Re: [FOSS-LK] Sri Lanka rural e-learning project seeks corporate support

[Tyronne Wickramaratne]

so the stuff you've describe got anything to do with FOSS ? i doubt that you're posting to the wrong thread it seems ;)
-Tyronne

On Dec 7, 2007 12:18 AM, ~නිරංජන් < uni...@info.lk> wrote:

Dec 04, 2007 (LBO) - A Sri Lankan e-learning initiative for rural
students is seeking corporate sector support to expand and cover 400
computer centers around the island, its designers said.

The Shilpa Sayura project initiated by eFusion, a local software
company, is a learning tool for rural students who do not have the
necessary number of teachers and lack resources to continue studies.

"We have got five million rupees from the government as a grant and
the pilot project was implemented in 20 locations in Sri Lanka,"
Niranjan Meegammana of eFusion told LBO.

E-fusion was a pioneer in bringing Sinhala language Unicode script
into the world wide web through it Kaputa.com website. The plan to
expand the learning system to 400 locations is restricted due to the
operational cost, Meegammana says.

"We are trying to reach Sri Lanka's corporate sector and if we can tap
the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives of the
corporates who are trying to help rural communities, we can make a
difference in how they learn and study in the villages,"

Shilpa Sayura was initiated with eight subjects of the Ordinary Level
curriculum that is based on the national syllabus.

The company has now increased the range of subjects to 11, covering
information communication technology, media, English and Tamil,
according to the demands of students.

Shilpa Sayura was among seven ICT-based projects that was recognized
by i4d, an international software award scheme for their contribution
in the areas such as digital literacy and electronic governance.

The award is of significance as Shilpa Sayura was only one of two
projects outside India to win, Reshan Dewapura, chief operating
officer of the state ICT agency ICTA, said.

The project runs in collaboration with ICTA and children in rural
communities have the opportunity of accessing the e-learning system
through the Nenasala computer telecenters set up by the ICTA.

The island has more than 350 such telecenters and ICTA plans to expand
its number up to 1,000 by 2008.

http://www.shilpasayura.org
Source : Lanka Business Online
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[Umapathy (உமாபதி)]

I too agree there is nothing to do with FOSS. Instead of having
separate initiatives Why don’t we approach a FOSS based solution to
the rural development? For instance rather than dictating students
should follow this and that why not develop Sinhala Wikipedia with
materials about the school curriculum. There have been some initiative
in Tamil Wikipedia (where I volunteer as an Admin) from Professor
Selva of Waterloo University, Canada (originally from Tamil Nadu)
inducing the wikipedians to write Scientific Materials on wikipedia.
For me it is much more important to develop students with creative
thinking rather than just mug up and vomit in the exam. School net has
some positive effort but I heard that they cannot access the Wikipedia
directly although they can access through a search engine (I heard it
from a friend but I couldn’t verify). During my school days I have
students who prepare notes often found to score better. So why not
make them and use the Wikipedia (Let it be Tamil or Sinhala).

Regards
R.Umapathy

On Dec 6, 11:53 pm, "Tyronne Wickramaratne" <bersh...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> so the stuff you've describe got anything to do with FOSS ? i doubt that
> you're posting to the wrong thread it seems ;)
> -Tyronne
>

> --
> /usr/local/tyronnehttp://labs.jboss.com/jbossmessaging/