Raghu Raman

The VALUE @ Amrita Virtual Labs Project: Using Web Technology to Provide Virtual Laboratory Access to Students

In response to the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) Initiative, the Virtual and Accessible Laboratories Universalizing Education (VALUE @ Amrita) Virtual Labs Project was initiated to provide laboratory-learning experiences to college and university students across India who may not have access to adequate laboratory facilities or equipment. These virtual laboratories require only a broadband Internet connection and standard web browser. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University (Amrita University) is part of a consortium of twelve institutions building over two hundred virtual labs covering nine key disciplines in science and engineering. This National Mission project hopes to reach out to Indias millions of engineering and science students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Virtual Labs Project is providing virtual laboratory experiments that directly support the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) model curricula for engineering and sciences undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Effectiveness of adaptive learning with interactive animations and simulations

We present the adaptive simulations of Amrita Learning, a web-based, interactive eLearning program that aims to create a realistic mathematics and science laboratory environment for school students to study equipments, perform simulation experiments interactively, measure or analyze results, and understand their application, It teaches abstract concepts, such as flow of electrons and magnetic fields, using highly sophisticated and interactive simulations.

Enhanced STEM learning with Online Labs: Empirical study comparing physical labs, tablets and desktops

Indias educational challenge includes a large school going population, shortage of science teachers and lack of science labs in many schools. To counter this challenge, the Online Labs (OLabs) pedagogy is designed as a complete learning environment with tutorials, theory, procedure, animations, videos and simulations while the assessment includes conceptual, experimental, procedural and reporting skills. We discuss two separate empirical studies using OLabs to study the performance gains, student attitudes and preferences while using physical labs, desktops and tablets. The first study was at a school that compared students who learnt individually with OLabs on desktops, to students who learnt with the traditional teacher led physical labs. The second study was at a science camp and compared OLabs on desktops to OLabs that were context adapted for android tablets. There were significant differences between the physical labs and the self study mode using OLabs on desktops, but no significant differences between OLabs on desktops compared to OLabs on tablets.

Serious games based approach to cyber security concept learning: Indian context

In the world of computer based gaming most of them are purely for entertainment but recently serious games are also emerging. Our research study focused primarily on a type of serious game with multiple scenarios designed specifically to support cyber security concept learning. We studied the impact of game based learning on cyber security graduate engineering students (N=20). Existing game scenarios were enhanced with summative assessments. A control group (EG1=10) was given the summative test without playing the game and a different group (EG2=10) was given the same test after playing the game. Results indicate that EG2 had better learning outcomes though there was learning curve with the game itself.

Performance improvements in schools with Adaptive Learning and Assessment

This paper presents Amrita Learning, a web-based, multimedia-enabled, Adaptive Assessment and Learning System for schools. Computer-based adaptive assessments aim to use an optimal and individualized assessment path to determine the knowledge level of students. The new goal for adaptive assessment is based on educational outcomes, which describe what learners must be able to do as a result of items studied. Assessment based on outcomes creates the initial roadmap for the educational model, ensuring that students are not learning items that are already mastered. Learners and instructors can accurately determine their areas of strengths and weaknesses, and use this to determine future instruction.

Computer Science (CS) Education in Indian Schools: Situation Analysis using Darmstadt Model

Computer science (CS) and its enabling technologies are at the heart of this information age, yet its adoption as a core subject by senior secondary students in Indian schools is low and has not reached critical mass. Though there have been efforts to create core curriculum standards for subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Math, CS seems to have been kept outside the purview of such efforts leading to its marginalization. As a first step, using the Darmstadt model from the ITiCSE working group that provides a systematic categorization approach to CS education in schools, we coded and analyzed the CS situation for the Indian schools. Next, we focused on the motivation category of the Darmstadt model and investigated behavioral intentions of secondary school students and teachers from 332 schools in India. Considering the CS subject as an educational innovation, using Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion of Innovations, we propose a pedagogical framework for innovation attributes that can significantly predict-adoption of the CS subject among potential-adopter students and teachers. Data was analyzed to answer research questions about student and teacher intentions, influence of gender, school management, and school location in adopting CS. Interestingly, girls, urban students, teachers, and private schools were seen favoring the adoption of CS. An important issue that needed to be addressed, however, was the interchangeable use of terms like CS, Informatics, ICT, and digital literacy. Through our article, we offer a promising picture of the educational policy directives and the academic environment in India that is rapidly growing and embracing CS as a core subject of study in schools. We also analyze the factors that influence the adoption of CS by school students and teachers and conclude that there is a very positive response for CS among educators and students in India.

