The Internet – Global Communication Tool

The Internet is a world-wide network of information resources and a powerful communication tool. Information on virtually any subject may be found on the Internet. In the past, access to the Internet was mainly restricted to the academic community, but now the 'digital superhighway' is also open for both business and home users.

The Internet offers users a powerful tool which may be used in a number of ways, including education, the collection and retrieval of information, and the rapid and automated distribution of information to large groups of people.

Reflect on the use of Internet in your personal lives and how would you like to use Internet for your communication and enhancing effectiveness of your work.

NIOS begins On-Demand Examination at its Regional Centre

Dear All
Congratulations for starting ODES at the Regional Centres. As per the minutes already sent to you all from the Director(Evaluation), the ODES will start at the following regional centre:
Region Date of Commencement Seats Remarks

Pune 16/02/2010 20 For Sr.Sec. (Secondary already going on)
Hyderabad 23/02/2010 25 Both Sec.Sr.Sec.
Kolkata 23/02/2010 35 Both Sec.Sr.Sec.
Kochi 23/02/2010 10 Both Sec.Sr.Sec.
Bhopal 09/03/2010 20 Both Sec.Sr.Sec.
Jaipur 09/03/2010 50 Both Sec.Sr.Sec.
Patna 09/03/2010 20 Both Sec.Sr.Sec.

The registration for ODES is through Online only and has been made operational. The learners can now register for ODES from the above RCs for above dates onwards. You can check on the web site. You also need to publicise the same in the local news papers for information to the NIOS learners.
Kindly note that there is an additional requirement for the learners to appear in the ODE which is the additional Identity proof.. This is to check the impersonation cases. This has been mentioned in the Handbook already sent to you.

S K Prasad

Birth of Distance Learning in India

There is a lot of confusion about the terms distance learning and eLearning. A lot of confusion comes as most people use them in place of each other. Is there any real difference between these things? The answer is yes. In fact, these terms represent totally different concepts. In this article, I will explain this in more detail. Distance learning is an old concept. eLearning came much later. In fact, if you put all the history of education on a 24 hr timeline, then you would see distance learning emerging at 16th hour but eLearning will emerge only at 23:30 hrs. That’s a lot of difference. I will start with a bit of history of distance learning and show where eLearning fits into the whole picture to fill the missing piece of jigsaw problem.

Brief History of Distance Learning

Let’s have a look at brief history of distance learning and then see how eLearning emerged because of pitfalls of distance learning. Probably first instance of distance education was in Indian mythological book - Mahabharata (Fate, Predestination & Human Action in the Mahabharata: A Study in the History of Ideas). In modern times, the distance education started in 16th century. - In 1728: Boston Gazette published an advertisement "Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston." - 1840: Isaac Pitman started using Great Britain's Penny Post for teaching shorthand. First institution sponsored distance education began in the United States in 1874 at Illinois Wesleyan University. - First dedicated university for correspondence was setup in 1883: The Correspondence University of Ithaca, New York (a correspondence school) was founded in 1883. By this time, people were beginning to realize that although distance learning has its advantages but it is fundamentally flawed as it results in minimal progress in student’s knowledge and skill set. They tried to solve it by using technology. In a short story The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster published in 1909, an audio/video communication network is described which is used to deliver lectures a remote audience. Even TV has been used to deliver lectures. In more recent times, open courseware movement has gathered lot of traction. Some of best universities (MIT, Stanford, and Tufts etc.) released their courses under creative commons license. Anyone in the world can access the courses taught at these institutes.

Welcome to the Online Community

Welcome to the Online Community!

This online community is a social network that provides one common platform to share and discuss our ideas and opinons on various issues that directly or indirectly affect our students learing.

On our homepage you will find prompts for discussion in which all can participat and respond.

Use this as a personal space to add your reflections on the educational ideas presented and also to engage in online conversations with colleagues.

Thanks.