Google launches online education tool Oppia

Google announced a new educational tool canned Oppia, which is an open-source project to make it easy for anyone to create online interactive activities for others to learn from. The NextWeb reported that with this tool, called explorations, activities can be built and contributed to by multiple people from around the globe using a simple web interface. Users don’t need any programming whatsoever.  

The tool does this by modeling a mentor who puts up queries for the student to answer. Based on the student’s responses, the mentor can decide what question he or she will ask next, feedbacks, and more. One can think of it as a smart feedback system.

Oppia is a free and open-source software released under the Apache License 2.0. Below are a few of its features:

• Learners receive personalized, customizable feedback after submitting answers.
• Explorations are embeddable in any webpage
• An online analytics dashboard that allows explorations to be improved easily over time.
• A full online editor GUI
• A comprehensive extension framework allowing straightforward integration of new interactions and classification rules
• Parameters can be associated with a learner in order to create a richer interactive experience.
• Collaborative creation and editing of explorations with version control
• (in progress) Responsive UI for mobile devices

A disclaimer on the bottom of the Google blog states that Oppia is not a Google product, which puts a question of the amount of resources Google plans to dedicate to Oppia. This could suggest the company is hoping that a community forms and takes the project ahead.

The NextWeb further added that Google’s reasoning Oppia’s existence was fairly simple. Google believes that online education can be conveyed by more than just video, audio or text. Feedback is the main key in learning. Google stated that “one does not learn to play the piano by watching videos of many virtuoso performances.”

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Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

HYDERABAD: Google is expanding to India an initiative to popularize the use of its Chromebook laptops in schools, starting with a pilot in four schools in Andhra Pradesh.

The internet search company that makes the world's most popular software for smartphones and tablets will initially make available 25 Chromebooks to each school and train the teachers and instructors in the use of the required software applications.

"The school instructors will teach core subjects using applications and software. We believe with interactive learning, the student will understand better and will take interest in the subjects," Ponnala Lakshmaiah, the state's minister for information technology, said.

Chromebooks require an internet connection to use, and most of the data, such as files that users work on, are stored on Google's storage network connected to the internet. Earlier this month, Samsung released a Chromebook model specifically for the Indian market. Schools are among the most popular market segments for the Chromebooks.

Google is running this programme in some 3,000 schools in the US, Singapore and Malaysia, a Google executive with direct knowledge of the plan to expand it to India told ET. The executive requested not to be named as Google was yet to announce the plan.

"Google aims to increase access to information and knowledge for all students, and encourages tools that support effective teaching and learning in the classroom, but we have nothing to announce at this time," a company spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

The pilot project, in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh department of information technology, will start next month, a senior government official said. It will be launched in three government schools and one private school in Jangaon in Warangal district.

After the pilot, which benefits students of grades nine and 10, discussions are on to expand the programme statewide, the government official said.

The state's IT department will provide the schools with Wi-Fi internet connectivity with 1Mbps speed and power backups for unhindered use. Each school will be assigned dedicated mentors who would train the teachers and instructors, the official said.

Training will include using the Google Apps Training Center, an online learning environment that offers six modules including Google Apps Education Edition, Apps Mail, Calendar, Docs, Sites, and other tools.

(Courtesy : Times of India)

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'Vote for a Better India' app for Android released to aid voter registration

Indian-American youths in US have developed a smartphone application to help the unregistered voters in India, in particular youths, to register their names in the electoral rolls.

The Android app "Vote for a Better India" was unveiled over the weekend at an event "Big Ideas for a Better India" organised by the 'Overseas Volunteer for Better India (OVBI)'. The event also featured an address by spiritual guru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, of the Art of Living fame.

The Android app will be used to power Vote at hon - an inter-college voter registration competition that is expected to have over 10,000 participating colleges with the goal of registering over 30 million voters - the event organizers said.

In his address, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar emphasised on increasing the voting percentage during elections. Referring to the high voter turnout in the recently held Assembly elections, he called for increasing the turnout to 95 percent.

The OVBI, in a statement, called upon the non-resident Indians to register themselves to vote and travel to India for a fortnight to contribute to voter education drive. It also urged them to encourage their family and friends to vote for a better India.

Interestingly, this is just one of many technology-based tools for the Indian democratic system, with several such small initiatives, as well as major ones by Google (its election portal) and Facebook (candidate information service on mobile), being released this year. The Election Commission also announced the use of a digital system to monitor possible code violations, ahead of the recent round of Assembly elections.

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