A glance at the articles on this site will make it clear that a crisis exists in the educational domain. Reading more on the conditions of our classrooms, even in the highest paid schools can be depressing. Particularly so if one is concerned about relation of
- what a child is learning in class room and
- what is relevant in real life and
- what a child can learn given the current range of sources of knowledge.
The existing paradigm of instructivist, exam-governed , institutional education is crumbling. The teacher is aware of her limitations. But there is no one to comlain to.
Where is the way out?
Following are some of the resources showing the directions.
All these are shouting to be in Indian languages. If only one cares for the thousands of Einsteins in our villages and towns , that is!
- ofset.org ( a collection of a lot of Free and Open source educational software, supported by UN, currently mainly in French, Spanish )
- netlogo ( extension of LOGO, STARLOGO from MIT, agent based modeling package with 1000 examples in as many fields of learning, with tools for visual programming, with tutorials, with source codes etc, with 3D development under beta test)
- Dr Geo (an intuitive geometry package , with tutrials, videos and gallery)
- GRASS ( a GIS package for analysis) along with
- openjump for map making (for more see www.osgeo.org)
- VigyaanCD
Vigyaan is an electronic workbench for bioinformatics, computational biology and computational chemistry. It has been designed to meet the needs of both beginners and experts. VigyaanCD is a live Linux CD containing all the required software to boot the computer with ready to use modeling software. VigyaanCD v0.1 is based on KNOPPIX v3.3.
Click here to go to VigyaanCD website's home page.
What constructivist approach to learning needs is a paradigme shift about learning ( not teaching).
While an excellent software MSWLOGO ( www.softronix.com ) is available free, it is not opensource and cannot be localized easily.
With the advent of cheap connectivity , and cheaper computational access, all the above is likely to be useful in disrupting the present educational complacency.
Biology Education
The resources for biology teachers offered by BioEd Online are uniformly excellent, and this particular section of their website is no exception to that trend. Designed specifically for teachers, this site contains dozens of presentations that can be adopted for use in a variety of classroom settings. Users of the site can explore a list of topics and featured presentation materials, which include "The Cell: Cloning", "Diversity of Life: Introduction to Human Behavior", and "The Human Organism: Influenza Vaccination". That's far from all however, as the site also has interactive lesson demonstrations, lab techniques, and teaching strategies. Equally important for instructors is the "Seeking a Teaching Position", which includes presentations like "So You Want to Teach?" and "High Stakes Communication: Interviewing for a Teaching Position". Source KMG of Internet Scout Report see http://scout.wisc.edu/
