DIGITAL MEDIA AND LEARNING COMPETITION

Alexandria / Nalanda

Sivasubramanian MuthusamyChapter PresidentInternet Society (ISOC) India ChennaiIsoc India Chennai, Whitefield, 389/1&2 Perundurai RoadErode, Unapplicable 638011Indiaisocindiachennai@gmail.comOct 14, 2008

Award Category.

Innovation in Participatory Learning Award

Title of your project. Max 15 words.

Alexandria / Nalanda

Briefly summarize your proposed project in one sentence. Max 50 Words.

to Create a Digital Bridge to cover the 'fundamental divide' in quality of education between underprivileged students of low budget schools and the fortunate students of renowned educational institutions by innovatively establishing aparticipatory digital learning environment to percolate the global technological advances down to the bottom of thepyramid.

Provide a one paragraph description of your project. Max 200 Words.

This Digital Participatory Learning Project will have as infrastructure, a connected learning atmosphere to benefitapproximately 1000 low income group students of age group 15-21 from insufficiently funded schools. The idea is toCreate a Digital Bridge to cover the 'fundamental divide' in quality of education between underprivileged students of lowbudget schools and the fortunate students of renowned educational institutions. Carefully selected Teachers are to guide theparticipants in using the wealth of online multimedia tools and content, continuously bibliograph suitable resources,organize and facilitate expert interactions The facility will operate in a cost effective buildings with a scientific design,with digital facilities, connected classrooms, a Digital Internet Auditorium and a library of books, all to be created bylearning and collaborating with MacArthur's ongoing projects such as Arizona State University's 21st Century Classroom,Consortium for School Networking, Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design, with inputs from otherMacArthur projects and external projects. The project would percolate down the technical advances down to a rural Indiasetting. The dual objectives are 1) raise the 1000 beneficiaries to the level of students of an affluent school. 2) create aDigital Design for the Government to emulate.

List up to 5 tags that best describe your project. Max 15 words.

Participatory Learning, Collaborative Learning, Interactive Learning, Digital Bridge, Classroom21, Internet Classroom,percolative progress.

Is your project targeted for use primarily by youth under 18?

Describe your project. Max 600 words.

The space between Chennai and Arizona / Illinois is zero. In Illinois a 21st Centrury Classroom is being designed.Elesewhere in America and Europe Advanced Digitial Learning environments, modules and methods and lessons exist.These are technologies and trends that are equally applicable with transformatory effect in a rual Indian Classroom.Alexandria would bring in these technologies to enable an initial group of 1000 studnets to learn participatorily and shareexperience with the rest of the world. The project would collarborate with other groups by taking and providing intputs tocreate a model to bridge the gaps in quality of education in schools around the world.Alexandria / Nalanda will have as infrastructure, a connected learning atmosphere, visualized as built 'around' a 21stCentury Participatory Learning Library as Physical Space at Chennai. This 'library' would admit 1000 underprivilegedstudents studying at insufficiently funded schools after a careful admission process to assess their commitment to learn.These students would be a heterogeneous group from different schools, different grades, of age group 15-21 and wouldinclude some well connected students from Premier Educational Institutions who are committed to the purpose of participative learning Carefully selected Teachers are to guide the participants in using the wealth of online multimediatools and content, continuously bibliograph suitable resources, organize and facilitate expert interactions The facility willoperate in a cost effective building with a scientific design, with digital facilities, connected classrooms, a Digital InternetAuditorium and a library of books.The design of the facilities would be by learning and collaborating with MacArthur's ongoing projects such as ArizonaState University's 21st Century Classroom ( http://learning.asu.edu/proposal.html#Anchor-Solution-35326 ) and itsColloborative Learning Project ( design.asu.edu/sala/infolio-pdfs/infolio/08_spring/ADE%20622%20Petrucci%20SP08.pdf â 2008-08-28 ), take inputs from the Consortium forSchool Networking, and from the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design's Schools in the Digital Age project( http://www.id.iit.edu/635/# ), with inputs from other MacArthur projects and external projects. These are initial leadsfound at the proposal stage and the project would devle deeper for resources such as listed athttp://learning.asu.edu/application.htmlThe idea is to Create a Digital Bridge to cover the 'fundamental divide' in quality of education between underprivilegedstudents of low budget schools and the fortunate students of renowned educational institutions.The project would work to percolate the technical advances down to a rural India setting. The dual objectives are 1) raisethe 1000 beneficiaries to the level of students of an affluent school. 2) create a Digital Design for the Government toemulate.The goals of the project in the first twelve months is to physically establish the learning center, admit 1000 participants,place people in required teaching/ assisting positions, draw up a list of International Resource persons for Internet Classes,begin work on bibliographing available online courses and websites that are suitable for participative learning for the giventarget participants, ensure that each of them are scheduled for 100 course sessions, review, report and share. During thefirst year, elaborate work would be carried out to expose the project to inspire others to follow this model, as also toexplore further funding and support to continue / scale up this project, possibly with Government participantion in the formof land allocation and other support.

Describe the participatory learning you are trying to achieve. Max 450 words.

The project plans to significantly bring up the knowledge levels of about 1000 students who would otherwise complete