CHENNAI: While studying the anatomy of heart or lungs in schools, what if the image pops up in three dimensions and you can rotate or zoom it to understand the organ better? Wouldn’t that be great?
In a first in the country, the Tamil Nadu State Council of Educational Research and Training has come up with an Image Recognition Application Technology (IRAT), christened ‘TN Schools Live’, helping image from a particular chapter in a book to be in a three dimensional manner creating the ‘wow’ moment for the students of class 10 and 12 which they will be using for their board preparation. This was launched in August across the the state.
According to School Education Secretary D Sabitha, Information and Communication Technology Cell under SCERT has come up with this application. “IRAT helps in rotating and zooming the images from the book so that students understand the concepts. It is also video recorded,” she said.
Now teachers are getting trained in using the application, Sabitha said. “There are about 141 topics used in the application. We have finished one round of teacher training. For the near future, we have shortlisted 600 topics from classes 6 to 12. This kind of 3D based learning is a first in India. No other state has initiated such a project,” she maintained. This application could be downloaded in mobile, tab, laptop, computer and so on. This application is used for class 10 in Mathematics and Science and for class 12 for Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, she added.
Giving more insight on it, Asir Julius, Assistant Professor, SCERT said the objective of the application was to connect the book with the technology. “The application has 141 concepts which are all pre-determined references. It is a pilot experiment. It is based on the tough portions which the students find difficult. This was already brought in schools in the month of August,” he said. He added that as many as 1,650 teachers had already been trained.