Edusys Raises $7.5M From Sequoia Capital | VCCircle

Bangalore-based online education training and certification company Edusys Services Pvt Ltd has raised $7.5 million (Rs 38 crore) from Sequoia Capital. With this round of funding, Edusys aims to expand its business by introducing new products and strengthening its core team and technology platform. Launched in 2004, Edusys currently has a customer base of more than 3,500 companies globally and supports students from over 150 countries. It offers specific courses and tests, which span a vast spectrum of conventional and emerging domains of learning and work. The company has offices in the USA, the UK, Singapore and Australia besides Bangalore and Bhubaneswar in India.

(Via Edusys Raises $7.5M From Sequoia Capital | VCCircle)

 

 

The Context of Statistics

 

Anurag Behar, CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation, wrote an article yesterday in the Mint, describing how private and government schools are equally incompetent to provide good education. In the article he provides a statistic:

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, which places us on learning levels at number 73 in a list of 74 nations, just above Kyrgyzstan, concludes that there is no difference in learning levels across private and government schools. The study that I refer to above concludes that learning is better for children who stayed back at government schools, versus those who were moved to private schools, using financial support on offer as a part of the research design.

(Via Alike in incompetence – Views – livemint.com)

I am assuming the “us” refers to India and we are second last in that list.

I went on to the OECD site, picked up the PISA 2009 Plus Results : Performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science for 10 additional participants. [PDF, 193 pages 13MB].

I searched for India on the list. It wasn’t there. Instead, two separate regions were listed under the country name: Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

First, it seems obvious to me that two states participating in a survey hardly are representative of a nation. Secondly, it said in the report, that:

Himachal Pradesh-India and Tamil Nadu-India did not meet PISA standards for student sampling. Due to irregularities in the student sample numbers, it was established after the testing that these economies sampled from student lists that were often incomplete: not all 15-year-olds within the school were listed. It was not possible to determine whether any bias existed in the obtained sample. Caution should be exercised when using the data from Himachal Pradesh-India or Tamil Nadu-India and when interpreting the reported analyses.

It is no secret that education in India is facing severe problems, but to take unqualified results from a very small sample and apply it to the nation, is another thing.

NYC tech takes on the classroom | Crain’s New York Business

New boost for interactive content:

Partly spurred by its concentration of intellectual talent, New York is also becoming a hotbed of innovation in educational technology. Venture capital investment in education-related startups in the metro area totaled $95 million in 2011—an 84% spike over the prior year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association. The number of startups receiving investment money rose to 14, up from eight in 2010.In the long run, newfangled interactive textbooks like the ones Apple and its publishing partners previewed last Thursday are likely to be a minor aspect of education’s digital revolution. But Apple’s entry is certainly helping the revolution along.

All doesn’t seem to be well, however:

In the fourth quarter, VC financing in the New York area plunged 40%, compared with the prior quarter, to $545.1 million.

But experts say the tech-education industry is just getting started. The U.S. business for e-learning products and services in the pre-K to 12-and-higher education markets will grow to $11 billion in 2015, from $7.6 billion in 2011, according to research firm Ambient Insight.

(Via NYC tech takes on the classroom | Crain’s New York Business)

Hat Tip: Samudra Sen

Now A Stationery Firm Launches Education Tablet!

Tablet makers appear to see a big market for selling devices to students. After Datawind’s blockbuster launch of the world’s cheapest Tablet Aakash and the more recent launch of Classpad, it is the turn of E-class Education System Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of public listed stationery products maker Sundaram Multi Pap Ltd to launch an education Tablet.

The company has launched a new Tablet PC called ‘e-class Tablet’. The Tablet comes inbuilt with e-class content and has been developed by Sundaram Group for Maharashtra State Board students. The Tablet has the entire syllabus of a selected standard preloaded inside it in a video format that includes animations, audio and visuals.

There are two models of the Tablet, a basic and a premium one. The basic model comes with a resistive touchscreen and is priced at Rs 8,000, while the capacitive touchscreen model is priced at Rs 12,000.

