Coaching Institute of the week (Week 4, July) – Vidyamandir Classes

About Vidyamandir Classes

Posted on : July 21, 2010

Vidyamandir Classes is a premier IITJEE coaching organization, which was started in 1989. Since its inception, the organization is providing coaching to achieve success in IITJEE (Joint Entrance Examination for Indian Institutes of Technology in India), and other engineering entrance examinations such as AIEEE, NSIT, DCE, BITS etc.

Vidyamandir Classes is known for its quality coaching, highly disciplined teaching methodology, high level of satisfaction among students, its authenticity and transparency. The institute is known for its innovative methodologies and was the first one to introduce an entrance test for admission to IITJEE Coaching. Later, the concept of 'Test series' was also introduced by the institute. Every year, year after year, our students successfully pave their way to leading engineering colleges like IITs and NITs.

Contact Details:
Contact No. : 011-42466725
Email : info@vidyamandir.com
Website : www.vidyamandir.com
Address : 12/37, Punjabi Bagh (West),
New Delhi - 110026.

Top 10 Top Inspirational Movies for Educators - The Miracle Worker

Part 7/10

Posted on : July 21, 2010

Educators need to be reminded of the importance of their jobs. Here are ten movies that inspire us and make us feel proud to be in the field of education where we really do have an impact. Enjoy!

Introduction

The Miracle Worker is a 1962 American biographical film directed by Arthur Penn. The screenplay by William Gibson is based on his 1959 play of the same title, which originated as a 1957 broadcast of the television anthology series Playhouse 90. Gibson's original source material was The Story of My Life, the 1902 autobiography of Helen Keller.

eLearning - Pedagogic Models

Posted on : July 20, 2010

There are many pedagogic models that maybe used in eLearning initiatives.

1.     “Learning by doing” (Schank, 1997),
2.    “Problem based learning” (Barrows, 1994),
3.    “Case-based learning” (Lynn, 1996; Chen et al, 2006),
4.    “Learning by designing” (Naidu, Anderson, and Riddle, 2000)
5.    Mishra (2002) proposed an eclectic framework for designing web-based learning environments
6.    Sharma and Mishra (2007) presented another pedagogical framework for e-learning: Experience-Reflect-Interact-Construct (ERIC),

where the system should provide learning experience to be accessed from anywhere, anytime through learning objects in different web-enabled formats (text, audio, video, animation, etc.), followed by working on learner reflection activity designed a priori. After performing the activity, the learner should be engaged in both ‘synchronous’ and ‘asynchronous’ interaction, leading to construction of his/her learning through group works, presentations, projects and other creative activities.

References

1.    Mishra, S. 2007. National Seminar on “Choice and Use of ICTs in ODL: Impacts, Strategies and Future Prospects”, 29-30 March 2007. http://learningindia.net/sm/BRAOU_2k7_sanjaya.pdf
2.    Schank, R. (1997). Virtual learning: A revolutionary approach to building a highly
skilled workforce. New York: McGraw-Hill.
3.    Barrows, H. S. (1994). Problem-Based Learning Applied to Medical Education. School of Medicine, Springfield, IL: Southern Illinois University.
4.    Lynn, L. E. (1996). What is the Case Method? A Guide and Casebook. Japan: the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development.
5.    Naidu, S., Anderson, J., & Riddle, M. (2000). The virtual print exhibition: A case of learning by designing. In Sims, R., O'Reilly & Sawkins, S. (Eds.) Learning to Choose: Choosing to Learn (Short Papers and Works in Progress) (pp. 109-114), Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University Press.
6.    Mishra, S. (2002). A design framework for online learning environments, British Journal of Educational Technology, 33 (4), 493-496.

BigGyan Cloud eLearning : Lecture pranks - 4/10

Posted on : July 20, 2010

Education is generally taken to be very serious business. Sometimes it is good to lighten the mood. Here is a series on Top 10 lecture pranks.

eLearning Enthusiast

We get lot of messages from eLearning Enthusiasts. It is very humbling experience when people come forward to participate in our mission to sex up education. We need community participation to achieve this goal.

So this was Shushil Pandey offering us help on facebook. We reply to every email, facebook message, twitter message that we receive. So please feel free to ask questions or contact us for anything related to education.

Course of the week (Week 3, July)

Topics in Indian Popular Culture: Spectacle, Masala, and Genre

The Raj Mandir Cinema located in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. During this course, students watched and analyzed several Indian films. (Image courtesy of Edward Mooney.)

Level: Undergraduate
Instructors: Prof. Arundhati Banerjee
Institute : MIT

Course Description

This course aims to provide an overview of Indian popular culture over the last two decades, through a variety of material such as popular fiction, music, television and Bombay cinema. The class will explore major themes and their representations in relation to current social and political issues. In particular, students will examine the elements of the formulaic "masala movie", music and melodrama, the ideas of nostalgia and incumbent change in youth culture, as well as shifting questions of gender and sexuality in popular fiction. During the course, students will look at some journalistic writing, advertising clips and political cartoons to understand the relation between the popular culture and the social imagery of a nation. This course is taught in English.

About MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research. MIT is one of two private land-grant universities and is also a sea-grant and space-grant university.

