Greetings on 76th Independence Day: 75 years of freedom:

Greetings on the 76th Independence Day: 75 years of freedom:

I made a post last year at the same time: https://mmpant.com/2021/08/15/greetings-on-75th-independence-day/

There are of course many challenges that the country faces today, but I will focus on just one, and perhaps a very important one, on which I have experience and some insights: education. Having always been engaged with ‘what’s next?’ I may perhaps describe myself as an “education futurist”, meaning thereby that my interest is not only in being ‘future ready’ but more so in actively “shaping the future”. This is a point made by RA Mashelkar in his book “ From leap-frogging to pole vaulting”.

Being an educational futurist is not only about building scenarios for the future, and sharing it with others and exhorting them to follow your suggestions. It is more about developing in all who care about their future or the future of their children, grand-children, nephews and nieces, the attitude and skills for anticipating their own possible futures and choosing the best one.

Since most learners and educators today depend on some other person or committee to give them an ‘authorised’ vision of the future, this is a rather challenging task. To make it easier for such persons I have created a set of 4 WhatsApp sessions of about an hour each, which can be pursued on Friday evenings. The set of 4 sessions can be completed over a month.

The themes are :

1: Developing Foresight:

2: Avoiding Natural Stupidity

3: Ideas: their creation and spread

4: Questioneering

Brief descriptors of the themes:

1: Developing Foresight:

All of us must learn to anticipate the future. All sportsperson playing cricket, football or tennis for example have to guess ( successfully) where the ball is headed. Foresight is the secret ingredient of all success, because without foresight we cannot prepare for the future.

2: Avoiding Natural Stupidity:

The literal opposite of Artificial Intelligence is natural stupidity, and you would be surprised by its pervasiveness. Even if we may not have the help of AI technologies to empower ourselves, we could significantly improve our lives, if we could cut down on the natural stupidity prevailing in our lives.

3: Ideas: their creation and spread

It is widely believed that we have evolved from hunter-gatherers, agricultural, industrial to a post industrial society driven by creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. And ideas are the currency of such a society. The goal of this session this is to give you pointers and examples of how you could play an important role in both generation of new ideas, as well as being a propagator or evangelist of useful ideas generated by others.

4: Questioneering??

We were not only born learners, but naturally curious with a lot of questions. The growing up process required that we stop questioning and accepting the various authorities. This session draws attention to the importance of asking questions and how one becomes wiser for having asked good questions.

Enrolment and delivery process:

These sessions are being offered for the first time on Friday 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th September. And thereafter on the first to fourth Friday of every month.
A WhatsApp group will be created for each ‘talk’. The group formation is not contingent on a minimum number enrolled. Even if there is only one person enrolled for a particular slot of a course, the course will be delivered to that person.
I will be making my posts during the scheduled time slot of 10pm to 11pm. These posts may be in the form of text, images of PowerPoint slides, my audios, my videos or curated videos of others…
About 10 minutes before the scheduled time of my posts I will post a message in the group to the effect that the session is about to begin
If any course participant has a query, question or observation, they may go ahead and make it right there. If this concerns the whole group, please make it in the group. If it is meant as a message to me, then please send me a direct message rather than posting it in the group.
If I can make a quick short and effective response, without losing the thread of the conversation, I will respond right then, else I will pool all these and make a special post in response.
Towards the end of the session I will share the PowerPoint slides as a pdf file that can be used in ways that the learners find convenient.
You may keep posting your queries and comments even after the scheduled time for my posts is over. All the posts and conversations ( including audio) will remain with you until you consciously and deliberately delete them. This is the greatest advantage of this method
As these ‘talks’ are being delivered through WhatsApp, the enrolment process is simply that of sending a WhatsApp message to Prof MM Pant at +919810073724.
There is no FEE for participation in any of these evening events.
To know more, please send a WhatsApp message to Prof MM Pant at +919810073724

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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