The Hindu Business Line : Te@cher's day out

For a few minutes on February 28 this year, the lobby of the Sofitel Royal Angkor resort in Siem Reap, Cambodia, sounded like a mini United Nations. Excited voices chattered away in over a dozen Asian languages, as groups of people waited to board a fleet of buses. It was day `zero' of the third Microsoft Regional Innovative Teachers' Conference and over 100 teachers from across Asia-Pacific were all set to explore the Angkor Archaeological Park world heritage site. They were going not as casual visitors, but on a collaborative mission to gather and share understanding about Angkor.

Working in 18 multinational groups, the teachers were to collect information on six themes relating to Angkor — including water, gender relations and conservation — as part of a special project. The objective, besides creating knowledge about Angkor, was to motivate teachers to collaborate, share and build a community of learners and teachers using ICT (information and communications technology), explains Vincent S.K. Quah, Director - Public Sector Programmes, Asia-Pacific Public Sector, Microsoft.

Organised as part of the company's `Partners in Learning' programme, the teachers' conference and the associated Innovative Teachers' Awards competition attempt to address issues related to ICT access and use in education, and encourage teachers who make innovative use of ICT in the classroom.

Says Sheldon Shaeffer, Director, Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, UNESCO: "This kind of hands-on work that teachers in the programme are asked to do — develop material, lesson plans, Web sites — is very important and that's why we are supportive of it."

Launched in 2003, with a global budget of $250 million for a five-year period, `Partners in Learning' has three components — fresh start for donated personal computers, school agreements and learning grants. The teachers' conference and awards are part of the learning grants component. "This is an example of how we celebrate the work that teachers have done," Quah says.

What's also unique about the programme is that Microsoft is implementing it in different ways in different countries, he adds.

In India, it is in the form of `Project Shiksha' that offers software solutions, ICT training and curriculum leadership for students and teachers in government schools. It has evoked a tremendous response, he says.

"It probably has one of the largest numbers of teachers trained through Partners in Learning," Quah adds. Over 110,000 teachers and 5.5 million students have so far been trained under `Project Shiksha'. India also accounts for a majority of the entries for the Innovative Teachers' Awards.

The Indian presence

In 2006, the third year of the awards, 14,000 applications were received from teachers across India. From these, 10 were selected to travel to Siem Reap for the third Regional Innovative Teachers' Conference, explains Tarun Malik, Group Head, Rural Computing and Public Sector Strategy, Microsoft India.

The Indian entries were as diverse as the teachers who submitted them. Project themes included mathematics, biology, physics, water conservation, English and chemistry.

Passionate and articulate, Jameel Imran Ahmed from Karnataka's Gulbarga district says computers have helped make learning more effective for his students, especially in subjects like biology. "However, it would be nice if our school could have computers of its own," he adds wistfully.

Attending her second innovative teachers' conference, Monika Jain from New Delhi believes the event is an opportunity for teachers to showcase their work to colleagues from across the world. Called "e-teacher" by her students, Monika has used computer presentations to illustrate basic mathematical concepts and helps her colleagues figure out how to use ICT in the classroom.

For Vijaya Kala Kunale from Bidar district in Karnataka, water scarcity in the locality prompted her to use computers to educate students on water conservation. She has also developed computer-based presentations on AIDS, nutrients, pollution and so on. Attendance, results and enrolment in her school have improved ever since ICT entered the classroom, Vijaya adds.

Student-centric innovation

"Children are more interested in studies after using computers in class," says K.K. Sharma from Bhopal. This very experienced teacher believes computer presentations enable students to return to a topic any number of times and revise their concepts. K. Rajesh Kumar from Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu says he uses ICT to encourage more girls to enrol and stay on in school. Similarly, he uses computer-based presentations to educate his students on matters of health and hygiene.

Having prepared over 100 computer-based presentations on various subjects, Pradeep Negi from Uttarakhand is a picture of confidence as he explains how ICT has made a difference in his classroom. Students are more motivated to learn and spend more time researching subjects, he says. However, Negi says every classroom does not have a computer, thus limiting the time students get to work with computers.

While her project was on using ICT to illustrate basic mathematical concepts to very young children, Priya G. Nath from Bangalore also believes ICT makes children more interested in learning and helps students revise concepts, particularly at exam time. D.P. Patel from Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, adds that ICT allows students to learn at their own pace.

Shovna De from Pune has used computer animation and comic book characters to explain English grammar concepts like prepositions and the relationship between nouns and prepositions. Shovana, who taught herself animation and other computer skills, now helps train other teachers to use computers in the classroom.

But among all the Indian members it was perhaps Umesh Chandra Pandey from Almora district of Uttarakhand who drew the most attention for his competition entry. Pandey's project on the periodic table allows users to learn all there is to know about each element, including details such as its history and appearance. The project has been so effective, especially for self-learning, that it is to be distributed to schools across Uttarakhand and will reach 4 lakh students, he says. Clearly impressed by this project, the judges chose Pandey to represent India at the Global Innovative Teachers' Conference and awards.

Microsoft's Quah says the most heartening aspect is "We find that teachers are actually able to share once the proper context is provided."

He believes `Project Shiksha' will need to look at new ways of reaching out to more teachers and learners. Measures such as the Innovative Teachers' Portal and an e-newsletter will be part of this process. Globally, the company is considering how the `Partners in Learning' programme should evolve in the years to come. Jacinthe Robichaud, long-time teacher and Director, Partners in Learning, Microsoft Canada, emphasises that changes in the global economy are "pushing us to think about what we want to do with education."

Talking to the teachers at the conference, it became clear that they are already going the extra mile to help students prepare for the future. Jameel Ahmed from Karnataka captures it best when he says: "People have got used to expecting something different from us."

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