IT@School Project (Kerala, India): Worlds largest simultaneous FOSS deployment

IT@School:At a Glance


* World’s largest simultaneous deployment of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) based ICT education
* Capacity building of the teaching and the learning community
* Infrastructure Upgradation of schools under ICT scheme
* Broadband internet connectivity to all schools in the state
* Hardware Clinics- first of its kind to repair damaged computers at schools
* Unique scheme for electrification of classrooms to fuel ICT enabled education.
* ICT based Content Development for teachers and students
* E-Governance Initiatives in General Education department
* School Wiki – to promote collaborative content development

* EDUSAT initiatives in the state including ViCTERS educational channel

* The target group of IT@School Project is the dynamic group of students, teacher and parents, but primarily the Students. Today after 10 years of operations in the state, IT@School has proven that ICT enabled education could be implemented in the state in a phased manner which would benefits millions of student populace. A breakup of the target population is as below;

o Over 12,000 schools
o About 60 lakh students
o About 2 lakh teachers

IT@School Project has successfully rolled out several programmes which included the development of its own Operating System - IT@School GNU/Linux- which is now being used in all the schools in the state. Apart from this, several educational softwares like Dr. Geo, Rasmol, K-Tech lab, Geogebra, Chemtool, Kalcium etc are being extensively customised by the Project in developing teacher friendly applications for facilitating complete ICT enabled education in the state. The Project has also prepared interactive multimedia CDs, Handbooks & Training modules for ICT, as well as Text books for IT in standard 8, 9 and 10. Every content developed by the Project is strictly as per the new curriculum approach based on the National Curriculum Framework 2005. The Project has also associated with Intel Skool for collaborative content development programmes http://kerala.skoool.in .

The Project has also developed contents for Upper Primary classes – for 5-7 classes and the same has been given to all schools. To add with this, the Project had developed E-Text books for Std 8 to 10.
The ICT enabling process which was piloted in the state two years back has become a success; with this year’s 8th Standard IT text book being entirely based on ICT enabled education, with inputs from all subjects. An unique 8GB Resource DVD for teachers was also developed by IT@School Project, which included the latest edition of Edusoft, 50 selected articles from Malayalam Wiki, Malayalam Computing tools, IT@School Linux 3.2 Operating system, New Edition of Ubuntu OS, ICT Training module, Educational contents on Biology & Maths and PDF versions of Textbooks and Handbooks. The ICT training by making use of the Resource DVD is been imparted to over 60,000 teachers in the state.

The Project also introduced a customized version of WIKI, namely www.schoolwiki.in which provides a comprehensive knowledge database of all schools in the state. The aim of SchoolWiki is to bring out collaborative data building and to generate more interest among students to learn Malayalam and to generate more contents in various subjects. Schoolwiki also features an ICT Learning Corner, which would include the various contents prepared by schools for all subjects in ICT enabled education. The various contents are packed in DVD and CD ROMs which are supplied free of cost to the schools with the idea of free distribution among the learning and teaching community. This process eventually resulted in the Free Digital Library at Schools wherein the contents included the subjectwise contents, contents which are telecasted through ViCTERS channel, exam oriented programmes etc. With all schools provided with Broadband connectivity, most of these contents were also made available online.

An important fact to be noted here is that all these contents and applications which are developed by the Project are completely developed or customized using Free Software only. The main reason for adopting free software platform is that it gives freedom to an individual to study, copy, modify and re-distribute any content and this process would be beneficial to the whole society, besides considering the cost factor.

Download: it@school-gnu-linux-3.8


Awards

Stockholm Challenge 2010- Honorable Mention

IT@School Project has received glorious recognition at the Stockholm Challenge Awards -2010, an international award for innovative information technology projects, invariably termed as the biggest recognition for ICT interventions in development sector on a global platform. In the Stockholm Challenge Awards -2010, IT@School has received Honorable Mention in Education category, which is awarded to the top projects. A total of 290 projects from 90 different nations competed for the prestigious award under six categories. The Stockholm Challenge Award which was started in 1994 at Stockholm, Sweden, is considered to be the greatest recognition in ICT initiatives all around the world. Dr. Bebo White, Former Department Associate of Stanford University of USA heads the 10-member Jury as its Chairman.

Open Document Format (ODF) Alliance Award 2009

IT@School Project received the ODF Alliance Award 2009 for exemplary contributions to ODF community development and education. ODF Alliance awards recognize the contribution of individuals or entities who have significantly advanced document freedom. The Open Document Format Alliance is an organization of governments, academic institutions, non-government organizations and industry dedicated to educating policy makers, IT administrators and the public on the benefits and opportunities of ODF.

The World is Open Award 2008

The IT@School Project, under Department of General Education, Government of Kerala bagged ‘The World is Open Award 2008’ for promoting the use of Open source technology.The award was given for the first time as a joint venture of Skotch Consultancy Services and Redhat. The Award was Given away by Punjab National Bank CMD Chakraborthy to Sri. K. Anvar Sadath, Executive Director, IT@School Project at an award ceremony held at Indian Habitat Center, New Delhi, on 19th March 2008. The Jury consisting of Dr. Vijayaditya, Controller of Certifying Authourity, Dr. Phatak, IIT-Mumbai, selected IT@School Project for the award in educational sector through out the Nation after evaluating 163 Projects.

E-India award - 2008 National
E-Governance award 2005
Kerala State E-Governance Award 2010



A brief outlay of the Project

Name of the Project: IT@School Project
Proponent Organization: Department of General Education, Government of Kerala
Implementation State: Kerala, India
Target Population: About 2 lakh teachers and more than 60 lakh students in Kerala
Organization & Address: IT@School project, Poojappura, Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala, INDIA. Pin code: - 695012
Email: director@itschool.gov.in