Digital Learning Resources

Context:

The Class Central (a free online course aka MOOC aggregator from top universities like Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc.) has released the list of best 30 online courses of 2019 out of which 6 courses are from SWAYAM.

ICT in Education:

About SWAYAM

• SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active–Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality.
• The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged.
• SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.
• This is done through an indigenous developed IT platform that facilitates hosting of all the courses taught in classrooms to be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time.
• All the courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the country and are available, free of cost to the residents in India.
• SWAYAM platform is developed by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and NPTEL, IIT Madras with the help of Google Inc. and Persistent Systems Ltd.
• It would be ultimately capable of hosting 2000 courses and 80000 hours of learning: covering school, under-graduate, post-graduate, engineering, law and other professional courses.
• The ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds' (SWAYAM) an integrated platform for online courses, using information and communication technology (ICT) which covers school (9th to 12th) to Post Graduate Level.
• It also offers online courses for students, teachers and teacher educators. It may be accessed on swayam.gov.in.

Other Digital resources available as part of various MHRD supported programmes

• It provides access to digital textbooks for all classes, graded learning materials and enables participation in exhibitions, contests, festivals, workshops, etc.
• NPTEL provides E-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Science and humanities streams. The mission of NPTEL is to enhance the quality of Engineering education in the country by providing free online courseware. NPTEL is an acronym for National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning which is an initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for creating course contents in engineering and science.
• SWAYAM Online courses provides access to best teaching learning resources which were earlier delivered on the SWAYAM Platform may be now viewed by any learner free of cost without any registration.
• UG/PG MOOCs : learning material of the SWAYAM UG and PG ( Non-Technology ) archived courses.
• https://www.swayamprabha.gov.in/ : A group of 32 DTH channels providing high quality educational curriculum based course contents covering diverse disciplines such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities subjects, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture etc to all teachers, students and citizens across the country interested in lifelong learning. These channels are free to air and can also be accessed through your cable operator. The telecasted videos/lectures are also as archived videos on the Swayamprabha portal.
• National Digital Library is a digital repository of a vast amount of academic content in different formats and provides interface support for leading Indian languages for all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all disciplines, all popular form of access devices and differently-abled learners.
• Virtual Labs - objective is to provide remote-access to Labs in various disciplines of Science and Engineering. These Virtual Labs would cater to students at the undergraduate level, post graduate level as well as to research scholars.
• Spoken Tutorial - An initiative of the ‘Talk to a Teacher’ activity of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT), launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India. On this site, one can find a variety of spoken tutorials that will help you to learn and use open source software.
• The Consortium for Educational Communication - Popularly known as CEC is one of the Inter University Centres set up by the University Grants Commission of India. It has been established with the goal of addressing the needs of Higher Education through the use of powerful medium of Television along with the appropriate use of emerging Information Communication Technology (ICT).
• e-Yantra - An initiative to incorporate Robotics into engineering education with the objective of engaging students and teachers through exciting hands-on application of math, computer science, and engineering principles
• e-ShodhSindhu - Consortium for Higher Education Electronic Resources - Provides access to e-resources to Universities, Colleges and Centrally Funded Technical Institutions in India.
• FOSSEE (Free and Open Software in Education) - A project promotes the use of FOSS tools to improve the quality of education in our country. It aims to reduce dependency on proprietary software in educational institutions.
• Vidwan is a database of experts which provides information about experts to peers, prospective collaborators, funding agencies policy makers and research scholar in the country. Faculty members are requested to register on the Vidwan portal to help expand the database of experts.