I am delighted to participate in the launch of the programme VICTERS (Virtual Classroom Technology on EDUSAT for Rural Schools). I greet the Education Department of Kerala Government, ISRO, teachers, students and other participants. I am very happy to know that this programme has a mission of taking the benefits of the space technology directly to the people at the grass-root level from remote centres and provide them educational services.

It is an important event of connecting Thiruvananthapuram with rural schools of the districts of Wayanad, Palakkad, Malappuram and Idukki for student education and teachers training. Recently, I inaugurated the ISRO-Amrita Village Resource Centre, which provides tele-education, tele-medicine, tele-agriculture, tele-consultancy to the villages located in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and interacted with students. For enabling the benefits of quality education to reach the remote villages we need a multi-pronged approach for tele-education. I would like to talk to you on the topic ?Technology Driven Rural Distance Education?.

A multi-pronged approach for Tele-Education

A three-pronged approach is essential to make distance education programme viable and a successful proposition through the universal tele-education system to all remote parts of the country. Along with EDUSAT we need Tele-Education System and the Quality Content Generation and deployment.

Tele-education Delivery System

I would like to narrate my experience in the development of a Tele-education delivery system. I had a dream; a good mathematics teacher teaching mathematics in a remote village in Attapadi in Palakkad district should be able to teach number of schools located in different parts of Kerala and interact with the students in sequence and be able to clarify the doubts. Also the teacher must be able to draw knowledge from various sources on the fly, such as internet, digital library, generated creative content and the lectures given by various experts in the same field and deliver to all the students as if they are in the same simulated class room in a cost effective manner. Such a system has been implemented in Rashtrapati Bhavan to interact with various parts of the country.

Characteristics of System: It provides virtual classrooms in a multi class and studio environment with seamless two-way interaction between the teachers and students in a collaborative framework. It provides seamless, one-to-one, one-to-many connectivity, through the broadcasting network in a multicasting mode of delivery. It seamlessly enables a remote teacher to become a teacher to all the students in a session. Unlike the other video conferencing systems and multimedia tools currently in use for tele-education purposes, this Interactive Universal Tele-education delivery system creates a virtual classroom. It enables the teacher to take the student to a live virtual tour of the subject. This provides a cost effective solution for interactive content delivery. In a comparative basis we can create 250 nodes tele-education system for interactive delivery at a cost of establishing 4 multi-station video conferencing systems.

The Experience: Recently, I addressed five colleges in different parts of Punjab as a part of Distance Education Programme. I referred in my classroom the subject what I was teaching, relevant Digital Library reference, a page from book reference and my talk delivered during an international conference on e-governance through my website. I could see all the class students from various locations. They can also see me and interact with me. Such an interactive tele-education delivery system is fully functional. This integrated solution will enable VICTERS programme to realize a cost effective virtual dynamic classroom. VICTERS may like to study the system and make use of it for realizing the goals of rural distance education programme.

Quality Content Generation

There are three components for education: lectures, practical or laboratory and library. The content includes all the above three. Content can be generated in many ways. The first one is the assimilation of the subject by an expert teacher through research study of many books and articles leading to the generation of quality and creative content in a presentable format. The teacher presents in a unique and innovative way to make the content appealing and easily understandable to the students. The second form of content could be on a self-learning method by breaking down the content into a series of question answer models. Third may be from various books, which can be extracted through a digital library and presented just-in time to all the remote students. Fourth may be from Internet, where wealth of information is available; however careful assessment should be done for authenticity. Teacher may search the information in the Internet and push the content live through the tele-education system.

The content should have supportive animations, which may even bring virtual laboratories and virtual immersion effects to the remote students. When the content is generated, it should be a sharable learning object across the nation and across all platforms. VICTERS programme authorities should work on quality content generation for enabling the remote students to understand the lecture and acquire good knowledge. The content can be further improved by making use of the student?s creative and innovative thoughts under the guidance of the expert teachers as a group activity as well as by sharing experiences with other distance education programmes carried out in neighbouring States.

