teachers of the state.

Some of the training programmes provided to teachers are the following.

i.    ICT training: Training given to familirise the basics of Operating Systems and office packages and other      application software.
ii.    Hardware Training: 3 day training programme on hardware maintenance and basic support.
iii.    Internet Training: This 20 hour training programme was given to all SITCs and interested school teachers. The trained SITC then trained all High School teachers in their school. Government has also issued strict instructions that every student in Std X in the school should get atleast 10 hours of internet exposure per year.
iv.    IT Training for the Visually challenged: In association with Insight scheme of Kerala State IT Mission, the Project has successfully imparted IT training using free software for teachers of special schools for visually challenged, by exclusively using free software based screen reading software named ORCA.
v.    Camera handling training: Two day training on camera handling was given to the teachers, enabling them to create educational videos which could be beneficial in implementing ICT enabled education.
vi.    Training on ICT enabled content: Specific training on ICT enabled content was provided to teachers so as to enable them to use ICT enabled content in all subjects in order to equal teachers in classroom transaction.

Capacity Building for Students

The Project identified a group of students from each school as Student School IT Co-ordinator (SSITCs) who support the SITCs in their school in all IT related matters. As many as 27,764 SSITCs were given intense training in Hardware. In addition to this a 5- day training in Animation was provided to 12,677 students. In the current year, IT@School Project has introduced another unique initiative ‘Hi School Kuttikootam’ to boost the activities and interests of students in ICT enabled learning. Students who are part of the IT Clubs in schools, would be given specific training in five areas viz Animation and Multimedia, Hardware, Electronics, Language computing and Internet and Cyber Safety. As many as 1 lakh school students in the State would be part of this programme in this academic year itself and IT@School project would develop a mechanism for these students to provide the awareness and training for other students and parents.

   Before the commencement of the Project as little as 500 computers only were available in the entire schools in the state. The Project conducted a detailed school survey with the help of Master Trainers and School IT Co-ordinators and subsequently the Project was able to provide necessary infrastructure in schools in a phased manner. Initially computer labs and multimedia rooms were setup at schools. The Project was able to deploy ICT hardware and equipments to the schools, with the help of the centrally sponsored “ICT in Schools” scheme during 2007-2012. As per this scheme a total of 4071 schools covering from Std 8 to 12 were benefitted with several ICT tools such as Laptops, DLP Projectors, Printers, Scanners. These ICT equipments were supplied to the schools after scrutinizing their actual requirement.  
  

  The Project cameup with a unique concept for the maintenance and repair of damaged computers at schools – the Hardware Clinics. Through this programme, intensive hardware training was given to the teachers which boosted their confidence to such a level that they could handle most problems found in PC. Through this programme, every year Crores worth of ICT equipments are made functional, which would otherwise be kept apart as e-Waste. From 2015-16, the Project has associated with Directorate of Vocational Higher Secondary (DHSE) by which VHSE students would be trained in the Hardware Clinics , who would inturn repair the faulty ICT equipments in their region.  
  

    The Project has provided Broadband internet connectivity to all High Schools and Educational Offices of the state, in association with BSNL.  Detailed usage norms were also issued to all schools with respect to the internet connection provided to ensure safe and secure browsing at schools. As on date the Project has provided broadband internet connectivity to 4,494 schools and some selected educational offices in the State. In November 2016, the Project signed an MOU with BSNL for providing Broadband connectivity to 9401 LP and UP schools in the State.  
  

    IT@School Project has also come up with a unique programme for funding the electrification of more than 20,000 class rooms in government schools this year. A total of over 2035 schools, which include 1045 high schools has benefited in this scheme, by getting 10 classrooms and their computer labs electrified. With electricity available in classrooms, it would be possible for the teachers to bring in laptops and projectors and even wireless internet into classrooms, enabling ICT based teaching and learning.

    In order to implement an effective ICT enabled educational system, it is essential that the right content is developed and made in use. The Project understood the importance of Free Software and trained a group of subject experts to create ICT content for the school curriculum.  An important fact to be noted here is that all these contents and applications which are developed by the Project are completely developed or customized using Free Software only. The main reason for adopting free software platform is that it gives freedom to an individual to study, copy, modify and re-distribute any content and this process would be beneficial to the whole society, besides considering the cost factor.
 

  IT@School successfully developed its own Operating System - IT@School GNU/Linux- which is now being used in all the schools in the state.
   

   Apart from this, several educational software like Dr. Geo, Rasmol, K-Tech lab, Geogebra, Chemtool,Kalciumetc are being extensively customised by the Project in developing teacher friendly applications for facilitating complete ICT enabled education in the state. Dr. Geo and Geogebra are being used for teaching Mathematics, whereas Rasmol, Chemtool and Calzium are used for teaching Chemistry. Geogebra  K-tech lab and PhET on the other hand is used to teach Physics. PhET is a collection of physics experiments and simulations developed by a group of scientists headed by Carl Edwin Wieman, the Nobel Prize Winner.  
   

   The Project has also prepared interactive multimedia CDs and handbooks & Training modules for ICT. Every content developed by the Project is strictly as per the new curriculum approach based on the National Curriculum Framework 2005. While most of the story boards and scripts are developed by the Master Trainers, intensive training is also given to the teachers to teach using the new contents that are developed.
   

  The Project developed a Resource Portal in 2010 (http://resource.itschool.gov.in) which enabled the self learning capabilities of students. This was a major step in the ICT education in the State.
    

   For the first time in the country, an unique Resource DVD for teachers was developed by IT@School Project, which included the latest edition of Edusoft, 50 selected articles from Malayalam Wiki, Malayalam Computing tools, IT@School Linux Operating system, New Edition of Ubuntu OS, ICT Training module, Educational contents on Biology &Maths  and PDF versions of Textbooks and Handbooks.
    

   IT@School Project introduced SchoolWiki, a customized version of WIKI, which is the largest and most popular general reference website sought in the internet. The portal namely www.schoolwiki.in provides comprehensive knowledge database of all schools in the state, and include the learning outcomes of students derived from group activities as well as various educational contents prepared by the teacher groups. Launched completely in Malayalam, Schoolwiki is a never ending process, wherein the pages get updated every day. Each school in the state would be able to key-in all their basic elementary details, their historical references, infrastructure details, Alumni, School websites, Blogs etc into schoolwiki. Apart from these, schools would be able to upload images and videos. The aim of schoolwiki is to bring out collaborative data building and to generate more interest among students to learn Malayalam and to generate more contents in various subjects. Schoolwiki also features an “ICT Learning Corner”, which would include the various contents prepared by schools for all subjects in ICT enabled education.
     

   The ICT enabled education in the State started with the introduction of an IT Textbook for Std 8 in the year 2003. This was followed by Textbooks for Std 9 and 10 in the subsequent years. All content developed by the Project is as per the new curriculum approach based on the National Curriculum Framework. The revised textbook for Std 8 which was well acclaimed by the learning and teaching community for its innovative approach in ICT enabled education. The textbook contents were developed in such a way that students could learn various topics by themselves by making use of numerous ICT tools designed for each subject. The Project developed ICT handbooks for Upper Primary section in 2009 and for Lower Primary section in 2012. The Kerala model of teaching IT skills like Video editing and animation effortlessly to students through fun activities was featured in the National ICT education policy of 2011.