US Schools to adopt Indian technology integration model for classroom teaching

New Delhi: Smart Class, an innovative technology integration program introduced by Indian eLearning company Educomp Datamatics for schools in India last year, will be introduced in schools in the US this year.

Smart Class was selected by the prestigious national education computing conference, USA (NECC) for a showcase workshop session in New Orleans in June 2004. The proposal submitted by Educomp, detailing the conceptual model of its unique smart class program, was selected from over 1,700 proposals received by NECC this year from all over the world.

Abhinav Dhar and Shantanu Prakash of Educomp, who conceptualised and spearheaded the smart class technology integration model for schools, were invited to present their experiences to a global audience at NECC event held in New Orleans mid June this year.

Smart Class is the first and the only India originated initiative showcased at NECC, which is organised each year by the International Society of Technology Education (ISTE) in the USA.

A cross section of educators and technology policy makers from all over USA, who attended the presentation, expressed their appreciation of the concept model evolved by Educomp and its relevance to American schools. This has provided tremendous boost to Educomp's plans to launch the Smart Class program in international markets.

The company is now gearing up to introduce Smart Class in US schools with a pilot project being initiated in select schools across California, Texas and Illinois in the USA this winter. The Smart Class model is already up and running at Franklin Public School, Santa Barbara, California.

Speaking on the company's plans in the US market, Shantanu Prakash, CEO of Educomp Datamatics said, "Educomp is gearing up for a commercial launch of Smart Class in March of 2005 and hopes to sign up about 100 schools in US in the very first year." Speaking on investments, he said, "We are likely to invest about Rs7 crores in developing and customising content for US schools."

With falling academic standards and high drop out rates in US schools, Educomp's Smart Class is being seen by many in the US education community as a programme that could generate greater interest among students in the class room. Educomp would be deploying its smart content and smart assessment systems in schools to move schools from low performing to high performing institutions.

The entire content has been developed by the Educomp team over the last two years and has over 4000 content modules.

The Smart Class programme has been already launched at over 25 leading schools all over India. These include the Padma Seshadri group of Schools in Chennai, Delhi Public School RK Puram in Delhi, GKD Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore, Dominic Savio in Lonavala, DPS Panchkula and DPS Agra. It aims to transform learning into a joyful experience for both the students and teachers.

The teacher uses the digital resources such as animation, graphics, images and video clippings while teaching the chosen topic. For example in a geography class on volcanoes, a video on how it erupts and its features would be shown. Multiple 17-inch monitors encased in tamper proof custom designed casings are installed in each classroom connected to the dedicated PC for the teacher in each class. The teachers' PC in is connected to a central knowledge centre at the school

The knowledge centre is virtually turned into a staff room where the teacher can request for digital resources on topics to be taught over a specified period using a powerful Smart_Class software engine developed by Educomp.

Smart Class does not entirely do away with the conventional teaching methods. "Apart from the chalk and the blackboard, the teacher can now use Videos, three dimensional images and animation to teach the chosen topic inside classroom resulting in a multi sensory learning experience for students. Abhinav Dhar says, "Our curriculum research centre in Delhi has a developed a vast repository of digital resources, which are continuously upgraded from time to time. The knowledge centre at the schools has full access to these resources at all times.

Having worked closely for nearly a decade with schools all over India and being abreast with the latest technological innovations in the field globally, Educomp is upbeat about the adoption of the innovative smart class programme and it's potential to revolutionise the teaching learning process in Indian schools. Says Educomp CEO Shantanu Prakash, "We expect to introduce the smart class programme in over 1,000 schools in India over the next 2-3 years."

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