Bid to set up 45,000 hi-tech classrooms

To bolster the effort to set up 45,000 hi-tech classrooms in 4775 schools as part of the State Government’s Public Education Rejuvenation Mission, the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) is preparing to deploy videorecording devices for digital content preparation at schools along with video conferencing systems.

According to information made available from KITE, the national tender for the purchase of 4775 multi-function printers, HD DSLR cameras and 42-inch LED televisions, has been released and the deployment will be completed by June, 2018.

KITE has already installed laptops, multimedia projectors, projector ceiling mounting kit, USB speakers and screens in 34,500 schools. All schools have been provided with high speed broadband internet connectivity and the networking of classrooms is fast progressing. As many as 75% classrooms in the State have been made hi-tech till date and in order to make the rest of the classrooms too hi-tech by June, KITE has planned for a school survey to start by the middle of May.

Against the backdrop of schools and classrooms becoming hi-tech, KITE has started imparting specific IT training to over 1 lakh teachers of class 8 to 12, from April 28 onwards.

Samagra portal

Though this training, teachers would get acquainted with the “Samagra” resource portal developed by KITE, which enables teachers to undertake lesson planning in digital form.

“Samagra” also has a bouquet of digital resources in the form of video, animation, pictures, audio and simulations.

“We have taken efforts to convert all schools into the digital platform, by enabling them to independently develop educational content for various educational mediums such as “Samagra” resource portal, KITE Victers channel, school TVs, documentaries and films,” said K. Anvar Sadath, vice chairman and executive director, KITE. “In addition to this, free software applications have been made available to schools, which facilitate editing, audio/video mixing, animation of educational video content which are shot by students and teachers using handy cams,” Mr. Sadath said.

In what is being billed as a “first-in-the-country initiative”, every school would get an opportunity to explore various steps of video production, right from script-making to a complete video content, and also to broadcast the same through the school channels.

Each school would have a group of “student reporters”. Digital studios would be installed in all schools, as was done in the pilot drive in schools in the Alappuzha assembly constituency.