Browsing by Author "Menon, Mohan"
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- ItemOpen AccessDeveloping Virtual School with Transformative Value(2006-10) Menon, MohanPCF4 // School education in India is facing many problems and challenges. The process of globalisation and ICT use are making many demands from education, particularly of high quality and relevance. Indian school education is now getting layerd into four strata: International schools, Private schools, Public schools and Municipal & District Council schools. They form the quality and cost ladder and divides society. // The State efforts of universalisation of primary education is still incomplete. Knowledge society now demands higher learning - 12 year schooling with vocational training. The challenge today is to offer Best Quality School Education for All for sustainable development. // A group of individuals, public and private institutions came together under the leadership of Commonwealth of Learning and formed Indian Consortium for Educational Transformation (I-CONSENT). It is still in the making. Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd (MKCL), a company created to develop new paradigm in education and avoid digital divide, is offering its total e-governance and LMS platform. (www.mkcl.org). // India faces the problem of large numbers. The school system in Maharashtra alone has 17.32 million students in 89 000 schools taught by 469 thousand teachers. It forms quite a substantial part of population of 100 million of the State of Maharashtra. Indian society respects education; and a family spends substantial time and resources on child’s education at home. A parallel and supportive system of private and home tutoring exists and may be involving nearly half a million tutors and 2-3 million parents. All this makes the school education quite big and complex; and needs different approach for its transformation. // The MKCL platform enable to design and develop Technology Mediated Open and Distance Education (Tech-MODE) that enables to support mega-systems by using processes of digitization, virtualization, and mass-personalization. Tech-MODE platform enables teachers and experts to offer their best quality course and activities. The first program of the I-CONSENT on Tech-MODE platform is of Virtual School and Learning Homes and would be launched from July 2006 as a pilot in one district of Maharashtra in India. // In partnership with the Consortium members, courses and activities are being developed and deployed. They include talent nurturing, linking school education with environment, society, industry and technology with participation of parents and community. The Workshop would present issues and concerns related to ICT for Educational Transformation, Direct Teacher Training System, Social and Educational Mobilisation and Consortium Approach. MKCL platform and Tech-MODE support for e-Education would be demonstrated. // Paper ID 473
ItemOpen AccessDevelopment and Delivery of an OER based University Course: Wawasan Open University Experience(2013-11) Phalachandra, Bhandigadi; Menon, MohanThe paper discusses the processes adopted in developing an OER integrated five credit Post Graduate course: ICT in Education, and also the strategy followed at the University for the delivery of the course to distance learners. The course is structured with five units and demands about 200 hrs of study on the part of the students. The course inputs included course guide, study units (Self instructional materials), tutor marked assignments, tutorials, online support and final examination. The study units are structured with sufficient provision for reading texts, additional readings, video clips, activities, reflection, case-studies and items for checking the progress etc. The paper discusses the processes followed in designing and developing the course curriculum, identification and integration of OER materials in to the content of the course, organisation of the content, design of assignments and examination, the course delivery and the organisation of learner support system. The paper also makes an attempt to share the experiences of course writers, instructional designer course coordinator/tutor and students. Finally the paper makes an attempt to provide guidelines for designing and delivery of OER based courses through distance mode. // Paper ID: 358- ItemOpen AccessEducation for Sustainable Development: Reaching the Masses(2007-11-26) Daniel, John; Alluri, Krishna; Menon, MohanFourth International Conference on Environmental Education, Environmental Education towards a Sustainable Future: Partners for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, Ahmedabad, India, 26 November 2007, Education for Sustainable Development: Reaching the Masses, John Daniel, Krishna Alluri and Mohan Menon Commonwealth of Learning // In order to succeed education for sustainable development must reach the masses. This means three things. First, we must focus on those who can multiply the message, especially teachers, working not just in the classroom but through open schooling systems. Second, we must cultivate lifelong environmental learning, including that related to climate change and water resources management. Third, it follows from these two imperatives that we must use learning technologies and teaching media at scale. We describe the work of the Commonwealth of Learning in these three areas. Technology-mediated open and distance education makes it possible for the Centre for Environmental Education to teach its Green Teacher Diploma to thousands of teachers. Information technology kiosks in villages allow farmers to become lifelong learners, increasing their prosperity and lessening their environmental impact.
