For decades, learning has been a one-dimensional process. It has been streamlined to be purely functional. In the past few years, the voices demanding a change in the status quo are getting louder. They became especially vociferous during the beginning of the pandemic, when concerned parents were not willing to compromise on their child’s development. Addressing these concerns is Schoolnet India Limited , a leading EdTech service provider in India. Schoolnet was born out of an inspiration to spread the light of knowledge for those at the middle and bottom of the economic pyramid in our society.

In India, the culture of learning has been present since time immemorial. As a nation, we have seen teaching methods evolve rapidly in the past few decades. While gaining knowledge from mainstream education, students have always opted to learn additional skills like singing, music, dance, and more from those around them. Today, the digital world has become the source of supplementary education to enlighten young minds. Parents and students have also realised that job opportunities have become competitive and there’s an increased demand for various supplementary educational options, such as distance learning, online coaching , among others. Today, we are looking at a new generation of learners. They know that education is not confined to the four walls of the classroom. Digital content for schools can be easily accessed through like mobile, tab, desktop, and even on a TV. Having been exposed to these digital modes of learning, students are quite comfortable absorbing information from them. The last two years have witnessed more and more educational products, packaged in innovative ways, rising in popularity in both urban and rural areas.

Learning is not an automatic process. It requires the learner to be engaged with what they’re learning.  Only this can make the learning process exciting. This is where digital learning solutions for schools step in. It has been successful due to the far and the wide reach of the internet in India. Today, EdTech service providers are transforming the educational ecosystem with accessible and affordable quality education by leveraging technology. They are offering comprehensive learning solutions for a wide spectrum of age groups in schools. Various government and private schools across India, who didn’t look beyond traditional learning models, were amazed at the prospects that digital learning solutions for schools bring. They were amazed by the innovation and the personalized approach. Today, digital content for schools is being adopted by more and more educational institutions as a part of their teaching process. EdTech companies are delivering innovative and scalable solutions to government and private schools across India for improving the quality of K-12 education. New-age learning solutions - Geneo

The pandemic threw a spanner in the works of a slowly improving Indian education system. It also exacerbated the digital divide as millions of students in the middle and the bottom of the pyramid were left in the lurch while others shifted to online learning easily. With digital infrastructure becoming a necessity, there must be a concerted effort to gather data on the status of the digitalization of schools. Recently, the Ministry of Education released the Performance Grading Index (PGI) which assigns scores to states/UTs based on infrastructure, equity, learning outcomes, access, and governance processes. We believe that going forward, as technology plays a more central role in our lives, the PGI must include wider metrics for assessing the status and role of digital infrastructure in providing quality education. This will help in creating evidence-based policy decisions and a set of best practices for states to rely upon. In 2019-20 (the pre-COVID year), 33 states and UTs improved their scores in the PGI. The top five states/UTs (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Chandigarh) were classified into Level II, however, the 31 States in Level III or lower still have a long way to go. The Education Ministry has avoided ranking states to eliminate "the stigma of underperformance", but instead has grouped them into performance levels. This is meant to create a community of best practices through a resource-sharing tool for states to learn from one another. In this vein, the report identifies two domains as weak links - governance processes and infrastructure. Governance parameters including shortages of teachers, principals and staff, poor supervision and inspection, and inadequate training of teachers will improve with greater political will and local administrative agencies taking ownership of the learning crisis. As a subset of infrastructure, digital infrastructure has acquired urgent importance. With COVID-19 worsening the already woeful state of education, ICT-enabled tools will become key strategies for remediation of learning loss and improving PGI scores. The states in Level II performed well on ICT-related sub-domains, but 28 states scored less than 80% of the maximum score on having Computer-Aided Learning in upper primary schools, and 18 states scored similarly on having computer labs in secondary schools – the only two ways in which the PGI measures digital infrastructure. States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand scored as poorly as 2 on 20 in this domain. Inside the classroom, digital infrastructure provides modern and user-friendly tools for the teacher to effectively engage the students, enable deeper conceptual understanding and retention, and improve learning outcomes. This requires a focus on digital pedagogy as a function of teachers’ professional development. While the PGI does account for the sanctioned number of days of training, it misses out on assessing the value of the training provided, including in digital pedagogy. The COVID-19 crisis showed the extent to which teachers were left untrained in this domain, leading to students’ learning suffering. Punjab converted 67.2% of its government-run schools into smart schools and saw heartening results from students and teachers. This resulted in Punjab climbing to the top of PGI in 2019-20 from the 13th position in 2017-18. At the other corner of the country, Kerala became the first state to have completely in all public schools. Outside the classroom, both states launched programs on Zoom/Whatsapp to prevent learning disruptions during the lockdowns. Thus, building the capacity of schools has a cascading effect in not only improving PGI scores, but in augmenting the entire ecosystem of teaching, learning, and learning outcomes. As the report mentions, these are critical inputs for student performance and provision of quality education as per international standards.

