Oxford to soon launch 3 digital platform programmes - for school children in India

Oxford University Press is launching this year three major programmes, mostly for school children in India, by using the digital platform.

The Press' Indian division is 103 years old and has a unique plan to get a stronger foothold in the Indian market.

"We have three main programmes on the digital platform

·         Oxford Educate Premium,

·         Oxford Achievers

·         My Map

 

Which we are launching soon," says Ranjan Kaul, Managing Director of OUP India.

Oxford Educate Premium is a digital aid that integrates an e-book with interactive tools and learning materials. It incorporates a variety of resources: interactive animations, videos, poem and prose animations and audios for different courses, instructional slide shows, lesson plans, answer keys, additional worksheets, image references and much more.

Oxford Achievers is a web-based assessment programme that will help in measuring the impact of a teaching-and-learning process.

"This is a diagnostic tool. It was successfully used in Hong Kong and now customised in India. We have pilot tested it in about 10 schools and have got positive feedback," Kaul told PTI in an interview.

"My Map is being used in the UK and we are customising the product to the Indian curriculum. It is also an online product and uses simple animation," he says.

With methods of learning changing and children becoming more visual learners, he says the teaching methods have to undergo changes so that they become adaptable to the learning. Kaul sees digitisation as an opportunity and not as a challenge.

"We are content developers. Print is a vehicle to deliver that content. Digital is an equally good vehicle and even a better vehicle," he says.

Two of OUP's popular products - Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Oxford School Atlas - have completed 100 years.

"Advanced Learner's Dictionary is still popular in India. It is a very useful learning tool. We have been changing the format and design of this dictionary so as to help users, like helping people in writing," Kaul says.

The Atlas had its 34th edition printed recently.

 

"We have our own cartography team now. Our 34th edition incorporates the new state of Telangana following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh," Kaul says.

 

Source | Business Standard | 13 July 2015

Govt Launches eBasta, A Digital Library Of Downloadable School Books.

The Digital India initiative is spreading it’s wings in every area possible. Over last few months there have been many initiatives launched under this scheme, but most of them have been geared towards transparent Governance and other Government related services.

Now, under Digital India initiative, the Government has launched a platform that extends may help Indian school students tremendously. Aptly called eBasta (Basta means school bag in Hindi), this new platform was unveiled today by the Government that will provide digital and eBook versions of school books and other study material to school students through-out India.

The platform, eBasta, is merely not a library of books, but a collaborative platform where school Book publishers, School teachers, students and even various etailers can participate.

According to the eBasta website, “it is a framework to make school books accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops. The main idea is to bring various publishers (free as well as commercial) and schools together on one platform. In addition to the portal, a back-end framework to facilitate the organization and easy management of such resources has also been made, along with the web based applications that can be installed on tablets for navigating the framework.”

What Can School / Teachers Do with eBasta?

The school or teachers can log on to the portal and search for eBooks and other digital content. They can then logically organize it by creating eBasta for their own students. It’s exactly like you create a bag full of schools books that are related to each standard or course.

School teachers can choose and bundle content according to their teaching methods. Access to variety of resources – text, simulation, animations, audio books, videos, etc – to choose from.

What Can Students Do with eBasta?

eBasta provides an Android Application download, which students can install on their mobile phones or tablets. The students can then go to eBasta and download the eBasta that has been created by their school or teachers. This way, the students will have all the content as required by their teachers.

Because the content is in digital format, it can be stored on any device and shared or copied making the entire content very accessible and portable for students to use.

What Can Publishers Do with eBasta?

For school book publishers, eBasta becomes a marketplace where they can read out to thousands of schools across the country. They can register on the portal and then list, sell and distribute all their content in digital format.

Apart from listing and showcasing their content, the publishers can get direct feedback from teachers and students regarding the digital content they offer. The platform also supports DRM, so they do not have to worry about piracy of books too.

Here is how all stakeholders are involved on eBasta

Source | http://www.ebasta.in/

Social media, if used rightly, can create opportunities for a global-playing field

The concept of learning and acquiring degrees invariably throws up images of classrooms, blackboards, buildings, books, etc. Physical classrooms and books still exist, but it’s becoming tough to point out if technology is a learning aid or rightly the new and a more effective way to learn. The reach and ease of using technology is changing the way learners want to learn—virtual classes, forum for peer learning and even learning on-the-go through smartphones.

One of the biggest contributions of technology to this field is its ability to make high-quality education accessible to anyone with internet connectivity. The internet has facilitated education to such a great extent that distance learning or online degrees are accessible for students across multiple disciplines—right from art history to clinical psychology—enabling students to learn at their pace and plan schedules based on what works for each.

Most successful online programmes offer students a complete package of video lessons, assignments and assessments that take away the stress of rigid schedules and offer the freedom of flexible learning and the convenience of going through one module multiple times with the video lessons playback. Most of these programmes also offer forums for posting questions, exchanging notes and learning through peers, making for effective learning and engagement. Combine this with live doubt-clearing sessions wherein the faculty is available online to answer students’ queries and you have everything that a classroom offers with unimaginable freedom and possibilities. With smartphones available at a pocket-friendly price, education is literally in your pocket.

Towrads this end, global campuses have opened opportunities for students who check out universities through virtual tours, video-conferencing with faculty or admissions directors interacting with senior students through LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, etc. They can even follow their favourite professors or alumni on Twitter.

With the changing pace of technology, it seems that shifting gears from computer screens to mobile screens is here to stay. Customised education by educational institutions and ready adaptability by students is changing the paradigm of learning. From recording attendance to assisting with course work, today there is an app for everything. The impact isn’t limited to educational apps. Crowdsourcing is another interesting way of finding solutions to academic queries.

It is important to note that, by moving education out of a classroom and into the virtual world, the one-size-fits-all phenomenon is being replaced by individualised outcomes. The teacher moves from the role of a lecturer to that of a guide. Learning becomes a shared responsibility and students have a say about the way they wish to learn.

Social media becomes the mainstay throughout a student’s and a professional’s life. How does one search for jobs? Let’s start with networking sites such as Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook. Job portals such as Monster, Naukri and Shine give access to employment opportunities beyond one’s physical reach. There are multiple options; for example web albums, blogs to video resumes that add a three-dimensional effect and reach a global audience.

Let us not forget that the internet is a relatively new development. In 15 years, we’ve progressed from emails to social media platforms. The potential is tremendous. It can open newer vistas and create more opportunities for a global-playing field.

The author is senior vice-president, Marketing, TalentSprint

Source | Financial Express | 6 July 2015