The Government of India launched Digital
India week from 1
July. As as part of this, IIT Bombay showcased relevant projects today in
an event held on their campus. The projects that were showcased included Spoken
Tutorial, FOSSEE, e-Yantra, e-kalpa Virtual Labs and many more. Most of
these projects are funded by National Mission on Education through ICT
under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India.More
than 100 partners are celebrating Digital India Week along with IIT
Bombay. We had a chance to visit IIT Bombay and get to know more about these
projects.
1. Virtual Labs
Virtual Labs has been designed to provide
remote access to labs in various disciplines of science and engineering. It
enables a user to perform experiments remotely as an on-demand service on the
web. Virtual Labs can also be known to ‘complement’ a physical lab. Basically,
this project aims to provide a complete learning management system, which
includes web sources, video lectures along with animated demonstrations.
College students, school teachers and also
instructors can take advantage of this system and it does not even require any
additional infrastructure. Various topics are included in Virtual Labs such as
physical sciences, biomedical engineering & biotechnology, electrical
engineering, chemical engineering, electronics and communication engineering,
civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical sciences and computer
science.
2. T10KT
The ‘Train 10,000 Teacher’s’ Project
workshop conducts classes on engineering subjects, along with faculty of
engineering and science, through distance-learning method. The AVIEW platform
which has been developed by Amrita University is used for live transmission and
audio-video interaction. The course is delivered by the faculty at IIT and a
rigorous approach is followed with emphasis on problem solving, tutorial
problems, assignments and laboratory exercises.
As of now, the project has reached out to
about 85,000 teachers since 2009, through 342 remote centres across India. These
recorded lecture contents are free to download. Some of the projects which have
been included are computer programming, engineering thermodynamics, solar
photovoltaics, analog electronics, research methodologies, databse management
systems, fluid mechanics and cyber security.
3. Talk to a Teacher
Talk to A teacher is a project which
allows learners to interact with a panel of faculty members from IIT Bombay
live, as well as offline through an online forum. Currently, live sessions will
happen every Thursday from 4pm to 5pm in the Electrical Engineering
department. The ‘Ask A Question’ forum encourages learners to ask questions in
various disciplines of engineering and science.
The program has answered over 450 live
questions till date along with participation by more than 25 faculty members
from IIT Bombay. ‘Courses on View’ is another part of the Talk to A
Teacher initiative where courses which take place in the classroom are recorded
and are made available through
video-on-demand. ‘Researchoscope’ is an online discussion forum
for researchers, wherein doctoral students at IIT Bombay present their research
work. This interactive forum is used for any clarifications or for continuing a
discussion about the presentation.
Professor Deepak Phatak says “The ‘Train
10,000 Teachers’ (T10KT) Project conducts ISTE workshops in core subjects, for
faculty of engineering and science. These are conducted in distance mode
through live transmission and audio-video interaction, using the A-VIEW
platform. Expert faculty from IITs deliver the course. A rigorous approach is
used, with emphasis on problem solving, tutorials, assignments, and laboratory
exercises. These workshops are also conducted in blended MOOC format, with
synchronous and asynchronous activity spread over six weeks, to make the
learning more effective.”
4. e-Yantra
e-Yantra is a project sponsored by
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) through the National Mission on
Education through ICT. This initiative aims to spread education in
Embedded systems and Robotics. It uses a homegrown robot to train students in
project-based learning. The e-Yantra Lab Setup lets colleges teach
Robotics and Embedded systems in an effective way by training four teachers
from colleges in a region and engaging the teams through the
reginal e-Yantra Robotics Teacher Competition, where
teachers implement a Robotics project over a period of three months.
Robotics Labs are established in over
107 colleges in India as of January this year. In eYS 2014, 16 Mumbai
University colleges along with 35 colleges from different regions of the
country participated and 21 student projects in the field of embedded systems
and robotics were exhibited.
Professsor Kavi Arya says, “e-Yantra, a
project born out of IIT-Bombay Computer Science teaching practice, uses a
homegrown robot to train students and teachers in “Project-based Learning.” It
enthuses students through a National e-Yantra Robotics Competition(eYRC)
which has been growing exponentially over the past 3 years.”The current
edition of the competition, eYRC-2015, will be launched on August 1,
2015. It also grows an eco-system by setting up infrastructure and
training teachers in colleges through the e-Yantra Lab Setup Initiative
(eLSI).”
5. NPTEL
The NPTEL initiative provides e-learning
through online web and video courses in Engineering, Science and humanities
streams. The mission of the program is to enhance the quality of
Engineering education in the country by providing free online courses. These
courses are free to download. They are also available on YouTube along with a
3GP format for mobiles. Also, a few add-ons include video clipping, assignments
and problems to solve as well.
Some of the subjects included are
aerospace engineering, environmental science, chemistry and biochemistry,
engineering design, metallurgy and material science, ocean engineering, civil
engineering and more.
6. D’source (e-Kalpa)
Digital Learning Environment for Design in
India, also known as ‘e-kalpa’ is sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resources
and Development, Government of India as a part of the National Mission in
Education through Information and Communication Technology. The main
intention of this project is the creation of new learning environments, that
will provide access to acquisition of critical knowledge, skills, and abilities
in the field of design.
The overall objective of this project is
the creation and development of new learning environments, related to design
that will provide greater access and enhancement to acquisition of critical
knowledge, skills and abilities for economic and social development in our
country.
7. CDEEP
The CDEEP initiative is trying to
expand a users reach, so that engineering and science students in every part of
India and the world can have access to IIT Bombay’s courseware. These
distance learning courses offered are the very same ones, that are taken by the
students. To reach as many learners as possible, CDEEP is using different
mediums and various technologies.
8. FOSSEE
IIT Bombay, FOSSEE have taken up the
initiative of promoting FOSS ( Free and Open Source Software), for
education. The CFD team at FOSEE, IIT Bombay promotes the use of OpenFOAM
(Open source Field Operation and Manipulation) as being popular along with,
easily available. OpenFOAM can also be widely used in Engineering colleges across
India, as a replacement for commercial packages like Fluent and Star CCM.
OpenFOAM has a very large database
paired with a range of features to solve anything from complex fluid flows
involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics
and electromagnetics. FOSSEE team organises and conducts workshops,
conferences and seminars to educate the users across India.
9. Spoken Tutorial
The Spoken Tutorial project is the
initiative of the ‘Talk to a Teacher’ activity of the National Mission on
Education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT), launched by
the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India. As learning
is more effective with animation and narration, audio-video demonstrations
illustrate features with clarity.
The Spoken Tutorial Project aims to make
spoken tutorials on FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) available in
several Indian languages, for the learner to be able to learn in the language
he/she is comfortable in. The target group is the community at large,
including school children, college students, working professionals, retired
professionals, housewives, teachers, trainers, research scholars, software
users and developers.
10. TREELabs
Treelabs started as a concept in March
2009. The main aim of TREELabs is to create a lab, that can sustain and
grow on its own, and with the focus to nurture inventions. It believes
that inventing is step by step algorithmic process which can be taught.
TreeLabs creates inventions internally and also
attracts participation by external inventors and entrepreneurs
too. TREELabs has initiated in solar thermal energy collection, electrical
power measurement, queue management system along with networked programmable
modular instruments as well
