Best Way to Teach!

We had a fairly huge debate over what is the best method for teaching. Is it the chalk & talk or presentation based, interactive one.Everyone kind of agreed interactivity is essential. But we had a divergence of opinion on what constitutes the interactivity.

I expected more accepted more of tendency towards the newer methods.One of the clear reason that emerged was that whatever method one is used to is what they want to continue to use. This is such a big issue to change in any sphere of human activity! We are so used to, so comfortable with familiarity of whatever we do! I would have thought, those who are in the teaching business would experiment more with their tools, methods etc.

What is a Text Book is Evolving Right Before Our Eyes!

What is going to be the form of the books, text books in particular! That some form of electronic reading will take over is almost certain. Is the ereader device going to win or the tablet computer ? That is not clear at the moment. The eReader  completely copies the printed book reading experience. That, to my mind, is a faulty approach. With a new approach we need not follow something existing! Multi media experience in imparting knowledge has been hyped about for a longtime. I can easily agree with that. Somebody reading about a Cheetah, can definitely gain from the sound recording of its roar/call and nothing will establish the fact that it is the fastest animal by a video clip.


There is no way a ereader can incorporate the multi-media data into a book. Even illustrations, which often best done as an animated piece can never be included in a eReader. In the present avatar, even color cannot be presented. Tablets can tackle all those issues very easily. besides it can be your link to the Internet and run you productivity applications too. It has to win in the long run. the eReader too will co-exist for those situations where you want to curl up with a book like item!

Another Feedback about Our Students being Weak in Communication

We had representatives of the Indian Army visiting us today for initial selection to their technical branches such as Engineers, EME and the Signals. At the end of day they did tell us our boys were weak in listening & comprehension as well as speaking. Our students come from Bengali background as well as fro Bihar, Jharkhand area.


Bengal boys were generally weak in speaking English back in our time too. But what happened during the intervening period was that we got rid of English from school curriculum for a very long time. That screwed up the situation further! Bihar and Jharkhand had the problem for a long time as well.


Interestingly we have a peculiar situation in the college. While many times we come up with complaints from some students that our faculty members speak Bengali in the class. Now, if they strictly follow speaking English in the class, the same boys will have problem with that too.


Question that is bugging me is how to solve this problem not only when students face external agencies but also in following the daily classes leading to that event.

Student Activities

Our recent foundation day celebrations triggers the thoughts here! To my pleasant surprise, I found an array of talents in the student community. On the other side, we have student unrests that start on very flimsy pretexts.What I started wondering was if we could keep students busy with these extra curricular activities year long, if that would not keep them out of harm's way!

Being away from Kolkata, the only real city in West Bengal and the nearest town Bisnupur being too insipid, there is very little to do beyond regular hours and during weekends. Faculty members run away during the week ends that too adds to the problem. Would lots of additional activities help with the problem! My guess is it would. In fact, I made that comment elsewhere and found some encouraging comments from the student community.

I remember my stint at IIT, Kanpur, that was a long distance away from the city proper. Thirty years back they had a large number of student activities and a full time dean was there to look after the student activities!

CS403: Advanced Computer Architecture- Results Prove the Point

Results of this course came out recently. The results prove the point I made a few posts back. My class managed to get only As and Bs, no Es or Os. Well. one interpretation of it certainly can be that I could not teach it well enough! But, the normal distribution of results of the course follows the trend well enough where the mean is around B grade. Students who have not even read OS until then, can never understand Advanced architecture well enough!

OS concepts, feel for what happens in programming are necessary skills, prerequisites for this course. I do not understand why this is not taught later in 3rd or 4th year of the curriculum! It makes much better sense there!

Books as we Know it

Will the printed books be around 10 years hence! 25 years or 50 years! Music became disembodied digital stream of bits a while back. Kindle started a revolution, turned books digital yet mimicked the format of a printed book.  So though the content has started becoming digital the whole experience was of reading a book. Along came iPad. Besides lot of other things it can do,  it  reads books in full color and with animated content. So who needs the books in the format we have been used to since the time of Gutenberg!

Electronic books, in full color, which you annotate too and that can talk to you, show video in full HD seems like an ideal medium for knowledge transmission. Kids growing up in digital environment will latch into these kind of things absolutely naturally. Like most things though the printed book also will run parallel though  at much less volumes than today. But then you never know. How quickly those records, cassettes vanished. very soon audio CDs also will go the same way. The only CDs available will have MP3 recordings on them. So, let's see how it goes.

Video is King!

Video is getting consumed everywhere. We are not talking about network programming. It is more of consumer contributed videos.Even network programming is depending more and more on user contributed videos. Think of all those funniest videos, disaster videos, crime cam shots and so on. But what really is a tidal wave is the YouTube movement. YouTube and similar sites are supplying content to more and more consumers.

I had a pet theory for sometime now. According to that theory viewing video would become like our picking a book from a library, we choose of course, and view that at our convenience. The social media based video viewing fits that model perfectly. Look at the iTunes like stores, once again it is the library model. Video rental is becoming streaming based or downloaded. Now comes news that more and more consumers want an Internet enabled TV. That will let them view these Internet based streaming media at one's own convenient time. This Nielsen report points the following trends in video viewing. I quote form the report announcement.

• Online Video: approximately 70% of global online consumers watch online video; but North Americans and Europeans lag in adoption. More than half of global online consumers watch online video in the workplace.
• Mobile Video: is already used by 11% of global online consumers: penetration is highest in Asia-Pacific and among consumers in their late 20s.
• Tablet PCs: are expanding the definition of mobile video. Globally, 11% of online consumers already own or plan to purchase a tablet PC (such as an iPad) in the next year.
• Television: is a universally important platform for video consumption, with connected consumers in many markets spending 4+ hours per day watching television.
• HDTV (High-Definition TV): is improving the TV viewing experience for as many as 30% of global online consumers. Adoption is highest among older consumers and in North America, where HD content has proliferated.
• 3DTV (Three-Dimensional TV): will have a small but important audience: 12% of global online consumers own or have definite intent to purchase a 3DTV in the next year.
• “Over the Top” TV: televisions with Internet connections are gaining interest. About one in five (22%) global online consumers owns or has definite interest in buying a television with Internet connection in the next year.