- ItemOpen AccessEnhancing Quality Learning in a Fragile Environment: Case of the Palestinian Refugees(2010-11) Menon, MohanUNRWA Support to Palestinian Refugees // United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has been providing services to Palestine refugees for the last 60 years in not only relief and rehabilitation but also in development areas including health and education in five regions/fields viz. Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. This paper attempts to discuss the complexity of providing quality education in the Palestine region with different socio-political and conflict situations facing also additional problems in inter-field travel and transportation. The Agency has been adopting traditional ways of education and training through mainly face to face mode within institutional context, but lately has started working on use of information and communication technologies and other innovative practices for educating the refugee children/youth and training teachers and other support personnel. While the Programme has done fairly well in providing access to refugee children for basic education, it has not achieved in maintaining quality in its provision due to many internal and external factors affecting the Programme. This paper attempts to describe the conflict ridden and fragile environment in which the programme operates, highlights its achievement especially in almost universal access of refugee children to basic education, identifies the quality issues inherent in the system and describe the various ICT applications and other innovative practices being adopted and planned for enhancing the quality of educational provision including coverage of learners with special educational needs. Discussion will focus on how these applications are helping or expected to help in increasing access as well as enhancing quality of the education and training provisions. // UNESCO-UNRWA Education Programme // As a result of an agreement signed between UNESCO and UNRWA in 1951, UNESCO assumed the technical responsibility of the Education Programme through the secondment of a number of technical and managerial staff on a non-reimbursable loan to the Agency. Since 1995, UNESCO has been directly recruiting the Director of Education and Chief of Educationa Planning and Management and also been sponsoring some four senior-level local area staff for advise to UNRWA’s Commissioner-General on all policy aspects of the operational and technical activities of the Education Programme. Thanks to the ongoing technical support from UNESCO the Education Programme of UNRWA has made significant contributions to Palestinian human development, shaping the lives, aspirations and futures of three generations of Palestine refugees. Historically, the Agency has enjoyed a reputation for innovation, dynamism and vision in its approach and commitment to education. As of 2008, there were approximately 4.7 million refugees registered with UNRWA. Almost 40% of the 4.7 million registered refugees are estimated to be children below the age of 18 Years. UNRWA has been providing education services for over 60 years.
- ItemOpen AccessGenerating Mass Movement for Creating Quality School Education for All(2008) Takwale, Ram; Deshmukh, Martand; Sawant, Vivek; Menon, Mohan; Naidu, SomThis paper reports an initiative by a group of institutions and individuals who have worked together to develop school and teacher education programs on e-Platform developed by MKCL. Its goal has been to develop a new paradigm of education for large numbers with connectedness for offering Quality School Education for All, and for sustainable development of local situations, that is, classrooms, schools and local community by linking them to the global context. The two programs that are part of this initiative are an online B. e-Ed. and Virtual School and Learning Homes (VSLH). These two programs enable an experimental and exploratory way of learning and preparing teachers for exploratory learning using situated learning designs based on constructivist pedagogy. It also aims to develop a mass Olympiad movement to support multi-level, multi-stage nurturing and assessment of learning. Quality of education in teaching and learning is considered at three levels - content, processes and systems. A program of developing mechanisms, sharable and common wealth is undertaken to support quality in a distributed e-education system. A model of management for working, learning and developing together on an eplatform that offers a level playing field for all is being developed in order to address Indian problems of large numbers, disparities and divides. // Paper ID 566
- ItemRestrictedLearning for Development: The Work of the Commonwealth of Learning(2007-01-31) Daniel, John; Menon, MohanThe World Bank, Washington, DC, USA, 31 January 2007, Presentation to World Bank Staff, Learning for Development: The Work of the Commonwealth of Learning, Sir John Daniel & Professor Mohan Menon, Commonwealth of Learning // It is a pleasure to be here and to return the visit that Jamil Salmi and Rick Hopper made to COL last fall. It is good to be at the Bank again with friends that I worked with when I was at UNESCO. Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you about the work that the Commonwealth of Learning. // I shall present COL in a general fashion and then my colleague Mohan Menon, Team Leader of our Education Sector, will focus specifically on Teacher Development and Open Schooling, two areas that Jamil and Rick thought might resonate well with some of your concerns. He will try to relate COL's work in these two fields to your own interest and suggest potentially productive areas for collaboration. // I shall start with some background on COL before explaining the thinking behind our Three-Year Plan for 2006-09, called simply Learning for Development. This Plan was endorsed by Commonwealth Ministers of Education at their Conference in Cape Town in December. The Plan gives the overall framework of our programme for the Commonwealth as a whole. It is made operational through 49 Country Action Plans which we have finalised since the Ministers' Conference and will present to our Executive Committee in London on Friday.
