Soon, actor Mohanlal will pop out of the Class X Biology textbook with lessons on Alzheimer’s; businessman-turned-philanthropist Kochouseph Chittilappilly will give inputs on organ donation.
They are among the celebrities who have signed up for the unique Digital Collaborative Textbook (DCT) initiative of the Education department. It will be rolled out in schools through IT@School to take teaching to the next level using interactive digital tools.
IT@School authorities in the district on Tuesday started a two-day training camp for school IT coordinators (SITC) from 320 high schools across the district. They will train teachers in their schools who in turn will introduce DCT in classrooms with the aid of a projector.
“Malayalam medium textbooks from standard one to ten have already been digitised with textbooks in English, Tamil and Kannada medium to be done shortly. Based on teachers’ classroom experiences, topics in textbooks requiring further description for students have been hyperlinked with digital content including interactive video, animations, audio files and images,” Joseph Antony, district coordinator of IT@School, told The Hindu .
Click on these links and the likes of former chairman of ISRO G. Madhavan Nair, academicians Achuth S. Sankar and B. Ikbal, civil servants Nalini Netto, A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish, and M. Sivasankar, ministers Aryadan Mohammed and M.K. Muneer will interact with students on relevant topics. The list of personalities and digital content will keep on increasing as IT@School authorities are in the process of mobilising digital resources created by teachers.
Teachers will get an incentive in contributing digital content as they would be paid Rs. 1,000, Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 5,000 depending on the quality of their work. All digital content, even the public and students can post them, would be uploaded after a thorough vetting at the media centre by a team of experts from State Council Educational Research and Training.
DCT is now accessible over computer at dct.kerala.gov.in.
