Those not from English-medium schools find it tough to cope in college: Study

The study shows that segregation of non-English medium school students from the entire student body is less beneficial for these students.

Students from non-English medium schools who have enrolled in Mumbai colleges under the linguistic minority quota face plenty of difficulties, a study has found. Researchers from Pukar, an independent research collective, have conducted a study to gauge the problems faced by students who have migrated from non-English-medium schools to English-medium colleges.

 

The study which involves first and second year students from BMC College and its faculty, highlights the difficulties faced by students, not only from the level of English taught in college-level courses, but also from their peers. “Some faculty and peers have the perception that vernacular-medium girls are backward and those who do not know English do not know anything; this does not have a positive effect on them,” says the report.

According to the study, this negative impression of students from non-English medium schools has a harmful impact on their morale, causing these students to stop speaking in English while communicating socially or dissuades them from taking part in verbal extra-curricular events, which further hampers their ability to speak English.

The study also shows that segregation of non-English medium school students from the entire student body is less beneficial for these students.

Source | Economic Times | 3 July 2015

Govt Launches eBasta, A Digital Library Of Downloadable School Books, Yet Another Digital India Initiative

Govt Launches eBasta, A Digital Library Of Downloadable School Books, Yet Another Digital India Initiative

The Digital India initiative is spreading it’s wings in every area possible. Over last few months there have been many initiatives launched under this scheme, but most of them have been geared towards transparent Governance and other Government related services.

Now, under Digital India initiative, the Government has launched a platform that extends may help Indian school students tremendously. Aptly called eBasta (Basta means school bag in Hindi), this new platform was unveiled today by the Government that will provide digital and eBook versions of school books and other study material to school students through-out India.

The platform, eBasta, is merely not a library of books, but a collaborative platform where school Book publishers, School teachers, students and even various etailers can participate.

According to the eBasta website, “it is a framework to make school books accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops. The main idea is to bring various publishers (free as well as commercial) and schools together on one platform. In addition to the portal, a back-end framework to facilitate the organization and easy management of such resources has also been made, along with the web based applications that can be installed on tablets for navigating the framework.”

What Can School / Teachers Do with eBasta?

The school or teachers can log on to the portal and search for eBooks and other digital content. They can then logically organize it by creating eBasta for their own students. It’s exactly like you create a bag full of schools books that are related to each standard or course.

School teachers can choose and bundle content according to their teaching methods. Access to variety of resources – text, simulation, animations, audio books, videos, etc – to choose from.

What Can Students Do with eBasta?

eBasta provides an Android Application download, which students can install on their mobile phones or tablets. The students can then go to eBasta and download the eBasta that has been created by their school or teachers. This way, the students will have all the content as required by their teachers.

Because the content is in digital format, it can be stored on any device and shared or copied making the entire content very accessible and portable for students to use.

What Can Publishers Do with eBasta?

For school book publishers, eBasta becomes a marketplace where they can read out to thousands of schools across the country. They can register on the portal and then list, sell and distribute all their content in digital format.

Apart from listing and showcasing their content, the publishers can get direct feedback from teachers and students regarding the digital content they offer. The platform also supports DRM, so they do not have to worry about piracy of books too.

Here is how all stakeholders are involved on eBasta

Source | http://www.ebasta.in/

 

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Smart Classroom Technologies: 15 Online Resources That Help Improve Essay-Writing Skills

Smart Classroom Technologies

15 Online Resources That Help Improve Essay-Writing Skills

Throughout the journey from kindergarten to 12th grade, students are supposed to gain appropriate vocabulary and grammar skills that need to be successfully implemented into essay writing. Here are some effective online tools that can help you make the art of essay writing more attractive for your students.

1. ReadWriteThink – Student Interactives

This page is a great source of interactive tools that help students accomplish various goals, from organizing their thoughts to learning about different aspects of the English language. Some of the most popular tools for grades K-12 include Story Map, Persuasion Map, Word Family Sort, Acrostic Poems, Trading Card Generator and Comic Creator. You can choose different tools based on the grade level, capabilities, student interactive type, theme, and learning objective.

2. Interactive Sites for Education

This website serves as a resourceful guide to English language arts topics. You can find educational, interactive games and simulations for grades K-5 in the categories of grammar, compound words, capitalization, phonemes and words, punctuation, poetry, reading and sight words, parts of speech, writing and rhyming. These activities work well with an interactive whiteboard. However, you can also recommend them for individual learning at home.

