A number of social media portals such as YouTube and Podcast; social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and micro-blogs like Twitter have enabled the development of global communities, sharing of information, knowledge and entertainment like never before. Drawing inspiration from them, the Chennai- based Classle Knowledge Pvt. Ltd has focused on education empowerment to solve some of the endemic problems confronting higher education in India.
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Promoted by IT professional turned entrepreneur Vaidya Nathan last March (2009), the main objective of Classle.net, a free-to-use community learning website which went live last August, is to enhance the quality of academic and professional higher education and research through ICT-driven innovation.
An engineering alumnus of Madras University with a string of impressive academic credentials including a Masters in computer science from IIT Madras; a fellowship of the Massach-usetts Institute of Technology, USA; a doctorate in computer science from Indiana University, USA, Nathan began his career as an academic researcher in1986 in IIT-M, graduating to Indiana University as research assistant for two years (1992-94). After brief stints in senior project management and consulting positions at Bibliogem Inc, USA; Dun and Bradstreet; Satyam Software, and Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) as chief architect in 2000, he set up Classle Knowledge Pvt. Ltd last year.
Designed to provide academic support to students at all levels and enhance research quality, Classle.net has a series of features to enhance the effectiveness of the education process. Connected with Pan-IIT, Classle enables IIT alumni to participate and contribute online. High quality content sourced from the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a joint venture of the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore can be downloaded by engineering students to study at their own pace. Content generated by experts is also available for science, commerce and arts disciplines.
Another unique feature developed by Classle Knowledge is Campus-Classle, which offers an intra-institute environment. CampusClassle allows faculty members to connect with students throughout the academic process and constitute classes for online discussions. To this end the company has signed collaborations with three engineering and two arts and science colleges for incorporating social technology into the teaching-learning process. Career guidance, soft skills development and global classes are additional features. “Students can join a group and invite more people into it to facilitate discussions, share or borrow notes from friends or clear their doubts. User generated material has picked up very well. Already 8,000 students have registered in Classle and 86 percent of users are from India,” says Nathan.
Apart from harnessing cutting-edge technology for collaborative learning, Nathan is currently focused upon vigorous content creation and expan-sion in different directions. Workshops are being conducted in partnership with NPTEL to create awareness of community learning and development of content creation skills. Also on the cards are additional features, distance education modules, and expansion of the concept to higher secondary schools.
However, Nathan is clear that results cannot be attained without cooperative efforts to resolve the problems of Indian education. “Academic institutions, faculty and students need to be motivated to use technology to collaborate and share information freely to improve learning outcomes. My dream is to create a global community of at least 1.5 million students in three years, who will use social technology for purposeful learning and skills development,” says Nathan.
Way to go!
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)