Dept. Computer Science & Engineering, NIT, Rourkela

About Project

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Project Title

Design and Development of E-learning Platform for Assisting Underprivileged (SC/ST) school students in Rourkela Region, Odisha by converging Cable TV Network and Broadband Technology

Nature of The Project

  • Research, Development & Engineering (R, D & E) leading to production capability
  • Application oriented Research, Design and Development (R, D&D) having production potential
  • Basic R&D
1st

Year

Class Academic Activity Database Developed, Development of Performance Analyzer, T-learning Module

2nd

Year

TSS Module, Recommender System, OMR based Assessment Module

3rd

Year

Evaluation of each module exhaustively.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Aim and Scope of the project (in terms of specific physical achievement)

Main aim of this research project is to develop a comprehensive E-learning platform to assist underprivileged SC/ST students in primary and upper primary school in Rourkela region in overcoming learning related difficulties by converging cable TV network and broadband communication technology effectively. We aim to improving students’ efficiency in grasping mathematical concept and learning language (mother tongue) effectively.

    Other aims are listed below.

  • Development of an assistive module in E-learning platform for teachers to keep track of academic activities of individual primary and upper primary students in Rourkela region. (Academic Activity Database)
  • Based on the academic activities (progress), students are identified into three major categories, namely, weak student, prone to be weak student and others. To identify the quality of individual, we develop a classification model for this purpose. (Classification Model for identifying weak students)
  • To improve the quality of weak students, we plan to use local cable TV network heavily and parent’s (specially, mother) involvement in this process. The operator will broadcast teacher driven on demand video lectures targeting a group of students (weak or prone to be weak). For this purpose, we develop a mobile application which will be integrated with E-learning platform for effective exchange of information between teachers and cable TV operator. (Mobile app and t-learning (TV based learning) Module)
  • A much simplified version of the above mobile application will be used to notify students’ parents (mothers) regarding the schedule of on-demand video lectures. Alternative communication like SMS could also be used for this purpose. For this purpose, we develop a Text to Speech thesis tool for translating English report to Odia speech. Parents can also send the feedbacks about their wards to the teachers through this application. (Text to Speech Synthesis Tool [English to Odia])
  • For evaluation of learning capability of individual students, we develop an assessment module which can work with OMR reader (scanner). (OMR based Assessment Module)
  • Development of semi-automated personalized system for weak students based on the feedbacks provided by the teachers, parents and academic progress. Proposed recommender system should suggest personalized learning contents such as video lectures. (Semi-Automated Personalized System)

Detailed description of the Project

Origin of the proposal

Primary and upper primary education is an important pillar for building a strong and prosperous nation. In rural India, primary and upper primary education are mainly carried out in government sponsored schools. Of late, handful private organizations have started schooling for kids and toddlers. Irrespective of the governing body, The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 ensures free and compulsory education for every child of age from six to fourteen in neighbourhood school. However, many of these rural schools cannot maintain Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) specified in RTE Act 2009 due to less number of teachers in rural schools.

Because of huge students in a class, many students become inattentive while teachers provide important concepts (lesson). As a result, many kids (pupils) straggle to learn their basic lesson (language, mathematics and science). In many cases, these set of students remain weak in learning and they are promoted to higher grade (class). The pupil loose interest in learning and it leads to dropout in primary and upper primary levels. In addition to that parents of first generation learner cannot track their ward’s academic progress and they cannot afford private tuition for their kids. This situation (dropping out and learning difficulty) becomes severe for students from underprivileged SC/ST communities. In this scenario, E-learning in conjunction with TV based learning (t-learning) can play an important role in helping out teachers as well as individual learners (learning difficulties) from underprivileged SC/ST community. This is the origin of the proposal.

Methodology

In this research project, we plan to design and develop E-learning platform consisting of two major components such as t-learning (TV based education) and m-learning (mobile based application) for primary school students from SC/ST communities in Rourkela region, Odisha. We target a high school which is located inside our Institute (NIT) campus. It is run by state government and more than 75% students are from SC/ST communities. They are from class I to class X. We converge two major communication media such as Cable TV network (for improving learning difficulty of underprivileged students) and broadband technology (for communication between teachers and parents using mobile application or telephone network) in this project.