EW Spotlight Feature

Today, in a global economy fueled by information and powered by an increasingly distributed workforce, education remains a harbinger of personal and professional success. Even more than before, education strongly influences individual employment advantage and earning power as well as plays a major role in economic development and societal stability.

Yet, the requirements of education have shifted. In addition to command of basic facts and information, today’s worker must have the ability to use resources productively, master interpersonal skills, manipulate information, understand systems thinking and operate technologies. The foundation for these competencies rests with basic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics as well as the ability to think creatively, make decisions, solve problems, and know how to learn for a lifetime.

The effective integration of technology in education is an exciting opportunity that requires thoughtful blending of infrastructure, access, knowledge, and empowerment of students, educators, schools, and communities. It requires a complex balance between the best of traditional education and new insights about how people learn. It depends on the use of technology to promote and enrich collaboration and communication and to enable new levels of learning in the classroom and for life.

This vision is called the Connected Learning Community.

• Students, educators and parents have anytime, any place access to learning.

• Learning is relevant, individualized and personalized.

• Schools have information systems that support accountability and efficient management.

• Schools, campuses, homes, libraries, businesses and global resources are connected in a dynamic, collaborative learning environment.

• Government, Managements, Exam boards and Universities are connected to schools and homes in a collaborative environment.

Yet for 21st century learning, technology alone is not sufficient. Schools, students, and teachers must have the vision and opportunity to experiment, innovate and create with technology as a learning tool.

In a growing number of schools and communities around the world, the idea of a Connected Learning Community is taking root. Lyceum has helped launch a new era of education that simultaneously fosters academic excellence and the practical experience needed to succeed in life and work in the growing knowledge economy.

"Lyceum will erase the traditional divide between the Student and School, Teacher and Parent, the Institution and the Community, Technology and Potential. Lyceum sought to establish seamless communication in the learning community using new computing devices and powerful software, to enable learning without limits".

Pacsoft decided to adopt a holistic approach towards the problems of the education industry and developed Lyceum, a comprehensive Campus Management Solution, together with, my-Lyceum.net, a collaborative portal. Much more than handling day-to-day operations, Lyceum facilitates effective communication between students, parents, other institutions, Examination Board, Universities and the community, delivering a rich and productive user experience.

Lyceum capitalizes on the devices interface such as Tablet PC, Pocket PC, Smart Cards, Scanners, and mobile phone interface, the natural interfaces of speech and handwriting recognition of the Tablet PC, allowing for ease of use even among users with no previous experience with computers

• ERP for Campus Management.

• Connected Learning Module

• E-Governance

Lyceum ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). This module enables educational institutions to maintain all records on students, teachers and other data in easily-retrievable formats and via any device. As a result, the day-to-day operations of the institution become dramatically more efficient post-implementation. This efficiency can be calculated in terms of timesaving on routine activities, which naturally has a direct impact on cost-efficiency.

• Marks Card • Student Monitoring

• Information Management • Question paper

• Teacher Monitoring • Time Table

• Admission System • Library Management

• Financial Accounting • Payroll System

• Fees Module • Inventory System

These 12 modules address all the pain areas of managing an institution.

Connected Community Module. Monitoring the operations of a school on a daily basis is also an extremely time-consuming task for the head of an institution. Even parents find tracking their child’s progress increasingly cumbersome, as many of today’s parents have busy work schedules and are simply unable to find the time to visit the school regularly.

Accompanying the ERP Module of Lyceum the collaborative portal solution, www.my-lyceum.net, is the channel through which the information stored inside the Educational Institution could be easily made available to external entities like parents and guardians, any time, any place and on any device. This web portal offers a consolidated view of the student’s performance and effectively communicates with the parents.

My-lyceum.net offers every student, teacher and parent a individualized home page, where the user can see the following information published from the school: School Website, Notice Board, Almanac, Events, Alerts, Marks and Performances, Fee details and Payment of fees using an online payment gateway, Attendances, Daily lesson plans, assignments, personal calendars, Parent and teacher chats, Question papers, Time Table, Library books, school stores and pay slips for teachers’. Along with this every user can create their personalized website.

Connected Learning. My-Lyceum.net meets total requirements of a knowledge age learner; the portal is divided in seven sections, each Section catering to a different learning need of the Connected Community.

Directory Services. This section carries the information on Educational Institution, Universities, Examination Boards, Managements, Students, Teachers and Parents. The user gets detailed information and the contacts of the organization, and can make buddies with Students, Teachers and Parents with mutual consent.

Resources. This section carries the information on Subjects, Projects, Microsoft E-learning Library, about English, Question Papers, Education History, GK, Personalities, News Makers and Admission information. This section satisfies the formal educational needs of the user.

Jobs. This section carries the information on Job opportunities available in the educational institutions.

Opportunities. This section carries the information on Competition, Placements, Camps, Exchange programs and Scholarships

Fun Corner. This section carries the information on Hobbies, Quizzes, Quotes, Sayings, Places and Sports. This section allows the user to pursue extra-curricular activities and collaborate with like minded students.

Community Lycee. This section carries information on Net Clubs, Discussion, Help Lines, My Experiences, Career Guidance, Outreach, Counseling and Alumni. This section facilitates seamless collaboration between the community and the education institutions. This section also gives the learner a broader prospective on real life scenario.

In this section the user can buy items either from the school store if it is online or from a number of shopping zones especially catering to the needs of the student.

This module enables seamless communication and collaboration between Educational Institutions, and Managements, Universities, Examination Boards and the Government.

The staid dogmas of the industrial age will have to be set aside if we are to conquer the information age. In the road ahead, intellectual capital will outweigh traditional forms like land, labour and money. The ‘intellectual market economy’ will be an arena in which small companies will outsmart giant corporations; customers will have infinite access to products, services and information; and networks will be more important than nations. And students have to get ready for the new age now.

The advent of the printing press first revolutionised access to education. Teachers could disseminate content, and classrooms emerged as a great place of interaction.

Over time, other technologies like radio, television, computers, and the World Wide Web held forth the promise of further revolution — but fell short.

What Lyceum does is connect all the components of education, creating knowledge at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, on the right device, for the right person.

This time we’ll see a global, diverse, educated workforce deliver on dependable innovation, shared vision, and collaborative creativity.

This revolution has started taking shape in India. Over 60 institutions such as Bishop Cotton Boys’ Bangalore, Bishop Cotton Girls Bangalore, Presidency Group of Institutions Bangalore, Frank Anthony Bangalore, Pathway World School Gurgoan, have installed Lyceum and reaping benefits of the Connected Learning Community.

Only Lyceum and my-lyceum.net offer the dynamic, holistic benefits of technology that is tailored to an educational setting. Much more than a tool for reclaiming valuable time and resources, Lyceum is a visionary solution that can forever change the efficiency, productivity and capabilities of today’s forward-thinking educational institutions.