Assistant professor in biological science jaya college of education, thiruninravur



Yüklə 26,4 Kb.
tarix30.07.2018
ölçüsü26,4 Kb.
#63357

IMPACT OF EDUSAT ON INDIAN EDUCATION

By K.ANURADHA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE

JAYA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, THIRUNINRAVUR

Introduction:

The dynamics of globalization and hence the new economy is demanding a new class of graduates who are highly skilled and motivated to perform a variety of tasks. If on one side the industry expects from the graduates a great deal of knowledge in their respective disciplines, the industry equally expects on the other side a high degree of competence in soft skills; be it communication or team work.

If we talk about the higher technical education, the universities and institutions are unfortunately plagued by a critical challenge – the paucity of quality teachers to address the needs of the industry. The issue of paucity of teachers in the thrust areas of engineering education is so visible that there are no faculty members even in some of the highly reputed institutions to handle thrust area subjects like Embedded Systems, Digital Signal Processing, Internet Programming and Multimedia Computing. Getting quality teachers and retaining them for a long-term are indeed significant challenges. Leveraging on its impeccable expertise in the space segment, Indian Space Research Organization has ventured into becoming a full-fledged facilitator in providing the satellite for education in India under its ambitious EDUSAT project.

ISRO in a way is exposing the universities to new opportunities that distance learning technologies could offer for institutions of higher education. These opportunities include facilitating improvements in the teaching-learning process, expanding the geographic reach of an institution’s programmes and facilitating more effective service of the student community.

Over the last few years, Distance Education has come into its own as the mainstay in the field of education. The integration of satellite technology and education has yielded rich rewards socially, culturally and economically, to name just a few. It being a truism that education has its own reward for any society, distance education has also been a boon in a more specific sense to educational institutions themselves as it allows extremely useful contact across national and international borders.Indian Space Research Organization has pioneered the use of front line space based communication technologies in the field of education and development

Launching of EDUSAT:

EDUSAT is the first indigenously designed Indian satellite built exclusively for serving the educational sector offering an interactive satellite based distance education system for the country. The satellite was launched successfully by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) using GSLV-F01 on 20-9-2004 from the launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre,Sriharikota, AP. It is mainly intended to meet the demand for an interactive satellite based distance education system for the country. It strongly reflects India’s commitment to use space technology for national development, especially for the development of the population in remote and rural locations. It is specially configured for the audiovisual medium, employing digital interactive classroom and multimedia multicentric systems. This is a path-breaking effort in the concept of tele-education.



OBJECTIVES

a) To Provide uniform, good quality of curriculum teaching for final year students of colleges, Senior Secondary Schools & primary schools, and also for technical institutions.

b) To improve the level of science education among the students, as well as to improve English.

c) To ensure that teacher absenteeism does not disturb the study of children.

d) To Reviving the interest of children in classroom studies.

e) To provide quality teacher training, so as to improve the subject knowledge of the teachers, as well as to train them to use ICT in education.

f) To improve the 'soft skills' of the children, so that they are able to obtain employment, particularly in the ITES sector.

g) To train children for appearing for All India Engineering Entrance Exam.

h) To train/familiarize children about appearing in examinations with 'objective type' questions.

i) To provide access to quality education, particularly for far flung/remote location schools.



Scope of EDUSAT Project

It will be realized in three phases:



Phase-I: This is the pilot phase of the overall project that will be implemented in three states – Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh – using INSAT 3A in Ku-band. Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) is one of the beneficiaries of this project in Karnataka

Phase-II: This is the semi-operational phase that uses new technology, DVB-RCS (Digital Video Broadcast-Return Channel through Satellite). The network will be expanded to cover two more states and a national institution through EDUSAT

Phase-III: In this phase, the entire country will be covered using six regional beams and one national beam by enlarging the network and making it operational

EDUSAT Project of ISRO

Indian Space Research Organization has pioneered the use of front line space based communication technologies in the field of education and development.

While ISRO will provide the space segment for EDUSAT system and demonstrate the efficacy of the satellite system for interactive distance education, content generation is the responsibility of the user agencies. The quantity and quality of the content would ultimately decide the success of EDUSAT System. To help in this, ISRO, in cooperation with the user agencies, has already organized 5 conferences at regional level and one at the national level to create awareness about EDUSAT and its capabilities.

Phases of EDUSAT operation:

In the first phase of pilot projects, a Ku-band transponder on board INSAT-3R, which is already in orbit, is being used. In this phase,



  • Visveswaraiah Technological University (VTU) in Karnataka,

  • Y B Chavan State Open University in Maharashtra and

  • The Rajiv Gandhi Technical University in Madhya Pradesh is covered.

In the second phase, EDUSAT spacecraft will be used in a semi-operational mode with at least one uplink in each of the five spot beams. About 100-200classrooms will be connected in each beam. Coverage will be extended to two more states and one national institution.

In the third phase, EDUSAT network is expected to become fully operational ISRO will provide technical and managerial support in the replication of EDUSAT ground systems to manufacturers and service providers. Users are expected to provide funds for this. In this phase, ground infrastructure to meet the country's educational needs will be built and during this period, EDUSAT will be able to support about 25 to 30 uplinks and about 5000 remote terminals per uplink.