(Via Now A Stationery Firm Launches Education Tablet! « Consumer Tech « Techcircle.in – India Internet, mobile, consumer tech, business tech)

 

English, in India

Saw this article in the ToI. Again, good scores are not a perfect representative of proficiency. A very well-defined and a standard definition of proficiency is long due.

“Toefl provides accurate scores at the individual level; it is not appropriate for comparing countries,” clarified Walt MacDonald, ETS executive vice-president and chief operating officer.

“The differences in the number of students taking the test in each country, how early English is introduced into the curriculum, how many hours per week are devoted to learning English, and the fact that those taking the test are not representative of all English speakers in each country or any defined population,” Said MacDonald.

via ‘Toefl score comparison unfair’ – The Times of India.

This was really my primary crib, when I wrote about the Proficiency Debate.

Better Future for a MOOC

Audrey Watters recently wrote an “introductory” post about the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)

The acronym MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. The meaning of “massive” is obvious; a MOOC can range from several hundred to several thousand participants. But it isn’t just the size of the classes or even their location — online — that make MOOCs different.

MOOCs redefine academic courses in several ways. They are open, for one, which means that anyone can participate. The content of the course — readings and so on — is freely and openly accessible. The content that participants create is also open. Students blog, for example, and share their learning with one another.

via Are MOOCs the Future of Online Learning? | MindShift.

Having participated in a MOOC, recently – Learning & Knowledge Analytics – LAK11, (which, I admit, I have yet to complete – and that is the beauty of it), I can tell you that the experience is enriching. However, as Audrey Watters rightly says, there needs to be a “strong commitment” to learn.

The one major advantage of a MOOC, to my mind is the accessibility of the course. Learning content that would have been otherwise unavailable to people around the world is now on your screens and at your disposal in a way that you could not have imagined. A very recent example is the MOOC being offered by Stanford University on “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” A free course from Stanford University, yes you read that right. But here’s something that may not completely be wonderful about a MOOC. According to the info page for this course:

It is their objective to offer identical homework assignments, quizzes, and exams in both versions of this course. Students taking the online version will therefore be graded according to the same grading criteria as students taking CS221 at Stanford. However, to receive Stanford credit, the course has to be taken through Stanford; and students have to be registered at Stanford University. Online student will only get a certificate in the name of the instructors, but no official Stanford certificate.

That is the logic of free. I have yet to see a MOOC that offers any kind of certification. If you have read Audrey Watters’ article, you will have seen that a MOOC is necessarily an informal learning. So you’d participate in a MOOC more for the love of learning than certification itself.

A few thoughts on the way forward for MOOCs:

• It would be nice for MOOCs to have industry participation. For all the cries of talent shortage that the industry makes, it is ironic that would not want to participate in such a progressive and contemporary learning initiative.
• It would be even more worthwhile, if they endorse such courses. It would help provide additional motivation to the participants to take up MOOCs as supplementary qualifications.
• MOOCs use well-developed technology platforms for delivery; an ePortfolio would be helpful, something that the participants can carry in lieu of of a formal certificate.
• Since MOOCs usually have thousands of participants (not all of them quite serious learners), a method of filtering folks that you would like to follow and engage with. Also, a method to identify and discover folks who are actively engaged in the course.

These notes, to an extent, invalidate the very idea of informal and open learning. However, I believe the MOOC has the potential to address some of the gaps that education needs to fulfill.

Finally, the one irony of a MOOC, I cannot but help noticing, is the accessibility of a MOOC. By virtue of it being an online course, those who could be best served by the value of a MOOC, are the ones who do not have access to the Internet.

Digital is Different

“The most important thing is not to optimise what you do, but to find out and decide what you should be doing… find out where you should really be and to make sure that you are climbing the tallest peak, not just a false summit…If you get stuck on a small mountain, you get to the top and look around and you find you’re on the wrong mountain. A mile away is a mountain that’s twice as tall…Learn how to search the landscape very widely, and to make sure we find the tallest mountain to climb – that we find the right thing to do. And having done that, if we find ourselves on top of a false summit…In other words we’ve got to get down the mountain, and cross that desert, and come up on the tallest peak. And that’s called letting go, killing a product at its peak.”

