Digital recording facilities in schools: Tenders invited

Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has invited tenders to equip all secondary schools in the state with digital recording and video conferencing facilities as part of the ambitious Hi-Tech School programme.

Under the unique programme, 45,000 classrooms in 4,775 schools are in the process of being upgraded as hi-tech.

There will also be an array of 'Student Reporters' from all schools with their own web-based school televisions that will be interconnected.

As part the state government's Public Education Rejuvenation Mission, KITE has begun the process for deploying video recording devices for digital content preparation at schools along with video conferencing systems, a KITE press release said.

KITE has released the national tender for 4,775 numbers of multi-function printers, HD DSLR camera, HD webcam and 42-inch LED TVs, the deployment of which would be completed by June.

It has already provided laptops, multimedia projectors, projector ceiling mounting kit, USB speakers and Screens to 34500 schools, which are required to make classrooms hi-tech.

All schools have been provided with high speed broadband internet connectivity, while the networking of classrooms is fast progressing, the release added.

As many as 75 per cent classrooms have been made hi-tech till date and in order to make the rest of the classrooms hi-tech by June, KITE has planned for the school survey to start by the middle of May.

In the backdrop of schools and classrooms becoming hi-tech, KITE has started imparting specific IT training to over one lakh teachers of standards eight to 12, from April 28.

Though this training, teachers would also get acquainted with Samagra resource portal developed by KITE, which enables teachers to undertake lesson planning in digital form and also has a bouquet of digital resources in the form of video, animation, pictures, audio and simulations.

"We have taken efforts to convert all schools into digital platforms, by enabling them to independently develop educational contents for various educational mediums such as Samagra resource portal, KITE VICTERS channel, school TVs, documentaries and films," KITE, Vice-Chairman and Executive Director, K Anwar Sadath said.

In addition to this, free software applications have been made available to schools, which facilitates editing, audio video mixing, animation of educational video contents which are shot by students and teachers using handycams, he said.

Through this initiative, said to be first of its kind in the country, every school would get an opportunity to explore various steps of video production, right from script making till a complete video content, and also to broadcast the same through the school channels.