iSchool happens ...

By Raqeebul I. Ketan,

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Class of 2011, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology.

I have some exciting updates for you regarding the progress of iSchool (interactive school). Probably the most important is that now we are at a stage of the iSchool project where each of you from any corner of the globe can take part in the iSchool project! So, please take a few minutes to go through the rest of this message. Also, if you would like to know more about the iSchool program and what its mission is please visit the link http://web.mit.edu/hov/www/proj_ischool.html

The results from last January and the second phase of iSchool:

Last January we launched the iSchool program for the first time in a remote village in Panchagarh district, Bangladesh with some 150 students. It was primarily a test of the suitability and sustainability of

this initiative. The outcomes proved to be highly encouraging. The core mission of the project; to devise a low cost sustainable solution, was achieved. Volunteers from IBA, Dhaka University compiled the animations, meaning that the administrative and design costs were null. The cost of blank DVDs added to the rental cost of DVD players and TVs was minimal. Most importantly, though, the animations proved to be highly effective with students showing improvements upto 35% in their test score. Professor Peter Dourmashkin of the department of Physics at MIT helped design the test questions and later performed a post program evaluation. We concluded that students in each merit category performed substantially better after watching the videos. The improvements were more marked in tackling the qualitative questions and were most significant among the lower merit group students. Hence, we are now ever more energetic and determined to carry our mission of iSchool-for a better learning experience!

Recent achievements and our mission this time:

Once again MIT has been generous enough to fund the future of iSchool and help ensure its sustainability. I am glad to inform you that I have been awarded the Peter J. Eloranta fellowship (http://mit.edu/eloranta/winners.html)and the David J Shapiro award (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/awards-aero-astro-tt0603.html) for my work with iSchool and to help me carry out the task of compiling an interactive lecture series (to be used as textbook supplement) for the SSC students in Bangladesh.

This time we are working with a much larger pool of volunteers that span students from IBA to BUET to BRAC University. Our goal is to compile the first version of interactive lectures for the SSC (grade 10) Physics syllabus. To this end we are using very basic computer programs, so that our volunteers do not require high end technical expertise (take a look at the sample video I have posted in our iSchool group, and note that we will have narration with the video). Added to this crude yet effective collection of animations will be videos of the most common lab experiments to help familiarize students with common lab procedure. If you are good with flash or comfortable using power point with an interest in physics, you can help!

We want your help:

You can help make a difference in the way secondary school students learn science. Please let us know if you would be interested in being a part of the iSchool team. You can help us either by attending our meetings or even from your home using the internet. We hope that soon we are going to launch an iSchool website, that will contain our animations and videos with both Bengali and English narration. We intend to have a provision for uploading files by anyone from any corner of the globe. This way you can help us with your expertise by designing something, anything that you believe will come handy for the students. Our iSchool team will make any necessary adjustment and will put it up as add ons along with the core videos. It is the collection of the core videos that we intend to distribute in the high schools. School authorities can use their existing facilities to show the videos to the students (say once a week as a supplement to their core curriculum). Until we have the website constructed we request you to send your work via e-mail (or you can upload them in any web host site and provide us the link). If you are interested in investing the bare minimum from your free time, please let us know and we will send you the required resources (the chapters from our standardized SSC physics book)

Once again for your convenience:

What: Genral body meeting a discussion session on iSchool; MIT funded project to improve the education system in Bangladesh.

Why: Serve your country and people!

MIT PSC letter of recognition.

All expenses paid

When: 13 July (Please reply at ketanbd@mit.edu with iSchool as the subject)

Where: BRAC University, Civil building Room# 603 (exact details will be provided later in another mail )

How: Powerpoint skills. (To work on the animations)

Volunteer to teach.

Finally, I would humbly request you to leave any word of opinion/comment at the iSchool group. Alternately you can e-mail us at ketanbd@mit.edu and mohibulslm@yahoo.com. We have taken it as our responsibility to do the best we can about our education system. We know that we are not alone :)