Interview of Dr. Man Mohan Sharma, President Educo International
Please tell us how Educosoft was conceptualized?
It has evolved from my own experiences as a teacher for more than 40 years, enriched with input from several educators across the world that we have been able to interact through seminars, conferences, and research symposia. Based on the successful outcomes of several pioneers in this field, we identified three critical areas where appropriate technologies can help to improve the quality of instructional outcomes.
1. To empower the teachers to be more effective as presenters and discussion leaders in classes, and providing reliable and effective supplemental support to students,
2. To provide technology tools and question banks to teachers that can assist in creation, administration, and management of assessment, on regular bases.
3. Technology tools must be easy to use and learn (to minimize resistance to change) that must help teachers to save time from what they are used to, and should help them to do all that they have been thinking to do but could not because of time limitation and the amount of efforts involved..
These were the three motivating factors that inspired us to develop Educosoft. This platform had been evolving since 1985 in United States when PC had just entered education field and IBM used this product to promote their first generation PC. We kept on changing along with the changing technologies and feedback from users and experts in the field of Instructional Technology (IT). Now, it is being recognized perhaps as the best platform especially for math and sciences.
How effective is the Educosoft online learning system in enhancing the performance of students? Are there any studies to corroborate it?
Our mission is to “Empower the teacher to engage students” by capturing, in digital media, well known presentation and assessment techniques to assist a teacher to be more effective. We have embedded several learning and assessment activities in each topic to assist both the teacher and self learners.
For teachers, it provides: 1) class teaching notes produced with dynamic graphics and pedagogically sound animations, and 2) technology tools to manage instructions including: a) online grade book, b) online homework and frequent assessment that is self- graded and recorded, c) communication tools (announcements, e-mailing, and chatting), d) survey creation and administration, and e) features to add their content or create custom courses.
For students, it provides several self learning or teacher created activities including: 1) diagnosis for each topic, 2) tutorial which is the same as teacher’s teaching notes, 3) several examples on each topic with step-by-step solutions, 4) practice tests with solutions, 4) self graded tests with instant feedback, 5) speed tests to know how fast they can do what they have learned, and 6) progress reports.
It turned out to be more effective than our expectations. We have measured its effectiveness in several ways, including through: 1) national surveys in US from students and teachers; 2) published PhD dissertations investigating critical measures of relative improvement in performance and change in student study habits; 3) results of student performance in state mandated examinations; and 4) comments from principals, teachers, and students exposed to this system, who attended our seminars organized in different parts of India.
Ever since its launch in India, what kind of feedback have you received for your product?
We officially launched Educosoft in India on April 21, 2008 after piloting its use in some select schools in National Capital Region. So far, in last eight months, we have organized 34 seminars in Punjab, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, and West Bengal attended by 1357 teachers from 456 schools. After each seminar, we conducted half day training sessions for seminar participants in our six regional training centers and individual schools who participated in seminars. On the average 45% of the seminar participants attended these training sessions, and 31 schools are conducting extended pilots. Almost all teachers exposed to Educosoft have endorsed, in on-line evaluations, this platform as unique and more comprehensive than any other initiative they have seen so far. There are however, some implementation hurdles related to the lack of appropriate technology infrastructure in schools and resistance to the use of internet in class and by parents at home for students. To minimize the impact of these constraints we have launched a new initiative by providing schools with Local Area Network (LAN) solution of Educosoft. With LAN version school does not have to have internet in class or in lab. The content and all learning and assessment activities will be delivered in real time mode (almost instant) through LAN.
What pattern does Educosoft follow while assessing students?
