Innovative Educational Approaches: NAARM Experiences elearning.naarm.ernet/moodle

1. Innovative Educational Approaches: NAARM Experienceshttp://elearning.naarm.ernet.in/moodle S L Goswami Director, NAARM

2. Innovative education - Philosophy at NAARM • Emphasis on open source/ free to use software, easy to install, manage and use • Scalable models • Sustainable models • Evolving methodologies with products to deliver from time to time • Methodology updating/refinement through capacity building initiatives • Innovative infusion of feasible software and hardware resources suitable for NARS

3. Introduction • Academy has initiated the process of standardizing, practising and managing the learning and knowledge management through web based methodology. • It includes identifying e-resources for content management, e-learning, database development and standardizing and internalizing the same in National Agricultural Research System (NARS). • Academy started capacity building in e-learning (through open source) in as early as 2007 and its e-learning website was fully functional in 2009 • Academy played a catalytic role in e-course development and management in all 6 disciplines of agriculture

4. Milestones in e-learning • Capacity building of over 600 personnel in NARS in e-learning • Establishment of NAARM e-learning campus with 60 courses with 24x7 access for different educational programs of the Academy • Standardizing the process of e-content management and development practices for e-course development in the disciplines of Veterinary Sciences, Fisheries, Horticulture, Dairy Science and Technology , Home Science, and Ag Engineering • Handholding to establish the e-learning websites of • Veterinary courses by TANUVAS, Chennai http://www.elearnvet.net • Veterinary courses by Assam Agri University, Guwahati http://111.93.165.42 • Veterinary courses by Sher-e-Kashmir university : http://starelearning.org • Dairy science courses by NDRI, Karnal http://www.ndri.res.in • Fishery science by College of Fisheries, Tuticorin & Mangalore http://www.elearnfish.net

5. Activities using Web 2.0 technologies for NAARM education programs • Making students part of knowledge/content development through activities like glossary development, discussion for a, wikis, blogs through e-learning • Empowering teachers to host their content coupled with online activities for students like assignments, quizzes etc.,

6. Capacity building in e-learning

7. E-Teaching with Open Source /Free e-resources • Academy has standardized the process of e-teaching methodology using free and open source e-resources and packaging them in accordance with e-learning standards like SCORM. Free tools like whiteboard are used to enhance the effectiveness of teaching by which a desktop can be used as a whiteboard which has provisions of traditional teaching method A free-to-use digital whiteboard where a tablet pen is used to write to simulate traditional classroom teaching

8. E-teaching in futuristic mode • Academy has also established the digital interactive whiteboard for course delivery in electronic mode. Standardized practices of e-teaching have been incorporated into the capacity building programmes of NARS to enhance the quality of teaching and learning. • Modern methodologies like whiteboard coupled with visualizer with state-of-art multimedia computers for content development are established which are used in training and educational activities of the Academy

9. Online evaluation: multi-variants Online Monitoring and evaluation • Academy has implemented the online and instant evaluation of scientist probationers with monitoring system which proved to be cost-effective, time-saving and efficient • Till date, over 1000 scientist probationers are evaluated using the standardized online evaluation system. • This method is found to save 15 man-days and Rs 44750 per batch of participants with an annual saving of Rs 134,250 Online evaluation using open source in typical academic environment • Online quizzes with various options of question type, scoring, feedback, archiving, reusability, remote access & configuration – ALL in OPEN SOURCE and easy to use environment

10. Where do we intend to go from here…? • Developing educational information systems amenable for tablets, mobiles • Developing content design templates for uniform and standardized content delivery • Effective integration of software and hardware for affordable and feasible educational content delivery and management

11. Thank You