A Template for Education in a Capsule

If there is one thing we must learn from weeds it is to simplify our most vital constructs of life — food security, adaptable sustainable housing, education, governance, etc. — to be easily available to all.

I will keep this post as lean as possible and keep expanding on it over time. Currently, being unemployed, I would like this template to be free from any copyright or IP constraints. I would like this to be available to all who can take it and implement it. All promises to future or separate posts will be fulfilled by linking them here.

Vision:

I dream of an India where access to education is as ubiquitous as access to the sky and every child has at their disposal, rich and relevant learning experiences & resources irrespective of privilege, location, financial status or language.

Motivation:

1. Access to education, esp. one that is delivered using existing technology, is not uniform or equitably distributed. This problem is not unique to India and even some of the top developed nations face this.
2. Access to technology and facilities to deliver any kind of education, is also not uniform.
3. With 70%+ people residing in India’s villages (anything between 600K & 1000K) that is a huge population which has to work twice as hard to get something that is taken for granted by the urban elite.
4. Both, language of delivery as well as localised content, are a big challenge in India. Most textbooks in their attempt to be generic barely connect with anyone’s common experience making learning contexts seem contrived or alien.
5. Trained teachers and equipped schools are another huge issue in ensuring quality education being delivered to students.
6. Education is, IMO, required to level the playing field as much as is possible. Hence, I do not wish to fight the philosophical battles of what “education should be”. I’d rather ensure everyone has access to flavour X and then worry about how to make X better and closer to what I have held is the crux of education and learning. A hungry stomach has no appetite for philosophy.

Summary:

I envision a simple community wifi and radio transmitter replete with all educational content including license-free images, videos, Wikipedia to which smart devices can connect and interact with, without having to be connected to the Internet. In effect this is a suitably curated local stash of educational content and allied information which allows the student to learn & research albeit within a limited search space.

To make it a little more concrete, let me present what it might look like and what it does combine.

Imagine:

EdCapsule — Will improve the image

with solar panels attached to it to ensure power supply:

Yup, hastily done mashup

With the panels opening up to give you a top view like:

The main unit houses about 5 TB of data. Here is my calculation for the same:

1. Wikipedia (compressed): 20 GB
2. 8 hrs of appropriate video content (SD) per grade per week: 1 GB per grade per week * 12 * 52 = 624 GB
3. Images of creatures, plants, machines, phenomena, details (e.g. anatomy), natural structures, geopolitical maps and other information, places, historical images/paintings, architecture, cultural artifacts (food, clothing, dance, etc.): 600 GB (approximately)
4. Educational content (proprietary or specifically designed for this program): 768 GB (12 * 64)
5. Vocational & extra-curricular program videos & content: 1200 GB (about 10–12 streams of vocation, including music and dance and sports)
6. National Program videos (e.g. Bharat Ek Khoj series, Surabhi, Chanakya, and many other videos(localised)): 700 GB

Any concerns about sourcing these can be addressed in a separate post.

This unit also has the hardware to be setup as a community radio station as well as a hub in a village area LAN (or community wifi network). This unit in itself might be able to access the Internet but the people in the village need not rely on it for continuing with their education. The connection to the Internet could be used for periodic updates & troubleshooting, etc. It has the necessary hardware ports.

The EdCapsule has the necessary power source to keep itself running as well as serve as a power bank for other mobile devices. It can be charged externally as well. There can be more than one EdCapsule per village.

The software on the EdCapsule allows for chatting and conversing amongst the villagers as well as teachers who are able to connect to an EdCapsule remotely (whenever connectivity permits).

I will detail the EdCapsule hardware requirements and capabilities separately.

I will detail the EdCapsule software requirements and capabilities separately.

Special apps on low cost tablets (or even directly connected kiosks) allow a student to access educational content and search from within the repository. As mentioned, they can also interact with all those who are connected to the EdCapsule.

Multiple topologies can be conceived for multiple EdCapsule deployments

The AR component of the app allows them to recognise images taken around their village and map it to relevant educational content. Imagine a student walking past a stalk of wheat, clicking a picture or simply holding the app scanner to it and then being provided information about wheat that grows in their region and link it to age-appropriate content (maybe foods around the world that use wheat or songs of wheat harvest or seasons and agricultural practices around wheat production or nutritional information about wheat, or math problems employing wheat as a context etc.). Maybe the student scans a cow or a flower or a nearby peak or lake. Do check out HGSE’s EcoMOBILE Project.

The inexpensive VR component (like Google Cardboard) of the app allows the student to connect to VR-modified videos which allows them to be immersed in a variety of phenomena while making learning interesting.

If we can ensure that suitable hardcopy TLM can be delivered to these villages, then the EdCapsule can combine the tasks and work outlined in the TLM to make the learning more active and rigourous. Output from students can either be analysed & assessed automatically or with human intervention. I will detail this in another post.

Goals:

1. Create a self-contained deployment of education, localised for relevant and engaging in learning. This is what I called EdCapsule. I am sure there is a better name for this.
2. Create a PPP (public-private-partnership) to ensure the deployment across villages & small towns.
3. Ensure low or localised maintenance skills of platform with periodic expert support. I am imagining a toned down Barefoot College like setup.
4. No reason why this can’t be used to deliver adult education.

I am not worried about the curriculum chosen as of now. This will work with all curricula. I do hope that the academic and oft purely cognitive approach of education is opened up with Psychomotor and Affective domains and definitely via vocational studies.

How do we go about it:

The entire deliverable is split into content and platform. The latter remains largely constant across deployments. The former requires customisations.

Per region (which could be a state) we need to identify what content needs to translated. This is a massive effort in itself but not something that can’t be done. Summary of content in local languages is an option. Vocational content needs to be localised.

Apart from translation, content localisation (e.g. local crops, weather patterns, etc.) is another significant chunk of effort.

Motivating students and families to commit to progress is something that needs to be solved by those who understand motivation and constraints at the ground level. One strategy that comes to my mind is to mandate every benefiting family to commit INR 1000 per annum to this program which they will receive in full if their ward completes the year’s curricular goals. NGOs at the ground level can ensure this is implemented well. This is akin to paying students to complete their homework and is known to work.

Finally, creating knowledge and content networks to feed into an artificial intelligence in the EdCapsule might help provide near humane interaction.

As mentioned, this has been put together in a rush. Will keep refining this over time.

References:

1. Learning Spiral’s survey about access to the Internet and power in India.
2. How many villages in India? Unclear.
3. Calculating video size.
4. Indian National Television Programmes
5. An idea of the kind of resources freely available can be found here, here and here.