How do we learn IT?

It’s interesting to know how people learn to use computers. What is all the more interesting is senior citizens who have crossed fifties and have been introduced to computers for the first time, do not pick up the essential skills to survive in the digital age(I do not mean to disrespect them in any way, they were from a different generation). I heard from my parents who both worked in banks how computerization would make their life difficult. They were touching fifties then and have since retired. We now know that computerization in banks is near total and it’s been a great success but at first there were apprehensions. They did not know whom to approach when there were problems. They were jealous of the younger colleagues who picked up the skills fast. There were stories of unhelpful colleagues.

I recently was called to help my neighbor who had returned from UK. His son had given him a laptop to learn using internet. He showed me a memory card that contained photos of the places he visited in UK. Instinctively I plugged in the card into the laptop and copied all the photos into the hard disk. His next question baffled me as he asked “How did you get the idea to copy the images into the laptop”. Now I know the storage capacity of a memory card is limited and that on the laptop is relatively more and I thought images in the card can be deleted to make space for new ones. He seemed to understand that as he asked me if I have deleted the images in the card which I had not done. The question he asked seemed to go beyond just the photos and seemed to sound like “How do you guys get to know what all can be done with computers”?.

To confess in private I myself am curious to know the answer. I mean some people do great work and others fall behind. When social networking sites came about they caught on the imagination of the people. Before even logging into one we instinctively seemed to understand that we can search for our friends on the site and form a group. That idea comes to us before we log into the site for the first time. We all were interested to know whether all of our friends were there on the site and they were. It was a great feeling to be participating in unification of some sort.

Meanwhile in my neighbor's house, I was actually called there to help him play a DVD of sai bhajans. The problem was that windows media player did not play the DVD for want of some decoder. I assured him of getting FLV player installed in his laptop, something which I never did. He had lectures of swami nityananda, whom he regarded as a great saint, in his laptop, and they opened. He told me had plans of launching a website on spirituality and healing. I grew conscious using his laptop and turned it towards him and instructed him to open “my computer”. He asked me “should I double click or single click?”. Opening by single click or double click is something we learn't very early in computer usage. We know that a single click on a folder in the side pane of explorer would show its contents on the right pane. We also learned that an icon can be double clicked to open or launch it. The problem was he was asking me every time if he is supposed to single click or double click and is not learning from past experience at all. One more thing i would like to add is in retrospect i now know double click is way too taxing on the fingers and the more number of times you are expected to do it, the more the pain. Esp when you look at the time between two clicks in order to be recognized as double.

All this I had experienced earlier while teaching my father how to use computers. He somehow does not understand that he needs two things, his mail id and password to log into yahoo. I have to remind him both. It was a difficult experience to teach him to tap on our laptop touch-pad. He knows how annoyed i get when people play pranks with me. I must confess i was pissed off the first time he came with "Teach me this". We all immediately “get it” the moment we see the cursor moving while we move our finger on the pad and on tapping it when the cursor is on an icon or button. We all would have tested it to see how it distinguishes the two events of lowering the finger on the pad with intent to drag or to tap.

I was once teaching my mother the T9 mode of typing a SMS on the mobile. This I was doing purposefully to let her know that there is a dictionary of words embedded. She was spot on with the question “How did it know I wanted to type “and” when I pressed the buttons marked ‘abc’ ‘mno’ and ‘def’ ”. She was in awe of the advances in technology.

This of course is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many such devices like the TV remote, DVD player and playing music on mobile and others which have some complexity as far as their UI is concerned. Xerox Inc and Apple Inc have done some great work on more intuitive UIs. The technical jargon I heard about this is "Device Level Human Factors". We seem to forget that we were in the same situation before we learned how to use them. The question my neighbor asked me is not an ordinary one and holds relevance to everyone no matter what their skill levels are.

Is this what education is?

There is a famous quote by H. Narasimhaiah about quality of teaching. It is said that a poor teacher complains, an average teacher explains, a good teacher teaches and a great teacher inspires. There is one more saying which goes somewhat like a great teacher does not teach but raises relevant and thought provoking questions. He causes students to get interested in the subject at hand and makes them learn, often out of their own interest. A teacher with passion towards learning and original thinking lays the foundation for a student’s career. There are hundreds and thousands of topics in literature that can be called fertile and rich in which original research can yield great success.

It is unfortunate that our education system emphasizes rote learning. Facts are presented in a bland and tasteless way. Students are encouraged to reproduce sentences exactly the way they are in text book. This is different from teaching in some countries that emphasize contemplation and reflection on what is learnt and on original thinking. There is an alternate method of teaching that focuses on ideas and tracking their influence on newer ones. Such a teaching method actually is proven to produce thinkers who have gone on to enrich the world of science. While a little bit of history is involved in narrating sequence of discoveries, the subject matter is presented in sufficient detail for the student to relate to its importance and applications. South korea is a country that has made great strides in manufacturing. Companies like hyundai and samsung have brought fame to them. I find in literature that south korea invested heavily in heathcare and education soon after gaining independence. Education in our country comes nowhere to the international standards.

Often students are found lacking basic knowledge of the subject when advanced topics are taught. Sometimes students hate some subjects thinking of them as either theoretical or uninteresting. Sometimes students fear some subjects where there is a perception of them being tough and difficult to clear. Sometimes the students take up studies mearly for the sake of degrees. Half baked bread is as good as none. Apathy and disinterest is contagious. These are all symptoms of a faulty education system.