Founded by William Barton Rogers in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, the university adopted the European university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Its current 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) along the northern bank of the Charles River basin. MIT researchers were involved in efforts to develop computers, radar, and inertial guidance in connection with defense research during World War II and the Cold War. In the past 60 years, MIT's educational disciplines have expanded beyond the physical sciences and engineering into fields like biology, cognitive science, economics, philosophy, linguistics, political science, and management.

eLearning – What are the advantages

eLearning has become popular amongst educationists because of its inherent
advantages. Some of the are:

Posted on: July 18, 2010

1.    Location and time independent delivery of course materials such as course notes, diagrams, reading list, etc.;
2.    Access to educational resources from outside the institution on a global and instant basis;
3.    Platform independent delivery, accessible through any computer with a simple browser interface;
4.    Ability to combine text, graphics and a limited amount of multimedia, enabling instructional designers to prepare quality learning materials;
5.    Increased and flexible interaction with student through e-mail and discussion forums;
6.    Quick and easy way to create, update and revise course materials through low-cost off-the-shelf software;
7.    Increased learner control through hypertext based presentation of information;
8.    Interactive and dynamic learning experience through online assessment tools, simulations and animated learning objects;
9.    Ability to serve a large number of students at a potentially reduced cost.
10.    Opportunities for international, cross-cultural and collaborative learning; and
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References

1.    Goldberg, M. W., Salari, S., & Swoboda, P. (1996). World Wide Web Course tool: An environment for building WWW-based courses, Computer Network and ISDN
System, 28, Retrieved on [1999/05/17] from WWW at http://www.webct.com/papers/p29/

2.    Starr, R. M. (1997). Delivery instruction on the World Wide Web: Overview and basic design principles, Educational Technology, 37 (3), 7-15

3.    McCormack, C., & Jones, D. (1998). Building a web-based education system, New York: Wiley Computer Publishing

4.    Weller, M.J. (2000). Creating a large-scale, third generation distance education course, Open Learning, 15 (3), 243-251.

5.    Bates, T. (2001). National strategies for e-learning in post-secondary education and training, Paris: UNESCO: IIEP

6.    Mishra, S. 2007. National Seminar on “Choice and Use of ICTs in ODL: Impacts, Strategies and Future Prospects”, 29-30 March 2007. http://learningindia.net/sm/BRAOU_2k7_sanjaya.pdf

Top 10 Top Inspirational Movies for Educators - To Sir With Love

Part 6/10

Posted on : July 18, 2010

Educators need to be reminded of the importance of their jobs. Here are ten movies that inspire us and make us feel proud to be in the field of education where we really do have an impact. Enjoy!

Introduction

To Sir, with Love is a 1967  British drama film starring Sidney Poitier that deals with social and racial issues in an inner city school. James Clavell both directed and wrote the film's screenplay, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by E. R. Braithwaite.

The film's title song "To Sir, with Love", sung by Lulu, reached number one on the U.S. pop charts, and ultimately was Billboard magazine's #1 pop single for the year, 1967. The movie ranked number 27 on Entertainment Weekly' list of the 50 Best High School Movies.

A television movie sequel, To Sir, with Love II, was released in 1996.

Teacher of the week (Week 3, July) - “Make education interesting and to attract students”

Recently Mr. Vijay Gupta went to fifth innovative education forum held at Salvador, Brazil (Courtesy, TOI). His innovative teaching methods make him our teacher of the week.

Vijay Gupta from Fazilka realized that the state sponsored TVs, DVDs and school computers could be use attract students to school. Attendance is a major problem as most kids work to augment family income; “School was never a priority,” says Gupta. With the state government’s help he digitized lessons. No books and all DVD shows suddenly made school cool. “Attendance has gone up. It’s interactive and has greater impact,” adds the mechanical engineer-turned teacher. Apart from powerpoint presentation, Gupta recorded students speaking in English on his mobile and played it back to them to improve pronunciation.

Seth Godin: Two kinds of schooling

Here is an interesting post from Seth Godin about his take on education.

Two kinds of schooling

Type 1. You can take a class where you learn technique, facts and procedures.

Type 2. You can take a class where you learn to see, learn to lead and learn to solve interesting problems.

The first type of teaching isn't particularly difficult to do, and it's something most of us are trained to absorb. The first type of schooling can even be accomplished with self-discipline and a Dummies book. The first type of class is important but not scarce.
The second kind, on the other hand, is where all real success comes from. It's really tricky to find and train people to do this sort of teaching, and anytime you can find some of it, you should grab it.

The sad thing is that we often conflate the two. We think we're hiring someone to do the second type, a once in a lifetime teacher, someone who will change the outlook of stellar students. But then we give them rules and procedures and feedback that turn them into a type 1 teacher.

Even worse, we often pay as if we're getting the scarce and valuable type 2 teachers but we end up hiring and managing type 1 teachers.
I spend a lot of time in colleges and other teaching institutions. Over and over I see the same thing--organizations that have painted themselves into a corner, keeping themselves busy but refusing to do the difficult work of teaching people to see. The dean of one college was so stuck in his type-1ness that he couldn't even bring himself to participate in a session run by a gifted type 2 teacher.
Is there anything more important to you and your organization (or your kids or your town) than figuring out how to obtain and share the wisdom that real teaching can deliver?