23 April 2010

Cost Effective Educational Technology For Wider Outreach

On 18 April, there was an interesting report on how Microsoft India and a Bangalore based firm Education Innovative Concepts have come up with trend setting technological breakthroughs by developing their `Windows Multipoint Server (WMS)' and `NextPC', respectively, toward a common goal:  To take the benefits of Computer Aided Curriculm to more number of children at about 50% of the cost that is being invested by school managements presently.

Such developments have a great potential in reaching children in rural areas as well and let them participate actively in the learning process.  Perhaps this will pave way for more community participation in school processes, which has always been a worrying issue to school managements, NGOs, and other education providers.

However, it is important that technology aided classroom strategies do not replace replace activity based approaches unless they are not advisable or not practically possible in any given classroom situation.

Links: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/multipoint/default.aspx and http://www.ieconcepts.in/NxtPC.aspx    

About Me

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Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
I am a retired K-12 Education Management Professional. I have worked at different levels in K-12 school systems, textbook publishing, elearning and Education NGOs. I have held memberships in The Association for Science Education (UK), American Association of Physics Teachers and The Malaysian Institute of Physics. I hold a 1st class B Sc Degree in Physics followed by B Ed [English and Physical Science] and M A [Childcare and Education] degrees. My published works include 59 articles in teacher development magazines in India and the US and a book entitled `Creative Classrooms and Child Friendly Schools' (listed in Amazon). This book is almost an anecdotal account of my professional experience in six countries (including Cambodia where I worked as Technical Adviser to the Ministry of Education, Youth And Sports). I served as mentor in the Certificate of Teaching Mastery Program offered by Teachers Without Borders.