- ItemOpen AccessODL and ICTs for Teacher Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Experience of the Commonwealth of Learning(2005-09-01) Daniel, John; Menon, MohanBOCODOL WORKSHOP, Gaborone, Botswana, 1 September, 2005, ODL and ICTs for Teacher Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Experience of the Commonwealth of Learning By: Sir John Daniel & Mohan Menon, Commonwealth of Learning // It is a pleasure to be invited to speak to you at this BOCODOL [Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning] Workshop on the final day of a three-week trip that will have taken me around the world from Vancouver to Vancouver through eight countries of southern Africa. Southern Africa is the most distant part of the Commonwealth from Vancouver, so once I was here it made sense to visit all the Commonwealth countries of the region. It is good to end here in Botswana at BOCODOL, because throughout my trip I have found great interest in the development of SARDEC [the Southern African Regional Distance Education Centre]. // My instructions for my remarks today were to present a paper on any aspect of ODL that I feel will benefit the region. This is in the context of strengthening the capacity-building programme being undertaken by SARDEC with COL's support. This morning, at the WITFOR [World Information Technology Forum] conference, I talked about eLearning and the huge potential importance to Africa of the combination of increasing connectivity and open educational resources, the re-usable learning objects that we can now create in electronic form. // You obviously don't want to hear the same speech, so this afternoon I am going to talk about teacher education. My title is: ODL and ICTs for teacher development in Sub-Saharan Africa: the experience of the Commonwealth of Learning and I have prepared this paper with the help of my distinguished colleague Professor Mohan Menon, who is in charge of the area of teacher education and school development at COL. // The essence of COL's work is the application of technology to learning for purposes of development. You are all familiar with the Millennium Development Goals, the MDGs. Achieving these goals will be challenging for many African countries, because their attainment requires many different types of intervention. However, a common requirement for progress to all the eight goals is a massive increase in learning. COL is increasingly using the framework of the MDGs to define its work, which is leading us to try to contribute to the fight against poverty and hunger through lifelong learning for farmers and to the struggle against disease by helping the masses to learn how to live healthy lives. // But the MDG that stands out, because it provides the foundation for progress to all the others, is the goal of basic education for all. It is in this context that COL is engaged in helping countries to train and develop their teachers. However good we are at using technology to support schooling, children need teachers. They are fundamental to school development, which is why we call Professor Menon's area 'Teacher Education and School Development'. You are all well aware of the challenge.