3. Graphic Organizers

Young students can hardly manage all the ideas they get if you leave them in front of a piece of paper and saying they should write an essay right away. The process requires pre-writing stages, where these graphic organizers will be of great help. Your students can use them as a way of putting their ideas and notes in order. Then, the actual writing stage will be much more focused.

4. Teach the Children Well – Language Arts

This website may not be that appealing in terms of design, but it’s a great base of resources that will help you become a better teacher. This is actually a collection of awesome articles related to writing. Every educator should spend time examining these resources as they progress through different teaching methods.

5. Free Writing Resources

Time4Writing.com is mostly known for the eight-week online writing courses it offers. However, the website is also a great source of free resources in seven categories: teaching writing, writing skills, writing sentences, writing paragraphs, writing mechanics, writing essays and standardized-test writing.

6. Guide to Grammar and Writing

This website offers comprehensive lessons on all aspects of English grammar and writing. You will easily locate all materials you need in the Index, which includes links to all resources of the Guide to Grammar and Writing, as well as Principles of Composition. This online source is like the grammar textbook you always wished to have. Now you can use it to make the lectures more accessible for your students.

7. Essay Mama

This is an online agency that offers professional assistance to students who need advice with essay writing. The company has hired PhD tutors from various areas of study, so its users can get reliable help regarding the topic they need. The blog section at this website is worthy of a bookmark, since it’s a great source of inspiration, news and tips on school writing. The glossary of essay terms and essay writing guide are efficient tools that will make the process easier. In addition, your students can enter writing contests at the same website.

8. Essay Punch

Essay Punch is an interactive, online, essay-writing tutorial that takes students through all stages of the academic writing process. The guidance it offers is based on pre-set writing prompts and interactive exercises for the pre-writing, organizing, writing, editing and publishing stages.

9. Teen Ink

This well-established magazine publishes high-quality essays and other written forms created by students. The categories at the website include nonfiction, poetry and fiction. There is no need to subscribe to the monthly print magazine; all you need to do is recommend the website as a source of inspiration. You can select some of the featured essays and read them in class in order to show great samples of academic content.

10. Thesis Builder

Your students will love this tool! Since they are always struggling to come up with a believable thesis statement, you can recommend the Thesis Builder, an automatic engine that launches a statement based upon the topic, opinions and supporting arguments the users provide in the form. Once they get the thesis, your students can proceed with the creation of an outline without looking for another online tool.

11. Novel Guide

This website offers plot summaries and discussions on some of the most notable novels ever written. Needless to say, you should warn your students about plagiarism issues; make sure to instruct them to use the content solely as an addition to their studying materials.

12. Hemingway Editor

There is a rule about long, complex sentences: You can only use them if you know how. K-12 students rarely manage to handle complex sentence structure, but they still want to impress you with big words and endless arguments. When you want to emphasize the importance of clarity, use Hemingway as an example. This tool will highlight the common errors and long sentences that need corrections.

13. The Readability Test Tool

This tool tests the readability of a piece of writing according to a set of commonly used indicators. You can recommend it to your students as an editing aid that will help them improve the readability of their work before they submit it to you.

14. WordCounter

When you assign a specific word count for a piece of writing, you want your students to respect it. This tool will help them achieve that goal. It will not only provide them with a correct number of words in their essays, but will also enable them to locate repetitive words and phrases.

15. Citation Machine

Referencing is certainly not the most exciting part of any writing assignment. Nevertheless, you cannot simply neglect all those details and citation rules. This tool provides instant citations in Chicago, Turabian, APA and MLA styles. Upon entering the appropriate parameters, the students get a properly formatted reference without any fuss.

Source | http://thejournal.com

 

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Survey reveals that extensive use of smartphones and Internet can cause Digital Amnesia

Survey reveals that extensive use of smartphones and Internet can cause Digital Amnesia

 

Using your smartphone and Internet at an extent may weaken your memory power. A new survey suggests that the people using smartphones and the Internet at an extent, may lead to ‘digital amnesia’. The survey was conducted by Kaspersky Lab, a cyber-security company.

