The instant global communication medium that is the internet has spawned teaching-learning innovations which are changing the face of education worldwide. Web-based school management software, online tutoring, online forums for teachers, student assessment software etc have revolutionised traditional pedagogies and improved student learning outcomes. To the growing list of internet inventions add Atlas Curriculum Mapping (ACM), a unique net-hosted curriculum management program. Invented, developed and marketed by Rubicon International, an Oregon (US)-based education consultancy services firm, Atlas Curriculum Mapping is currently used by “thousands of school teachers in 90 countries worldwide, and in 48 of America’s 50 states”.

While the great majority of ACM users are schools in America, Europe, South-east Asia and elsewhere, this innovative product is gaining popularity with India’s new genre of five-star international schools. According to Alicia Hunter Lewis, the Oregon-based project manager and senior consultant of Rubicon International, who was in India recently on a visit to Bangalore International School (its first client in India), ACM helps schools to archive, warehouse, analyse, research and upgrade the curriculum of each classroom. “With our consulting inputs teachers can record, constantly update and improve their curriculums. Once the curriculum is recorded, teachers can map the levels of instruction identifying curricular scaffolding or gaps and redundancies in instruction for knowledge and understanding,” says Lewis, a music graduate of the University of Michigan who is currently reading for a Master’s degree in educational studies at Wright State University, and educational leadership studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Lewis taught music at the Marygrove College, Michigan and in several international schools in the Middle East prior to signing up with Rubicon International in 2005. Rubicon International’s ACM program was engineered to encompass the acclaimed curriculum mapping methodology developed by Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, a well-known US-based education consultant and curriculum designer. The system facilitates the seven phases of curriculum mapping outlined in Jacobs’s book, Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum & Assessment K-12.Yet perhaps the most beneficial feature of the ACM program is that its debuting website for member schools will connect teachers and administrators across 90 countries worldwide.

“Our ACM professional learning communities provide an online platform for teachers; this is a great way to share best ideas and practices. Our client schools can swap pedagogical ideals and learn from each other’s experience. We are also developing an Atlas Exemplar system of high quality and best practice curriculum units shared by faculty and schools from around the world,” says Lewis. A great believer in harnessing the power of information technology and the internet to improve learning outcomes and contemporise pedag-ogies, Lewis is bullish about ACM (priced at Rs.60,000-3 lakh) quickly expanding its customer base in India. “Our ACM program has the power to completely revolutionise the way schools record, implement and upgrade their curriculums. And we want to help Indian schools do that,” says Lewis.

Swagatam!

Summiya Yasmeen (Bangalore)

ACTUniv’s driving force

From a poky 300 sq.ft office with two employees to a bustling workplace with 150 employees, it’s been a long but eventful journey for Jasvinder Singh, the unassuming promoter-director of the Ahmedabad-based Academy for Computer Training (ACTUniv), Gujarat’s largest ICT (information communication techno-logies) education provider. Promoted in 1989 by Singh, an electronics graduate of Gujarat University, ACTUniv is the state’s largest IT training company with 16 franchised centres across Gujarat and an annual revenue of Rs.7 crore. Over the past two decades ACTUniv has provided ICT training to over 50,000 school and college students and over 60,000 government employees and corporate executives. From providing short-term executive training programmes, in 2000 Singh diversified into developing ICT-driven teaching-learning programmes and packages to improve learning outcomes in secondary schools. Currently the company assists over 400 schools in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttaranchal to use ICT and digitalised maths, science and English learning programmes which supplement classroom teaching. ACTUniv’s client list includes top-ranked schools such as St. Kabir, Ahmedabad; Navrachna School, Baroda; Scindia School, Gwalior and St. Joseph’s Academy, Dehradun among others. Moreover in response to popular demand in 2001 Singh co-promoted (with Capt. K.J.S. Brar) Designmate India Pvt Ltd to research and develop customised multimedia content for schools. The company’s first invention – Eureka 3D is an award-winning maths and science learning software package is currently being used by 1,200 private schools countrywide. An aggressive eduprenuer who is sold on the benefits new technologies can confer upon the students community, in collaboration with the Gujarat government Singh has also launched a programme to develop the English language skills of 100,000 youth and government employees in the state. “We plan to set up 250 learning centres with highly qualified English trainers to deliver programmes certified by Cambridge International Examinations, UK and approved by the Association of Language Trainers of Europe,” he says.

