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Mobile tools linking Teachers, Students and Parents to boost Education
Challenges Entered:
Education institutions often need to evaluate the academic performance of their students and teachers. Students also need to monitor their own progress. Parents/Guardians also need to monitor their student's progress.
Teachers frequently give tests or exams to their students during the term and this data is rarely used for analysis, apart from that given at the end of term/semester. The reason is that they do not have time to aggregate this data to a format suitable for easy analysis. These days, most academic institutions have atleast a computer which can be used for this kind of work. But there are cases where the number of computers is not enough for all teachers to enter student marks as often as analysis would be required. Also some teachers are part time employees and hence may not be at the school when their marks are needed.
Since most people already have cell phones ranging from cheap to smart phones, this project is therefore about a set of mobile tools which can be used to enter marks and easily access processed results. A teacher starts by downloading a list of students from the server to the phone using a Data Cable, Bluetooth, GPRS or SMS. They can fill in marks while offline and reconnect to server for submission. The server does all the processing required for the results which can then be accessed by students, parents or guardians using SMS. This can also be useful for cases where some students change printed results that they take to their parents at the end of term/semester, as parents can now validate them using SMS.
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This is a great idea linking
This is a great idea linking these resources together. Lets see the progress. Good luck medical aids in south africa
The social revolution is the
The social revolution is the biggest conversation in the history of man.I think the biggest beneficiaries of these technologies will be students, not really teachers and this is because he youth tend to learn fast when it come to technology-related applications and devices.800 Numbers
I've seen some presentations
I've seen some presentations of Education 2.0 technologies about using popular CMSs/CMFs such as Drupal to build virtual classrooms and gradebooks. Take this Drupal module as an example: http://drupal.org/project/gradebook . Apart from that, even Facebook and Delicious could be used as Education 2.0 platforms. All a teacher needs today is a bit of imagination.
There are so many other
There are so many other resources out there for teachers to use, online and off, that teaching without textbooks is becoming more and more acceptable. Recently i heard to great tools that stay connected to students with mobile tools like Twitterberry and iPods. Post to your Twitter account from your BlackBerry to send students updated coursework and homework assignment writing or class discussion questions. iPods are catching on as an effective teaching and learning tool, and professors are even making their lectures available on iTunes so students can download them.
These are really good
These are really good analysis writings shared in Custom Essay.Teachers frequently give tests or exams to their students during the term and this data is rarely used for analysis, apart from that given at the end of term/semester. The reason is that they do not have time to aggregate this data to a format suitable for easy analysis.
We have a group schools in
We have a group schools in India and we are also coming up with this kind of project. Sending marks through SMS shows the use of technology and human mind.
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nice one
nice one
Reply
Java and WAP enabled phones can display very well formated and user friendly forms for data entry. The trick comes with those using only SMS. The formatting is done on the server where, a particular set of students that the teacher wants to enter marks for, is arranged in alphabetical order of their names and given a sequence of numbers from 1 up to the last student.
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Great Innovation
Hello,
I think this is a great innovation which will be especially beneficial to schools in developing countries where most teachers may not have regular access to a computer where they can manage such data about student results. I would definitely love to see this implemented in my native Uganda where mobile phones are getting cheaper by the day much faster than computers.
I have a concern though, about how much data the phones will be able to handle especially in the case where a teacher is working offline and, say, he/she is far from the school and doesn't expect to access the server soon. How do plan to handle such cases? Otherwise, I think this, once implemented fully, will be a very big step for our schools. All the best.
Reply to: Great Innovation
Hello,
Thanks so much for the compliments and concern.
The solution can be used in offline scenarios with Java enabled phones or SMS marks entry but not WAP. A teacher working offline can save the marks SMS on their phone saved items and send it when the connection is available.The limit here is determined by the phone SMS storage capacity which is so much way above the SMS sizes for the students a single person teaches in a school. And for Java enabled phones, storage is optimized in such a way that unless one is entering marks for the entire school alone before submitting to the server, you will almost never hit the maximum.
Thanks again and please keep on bringing real world concerns into the solution.
Accessibility
Hello,
I think this is a great idea! I'd like to hear more about the phone requirements. Many of the teachers I know hold on to their phones until they have to upgrade for one reason or another, then they may upgrade to an LG350 or equivelant. How would your services work with devices such as these?
Keep up the good work,
Fresh!
Reply to: Accessibility
Hi Fresh, thanks so much for the compliment and questions!!
You are absolutely correct about people holding on to their phones. This is exactly what this project targets. To leverage what is already in users' hands and hence no extra costs for them. The services can be maximized by java enabled phones (which are getting cheaper and hence increasing in users' hands). Non Java enabled phones, but supporting WAP will have a WAP interface for marks entry. Then those supporting neither Java nor WAP will use formatted SMS for marks entry. Java and WAP enabled phones can display very well formated and user friendly forms for data entry. The trick comes with those using only SMS. The formatting is done on the server where, a particular set of students that the teacher wants to enter marks for, is arranged in alphabetical order of their names and given a sequence of numbers from 1 up to the last student. So the teacher uses this ordering to enter marks for each student. e.g SMS Text="1=46,2=78,3=64,4=91,5=82,7=19" From this SMS text, the server processes that the first student on the list scored 46, the second 78, the third 64, etc.The numbering allows one to skip students who may not have marks by just skipping the number, just like i skipped the sixth student in the above SMS Text. This can also be very useful when a teacher is just editing existing marks of just a few student. Say if i had already entered marks for 50 students and i just want to change marks for the second and 9th student, then the SMS Text would be "2=76,9=44" The reason for not using student names but sequence numbers is to reduce the cost of SMS such that the solution fits even the poor communities. That is why even other cost free data transfer options like Bluetooth and Data Cable (for phones that support them) are provided. The second mode of SMS for marks entry which reduces the sms cost even more, although not suitable for use cases like editing a few entries, but appropriate for new entry of marks is one of just separating marks with commas like: "46,78,64,91,82,,19". This requires an entry for each student in the set where those with no marks will atleast require the opening and closing commas. So this second SMS text has the same results as the first. On receiving the SMS, when the server sees both commas and equal signs, then it processes as first mode, else the second.
Another interesting finding that i have come accross in a couple of schools is that some teachers actually do help others with their phones. For instance a teacher can lend their phone to a teacher friend to enter their marks for a few minutes and then return it. This greatly increases the accessibility.
Please keep on engaging me as it helps improve my communication greatly!!!