Volume 1 - Issue 8 - ICTACT.IN

New InitiativesICT Academy of Tamil Nadu andINTEL Join hands to createDigitally Literate TeachersMr.Kishore Balaji, Mr.John Davies, Mr.Sivakumar, Mr. Anbu Thambi• A roundtable of experts fromGovernment, Industry and Academia on“ICT in Education” was held on 30 May2013 in Chennai at ITC Grand Chola,Chennai• ICTACT will empower non-IT facultymembers in the state by making them digitallyliterate.• INTEL to support on its easy stepscurriculum.The round table started with a welcome addressby Mr.Sivakumar CEO, ICT Academyof Tamil Nadu.Mr. John Davies, Vice President ,INTEL delivered a keynote address byquoting that this is a wonderful programin association with ICT Academy of TamilNadu. John mentioned that there is morefocus into skills and people now a dayscreate their own jobs. He briefed upon therecent trends in education with 6 importantpointsLearning – A paradigm shiftThe teaching - learning process hasshifted to a level where the instructor ismore likely considered a neighbor and thestudents have more access to informationIndustry and Policy implicationThe recent years have seen significantchanges in making learning easy and theindustry has made huge changes in content,connectivity, devices, delivery andtraining. The government policy implicationshave supported this strongly.Holistic application to educationICTACTNEWINITIATIVESVarious institutions in India havestarted giving holistic applications to educationby having more focus in researchand development.INTEL higher education in IndiaIntel has introduced various programsthat are custom made for India. Some ofthe successful programs are Intel TeachProgram, Intel Learn Programs, IRIS(Initiative for research and innovation inscience) to name a few.Depth of the program in IndiaHe stressed on the point that everyprogram to be successful it should reachthe grass-root level.Trends to considerThere is a tremendous change in education,of which online and open courseand social media integration has creatednew platforms for learning. Thus educationis still not with the instructor ledlearning but also has new avenues in thisThe MOU between INTEL and ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu was signed andexchanged by Mr. Sivakumar, CEO , ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu andMr. John Davies ,VP – INTEL to spread digital literacy among teachers inTamil nadu.era. Thus we believe that the digital literacyamong teachers and students will helpthem utilize these new avenues.Thiru. Kumar Jayanth IAS,Commissioner of Technical Education,Tamil Nadu, was the next person to givethe key note address. He thanked ICTAcademy and INTEL for such a programand mentioned various reasons on whythere needs a change in the teaching andlearning process.He gave more emphasis for the knowledgeof fundamental concepts. His ideawas to inculcate the learning habit in studentsand make them industry ready.June 2013 I 24