With foreign and domestic investors flocking to Gujarat, ACTUniv has drawn up an ambitious plan to meet a demand upsurge for English learning. “We intend to set up English language learning labs in over 500 private schools countrywide at an estimated cost of Rs.25 crore. With government, students and parents fully aware of the importance of quality education as a prerequisite of national development, thereƒšžs a great future for companies providing education products and services,” he says.

Wind in your sails!

Dilip Thakore (Ahmedabad)

Lab-lib-lav missionary

Social entrepreneur Ananth Narayanan’s mission is to provide the 151,500 children enrolled in Chennai’s 346 municipal schools, an improved learning environment and better quality education. To this end in October last year, he promoted the Innovative Network for School Evolution Intellectual Development throL (INFORSE-IDL), a city advocacy organisation for children. The mission of INFORSE-IDL is to equip all corporation schools in the city with three critical facilities – laboratories, libraries and lavatories which Narayanan, a management postgrad of Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai, and currently managing director of Cryo Scientific Systems (Pvt) Ltd, believes are imperative for the physical, mental and intellectual development of children. “The state government has miserably failed to invest wisely and ensure quality primary education. Most corporation schools lack basic facilities like lavatories leading to poor health of children, especially adolescent girls who are forced to drop out of school. Secondly, libraries are non-existent and children and teenagers cannot cultivate the reading habit. The absence of laboratories has led to rote learning and poor understanding of science. Our aim is to address these inadequacies by developing innovative and sustainable project models for replication by government and other voluntary agencies,” says Narayanan. The NGO’s first project – Library-on-wheels was set rolling last October (2007) by an enthusiastic INFORSE team at a project cost of Rs.10 lakh. Currently this mobile library visits ten corporation schools during weekdays, and community centres during weekends. Equipped with 3,000 Tamil language books on different subjects and an LCD projector, the mobile library is manned by a teacher and librarian who lend books to students ranging from class VI to Plus Two to take home and read at leisure. The schools headmasters have been co-opted into the scheme to supervise the issue and return of books. “A mobile library sustains childrens interest because it offers greater variety than school libraries. The Chennai Corporation has extended its full support to our project,” he says. Moreover, to spread and reinforce social messages, Narayanan proposes to partner with local non-government organisations and self-help groups to conduct health and hygiene skits and road shows for children. Plans are also being finalised to provide soft skills training, conduct reading and elocution competitions and screen educational documentaries for children. Also on the cards is a survey of all corporation schools in Chennai to be conducted by students of social work at Loyola and Stella Maris colleges and Madras School of Social Work. Although a great believer in private initiatives in social welfare, Narayanan admits that the lab-lib-lav project also requires government, industry and community support. “Itƒšžs high time individuals and corporates realise their social responsibility and volunteer time and resources for such projects. If they come forward to fund mobile libraries, we can extend this benefit to a larger number of corporation schools. Our next initiative is to develop easy-to-maintain model toilets for school children and conduct science fairs and exhibitions to develop a scientific temper in children in their formative years,” says Narayanan.

