Home » Explore Stories » BridgeIT India

Project Name: BridgeIT India
Organisation: EZ Vidya Private. Ltd.
Location: Tamil Nadu
Project since: 2011
Project URL: www.bridgeit.in

Description

BridgeIT India uses a standard mobile phone to improve the quality of teaching. The project is a partnership between Indian schools, NOKIA, The Pearson Foundation, and EZ Vidya. It was started in March 2011. BridgeIT India_IThe objectives of BridgeIT India were: DIGITAL TEACHERS: To integrate the mobile platform into teaching and evaluate its effectiveness through teachers experience of using it in the classroom; ENGAGED; STUDENTS: To evaluate learning improvements due to the integration of mobile technology, content, and methodologies into the teaching processes and; SCALABLE MODELS: To broaden impact of mobile technology in education, evaluate sustainable models, and identify how to scale at low increment cost.

In BridgeIT, teachers receive a TV-out cable and C7 mobile phone pre-loaded with NOKIA Education Delivery (NED).Teachers get training, suggested lesson plans, classroom visits and remote support.

The school provides a TV or LCD projector. The teacher uses NED and the TV- out cable to display content in class.

Result: Post-tests showed a sharp increase in learning compared with control (Control: Pre-test avg. 58% to Post-test avg. 60% vs. NED: Pre-test avg. 49%, Post-test 64%). Teachers have changed the way they teach, away from lecture style and towards more studentcentred, hands-on methods. 57% of lessons were “High” quality post-NED vs.24% pre-NED, using objective criteria.

NED classrooms had less teacher talk time and more student collaboration than non-NED classes. Teachers and students were enthusiastic to participate for year 2. Most importantly, schools have increased their financial support towards technology based learning and teaching.

Project Strength, Weakness, Improvisation & Scalability

  • The project ‘BridgeIT’ has reached out to 108 schools and 176 teachers. The objective is to bridge the gap between teachers and technology and improve teaching and learning practices and make it suitable for 21st century. The uniqueness of the project is the inexpensive setup, as the handsets are provided to the teachers with collaboration of Nokia.
  • The project has helped to deliver content and training for teachers with provisions for offline follow-up with teachers on their outcomes. One outcome highlighted is students are more enthusiastic about the new approach and are encouraging teachers to incorporate more mobile video learning in the class. Smart phones have also made the teachers eager to learn and adapt.
  • Challenges faced in the project are content produced in different accent (American) which was later modified to Indian accent. The availability of connectivity and power was a challenge initially but the videos were pre downloaded to combat the issue.
  • Regarding scalability of the project it is highly scalable as there is only one time cost for content creation and that it can be played on offline mode as well. The lack of availability of TV sets can be a challenge, as also how can it be made compatible on ordinary phones. The PICO projector can be procured which is quite cheap and can be run through the light of mobile phones.
  • There should be integration with government agencies in order to promote conversion of the content to local languages and implement in all government schools.