Students should have the freedom to choose the subjects they are supposed to study in a course. Imagine the strategies a student might choose to pick subjects. Some may try out most difficult first, some may go for the most interesting ones, while the careful ones might pick easiest first. Such active interest from the students in choosing subjects makes them think of the applications and the subject's relevance to their career. There should be a minimum number of credits that he/she has to earn in a particular semester. Each subject should have some prerequisites which the student should have studied. There is also demand from some to make the duration of a subject course vary according to the pace of learning. Students are made to choose their branch when they have very little idea of what each of them contains. The world over students choose their branch after one year of study. This can be inplemented in our case too. At least i can testify that i did not know what computer science is when i opted to study it. Most colleges do not give any options to the students in choosing electives. Such steps are taken to reduce work load on the faculty and also to ensure a minimum strength in the class. 

A class with less than ten students is awkward to conduct unless students show interest. On the other end of the spectrum the student-teacher ratio which should be 13-17 students for every faculty is sometimes as high as 20. Teachers face problems in controlling a class with huge numbers. Despite shortcomings bright students have gone on to rise above competition and get recognized. The other category of average students sometimes has struggled to be employed at respectable pay packages.

A small poem somewhere in the answer booklet of end semester examination fell upon my notice during valuation. Every post of mine has been inspired by some event or idea. This post is triggered by the angst in this student’s life. It speaks about the drudgery in education.

Lots to write, lots to read

This is the truth I accepted in deed

Word by word I write in pain

But as usual all my efforts end in vain

This is all I have to tell

For all I want to do is leave this hell

I must read, I must write

Till there is an end to this fight.

Poribartan everywhere

With women winning in WB and TN the country has voted against communists and corruption. The war cry of Ma,Mati and Manush has overcome the communists who occupied power for 34 long years in West Bengal. The whole country is awaiting the new cabinet there and the policies it will follow. Amit mitra is tipped to be the FM in WB. It would be interesting to see who will be the new railway minister at the center. After the decay which set in during the communist rule it would be difficult to repair the finances of the state. West Bengal was compared to Gujarat as an example of two opposites in development. Presently the country is savoring the extermination of the communists who had held many a governments to ransom at the center.

In Tamil Nadu the situation is much brighter. TN is a leading state in terms of development. The only problems it has have been in the power sector. The only hope is that the freebies to be given away by ADMK should not put the states finances in trouble.

Yeddyurappa seems to have overcome the danger to his seat the third time. the 16 rebel MLAs have agreed to support him again. This seems to be a good news to the BJP. The first BJP government in Karnataka will complete its full term. Political commentators have labeled his government corrupt but he seems to enjoy the support of the people as evident in the re-election results.

Today was a special day for Gujarat CM Narendra Modi as TOI columnist Chetan Bhagat wrote to dispel the negative image of him. What caught my eyes was the observation that Gujarat has been a developing state due to the entrepreneurial nature of its citizens and not due to Mr. Modi alone. This seems to be somewhat true but it takes away the credit for providing a stable administration conducive to industry from Mr. Modi.

As every one knows Bihar is going from strength to strength under Nitish. The only state yet to come out of problems and uncertainty is Rajasthan. Democracy has ensured that the best administrators among the lot are chosen to head the states. This portends good omen for the country and is an indicator of the things to come.

Three Cheers to INDIA

In the three month period since my last post many positives have happened for india. We won the world cup second time
and veteran gandhian Anna Hazare's war against corruption soon after the world cup victory gave the country some hope that corruption would one day go away from the country. The New Jan Lokpal bill is expressly created to bring to book the corrupt bureaucrats and lawmakers who are having a field day under the sun with their unchecked loot of the masses.This new law would create the same kind of revolution that was created by the RTI act. People started becoming activists and found huge amounts of corruption. Now such acts of omission and commission would become an offence that can be complained to the Lokpal which would bring the perpetrators to book.
There was one more reason to be happy because the census results showed the net addition to the population was less this decade than the last one albeit by just one million.Between 1991 and 2001 the population increased by 183 million and between 2001 and 2011 the net addition was 181 million. We are now 1210 million in numbers which was 1029 million in 2001 and 846 million in 1991. Decadal rate of population increase is reducing as its now 17.5% against 21.6% earlier. At this rate our population would be 1360 million in 2021(12.5%) and 1475 million by 2031(8.5%) and 1563 by 2041(4.5%) and 1609 million by 2051(3%) after which the population would stabilise.
Increased Literacy is a big positive to come out of the present census as literacy has increased from 66% to 75% nation wide. I expect literacy to come up to at least 85% in the next decade. On the flip side sex-ratio has reduced and this implies that female foeticide and infanticide continue unabated. India is now in much better condition than it was a decade ago. We are at least better than sub-Saharan africa in literacy now. Three Cheers!!!

Unionism in VTU

Before you consider me ultra liberal or neo liberal or a wimp or too condescending  i would like to make it clear that protest should be of a different kind and striking work should not be one of them.
It is unfortunate that valuators have boycotted the valuation of answer scripts in VTU. The results this time will be delayed and the valuations will continue even after the start of the even semester. While it is true that the pay in colleges in karnataka for lecturers is less compared to other states striking at valuation centers is a wrong thing to do. Fees in colleges will invariably go up if sixth pay is implemented and the demand for seats will reduce. Many seats are already vacant in smaller colleges and more will be left unfilled in the years to come.

Today the valuation work seems to have started and there is no guaranty that it will not be interrupted in between with more strikes. This Unionization in VTU bodes trouble for the teachers themselves. While higher pay will bring temporary relief ,it would be risky to the college finances in future as there will be uncertainty in admissions.