EasyNow Introduction

Easy Now Educational Content Creation Workshop
at
Acharya Narendra Dev College
(University of Delhi)
Govindpuri, Kalkaji, New Delhi-110019

Introduction to EasyNow

Globally most educational systems have accepted the enriching impact of the wide range of IC technologies and wish to integrate them at all levels of educational administration. This integration of ICT is cost-intensive, unable to garner sufficient resources and it becomes prohibitive in many cases. Also, the academics interested in creation of courseware may have paucity of knowledge on IC techniques. Self-training is a possibility, but it is a stupendous task even for the most computer-savvy; considering the fact that one has to research several packages before one can choose the most suitable one for his needs, deal with the poor network facilities and bear the costs involved. Most likely contributors will have/like to be trained in understanding and using a set of pre-selected tools that have been chosen for their suitability for educational purpose, ease of use and the costs involved.

EasyNow is a select set of easily available open source ICT tools that can be easily learned and utilised by the content developers to produce quality materials suitable for Open and Distance Learning on the World Wide Web. It integrates use of multiple media like text, audio and video tools that allows for inexpensive production and quick upload by the developers. These tools have been collated by Mr. V. Krishnamoorthy, a Consultant Commonwealth Educational and Media centre for Asia (CEMCA).

Teachers use vast and rich resources for their own classroom teaching, but this material is lost to others. This is of particular significance when we consider the huge pool of very senior and may be retired teachers who have vast experience but have no means to share what they have learnt beyond their immediate circle. It would be very empowering if teachers can be taught how to:

adapt materials to distance learning,
enrich content with audio, video add-ons,
supplement the contents with quizzes, question banks,
incorporate self assessment tools,
collate the materials to make a package, and
prepare it for distribution, etc.

This is exactly what EasyNow aims to do – teach these easily-learnt skills to content writers in such a way that they form a huge pool of human resources to contribute and meet the large demand of e-learning and web based learning materials.

The aim of EasyNow is to help in easy and cost-effective production of quality materials in multiple formats that can be disseminated using CD's to far flung areas where the chief problem is the availability of good educational opportunities. These areas may lack good quality of teaching unless teachers have access to the vast expanding knowledge base. Thus. the availability of well-made and easy to use IC integrated multiple media materials created using EasyNow can play a major role in these areas.

The broad aim of EasyNow is to enlarge the scope of learning methods by enabling diverse modes of content-presentation that allow use of innovative learning strategies. The specific aim of EasyNow is to assist enthusiastic and dynamic academics take up the job of producing quality e-learning-material that would help them gain academic leadership and may also provide them better job opportunities.

What can be achieved through EASYNOW?

There are many delivery options that are available for educational material. These may be collectively called as “Multiple Modes” of delivery. The major ones are:

Print Media Delivery as HTMLs/PDFs/ODL/ Magnify

Audio Media Delivery :as mp3 or .wma files

Video/Audio Media Delivery as .wmv files HOME