Update on talk at Vasant Valley on 2nd April 2013

Prof MM Pant: Learning 221: Education in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century

1. If you could not be present in person at the Vasant Valley School on the 2nd April 2013, you may access the slides used for the Presentation which have been uploaded at Slideshare. Below is the path :

Learning 221 education in the 2nd decade of the 21st century from Madan Pant

2. You may also find it interesting to follow some of his recent tweets on Twitter. His Twitter handle is @mmpant. You may also consider following him to get regular tweets on matters educational. The last few tweets are specially relevant to this topic. Edward de Bono’s remarks on the ship at sea were abbreviated to 140 characters. The full text is below:
” Fixing vs changing directions by Edward de Bono”
Imagine a ship at sea that is in trouble. The lights keep going out. The engine is faltering. The rudder is unreliable. The first mate is drunk. The crew is very demoralised. The service is appalling. The passengers on the ship are very dissatisfied. Then a new captain and first mate are brought in by helicopter. Very quickly everything changes. The morale of the crew is lifted. Service improves. The engine is fixed. The rudder is fixed. The lights stay on. Everything is fine. But the ship is still heading in the wrong direction. That is usually the case when we set out to fix things. We might be very successful in fixing things within the existing context (or direction) but it does not occur to us that the basic context may need fixing. You can have a street that is muddy and dull of puddles. You put a lot of people to work keeping that street clean. But it might have made more sense to fix the drainage instead. A great deal of effort is put into improving education within its own context but it may have no effect whatsoever on changing the context or direction of education.

3. Some relevant thoughts which are not in the PowerPoint slides are shared in his blog: mmpant.wordpress.com. Also the transcript of the text of the PowerPoint slides is available on this blog.

4. On the 21st July 2013, Prof.M.M.Pant is organising an event on ‘ MOOCs and their potential for transforming Indian Education’. This is a unique event exploring possibilities for meeting India’s challenges in pre-school education, primary education, secondary and senior secondary education, skills training, teacher training and professional learning. Seven short MOOCs of one month duration will be launched on this day, and the insights gathered will be reported and shared in several national and International forums.
To know more, send your contact info to : leadingchange21@gmail.com

5. The list of 7 MOOCs to be lunched on 21st July 2013:

1. The MOOC Primer: a MOOC about MOOCs
This program is almost essential knowledge for all educators, learners and educational leaders.
2. A MOOC on Open Education Resources
The UNESCO in June 2012 passed a resolution encouraging adoption of OERs by all member States. Again useful for all categories listed above.
3. A MOOC on Curating Learning Resources
Extremely useful and relevant for all educators to effectively fulfil their new roles. This program has International Certification to participants who submit their prescribed tasks for assessment.
4. A MOOC on Mathematical Modelling
This program is designed for Secondary and Senior School Mathematics Teachers
5. A MOOC on Big Data Analytics
This program is aimed at all students pursuing IT and Management courses to make them aware of the opportunities in this new role as Data Scientists.
6. A MOOC on pre-school learning
This program is designed for young parents so that thy can effectively participate in the overall development of their children in their pre-school years.
7. A MOOC on Criminal/Penal law for 21st Century Professionals
This unique program fills the ignorance gap of criminal law amongst bright educated persons, unwittingly getting hem to be on the wrong side of the law. Since the ignorance of the law is no excuse, this program is a vital first step in criminal law awareness.

About mmpant

Prof. M.M.Pant has a Ph.D in Computational Physics, along with a Professional Law Degree, and has been a practitioner in the fields of Law, IT enabled education and IT implementation. Drawing upon his experience in world class international institutions and having taught in various modes of Face-to-Face, Distance Learning and Technology Enhanced Training, Prof. Pant is now exploring the nature of institutions which will be successors to the IITs, which represented the 1960s, IIMs, which represented the 1970 and Open Universities which were the rage of 1980s & 90s. He believes that the convergence between various media and technologies would fundamentally alter the way learning would be created, packaged, and delivered to learners. His current activities are all directed toward actual implementation of these new age educational initiatives that transform education in the post Internet post WTO era.. Prof. Pant, has been a Former Pro-Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and has been on the faculty of IIT – Kanpur (the premier Engineering institution in India), MLNR Engineering College and Faculty & Visiting Professor - University of Western Ontario-Canada. He has been visiting scientist to research centers in Italy, England, Germany & Sweden and has delivered international lectures with about 80 papers published. During his association of almost 15 years with the IGNOU, Prof. Pant has served as the Director Computing and has been the Member of All Bodies (i.e. School boards, Academic council, Planning board, Finance committee and the Board of management). With his interest in Law, backed with practice of Law in a High Court, and his basic training in Science and IT, Prof. Pant has been particularly interested in the Cyber Law, Patent & trade mark issues, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues etc. and has been involved with many activities, conferences on “Law & IT” Prof. Pant is presently; • Advisor to Media Lab Asia - Chairman of working group on ICT for Education, chairman of PRSG handling projects on ICT for education. • Lead Consultant for an ADB funded project for ICT in Basic Education in Uzbekistan • Member of the drafting Group for India’s National Policy on ICT in education • Chairman of the group creating books for class 11 and 12 students on ‘Computers and Communication Technology’ appointed by the NCERT • Preparing a ‘Theme Paper” for the NCTE in the area of ICT and Teacher Training • Advisor and mentor to several leading Indian and Multi-national Companies in the area of education. Prof. Pant has in the recent past been ; • Member – Board of Management – I I T, Delhi for 6 years (two consecutive terms) • One-man committee to create the Project Report & Legislation for Delhi IT-enabled Open University • Advisor to the Delhi Government on Asian Network of Major Cities Project (ANMC-21) distance learning project in association with Tokyo Metropolitan Government. • Chairman Board of Studies, All India Management Association With his mission to create and implement new business opportunities in the area of e-learning & learning facilitation, Prof. Pant has promoted Planet EDU Pvt. Ltd., as its Founder & Chairman, along with a team of highly experienced and skilled professionals from Education & Training, Operations, IT and Finance.

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