dilipbarad's posterous

Workshop by KCG on NME-ICT and role of ICT in Higher Education

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Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat (initiation of Department of Education, Govt. of Gujarat) organised one day workshop on 7th June 2010 to orient university and college teachers towards National Mission of Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) – a multi-crore project set in motion by Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India.

The resource persons were invited from IIM-A, IGNOU and Delhi University. I was pleased to be one of the resource persons among such an elite class of educationist. I made presentation on 'How some web 2.0 tools can be used in Continuous Internal Assessment and prepare ePortfolios of students, institutes and teachers'.

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As I have to reach at Amhedabad Management Association, Ahmedabad before 9 am, I left Bhavnagar sharp at 6:20 am. The weather was cloudy and windy.

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The mornings are normally very cool and breezy on the highway towards Ahmedabad. But this morning was gloomy and dark – reminded of the environment created by Shakespeare for the encounter of three witches with Macbeth and Banquo.

I feared not witches, but equally ill-omened rain and cyclone.

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I drove Zen-Estilo at its highest speed. I cannot run it faster than 160 KMPH. The small cars have their limits.

I was not able to escape the cyclonic wind and torrent of rain. Soon I was amidst tumultuous outpouring of waters from the sky and tempestuous storm.

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Fortunately, I did not confront any ill-incident and reached AMA safely and before time.

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The AMA campus was fully drenched in rain and presumed a resemblance to newly wed bride. Each and every leaf of the trees, shrubs, bushes and grass were glowing with blissful glisten.

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AMA is one of the most appropriate venues for such academic gatherings. They have fully equipped auditorium and have facilities to manage all the logistics required for seminar, conferences and workshops.

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As I reached a bit early, I got chance to take snaps of the simple, sober and orderly kept auditorium.

I enjoyed sharing my experience of using some of the web tools for specific purpose like Continuous Internal Assessment and ePortfolio.
The gist of my presentation was to share an idea regarding internal assessment of students in semester system and use of ICT. With appropriate integration of Web tools (ICT), the teacher can make the classroom live, interactive and full of active participation from students.

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It can open vistas of multiple communication channels in the (virtual) classroom which is normally one way communication (Teacher to Students) in traditional mode of teaching. It can also bring transparency to the internal assessment system as all the assignments, presentations and test records with comments of teachers are available of websites and accessible to everybody. All the students can see what their peers have done and parents can also tract the academic records of their students. This activity of taking learning on the web platform can lead into auto-generation of ePortfolios of not only students, but also of the teacher and the institute. It can be of great help to students when they are out in job market. It can be helpful to teachers in their self appraisals and to the institute, in academic evaluation by external agency like NAAC or ISO. The session ended with some inquisitive questions from the participants.

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Workshop UGC NET / SLET

This presentation was prepared for the workshop at HMP Institute of English Training and Research, Gujarat (INDIA). It deals with some important questions for the preparation of UGC NET / SLET examination for the qalification of Lecturer. It also gives brief introduction about some important books on Literary Theory and Criticism.

Wikipedia and Twitter in School Curricula

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‘UK primary schools to include Twitter and Wikipedia in the curricula’


It is, in deed, a commendable move. If we want to make our future generation think out of the box, catch them young. Right from their childhood give them web 2.0 tools and let them toy with them. We do not want our next generation to be merely master-users of virtual world. Unlike today’s younger generation, we want them to be ‘creator’ of virtual wealth. We do not want them to be mere ‘users’, we want them to be ‘contributors’ to the wealth of information, knowledge and growing wisdom. To have our future generation to be such, we have to teach them the tricks at early stage of their edu-career.

Moreover, Wikipedia is free sharing web encyclopedia. By teaching our kids to master such web 2.0 tools, we also teach them moral lesson. We teach them the ethics of sharing FREE. Knowledge is not of sale, information is to be shared with one and all, wisdom is no man’s monopoly, irrespective of class, creed, colour, community or country, it should be shared, contributed and used by one and all. Indian Gurus never patented or copyrighted thier inventions and writings. It was all FREE for the bettermentof human beings. Let us instill Indian traditional ethics in our young generation by giving them reigns of technology.

Mahatma’s Memorabilia

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Auctioning and Vijay Mallya's winning auction of Mahatma's belonging is the mother of all ironies. The hype and uproar made for the belongings of the man who abstain from all sort of material possession is surprising. More than that, the memorabilia of the man who stood for teetotalism throughout his life is proudly bought back to our country by the man who earned his money form liquor business. What more do you expect from mother Irony!   

The message of the man who told that 'my life is my message' is lost in the oblivion. The man who killed Mahatma wanted to kill his ideas and beliefs. He failed. He could only kill the man. Now the people who want to keep the Mahatma alive are in reality killing the ideas and beliefs for which he stood and are trying to keep the man alive through his belongings. How ironical!

CALL - Computer Assisted Language Learning

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is a form of computer-based learning which carries two important features: bidirectional learning and individualized learning. It is not a method. CALL materials are tools for learning. The focus of CALL is learning, and not teaching. CALL materials are used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. It is a student-centered learning material, which promotes self-paced learning.