As an example, my lectures delivered during various functions are dynamically updated in our website. During the address many participants ask questions on several topics. The answers to these questions are also placed in the website as supplementary information. Similarly, the teachers after delivering the talk will also be asked a number of questions by the students. The proceedings of the questions & answers session can be added to the content document for enriching it. Apart from providing tele-education the same satellite connectivity can be used for servicing the needs of Village Panchayat Knowledge Centres being planned in all village clusters.

Conclusion

EDUSAT has been exclusively made for knowledge missions, particularly for teaching and training students. VICTERS has to be configured with the following ambience.

a) EDUSAT a broadcaster with interactive terminals.

b) Content generation

c) Tele-education delivery system ? software. This should have interactive and collaborative features between teachers and students.

ViCTERS has indeed come at a right time in Kerala. Let the mission get enlarged for two way interactive communication between teachers and students and both seeing each other for imparting quality education.

I am very happy to launch the Virtual Class Room Technology on EDUSAT for Rural Schools.

May God bless you.

Questions & Answers

1. What will be the role of teacher when ViRTUAL class room facilities are made available in schools?

Ans. Information and knowledge is spread in number of places. Guiding the students to access the right type of knowledge will be the role of teacher in virtual class room. Also, the teacher develops the capacity in the students to become an autonomous learner.

2. Your Excellency, Sir, You are a renowned Scientist. How did you adjust when you were appointed as the President of India?

Ans. I had prepared a road map for transforming the nation into a developed nation by the year 2020 as a scientist. Today, I am marketing this concept among different sections of our society.

3. Sir, Why our nation launched a satellite exclusively for educational purpose Viz EDUSAT?

Ans. Education is the most important need of the country. We have to reach remote corners of the country with quality education. This can be done only through creation of Virtual Class Rooms. EduSat provides the connectivity for this task.

4. Your Excellency, Sir I would become the president of India, could I able to achieve?

Ans. You can become a an agricultural scientists like Prof M.S. Swaminathan, Nobel laureate like Dr. Sir C.V. Raman or anything as per your choice. For this, you have to fix a goal. Acquire knowledge and experience to achieve the goal. While doing so you will encounter many problems. You should not allow the problem to become your master. You should become the master of the problem, defeat it and succeed.

5. Your Excellency Sir, why do you select ?Wings of Fire? as the heading for your autobiography?

Ans. Fire signifies power. Wings signify movement. Wings of Fire signifies the conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy. The number of examples and incidents described in Wings of Fire will enable the youth to mobilize the dormant creative power embedded within themselves for great task.

6. Your Excellency, sir which is the most dangerous catastrophe in future?

Ans. Not having a vision will be the greatest catastrophe.

7. His Excellency, Sir, What is your vision about IT education to the school students even after 2020 of this millennium?

Ans. IT will get transformed into knowledge products. Information Technology combined with innovation will result in knowledge products.

8. Your Excellency, Sir, Kerala is known as ?God?s own country?, Sir, would you agree this?

Ans. I personally believe, God has blessed every state. Kerala is a beautiful state with nature blessing. It has unity of minds. 27 lakh Keralites living outside Kerala in different parts of the world are sweating and contributing to the growth of the State. You can become a developed and prosperous state before 2010.

9. Your Excellency, Sir, as High tech Culture increases element of humanity decreases. What is your valuable opinion regarding this?

Ans. Education with value system will definitely become a foundation for maintaining humaneness even when we develop high tech culture in our country. Technology must be used to assist others who need help.

10. His Excellency, Sir, How does the EDUSAT help us in selecting right job and education in future?

Ans. Through EDUSAT entrepreneurship training and confidence building can be created..

11. His Excellency, Sir, You have conquered the heights in education and profession. We would like to have your valuable advice and message from you?

Ans. You have an aim. Work constantly to excel in it. You will encounter some problems. Defeat the problem and succeed.

12. His Excellency ,Sir, do we have any plan to send personnel in lunar expeditions or in any other planets?

Ans. I am persuading Chairman ISRO to undertake such missions.

13. His Excellency, Sir, Have you received any opportunity to learn IT as presently we enjoyed? What is your first experience when you used computer?

Ans. In my younger days we did not have IT facilities. You are fortunate to have good opportunity now.

14. ?His Excellency ,Sir, How do you spend your leisure time - play or reading like us??

Ans. Reading

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