- ItemOpen AccessOpen and Distance Learning in a Changing World: Selected speeches of Sir John Daniel and colleagues (2007-2008)(2009) Daniel, John; Kanwar, Asha; West, Paul; Uvalić-Trumbić, Stamenka; Alluri, Krishna; Menon, MohanThis booklet contains an open letter to the next US president – written before the election – and six speeches delivered in different countries at various events. In giving the selection the title Open and Distance Learning in a Changing World we have tried to show how the core principles of open and distance learning (ODL) are being implemented in new ways to meet emerging development needs
- ItemOpen AccessPromoting Scenario- Based e- Learning at IGNOU: Faculty Experiences(2008-09) Kanjilal, Uma; Khare, Pankaj; Naidu, Som; Menon, MohanPCF5 Sub-theme: Livelihoods // The Open and Distance Education System has proved its capabilities in addressing the needs of knowledge seekers and opportunities for continuing education. With advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the delivery of educational programmes has witnessed a paradigm shift from print based teaching- learning to elearning. The learners having access to the internet and who have adapted to learning through screen have shown their preference for e- learning over print. E- learning has also witnessed dynamic changes and practitioners of ODL have initiated new models of online delivery by incorporating problem- based content software. The focuses of efforts are targeted towards the learner in the core and, the learning context and community within which learners live and work in the periphery. A model of learning and teaching, called scenario- based e- learning, has been devised and well tested universally. // Scenario- based e- learning (SBeL) is situated in a real context and is based on the idea that knowledge cannot be known and fully understood independent of its context. (Kindley, 2002) This paper describes the experience of preparing IGNOU faculty to design scenariobased e- learning instructions. Two workshops were conducted to train the faculty in developing scenarios for the already existing courses. A special e- platform for the workshop was developed to give them first hand experience. The participants comprised faculty members from different Schools of Study involved in professional programmes like medicine, engineering, education, management, law, etc. Each group developed a learning scenario in their respective discipline on a specific topic cantered on a story, challenging learners to reflect, solve problems and involve in learning activity that provide a meaningful learning environment. // Paper ID 773
- ItemOpen AccessQuality Indicators For Professional Education(2007-08-14) Menon, MohanWorkshop on Performance Indicators for Quality Assurance in Distance Higher Education, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 14-16 August 2007, Quality Indicators for Professional Education By Professor Mohan Menon, Commonwealth of Learning // Quality of courses and programmes in professional education is critical to the performance of the products in the real work situations. Any quality indicators or performance measures in higher education should accommodate the variety of prgrammes in the sector and the QA frameworks should be able to differentiate between the requirements of a knowledge-based programme in higher education from that of professional courses. The quality of a lawyer or a teacher or a doctor in one's real professional role will depend on the required knowledge in relevant areas as well as the competencies he or she possesses to be an effective practitioner. The training environment in a professional programme should be such that the transactional processes involved in the training situations should facilitate the professional to develop better insights into the work situation and practices. The training experiences gained in the pre-service and in-service professional development programmes viz. medicine or engineering should be able to prepare them for dealing with the complex realities obtained in the medical or engineering profession. // While the processes involved in the curriculum transaction are core to any educational experience, indicators of quality in professional higher education tends to focus attention on organisational and administrative processes and the organisation of mode related learning components such as course development and learner support. Naidu (2004) emphasizing this point in the context of teacher education says that 'at times when there is some attention being paid to learning and teaching, the emphasis is on the quality of the teachers, their training, and on the support that they might be receiving. The quality of the learning experience is seen to have been assured with qualified personnel'. This is not essentially true as the presence of required number of health educators need not always ensure effectiveness of a health education programme by ODL if the course materials are developed with only mechanically following an ID template as well as adequate opportunity for learner support, without ensuring the manifestation of the required transactional (pedagogical) processes. // Koul (2006) does give some emphasis to the learning design aspect. He identified ten factors grouped into three dimensions to contribute to quality assurance in ODL. The core dimension includes two factors viz. one, course materials, instructional design, teaching-learning including evaluation practices and learner support services and two, learner centricity of support services, and research and capacity building. While there are several factors under the 'systems' and 'resources' (Koul, 2006), the core dimension is critical to the effectiveness of any course. I consider the following four quality indicators within the 'core dimension' of a professional education programme/institution most critical to its quality. Design of Learning Learner-centredness Reflective Practice Dialogue in instruction
