This is inspired by a book that I read in the 1950s when I was in School. The book with the intriguing title “ The education of TC MITS” is a 1942 book by Dr Lillian Rosanoff Lieber on Mathematical Thinking for everyone. An ordinary person is given the name TC Mits (acronym for “the celebrated man in the street”. Now 80 years later to the publishing of that book and about 70 years of my having seen that book, I wanted to create something which was like lifelong learning for everyone in the 3rd decade of the 21st Century.
And in this age of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, a lot of effort is being made to ‘teach’ or ‘train’ computer models to perform useful tasks. In keeping with the trend towards gender parity, I changed MITS to PITS for ‘person in the street’, and then to HITS for humans in the street, because today we have self-driving cars and robots sharing the street with humans. So, my program is named “ Educating the celebrated human in the street”.
I have also been influenced by the famous Vedic mantra ( Rig_Veda 1.89.1) that has been evangelised by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan “आनोभद्राःक्रतवोयन्तुविश्वतः” ‘ (meaning: Let noble thoughts come to me from all directions). This program is propelled by these 2 ideas.
It is available in two formats : one an in person face to face conversation (not a mere lecture) for about 90 minutes and the other a weeklong WhatsApp delivered program. The WhatsApp program is detailed below:
Day 1: Opportunities galore!
1.1: Education is still an exclusive privilege. More people are denied an educational opportunity, than provided with one.
1.2: It is the emerging technologies that make life easier for the HITS by making tools and services available to a larger population. Think of the ubiquitous GPS.
1.3: Learning is about the brain. It has to be driven by Educational Neuroscience.
Day 2: Non-traditional opportunities for learning
2.1: Learning with MOOCs
2.2: Learning from YouTube
2.3: Websites and mobile Apps for learning
Day 3: Taking charge of your learning
3.1: Pursue active learning. Nobel Laureate Carl Weiman on the ineffectiveness of lectures
3.2: Building Learning Power. Guy Claxton on suffering from taughtitis and building learning power
3.3: Barbara Oakley on learning how to learn. Key ideas from ‘make it stick’
Day 4: Specific learning opportunities
4.1: Learning and Improving STEM skills
4.2: Learning AI on your own
4.3: Learning Quantum on your own
Day 5: What is worth learning?
5.1: In this age of abundance, one has to discriminate between genuine learning and junk learning. Much of popular learning is junk learning. We need to progress to real learning.
5.2: Ideas in our brain build from simple to complex, just like a child learns to roll over, before it sits, sits before it stands, stands before it
walks and walks before running.
5.3: Developing a lifelong learning disposition
The in person discourses would cover the same ideas.
To know more, please send a WhatsApp message to Prof MM Pant at +919810073724
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.
