Suvidya Foundation, Bangalore

By Dr. Rajugopal Gubbi and Prabha Mysore

An earlier blog in this series by Suvidya Foundation, Bangalore, discussed the details of the EducateZilla program for rural government schools. Suvidya Foundation, Bangalore is a technology NGO working to improve the quality of education in rural government schools through the use of technology. At the time of this writing, Suvidya Foundation is successfully running its EducateZilla program using the Textbook-on-tablet technology in 35 rural government schools in Karnataka. Suvidya Foundation hopes to extend the program pan India. This blog describes how the EducateZilla program is using technology to help the mentors in the field carry out their tasks.

By Dr. Rajugopal Gubbi and Prabha Mysore

In order to provide a long lasting and successful solution for education, an end-to-end software solution is needed. Such a solution should cover all aspects of learning, performance tracking, field management, data collection, data analysis and software/content updates. Good rendering software and great content are obvious requirements. However, content authoring being a time consuming and iterative process, great content can only be created if a good content authoring tool is available. To facilitate easy adoption of technology human intervention is needed. For such human intervention to be effective, a tool for managing the field operations is essential. Additionally, a software component is needed to analyse the field data, assess the impact of the program and provide feedback to the users in the field. The software infrastructure that has been developed for the EducateZilla program to meet all these requirements is summarized in the picture below.

       By Dr. Rajugopal Gubbi and Prabha Mysore

An earlier blog in this series by Suvidya Foundation , Bangalore, had thrown light on the unique technology requirements of rural government schools. In this edition we will describe how the Textbook-on-tablet solution from EdZilla Software technologies, Bangalore, has been designed to meet these requirements. Suvidya Foundation is successfully running its EducateZilla program using the Textbook-on-tablet technology in 35 rural government schools in Karnataka for over five years now.

By Dr. Rajugopal Gubbi and Prabha Mysore

In an earlier blog we had listed out some of the major issues plaguing the rural government schools. While technology cannot be an alternative for a good teacher, it can mitigate a lot of issues and help improve the quality of education in rural schools. Thanks to mobile phones, today, a vast majority of rural children are adept at using technology. They are excited about technology and are able to grasp new technologies much faster than grown-ups. This is a real blessing when it comes to introducing technology into rural classrooms. 

This edition of our blog series talks about the unique requirements for technology based solutions for rural schools. But first, let’s take a look at the various educational technologies that are currently being used in rural schools, their merits and demerits.