- ItemOpen AccessReflections on Quality Assurance in Open Distance Learning(2007-08-14) Menon, MohanWorkshop on Performance Indicators for Quality Assurance in Distance Higher Education, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 14-16 August 2007, Reflections on Quality Assurance in Open Distance Learning by Professor Mohan B. Menon, Commonwealth of Learning // Quality is a characteristic of the products and services an organisation offers. Quality in a higher education programme would thus mean quality of graduates it produces and quality of learning processes it provides for. Hence it is important to have the quality indicators related to the products and processes involved in higher education clearly formulated. Quality assurance (QA) is a process directed toward achieving that characteristic. It is the set of activities that an organisation undertakes to ensure that standards are specified and reached consistently for a product or service. Quality Assurance involves proactive measures taken to avoid faults while quality control (QC) involves reactive measures taken to remove faults and assessment of quality systems includes the monitoring, evaluation, and audit of procedures. A total quality management - internal and external will be a combined mechanism of quality assurance, quality control and continuous monitoring and evaluation (M&E) (Menon, 2004) // Any education programme irrespective of the mode would require a total quality management system involving quality assurance, quality control and continuous monitoring and evaluation. Quality indicators related to the products and processes are to be clearly defined and formulated for a TQM to be successful. There would be a set of QIs common across modes of higher education (face-to-face or ODL) while some QIs could be specific to each mode.
- ItemOpen AccessSpeeches: By Sir John Daniel and colleagues August/September 2005)(2005) Daniel, John; Naidoo, Vis; Kanwar, Asha; Uvalić-Trumbić, Stamenka; West, Paul; D’Antoni, Susan; Menon, MohanThis booklet contains the texts of six speeches that I delivered at conferences and symposia during the trip. Because their access to the Internet is sometimes limited, African colleagues whom I met often asked for ‘hard copies’ of my addresses. Here they are. The subjects cover various aspects of COL’s work: the contribution of technology to education; open/distance learning and development; distance learning in the context of Africa; cross-border higher education; eLearning; and teacher training. Some themes recur between speeches, but since the topics are different we have preferred to maintain the integrity of each text rather than eliminating all repetition. - Sir John Daniel, September 2005 Contents: 1) Open and distance education for Africans and by Africans / African Council of Distance Education, Tshwane, South Africa, 12 August 2005, Sir John Daniel, Vis Naidoo // 2) Distance education: What is its relevance to Africa and Zambia? / Open and Distance Learning Symposium, Lusaka, Zambia, 27 August 2005, Sir John Daniel // 3) ODL in an international context: Trends, prospects and challenges / Namibia visit - public lecture, Lusaka, Zambia, 29 August 2006, Sir John Daniel, Asha Kanwar, Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic // 4) Towards education for all: The critical role of open and distance learning in national development / Namibian Conference on Open Learning, Windhoek, Namibia, 30 August 2005, Sir John Daniel // 5) ICTs in education: Can digital dividend replace digital divide? / WITFOR Conference, Gaborone, Botswana, 1 September 2005, Sir John Daniel, Paul West, Susan D’Antoni, Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic // 6) ODL and ICTs for teacher development in sub-Saharan Africa: The experience of the Commonwealth of Learning / BOCODOL Workshop, Gaborone, Botswana, 1 September 2005, Sir John Daniel, Mohan Menon
- ItemOpen AccessTechnology, Education and Sustainable Development(2006-02-16) Alluri, Krishna; Menon, Mohan; Daniel, JohnOur title is Technology, Education and Sustainable Development. Before I joined COL I spent a few years as Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO. Whilst I was there UNESCO's Education Sector was charged with laying the groundwork for the United Nations Decade for Education for Sustainable Development. It is a special pleasure to be in Ahmedabad, where the first major international meeting of the decade took place in January 2005. The Ahmedabad Declaration that emerged from that meeting has been very helpful to us in preparing this lecture.