OnlineTutorials:User

InterfaceDesign

HemaAMurthyandMBhuvaneswari,IITMadras
Email:hema@iitm.ac.in
Fundedpartiallyby:IntelTechnologies,
DepartmentofScienceandTechnology,
TeNeTRoyalty,IITMadras

Purpose:EducationandTraining
Intheabsenceofgoodschoolsandgood
teachers:
EnablestudentstopassthestandardX
examination
Thetargetusers:children
Howdowedesignthematerialtokeepthem
attentive?
Howcanwemakethelessonseffective(giventhat
mostchildrenareIgenerationlearners)?

OurFirstExperiment:Spoken
English
Asystemwithadialogue
Beautifulpictures,animation
ButNOTAKERS
Althoughmaterialhadruralcontent

Thereason
Achildhadtowalk3Km(nearestkiosk)fora
mereEnglishLesson!
Thesystemdidnotinteractwiththechild
Parentswerequiteunenthusiastic

RuralChildren:notReadyfor
SpokenEnglish
Question:Isittooelitist?
Answer:TNSFsurvey
Mostchildreninruraldropoutofschoolearly
Dropoutrateashighas40%inIXandXgrades
Nosupportsystemtohelpfirstgenerationlearners

SpokenEnglishdoesnottakethemanywhere

Howdowecorrectthis?
Solution:TheTeNeTOnlineTutorials

90
80
70

Age 7 - 14

Age 7 - 10

Age 11 - 14

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Level 1

Level 2

% of children who cannot read

(-) or (/ )

(/ )

% of chidren who can't solve numerical

sums

AnnualsurveyofeducationinIndia:Pratham

OnlineEducationintheVernacular:
TeNeTOnlineTutorials
VillageInternet
KiosksorSchools

Tutorials,tests,solved
questionpapers

OnlinelearningmaterialsforRuralareas
Rural
Focusingonruralneeds,
demands,

WhataretheIssuesindeveloping
OnlineMaterials?
Poorinfrastructure
Lowbandwidthlinks(only16Kbpswas
available)
SchooldoesnothaveInternet

TheusersareChildren
Howdowemakethemeffective(toensure
attentiveness)?
Mostchildrenwalkabout3Kmneedto
maximisethelearningfortimespent.

OurFirstLesson
VideoLecturesonlessonsfromthecurriculum
NoTAKERS
Toopassive

EverybodyisVARYofaCOMPUTER
Teacher
LessonsMUSTbeInteractive
ExperimentsonAttentionSpanofChildren
About22.5minutes
Noexplanationshouldbelongerthanthis

OurSecondLesson
MultipleChoiceQuestions
RadioButtons
Childrenfinditdifficulttofocusthemouse
Largebuttonsrequired

SubjectiveQuestions
Typinginthetextboxprovidedfingertyping
Forcorrectingapunctuationaslongas20mins!
Correctionbecamedifficult
Toomanydifferentanswerspossible

OldVersion:RadioButtons

OldVersion:Punctuation

NewVersion:Punctuation

BacktotheDrawingBoard
Schoolteacherswerebroughtonboard
Goodteachers
Teacherswhocorrectpapers

StrategiesforcrackingaQuestionPaper
Grammarcorrect==>fullmarks!
Mapmarking/Diagrammarking==>full
marks!
Short/LongQuestionskeywordsareimportant
==>Guarantee50%marks

FocusonLearningthatcan
GuaranteePassingExams
WhichSubjectstofocus
TNSFSurvey:English,Maths,Scienceand
Soc.Science(inthatorder)

English
Focusasmuchaspossibleongrammar
Letterwritingfocusonrelevantinformation

Whichlanguages
EachstatehasaVERNACULARmediumof
instruction==>howdoweSCALE?

ChangetheUI
RadiobuttonsconvertedtoLISTBOXES
EncourageKEYWORDbasedlearning
Shortandlongquestions
Answershoveraroundafewkeywords
Bulletisetheanswers
Multiplechoiceonkeywords

Mapmarkinganddiagrams
UseHOTkeys

TheLearnSession(Biology)

TheLearnSession(Maps)

TheLearnSession(Physics)

ThePracticeSession(Maths)

ThePracticeSession(Maps)

ThePracticeSession(Soc.Sc:Long
Questions)

OtherIssues
Assessmentofstudents
Generationofquestionpapers
AnswerOnline
Evaluateandgivefeedback

Howdoweensurestudentsgotothekiosks
andlearn?
Incentivestostudygetcorporatestopayfor
educationatkiosk

HowdowemonitorlessonsattheKiosk?