The pattern that we follow in Educosoft assessment features is also unique in the sense that all assessments including home work, section quizzes, chapter tests, or comprehensive course tests are delivered in Free Response mode. In this mode, student has to workout the solution in their notebook and enter the answer on screen, in stead of clicking a choice like in a multiple choice tests provided by other platforms. The answers may be non-linear expressions or graphs, and may be expressed in any possible format. If the answer is correct the system will grade it correctly. All assessments created by the teacher, or pre-created in the system, select different but similar questions for each student, are graded and recorded automatically, and are saved in electronic folders of students and teachers that can be reviewed or printed at any time later. All homework assignments have built in tutorials and all tests provide instant feedback, after submission, with step-by-step solutions. This is where teacher can save lot of their personal time spent in grading, recording, and computing overall grades of students. Educosoft has added another very powerful feature to keep parents informed about the progress of their ward through SMS messages or e-mails.
Are there any plans to cater to other subjects apart from Math?
Yes, we will have science courses by the beginning of the new academic term in April 2009. For sciences we will be having additional component of actual simulated labs, along with the theory presented in the same format as in Math courses; embedded with illustrations through dynamic graphics and animations.
The Indian online market is flooded with numerous players. How do you view this competition?
We are different from others in presentation and quality of content, and for providing different modes of assessment delivered in Free Response format through different portals: 1) Institutional portal for schools both through Internet or Local Area Network, 2) Self learning Portal for students that provides all the learning and assessment activities mentioned earlier to independent learners. We are also different from others that we provide complete solution to teachers and students through a powerful Learning Management System (LMS) that provides all the tools for delivering and managing instructions.
From the US to India, which is the next destination for Educosoft?
All English and Spanish speaking countries: we already have features built in our LMS that accommodates delivery in different countries and through different languages. Since our focus is Mathematics and Sciences, there is relatively little variation in content. But before we enter into new destinations, the content has to be aligned to their respective curriculum or translated to their respective languages.
How well is the e-Learning model suited for India, with its low level of Internet penetration?
It is not only the low level of Internet penetration, but also the question of societal acceptability of the use of Internet for children, besides resistance of teachers to adjust to new modes of teaching and lack of appropriate technology infrastructure (TI) in schools. It is not only in India, but almost everywhere in conservative or relatively less developed countries. Even in US, only a few select schools located in well funded communities have appropriate TI and teachers well equipped with mandate to integrate the use of technology. Resistance to change is inherent, especially in academia, and resistance gets compounded when the teachers do not find adequate support for smooth delivery of content and tools. We have to accept these facts and continue the change efforts by providing closely related alternatives (like what Educosoft is providing through LAN versions, and support to students through its well equipped regional centers and self learning portal).
Our focus always has been, and will continue to be, to provide the best possible content, and easy to use technology tools that lessens the burden of the teacher and allows him more time for counseling, monitoring, and advisement to students. Once the parents and school administrators realize through good and reliable success stories, then it is expected that their priorities and choices would most likely shift to accommodate the change we have discussed here. That time is not far. We will surely see all that we have discussed here becoming a norm rather than an example.
Please tell us about your journey in the field of education, your career profile and academic qualifications.
I started my career as a faculty in Hindu college Delhi University in 1964, moved to Ohio University US for doctoral studies, completed my Doctorate in Math-Education and Instructional technology in 1980, joined the same university as Assistant Professor, shifted to Clark Atlanta University in 1983 as an Associate Professor of Mathematics, and became full Professor in 1986. I and my research team developed first PC based Math-editor, and testing and management system in 1988 with support from US department of Education and IBM, since then was awarded several projects to develop technology tools and multimedia content using the latest graphics tools, brought windows version of Educosoft in 1992, started our production unit in Delhi in 1995, implemented internet version of Educosoft in 2003, started developing content for k6-12 in India based on CBSE curriculum in 2004, started piloting its use in select schools in Delhi in May 2007, launched nation wide in India in April 2008. I was recognized by two universities by conferring on me honorary degrees in special convocations. I have made more than 250 presentations in national and international conferences. At present I have 14 books in school level mathematics authored by me that are adopted in US by several community colleges and universities. We have complete offering of online and LAN based teaching and learning tools for K6-12 mathematics aligned with several Indian Boards of Education, and we have collaborated with well known publishers of science books in India to convert the same in digital media with all the components (just like our mathematics content) with add on features of actual simulated science lab experiments. These science courses will be available to schools in April 2009.
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