(Via Brave New World: Rethinking the Future: The Digital Divide)

This might sound quite abstract by itself — as a ‘thing to do’, but when you read the full article, you will know that it makes perfect sense. Martyn Daniels asks why the publishing industry is still stuck on the print model of the product and tries and retrofit this model in the digital world.

Digital is different and needs to be approached differently — not just as a medium but the social context of what digital is, how it is consumed, and how it is produced. There are no more ‘passive consumers’, and the more we treat them as such, the more we are alienating them from consuming our products. While Martyn makes a specific case in publishing, I suspect it is true across industries; education being no exception.

Hat Tip: Eoin Purcell

Health & Education lose out in the 11th Plan

India did not spent enough for the poor despite a commitment being made in the 11th five year plan. [...] In the information shared with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday, the commission admitted that infrastructure sectors ate into the funds meant for the social sector, except rural development.

Both, health and education got just 60% of the funds projected for these sectors in the 11th plan, which the PM had described as a total health and education plan. The plan ends in March 2012.

(Via India did not spent enough for health and education in 11th plan – Hindustan Times)

The India/China Language Proficiency Debate

Henry Foy, in the Reuters blog, asks if India has squandered its English advantage?

But, as Asian rival China surpasses India’s English proficiency rates for the first time, that advantage over other developing economies looks to have been squandered.

China was ranked one place above India in Education First’s 2011 English Proficiency Index, released last month, the first time India has been beaten by its neighbour and fellow BRIC economy in the international rankings of foreign countries English-speaking abilities.

(Via Has India squandered its English advantage? | India: A billion aspirations | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.com)

Mr. Foy uses the EF EPI report (PDF) to ask this question. An interesting question and a topic for debate, given the great English leaps that our eastern neighbour has initiated for the last few years. And an important point for all Indians; except, Henry Foy misses out mentioning a few important factors in his article. However, I do not intend to single out Mr. Foy – other magazines and newspapers have taken the same stand.

For one, while this is an index, there is no attempt at defining proficiency. Here’s what I found on Wikipedia

Language proficiency or linguistic proficiency is the ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language. As theories vary among pedagogues as to what constitutes proficiency, there is little consistency as to how different organizations classify it. Additionally, fluency and language competence are generally recognized as being related, but separate controversial subjects. In predominant frameworks in the United States, proficient speakers demonstrate both accuracy and fluency, and use a variety of discourse strategies. Thus, native speakers of a language can be fluent without being considered proficient. (Via Language proficiency)

But since we do not know the parameter(s) that EF EPI (English Proficiency Index) defined for this test, it anyway doesn’t matter. The report itself seems to be quite unsure of this: “Within the English-teaching community, there is no consensus on the best ways to evaluate English proficiency, or indeed on the ultimate goals of English study. While most English teachers and students agree that communication is the primary objective, more work must be done to define target competencies and how each competency can best be evaluated.“.

The report also mentions the shortcomings of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) for Languages):

However, the CEFR is only a first step towards standard-setting in language education. More detailed definitions of finer-grained skill levels and accompanying evaluative tools are needed, particularly those which take into account current thinking on communication as the primary goal of English study. The most widely-adopted English competency tests today are still heavily weighted towards an older notion of proficiency, no longer in sync with the role that English plays in the world today as an international communication tool.

Secondly, in the Asia EF EPI section, these few lines caught my eye – and I wondered if I was reading it right:

Indeed, although it is very difficult to measure the number of people who speak English in each country because of different definitions of proficiency, the British Council estimated in 2010 that India had anywhere between 55 and 350 million English speakers while a report published by Cambridge University Press estimates that China has 250 to 350 million English learners.

You can see that the report sounds apologetic over the inability to define proficiency. But do read the quote again - if you missed it – India has up to 350million speakers while china has up to 350million learners. Now, the GER for primary and secondary in India has increased from 66% in 1999 to 84% in 2008. Also,

Official statistics on the number of children enrolled in recognised English medium schools in the country show that it has more than doubled within just half a decade from over 61 lakh (6.1million) in 2003 to over 1.5 crore (15million) in 2008.