OnlineUserLogin

QuestionPaperGeneration

EvaluationofthePaper

Questions:Willthisworkina
REALExam?
ConductaMOCKexamination
2005,2006,2007,2008
Firstyear,childrenwereaskedtowritecomplete
answerandmarkkeywords.
Interestinglychildrenmarkedtherightkeywords

Mock Examination 2006

In January 2006 the Online Tutorial
Mock Examination was conducted
It covered seven districts
Thiruvallur, Bhavani, Alagumalai,
Nellikuppam, Mayiladuthurai,
Orathanadu and Theni
18 kiosks participated in the
exercise
680 students took the exam of
which 158 were non Online TT
students
Majority participation was from
Thiruvallur, Bhavani, Theni,
Mayiladuthurai and Orathanadu

Results of Mock Exam

265

257

pass

fail

Online TT pass fail percentage

(Total number of students 522)

41

pass

117

fail

Non- Online TT pass fail

percentage (Total number of
students 158)

Online TT students had a 50

percent (approx) pass record
Non-Online TT students had a 25
percent (approx) pass record
The huge number failures
reiterated the necessity for
products like Online TT that
essentially aims at aiding students
to pass their Board exams.

Board Exam 2006

Registrations picked up after the Mock
exam
750 Online TT students took the Board
Exam
93

fail

Results have come in for 580

students
487 have cleared exams bringing the
pass percentage to 83.96%

487

The state pass percentage is 77.6%

pass

Performance in Mathematics and

Social Science has been commendable

SSLC performance of 580 students

Students in Bhavani, Aranthangi and

Theni have performed well overall
Though Thiruvallurs Board exam
performance has been better than the
Mock exam, marks scored by students
continues to be poor

Summaryofresults:PublicExam
Resultsovertheyears
200580%
200684%
200785%
200889%
Theresultsof2008arereallysignificantgiven
thatthestudentswerecontinuouslymonitored

Online TT:
some snap
shots

K Marudhuvendran,
School Topper, Alinjivakkam

SoftwaredevelopmentHowdo
Scale?
Therequirement

Webbasedcontent(constraintsonbandwidth)
Interactivelearning
Bilingualcontentandvoiceovers
Toolsshouldbeeasytoadaptforotherlanguages
andboards
CommunityMUSTparticipateinCONTENT
development

Thesolutions
Toolsforcontentgeneration
Developmentbasedon
PHP,MySql,XML,Qt

GenerateUsageReports:
CorporateRequirement

DataatKiosksusingaWordProcessor

DataEntryUsingtheTool

ThecorrespondingHTMLpage

Wheredowegofromhere?
Canwebuildspeechandhandwriting
interfacesintotheapplication?
CurrentlythesystemONLYusesmouseclicks
Asortofdirectedlearning

Studentscanactuallyspeakout/writeoutthe
answers?
Canwemodifythesystemtoenable:
Microphone,handwriting?

Screenshots

Screenshots

Screenshots

WebInterfaceforTTS

Issues/Challenges
KioskEnvironment
Toonoisy
Toomuchreverberation
HowdowemakeASRworkinSNRsaslowas
zerodB?
Mikesofverypoorquality
Howdowehandlethemismatchinthe
environment?

FrameworkforOnlineExams

OnlineSubjectiveExams:Oral

OnlineHandwritingbasedExam:
Signup

OnlineHandwritingbasedExams

OnlineEvaluation

Wheredowegofromhere?
SpokenEnglishProgrammes
UseofAutomaticSpeechRecognitionandSpeech
Synthesis
DevelopmentoftoolsforSpokenEnglish
Directeddialoguesystems?
Systemcontinuouslycorrectsthestudent?
Focusnotonaccentbutonspeakingfluently
SpeakwithaMalayaliaccent/TamilHindi

SpokenEnglishLevel1

Level1:Buildingvocabulary

SpokenEnglishLevel1

Whenthegirlisclickedtheobjectiszoomedand

SpokenEnglishLevel2

Level2BuildingSentences

SpokenEnglishLevel2

Level2:Thechildpickswordsfromthewordsgivenandformsasentence.
Thesystemcanread/recordthespokensentenceandevaluatethespokensentence

Wheredowegofromhere?
Pacethelearningbasedontheabilityofthechild
Machinelearningtechniquesforeducation
Focusonpedagogy
AlsofocusonK12program

Speechinterfacesalongwithmachine
learningcangoalongwayinhelpingwith
education.

Disability,ICT,RuralIndia
About3%ofIndiaspopulationsuffers
fromsomeformofdisability
Alargepercentageofthiscomesfromrural
areas
Thetutorialshavebeenmodifiedtoenable
interactionforchildrenwithseveremotordisability
(ideasborrowedfromHOPE)

Disability,ICT,RuralIndia
WeneedLowcostAssistiveTechnologiestobe
builtinlocallanguages
Speechrecognisers,Speechsynthesisers,handwriting
interfaces
Communicationdevices
Eyepointingdevices,switches

WeneedJAWSlikescreenreadersforthevisually
challenged
Example,SAFA(fromWebelTechnologies)

Consciousattemptbyscientistsandengineersto
makeanySpeechenabledtoolSAPIcompliant

Summary
ICTshavecometostay
GiventheliteracylevelsinIndia(65%),speech
interfacescangoalongwayinbringingthe
marginalisedsectionsintothemainstream
Technologymustbeinclusive
QuotingMahatmaGandhi
Educationshouldbesorevolutionisedasto
answerthewantsofthepoorestvillager,instead
ofansweringthoseofanimperialexploiter.