Utilization of EDUSAT network by CIET, NCERT

By using this network NCERT, so far has organized the following programmes for teachers and teacher educators of our country:



  • Orientation of Teachers of KVs/ JNVs/ CBSE affiliated schools on new textbooks developed in the light of National Curriculum Framework-2005

  • Orientation of Principals and Head Teachers of KVs on NCF-05 and primary level textbooks brought out in the light of NCF-2005

  • Orientation of Fine Arts and Music Teachers

  • Orientation of Teacher Educators of SCERTs, DIETs, CTEs and IASEs on NCF-2005

  • Orientation of Teachers on Gender issues in Education

  • Orientation of Teachers and Teacher Educators on New Trends in Evaluation

  • Strengthening Guidance and Counselling: Orientation of State Level Key Personnel through Video Conferencing

In all about 100 days video conferencing was planned and organized by NCERT through EDUSAT network covering thousands of teachers and teacher educators of the country.

Impact of EDUSAT on Education- Feedback from Teachers.

The over all opinion of teachers is



  • Learning from experiments & use of teaching aids.

  • Visuals shown in TV helps in longer retention among also lead to students' better understanding of content.

  • Can see organisms that are not commonly seen.

  • Can collect information & see historical events.

  • Two to three classes can be shown the lesson simultaneously as some of the programmes have common elements across the grades.

  • Stories and plays will attract students' attention.

  • Helps in learning difficult topic with ease.

  • Curiosity to learn increases.

  • Conceptualization is possible.

  • Students pay move attention for viewing rather than just listening.

  • Enhances students' abilities to visualize.

Special Networks

One of the innovative networks on EDUSAT is the network for "Blind schools". Blind People's Association, Ahmadabad is a leading organisation promoting education, training, employment and rehabilitation for blind persons. Considering the specific needs of the blind people, an altogether different kind of broadcast network configuration delivering live audio and data which is read by blind person through its printed impression (Braille) was set up.

Apart from this, network for IIM, Bangalore connecting with its other centre in Chennai; an extended C-band network connecting all the five centers of National Council of Science Museums for promoting scientific temperament among students and general public; network for Mahabharatha Sansthan for online transmission of digitised manuscripts from remote areas through mobile terminal to centralised center for archival so as to preserve them; two networks in Kerala for imparting education and awareness to parents and teachers of mentally challenged children schools; network in Tamilnadu and Pondicherry connecting centers of Aravind Virtual Academy for providing eye-care; etc. are a few special networks, which have been set up/under implementation under EDUSAT Utilisation Programme.

EDUSAT is already providing a wide range of educational delivery modes like one-way TV broadcast, interactive TV, video conferencing, computer conferencing, web-based instructions, etc.The Indira Gandhi National Open University broadcasts half an hour curriculum based lectures daily via the national network for the students.



Suggestions

Today, our country engages nearly 55 lakhs teachers spread over around 10 lakhs schools to educate about 2,025 lakh children. Orientation of teachers and teacher educators of such a huge system at regular intervals is always a challenging task. Covering all such teacher educators only through face-to-face training and orientation programmes is virtually impossible. Organization of orientation programmes through a cascade model i.e. multi-tier training strategy (training of Key - Resource Persons, Master Trainers etc. at State, District, Block and Cluster level) may be one of the modalities for training and re-training of a large number of teachers and teacher educators of our country. Special Orientation of Primary School Teachers and Programme for Mass Orientation of School Teachers was organized through adopting such strategy. However, keeping in view the transmission loss through such programmes (training through cascade model) and the resource crunch with the states, training of teachers through distance mode (video and audio conferencing) could be a better option.



Conclusion:

As India enters the new millennium, it is necessary to sustain such kind of effort by continuously tuning it to the fast changing requirement and updating the technology that goes into the making of these sophisticated systems. The challenges continue to grow but that is what attracts and sustains the interests of personnel working in the space programme. Even if a satellite is launched, its meaningful utilization in any sector including education is a million dollar question and raises many eyebrows. But the real challenge before us is how to feed this monster and reach out the rural masses especially millions of student’s teachers and teacher educators in the country. For the successful use of this satellite a rigorous planning is need of the hour and collaborative efforts are essential for designing of the software and its utilization for achieving goals of education.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agrawal, Binod C., 1987 Television Expansion and the Indian Child: A Historical Perspective. In Television and the Indian Child, eds;

Binod C. Agrawal and Mira B. Aghi; pp. 3-9; New Delhi: UNICEF. 1981 SITE Social Evaluation: Results, Experiences and Implications. Ahmedabad: Space Applications Centre.

1978 Television Comes to Village: An Evaluation of SITE (Technical Report) Bangalore: Indian Space Research Organisation.

Agrawal, Binod C and Mira B. Aghi, eds. 1987 Television and the Indian Child: A Handbook. New Delhi: UNICEF.

Agrawal, Binod C. and Arbind K. Sinha 1999 Electronic Media and Indian Education. In Indian Education Development Since Independence, eds.

M. Mukhopadhyay and Madhu Parhar; pp 147-153. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Neurath (nd) School Television in Delhi. New Delhi: All India Radio.

Pant, N 2004 Capabilities and Applications of EDUCAT. A talk presented at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, November 2-3, 2004 (Unpublished Photocopy).



Shukla, S. and K. Kumar 1977 SITE Impact Study on Primary School Children (Technical Report). Bangalore: Indian Space Research Organisation.

www.cec-ugc.org/edusat/whole6.html
Yüklə 26,4 Kb.

Dostları ilə paylaş:




Verilənlər bazası müəlliflik hüququ ilə müdafiə olunur ©muhaz.org 2024
rəhbərliyinə müraciət

gir | qeydiyyatdan keç
    Ana səhifə


yükləyin