[...]

In 2006, English as a medium of instruction was fourth — behind Hindi, Bengali and Marathi — but by 2007, it had climbed to second place and grew even further in 2008, beginning to eat into the Hindi numbers.”

(Via August, English, Nagarajan, Rema. The Times Of India. 27 Mar. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2011.)

Finally, Mr. Foy’s article fails to mention that the EF EPI test was an online test:

Only countries with a minimum of 400 test takers were included in the index. Countries with fewer than 100 test takers per test on two or more of the tests were also excluded, regardless of the total number of test takers.

We recognize that the test-taking population represented in this index is self-selected and not guaranteed to be representative of the country as a whole. Only those people either wanting to learn English or curious about their English skills will participate in one of these tests. In addition, since the tests are online, people without internet access or unused to online applications are automatically excluded.

Again, not necessarily a good or an accurate sample size. Most teachers or parents in India will not be aware of or have access to this test.

Coming back to the article, while there may be merit in being concerned about losing advantage in a certain skill, I found the ‘straight-line’ interpretation of this report very short-sighted. It is almost as if everyone has looked only at the list – and moved on to the now-fashionable bashing of India’s education problems. While we may have a real problem on hand, this report is no indicator of the problem or the extent of the problem.

Not Disruptive Enough

In a recent post, Is Online Learning a Disruptive Innovation? by the Harvard Education Publishing Group, Peter J. Stokes says:

While some experts argue that online learning can and should be more cost effective to deliver than traditional classroom instruction, the reality for many schools is that they grow their online efforts alongside their classroom operations, and thus they see their operational costs increasing rather than decreasing. And students are often charged the same tuition—or even higher—for online programs as for campus programs.

This kind of online learning is far from being disruptive. Most organisations are using online learning as a supplement to the traditional format, or as Stokes says above, growing these alongside classroom operations. In effect, online learning is bound to the classroom process and is bound to the amount of disruption a classroom can offer, which is almost zero.

Online learning needs to be released from the shackles traditional learning processes – if we are to see any disruption at all. In doing this, online learning achieves:

• Better costs: When online learning is not subservient to the traditional format, it becomes disruptive because it is not burdened by the cost-structures of the traditional format. As the author says in the post, disruptive products are not breakthrough products, they are “often inferior products. What makes them compelling is that they are cheaper and easier to use.” Stripping online learning of the burden of conventional cost and infrastructure makes them cheaper to use.
• Teacher Focus: The traditional role of a class teacher changes with online learning. She is released from the burden of core instruction (which is taken on by online learning) and — becomes a facilitator to improve learning, is able to engage further with learners, can now provide better remedial learning, and importantly, have more time on her hand to improve her own skills.
• Wider inclusion: Aligning the traditional format and online learning is a deterrent to a class of learners that are working, foreign or part-time learners. Online learning provides far more wider access than the traditional format could ever provide, without scaling costs.

Online learning needs a rethink of the process, rather than just having an offering online. That it is a better option for learner performance has been widely verified. That, is fairly beyond argument. Unless online learning is thought of as an alternative to traditional learning, it will continue to suffer the curse of not being disruptive enough.

Right to Education: The Way Forward; Vinay Rai and Narendra Kumar

One of the many reasons you pick a book is because of the author’s credentials. Right to Education: The Way Forward by Vinay Rai and Narendra Kumar (ISBN: 978-81-910833-1-6) was one such book.

Given my interest in education and generally the paradox that the Right to Education Act is all about, this seemed to be a good book to pick up. Being shrink-wrapped, when I saw it in the book store, I was left to judge the book only by its cover – and the author bios on the back cover.

I am terribly disappointed by this book.