 

Link for the Survey | https://blog.kaspersky.com/files/2015/06/005-Kaspersky-Digital-Amnesia-19.6.15.pdf

 

Source | Kaspersky Lab

 

Book Mark making competitions on 24th April,2015

Book Mark making competitions on 24th April,2015 during "World Book Day" & & "International Children day Celebration" @  Kvsclibrary Pune​

10 things that super successful leaders do

10 things that super successful leaders do

 

Leaders are best measured by the productivity of their teams

 

Why is it that some leaders stand out--performing better than their peers while achieving better results?

Is it because they are genetically predisposed to be better leaders, or perhaps because they have better training? I personally believe that today's very best and most successful leaders got that way by applying some very simple, but powerful habits on the job.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of leaders in business today who need to do a better job. According to the Gallup Organisation, a staggering 87% of employees worldwide are not engaged in their jobs or their work. This is a huge problem that creates massive losses for businesses large and small, in every industry. When employees are not engaged in their jobs, then they are not being productive. And when employees are not being productive, then their companies lose money--and customers and market share. The solution? Good leadership practices.

Here, then, are the top-10 habits of today's most successful leaders.

1. Acknowledge

When things are going well in your organisation, let people know--early and often. Publicly recognise productive employees for their contributions. Make a big deal about it. Encourage outstanding, sustained performance by showing your employees how much their efforts are appreciated. Studies show that acknowledging the great things your employees do can be more motivational than bonuses.

2. Motivate

Set high standards for communication, productiv ity, and professionalism throughout your organisation. During periods when these standards are not met, avoid assigning blame and singling out poor performance, as these responses only call attention to the problems.Find ways to get back on track as an organisation. Don't lower your standards, instead, partner with your employees and take on challenges as a team. Enlist your employees' input to identify blocking issues, focus attention on possible solutions, and strive to meet and exceed expectations.

3. Be Decisive

All leaders must make tough decisions It goes with the job. They understand that in certain situations, difficult and timely decisions must be made in the best interests of the entire organisation, decisions that require a firmness, authority, and finality that will not please everyone.Extraordinary leaders don't hesitate in such situations. They also know when not to act unilaterally but instead foster collaborative decision-making.

4. Communicate

Communicate clearly, professionally, and often. Employees expect their manager's honest assessment of their performance. In order to credibly provide this feedback, excellent managers must thoroughly understand their organisations and accurately assess progress. When things are running smoothly, highlight what is working and communicate success throughout the organisation. When problems arise, consider the potential impact you can have by constructively communicating your concerns.Remember that communication is a tool that can (and should) inspire and motivate as well as identify and resolve problems.

5. Trust

Learn to trust your employees. Bosses who believe employees are capable and responsible encourage autonomy while also creating a strong sense of community throughout the organisation. To establish trust, create a safe, positive working environment with open, honest, two-way communication. Trust that your employees will meet or exceed organisational goals when working in a productive, safe, and supportive environment.

6. Be Confident

Not only are the best leaders confident, but their confidence is contagious.Employees are naturally drawn to them, seek their advice, and feel more confident as a result. When challenged, they don't give in too easily, because they know their ideas, opinions and strategies are well-informed and the result of much hard work. But when proven wrong they take responsibility and quickly act to improve the situations within their authority.

7. Develop

Set up your employees for success, not failure. Provide them with the tools and training they need to reach their full potential, and to meet and exceed the standards you have set. Encourage them to identify their strengths and what motivates them. When possible, incorporate what drives them into their daily tasks.

8. Direct

Ensure that your employees feel challenged with their jobs, but not over whelmed. Create a clean, wellmaintained, and organized working environment where they can do their work and feel comfortable. Delegate tasks appropriately and look for opportunities to maximize each employee's strengths.

9. Partner

Make your employees feel like they are a part of something special and that their efforts are truly appreciated. Involve them directly in the success of the organisation. Create and cultivate a sense of camaraderie, where people feel it is fun to come to work, because it is a positive and productive environment and they feel they are part of an efficient, skilled, and highly successful community.

10. Be Honest and Transparent

Strong leaders treat people how they want to be treated. They are extremely ethical and believe that honesty, effort, and reliability form the foundation of success. They embody these values so overtly that no employee doubts their integrity for a minute. They share information openly and avoid spin control. These practices and behaviors will have a major impact on the effectiveness of your employees. Be the very best boss you can be and your employees will step up. When you get the very best from your people, your business will be tough to beat.

Source | Economic Times | 22 May 2015

 

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World Book Day & International Children Book Day Celebration on 23rd April, 2015 @ KVSC LIBRARY, PUNE