The resource studio and server of the Government College of Engineering Kannur (GCEK) here will now serve as a platform for an interactive virtual classroom programme that ropes in the expertise of the institution’s faculty spanning different disciplines for the benefit of the public.
The Centre for Information, Communication and Educational Technology (CICET) is an initiative of the GCEK here.
The initiative inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the college campus at Dharmashala here on Monday envisages dissemination of the benefits of the latest Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-enabled technologies to institutions such as schools, libraries and other educational facilities.
The college faculty’s knowhow will be leveraged to generate content for the virtual classroom.
Joint initiative
“It is a joint initiative of the various departments of our college to utilise the capability for creating, storing and disseminating content on any discipline or subject.
The classes by experts could be of use in any other public institutions such as schools or libraries,” said C. Sreekumar, principal of the GCEK.
The main objective of the initiative would be to create educational materials, he said adding that ₹15 lakh from the MLA fund of local MLA James Mathew was used for setting up the infrastructure for content generation at CICET.
The facility is also planned to function as a common link between the public and the government so as to disseminate information on socially beneficial programmes of the government among intended beneficiaries.
Functions
The functions of the centre include design and development of new ICT-enabled teaching methodologies, application development for effective teaching-learning processes, implementation of smart classrooms, database design, data collection, and implementation of data-intensive socially relevant projects.
The centre would also function as a platform for GCEK’s students for contributing towards solving problems of common people through use of information technology.
According to the college faculty that was involved in the initiative, the major ongoing projects of the CICET include creation of a virtual interactive learning platform for educational institutions in Taliparamba Assembly constituency.
Fund
The ₹3-crore project initiated by Mr. Mathew is funded by the Kerala State IT Mission.
The CICET is also involved in educational content creation in Malayalam under the Kannur Classroom Project initiated by the district administration.