For one, it seems that this was supposed to be primarily to be just a paper and few thoughts that have been converted to a book. There is significant repetition of nay, not just paragraphs, but pages altogether. Many sentences find their way back into the text matter shamelessly, with unfailing regularity. The editor has done a shoddy job, (“short of human capital by 17 millions”), and Indian words like “melas” are not marked out in any way. Paragraph subtitles are like:

The Road To Implementation Of
Act Is- Potholed

As far as the core content of the book, it does not provide any fresh perspective on the Act – the challenges and the solutions mentioned in the book have been argued ad nauseam. The research material from which certain assumptions are derived are very limited, and are repeatedly referred in the book. There is a vast amount of literature out there from organisations like NEUPA and UNESCO and the MHRD site, which does not find any mention in the book.

At the end of the book, I felt that this book was not written by the authors; they have just lent their name to it. Further, for such a low-quality publication to come out of and be endorsed by ASSOCHAM’s President, Dr. Swati Piramal, was equally disappointing.

Finally, since this book did not show up in the GoodReads library, I had to add it to the library. As I filled in the details, I was very surprised to note that the blurb on jacket flaps was taken from an article by India Today.

A serious case of plagiarism, if you ask me. And a serious case of dismay.

PS: for an opposing view, please read this review

Totara LMS launches at Learning Technologies

Totara LMS, the custom distribution of Moodle for corporates, is being launched in the UK at the Learning Technologies Conference and Exhibition. For more information, visit Totara LMS

via Totara LMS launches at Learning Technologies | Kineo Press Releases.

No Next Button – Some Examples | MinuteBio

Having seen my share of eLearning courses, built a few, and reviewed quite a few, this link was interesting to read.

No Next Button – Some Examples | MinuteBio

The Back/Next navigation, which relegates interaction outside the content has been done to death, almost like PowerPoint. The learner is a passive consumer of the content – the said interaction is no interaction, but a chore to push the passive state of content from one screen to another. There is no excitement in the “interaction” and the said “interaction” is in a frame that contains the interaction.

Instructionally, this imposes a way of navigating on the learner, that leaves no scope for discovery or exploration. More often than not, moving media (animations, video clips) embedded in the content is often passed for interactive content. This is, at best, active content.

Not all samples in this link are the best in terms of instructional design, but they definitely make a case for breaking away from frame-based navigational interaction.

Hat Tip: Stephen Downes

Tracking Innovation in Education

George Siemens plans to start a website to track innovation in education around the world. I have signed up to help the ‘trendspotting’ exercise. Here’s the ethos of that website:

Education has an uneasy relationship with businesses. I tried, unsuccessfully, to communicate that I viewed entrepreneurs as risk takers who take ownership of an idea or concept and strive to produce systemic impact. Certainly there is a financial component to the process, but I’m more interested in people generating and testing out new ideas. With full recognition that entrepreneurial activity and education do not share the same ideals and values, I find the need for innovation in education to outweigh this conflict. And I don’t see suitable or viable models for new idea generation and broad implementation outside of entrepreneurship.

Visit the link below for more information and the link to the Google Group, if you’d like to join in!

(Via elearnspace › The urgent need for education/learning tech entrepreneurs)

The Indian Tablet Triangle

Three Indian tablet devices are gathering newsworthiness.

“At least three different gadgets — all tablet PCs — have captured the imagination of geeks across the globe in the past few weeks. Two of the devices are staking claims to becoming the lowest-priced tablet PCs, while the other is a stunner that promises to take on the best in the game.” (Via The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Gadgets : Indian hardware market abuzz with tablet PCs)

Sakshat: The much talked about and debated $35 device announced by the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development, recently. There has been significant debate on this device – primarily concerning the ability of the government to keep the cost within the limits of what was announced.

Adam: The iPad killer (but then, which device isn’t). The website (under construction is at http://www.notionink.in/, but you will find more information on their blog. With a price range of $399 to $498, it seems targeted to the retail segment, and the news is that it may not be launched in India, to begin with.

Stamp: Relatively unknown, so far, the i.MX233 based STAMP (Specs and Video) platform from AllGo is the third platform that is in the low cost segment. Pegged in the $50 range, this device is expected to make its debut, primarily in the B2B segment and they are not ruling out education.

I hope I am soon able to write a similar post about folks who are thinking right about creating content and services around the platform.