God speed!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Determined educator

Tucked away in the calm inner lanes of Dehradun is Veena Joshi’s Ao Padhen (Let’s Learn), a remedial education-cum-activity centre for children of slum dwellers in the neighbourhood. Today Ao Padhen (estb. 2000) has 40 students aged between six and 14, the children of domestic helpers, washermen and construction labour instructed by four teachers, on its muster roll. Looking back to the millennium year when this modest school was launched, Joshi recalls the conspicuous lack of enthusiasm for her remedial education centre. “I had to repeatedly roam the town’s slums motivating parents to send their out-of-school children to me,” remembers Joshi, who started with teaching maths and English, and later introduced computer education. The school is run by an umbrella NGO named Uttara. After completing her Masters in ancient history at Allahabad University, Joshi started her teaching career at the University of Hawaii (USA) as a Hindi language lecturer in 1977-78. Following her return to India and a brief hiatus, she resumed teaching at St. Fidelis School in 1982 and Colvin Taluqadar College, Lucknow where she taught for nine years before moving to Nainital when her husband took over as vice chancellor of Kumaon University. “After my husband retired we re-located to Dehradun where I resolved to put my teaching skills to good use. We started out in two rooms, but gradually I converted my terrace into classrooms and hired four teachers. To ensure steadfast commitment from teachers I pay them market salaries, because voluntary work can be taken for granted and neglected,” she says. To generate an income stream for the school, Joshi has promoted a spice processing unit which defrays teacher salaries and provides home-made snacks to her pupils. “I process basic spices and some exotic ones too like cinnamon, fennel and pomegranate powders. I have networked with a few heads of schools who let me set up a spice stall in their staff rooms for teachers to purchase. I also have schools coming in to buy spices in bulk for their canteens,” says Joshi, who has ingeniously scaled up her cottage industry to 41 condiments which are cleaned, mixed, ground, packaged and labeled under her strict supervision. Looking back on her endeavour with satisfaction, Joshi expresses thanks and gratitude to all her students who have become part of her family. “By running this school I did myself a favour. I’m indebted to my pupils for helping me find a purpose in life and emerging a winner,” she says.

Natasha Pathak (Dehradun)

Spirited women’s advocate

Although Mumbai-based Chitra Desai is a fully-qualified advocate with over eight years practice in the Supreme Court of India, she has transformed into a mediator and counsellor in the belief that in her present avatar, she can play a more critical role in solving the problems of young women struggling to realise themselves and assert their identities in an unconducive social environment. Desai heads the conflict resolution cell of the Times Center for Youth Development and Research (TCYDR), a joint venture of the Times Foundation (promoted by the Times of India Group) and SNDT University, the well-known all womensƒšž varsity (estb. 1916). “Itƒšžs common knowledge that young women are confronted with a plethora of problems, not the least of which is that they own a set of views while their parents are unwilling to see things their way. In TCYDRƒšžs conflict resolution cell we counsel them on all problems ƒš‚ medical, legal, personal or psychological,” says Desai.A political science and law graduate of Delhi University, Desai has acquired considerable experience in working with women as a professional and volunteer with various legal organisations. Her curriculum vitae discloses eight years practice in the Supreme Court and more than two years as a volunteer of the Bombay high courtƒšžs Maharashtra Legal Services Authority. In the latter capacity, she regularly visited towns and villages in rural Maharashtra to raise awareness on issues such as dowry and child marriage. In 2004, Desai completed a postgrad course in mediation and arbitration at Mumbaiƒšžs K.C. Law College. Since then she has been a law lecturer at SNDT and concurrently heads TCYDRƒšžs conflict resolution cell. Started on December 1 last year, the conflict resolution cell has held two sessions attended by 20 women students seeking help and advice. “We conduct our sessions twice a week on the SNDT campus and thereƒšžs growing demand for the services we offer. In the maximum number of cases I find myself counselling young women who experience unreasonable pressure on personal issues such as work, study, marriage etc. Another major problem afflicting women students is sexual harassment about which they are afraid to speak up, as parents often force them to discontinue their studies or work,” she says.As a trained mediator, Desai has committed herself to providing relief and guidance to distressed women, especially those who donƒšžt have the know-how or the finances to go to court. “My job is to provide them the healing touch and support they need. This is also a good opportunity to change tradition-bound mindsets of the older generation,” she says.

Fair winds!

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)