Low cost tablet enhanced pedagogy for early grade reading: Indian context

In our research we have designed pedagogy for Low Cost Tablets (LCT) to enhance early grade reading in multi-grade classrooms in rural areas of India. The use of LCT helps meet the challenge of education in areas where there is a lack of qualified tutors and shortage of computing resources. The program has been implemented with (N=38) students in tribal areas of Kerala. Reading was the most common problem with the primary children, while mathematics and reading comprehension was a major challenge for children who were in middle school. Our pilot study students were able to learn faster on their own without requiring formal training due to the ease of use and the touch based interface of LCT, and they liked the idea of repeating lessons as many times as they wished. Teachers were trained in the use of LCT for assessment and early intervention and effective ways to bring up the reading skills of the students. Our findings confirm that LCT is powerful motivator in education and has a huge potential to address the issue of school dropouts. Our proposed pedagogy for LCT and findings will be of interest to educational policy makers who are looking at LCT options such as Aakash tablets to improve literacy levels among early grade learners.

Preparing global engineers: USA-India academia & industry led approach

A major challenge in engineering education today in India is preparing students with the skill set needed for a global industry. This paper describes an innovative partnership between two institutions of higher education in India and USA and a multinational corporation to address this challenge. The collaborative manner in which the industry and institutions internationalized the curriculum is a key feature of this program. This unique approach has resulted in the employees of a multinational company in India being able to get two high quality Masters-level degrees in engineering, customized to their current and future requirements at a very affordable price point. This paper looks at cost savings, collaborative course development between industry and international academia, using technology to deliver courses and on-the-job professional development program for employees while keeping the employees motivated. But there are also interesting lessons learnt regarding teaching in English, adjusting to the local cultural context and the overall integration into the Indian academic setting. The process innovation described here would be of great interest to academia, industry and education policy makers and has the potential to be replicated in the entire field of non-engineering and interdisciplinary academic programs.

Integrating Writing Direction and Handwriting Letter Recognition in Touch-Enabled Devices

Optical character recognition (OCR) transforms printed text to editable format and digital writing on smart devices. Learning to write programs has made learners trace an alphabet to learn the flow of writing and OCR by itself is less effective as it ignores the directional flow of writing and only focuses on the final image. Our research designed a unique android-based multilingual game-like writing app that enhances the writing experience. A key focus of the research was to compare and identify character recognition algorithms that are effective on low-cost android tablets with limited processing capabilities. We integrate a quadrant-based direction checking system with artificial neural networks and compare it to the existing systems. Our solution has the dual advantage of evaluating the writing direction and significantly increasing the accuracy compared to the existing systems. This program is used as the literacy tool in many villages in rural India.

Modeling Diffusion of Tabletop for Collaborative Learning Using Interactive Science Lab Simulations

Within the context of Rogers Diffusion of Innovation theory we propose a pedagogical framework for attributes that can significantly affect student adoption of collaborative learning environment like multi-user, multi-touch tabletop. We investigated the learning outcomes of secondary school students in India collaboratively using OLabs on a tabletop EG1 = 30 vs. individually using at desktops EG2 = 92. We analyzed the nature of communication, touch and non-touch gesture actions, position around the tabletop, focus group interviews, and pre and post test scores. Using Bass model the study also accounts for the inter influence of related group of potential adopter teachers who are likely to exert positive influence on students. The results revealed that learning outcomes on tabletop are strongly associated with innovation attributes like Relative Advantage, Compatibility, Ease of Use, Perceived Enjoyment, Perceived usefulness and Teachers support. Overall students expressed much more positive attitude to adopt tabletop technology for learning vs. desktop. We find that the mean group performance gain is significant with collaboration using tabletop and significantly greater than the group using desktops. We also find that the group interactions with the tabletop area significant factor that contributes to the groups average performance gain. However, the total time spent in while using the tabletop is surprisingly not a significant factor in the performance gain. Our findings contribute to the design of new pedagogical models for science learning that maximizes the collaborative learning potential of tabletops.