It was only till a year ago that education seemed to be the same as it had been for decades -  crammed classrooms, unappreciated teachers, and one size fits all content. But, in the midst of all of that, there was still the fun of going to school, of meeting friends and colleagues, and learning through interaction. In a crowded classroom, teachers still managed to teach and keep children engaged, albeit with varying impact and success, and teaching-learning continued through verbal and non-verbal communication. Cut to the post pandemic world, all of that seems to have disappeared suddenly. Students have ceased to be physical entities and reduced to faceless, static tiles on the computer screen. In a digital reality necessitated by circumstances, teachers and students have started missing the physical interaction that a school facilitates. My seven-year-old daughter’s craving to go back to school is a reliable  testimony to that. But it seems, the times have something else in store for us - online learning is here to stay. It is, at the same time, also certain, that online mode of teaching alone will not be sufficient, let alone be an efficacious way of learning. We are therefore, bound to see more and more of a blended pedagogical approach in times to come. With so many digital tools available, technology pundits have often argued, the 'learning crisis' would be solved in a jiffy. But, the ground reality seems to be different as there’s less coffee and more froth.  I, like many others, believe that it was never a 'learning crisis'. It was more of a 'teaching crisis' or an 'implementation crisis'. And, this can get deeper, as we rapidly move to an online, albeit blended, teaching-learning world. I can see that happening almost everyday during my daughter’s ongoing online classes. Teachers are now faced with an altogether new challenge. How to keep the learner engaged and motivated? How to ensure that meaningful learning continues to happen? Looking through the prism of Clayton Christensen’s Jobs-To-Be-Done (JBTD) framework, a teacher now needs to 'hire' new instructional practices so that:

Last week, we had delved into four levels of active listening. 1. Level 1: Downloading 2. Level 2: Factual listening 3. Level 3: Empathetic listening 4. Level 4: Generative listening

Two words in the English language appear to be ambiguous and have over-lapping meaning: Hearing and . Are they the same or do they mean different things? Let’s examine and understand.

This is one song we’ve all heard and whole-heartedly sung at some time of our lives. Strangely, when we sang this in school it was not quite clear what it was that we were going to overcome. Or that, what was that Utopian existence that we were fearlessly striving for and literally singing our hearts out for. But we sang it anyway…with full gusto and filled with purposefulness and conviction that we shall beat all odds – whatever they may be. This sense of confidence and assumed success also had something to do with the fact that whatever it is that we shall be doing – it shall be done as a team. But overcome what? Not be afraid of what? Be free of what?…..

This case study examines an intervention by Yuva Unstoppable (YU), an NGO in India. YU has worked in Indian schools since 2006, previously focusing on programmes that enhanced hygiene and sanitation (WASH), as well as mentoring of students, and recently implemented a Technology-based Education (or EdTech) initiative called the Smart Classroom programme, which is aimed at upgrading schools with state-of-the-art learning technology. The Smart Classroom programme presents a unique and successful case of intervention by an NGO in the Indian education sector. We analyse the context in which it is deployed, study its outcomes and offer insights into the factors that have facilitated its success.

Education, in a sense, gives us the ability to understand better and the freedom to express our mind. The learning fundamentals of children are built from the curiosity. They wonder, explore, question, examine, develop initial hypothesis or conjecture and develop their own explanation and understanding. That’s the way we acquire the ability of learning to learn. Consider an example of a curious child. S/he notices an insect crawling on a tree and vigorously eating its leaves. S/he is naturally curious. If s/he gets conducive support and nudge in following her inquiry, she is likely to discover the life cycle of the butterfly on her own. Such a learning would be much more authentic and joyful than what a teacher may teach in the classroom from the book. Such an engaged learning may easily turn into a lifetime experience. Delight in discovery develops the encouragement and expansion of mental calibre. It further helps in building confidence and self-esteem. However, as children reach their teens, curiosity tends to dip. Multiple factor can be pointed out for such a slump including the overload of information. This is where personalized learning steps in, playing an important role. Personalized learning, in short, is to orient teaching learning to suit the different needs of students. All students are expected to learn their subject matter within a stipulated time. While many find themselves ahead, there are many who are left behind. As a result, their learning outcomes suffer. Not all learners are enthused to understand concepts explained through lectures alone. Some may find experiment more exciting. Others may like more to work with diagram or educational videos as learning accompaniment. Working on project with peer gives some students to discover their potential. In the ‘personalized learning’ mode teacher is alert to a student’s specific needs if s/he is struggling with a certain concept in a subject. Teacher identifies as to which students need help in which direction or area. She offers them deeper engagement through the integration of a variety of ways including the digital and new modes of learning. Thus, teacher offers alternate modes of learning opportunity to each student specifically. Such a targeted approach improves learning engagement and outcomes while boosting student’s self-confidence and refining his ability for deep learning.

The chalk and talk method of teaching is being, slowly and steadily, supplemented with technology driven innovations. The idea is not to substitute the teacher, as this can never be the case, but to assist the teacher, in whichever possible way, to enhance teaching / learning experiences. In addition, technology aims to empower teachers, enhance learning outcomes. Geneo is one such app. It helps tp bring all important stakeholders in the education ecosystem on a single platform: students, teachers, and parents collaborate to achieve a common learning objective. The school benefits by positioning itself as a cutting edge education provider.