Mysore institute develops IT package for children

Raman International Institute of Information Technology (RIIIT) has developed a special package of teaching materials to assist students and teachers honing IT skills in the four southern states.

The unique package of international standard of learning with reading text, graphics, audio, video and animations also consists of material for students to recap previous topics, exercises, puzzles, quiz and crosswords with illustrations.

For effective assimilation of information and communication technology skills (ICT), the `IT kids package' provides students and teachers with a digital walkthrough, lab exercises, internet learning and classroom presentation.

Speaking to Business Standard, the Mysore-based RIIIT CEO and managing director S V Venkatesh said, despite growing importance and need for IT skills, IT is not taught as a tool, but as a conventional subject in schools. While changes in the traditional subjects are very limited, technology upgradation is very fast.

"If subject-wise this is the situation, teacher-wise competency comes into focus. Issues like whether just some computer literate can be a teacher, can he assimilate and deliver the tech knowledge which is changing at the rapid pace, whether the head master, who is generally aged over 50, is competent to understand and issue instructions and similar other factors arise. In fact, a young student is better exposed to IT than his teacher."

"It is also hard to get a capable IT teacher as an IT trained young man would prefer an IT job than becoming an ordinary teacher. As a result of these challenges quality of IT education is suffering in schools. Though students, including rural kids, are eager and capable of learning the elementary IT skills, they are in a helpless situation," Venkatesh observes.

"The question, therefore, is when we are talking of satellite education, e-learning and edusat, can we take the primary and secondary teacher and taught to those levels. Realising this scenario, we have developed the IT kids package," he says.

The package which comes with attractive printed books and materials from first to 10th standard in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, with a mixture of English, takes a student almost up to the CET level. The Kannada material, for example, is a mixture of Kannada and familiar IT words in English, making it 'Kanglish'.

The resource material for teachers provides lessons to support class wise contents and assessment methodology. A monthly journal on ICT is supplied to keep them abreast of the latest developments in the tech world. In addition, they are given an orientation programme to implement the IT kids curriculum effectively.

Expressing confidence that the package, which is already accepted in several schools in rural and urban areas, would bridge the digital divide between the rural and urban students, the CEO said adoption of regional language in the texts would go a long way. Care has been taken to make the package balanced for Indian education system with cultural ethos.

"Its experimental adoption in a rural school in Gundlupet, for example, has produced remarkable result. Even children of three years and above are comfortable with computers. Almost 95 per cent coming from the farming sector, they are learning computer basics and operation comfortably," Venkatesh adds.