CHENNAI: While studying the anatomy of heart or lungs in schools what if the image pops up in 3 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 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 3 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 app, she said adding “There are about 141 topics used in the application. We have finished one round of teacher training yesterday. 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 app could be downloaded in mobile, tab, laptop, computer and so on. This app is used for classes 10 in Mathematics and Science and for class 12 for Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, she added.
Giving more insight on the app, Asir Julius, Assistant Professor, SCERT said the objective of the app was to connect the book with the technology.
“The app 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. Another 240 teachers have been trained for creation of the content. “We have roped in various NGOs which are helping with ideas. Going to the grassroot level was difficult because often the gadgets are not allowed in the schools. So this app is also made available in PC with cameras. This technology operates on augmented reality and it is especially for Tamil medium,”he said.
To a query, he said a significant number of schools were using this app.
“We are distributing this app online through CDs, Sahreit and Google play store. Around 50,000 have downloaded the app from the google playstore,” he said.
Similar apps would also come up
for humanities and social sciences, he added.