Teachers from 45 schools from seven States presented real-life solutions for the advancement of education system at a hackathon titled ‘PolicyHack’ organised by Dell Technologies at Hotel Novotel here on Monday. The programme was organised as part of the Policy Forum on Digital Learning (TECH-2019).
Dell Technologies has partnered with the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) to provide a forum for teachers, schools and education experts.
The participants were given a set of themes and 11 short-listed schools presented their problem statement and solutions to the jury that comprised National Council for Teacher Education member secretary Sanjay Awasthi, SIEMAT Director G. Viswanathappa, UNESCO MGIEP senior consultant Narendra Mehrotra and Dell Technologies India Marketing Director (Consumer and Small Business) Ritu Gupta.
Theme-based policy
The themes included technology to promote diversity and inclusion in a classroom, leveraging technology acting as an aid for teachers’ development, creating customised content using technological aids, technology fostering collaboration among teachers and assessment, evaluation and monitoring of digital initiatives.
‘Leveraging technology as an aid for teacher development’ stood out as the most engaging and presented subject. The Visakhapatnam Hackathon was won by Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Tamil Nadu, while Andhra Pradesh Model School at Marupaka in Vizag emerged the first runner-up team and Delhi Public School, Bengaluru South as the second runner-up team.
Digital literacy
“Digital literacy has become the new norm, with schools becoming the first point of introduction to fundamental technology in early years of development of children,” said Ms. Ritu Gupta.
The winning teams would work with Dell Technologies and other stakeholders to further develop their policy solutions into workable ones for the teacher community.
