virtual open schooling: the road ahead for india

Virtual Open Schooling:

the Road Ahead for India

15 March 2013

Ramesh C. Sharma

International Conference Education for All: Role of Open Schooling

National Institute of Open Schooling

After our Independence in 1947…

• Concerns of The Government of India

• To look for an alternative system of education

(to the formal education)

• Provisions in First Five Year Plan (1951-56)

• Need to address the increasing demand for

education.

What is being done…

• Primary

• Upper Primary

• Secondary and

• Higher Secondary

• Different initiatives: UEE, USE, RMSA

• Still measures inadequate

Mid Term Appraisal of the 11th Five

Year Plan (2007-2012)

• Strengthening 44,000 existing secondary

schools

• Opening 11,188 additional secondary schools

(through up-gradation of upper primary

schools)

• Appointing 1,79,000 additional teachers and

• Constructing 80,500 additional classrooms.

Open schooling

• an alternative to the main stream educational

channels

• educational opportunities (courses and

programmes) are provided at primary or

secondary level

• through distance education mechanisms

OPEN SCHOOLING IN INDIA

• National Open School (NOS) established in 1989 and renamed as the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) in July 2002

• Open Schools (SOS) in 17 states of India, viz., Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Jammu &Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Bihar

ICTs and Open Schooling

providing educational opportunities to large

masses up to pre-degree level courses

Alternatives to…

Exclusive face to face

learning models

• Internet - enabling

learning anytime,

anyplace

• Online / Hybrid /

Blended Learning

Models

Virtual (or online) Schools

Where students can learn and carry out tasks online as they would have done them in a regular classroom

Empower students

to learn at their

own pace, time and

place convenient to

them

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/blog/posts/2010-11-29/Is-Using-an-Online-School-at-Home-Right-for-Me.aspx

ConnectionsAcademy

https://www.facebook.com/ConnectionsAcademy

virtual schools model

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Benefits of Virtual Schools

• Personalized, tailored content: suited to individual learning

• Flexibility: Anywhere Anytime access, students can enrich their skills in learning a new subject or take up a course or class normally not available at their schools

• Lower costs: Saves on permanent infrastructure costs

• Access to high quality education: Access to quality teachers and peers, increases collaboration

Skills they learned through a virtual school experience

My fellow classmates, we’ve all made it through online high school.

Along the way, we became independent and self-motivated students. Our teachers taught us how to write a research paper, apply the scientific method, and use the Pythagorean theorem. What I believe they taught us the most was to think creatively, have confidence in ourselves, be responsible individuals, have goals, and have the fortitude to achieve those goals. When our social studies teachers were teaching us about the past, they were opening our eyes to what our future could hold.

- Aaron Ridenour, Graduation Speech, 2010

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/blog/posts.aspx?BlogTagID=c2e61174-ffa3-46eb-8144-6927317fceeb

Cases of virtual schools

around the world

The African Virtual School

To help students pass exams in West Africa . It does this by

helping them revise using quizzes and videos online

The Korean Air & Correspondence

High School

Serves the nation’s youth and adults who couldn’t get a diploma because they were

forced to work in the factories to support their families or because they could not

afford to pay for high school (students pay to go to most high schools in Korea)

Open High School Turkey

Three dimensional approach to learning materials:

• Printed educational materials

• Education through the media

• Face-to-face teaching

Grampians Virtual School, Victoria,

Australia

Consortium of schools which provides virtual education in specific strands such as

Physics, Psychology, Mathematical Methods, Chemistry and Physical Education, to

remote students who can follow a face-to-face class in a school through video

conferencing

Florida Virtual School, USA

USA's first state-wide Internet-based public high school, offers more than 120

courses. Enrollment is free and open to public, private, and home school

students in the state of Florida. Students outside Florida enroll on a tuition

basis.

Open High School of Utah, USA

Best examples of providing "one-to-one tutoring for every

student in every subject". It is a tuition-free public charter

school. The School does not charge any fee for attendance,

other than some nominal fee at the beginning of the year.

Virtual School British Columbia,

Canada

The students have a variety of goals. Some want to complete high school. Others are

graduates who want to satisfy the prerequisites for a college or university programme.

Still others want to better their English skills before they move on.

Features of Virtual Schools

• Facilitate individualised learning

• Use innovative technology

• Offer tailor made flexible curriculum

• May be free or charging fee

• Provide a variety of content material to the learners like textbooks, study guides, science kits, and electronic gadgets depending upon needs of curriculum

• Flexible in allowing students to decide the study schedule as per their convenience and pace

Management of Virtual Schools

Operations wise virtual schools may be:

• State owned

• College or university based,

• Consortium based,

• Public charter schools,

• Local education agency based,

• Private virtual schools, and

• For-profit virtual schools etc.

Virtual Education

Emerging Trends In Technology Use In

Education

New Education Systems

edX

Udacity

Free courses designed

specifically for interactive

study via the web,

provided by MIT, Harvard

and Berkeley.

Udacity was born out of a Stanford

University experiment in which

Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig

offered their "Introduction to

Artificial Intelligence" course online

to anyone, for free. Over 160,000

students in more than 190 countries

enrolled and not much later, Udacity

was born.

21st Century Indian Learners

• Net Generation

• Millennials

• Digital Natives

• Multi-taskers

Internet Usage in India

A snapshot of digital India

http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/india/2012/05/a_snapshot_of_digital_india_12.php#more

Road ahead…

Game Changers: Education and

Information Technologies

Today’s knowledge revolution isn’t about how much information is available.

It’s about how fast knowledge can travel through vast, connected networks of people—and how it can grow exponentially.

Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies © 2012 EDUCAUSE

Aakash hopes to end the “digital divide”

in education between the rich and poor

http://www.springwise.com/education/india-internet-access-poorer-students-low-cost-tablet/

Transforming

Lives

Shaping the

future…

Institutional Transformation

Cognitive Transformation

Technological Transformation

Physical Transformation

Virtual Open Schooling: Indian Model

Virtual Open Schooling

An educational practice that

provides opportunity to

learners to study a formal

school-based course online

and gain credit for

certification purpose.

Learners can study using

asynchronously or

synchronously technologies.

National Consortium for Open

Schooling (NCOS)


Structural Model

VOS Platform

Online

Registration

Wiki based

Open Courses

Web

Conferencing (BigBlueButton)

Open Source

LMS (Moodle)

Online

Examination


Support Services

Image source:

http://www.mindlogicx.com/mindspace.html


Teaching Learning System


Funding Mechanisms

• Subsidised by NIOS

• Fee Sharing

• Each Member Open School contributes

Technologies:

Instructional Delivery


Course Development


Assessment and Evaluation

Considerations…

•Personnel

•Instruction

•Technology

•Training for professional development

•Quality assurance

•Reporting / data analytics

•Marketing

•Other expenses (travel, health, insurance…)