Daily Times

In a welcome step towards digitalisation and adoption of Information Technology, the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) has launched an application enabling students to have access to online lectures in audio, video and text forms.

According to details, the PITB under its eLearn Programme has launched a web application for students from grade six to 12, which contains lectures on four major science subjects ie Mathematics, Physics, Biology and Chemistry in text and video format.

Each book has been augmented with video lectures, illustrations, animations, simulations and interactive assessments. Through this application, students can access 21 science and maths textbooks for Grade 6-12 which have been augmented with 13,047 video lectures, 592 simulations, 2,100 audio minutes and 1,830 animations.

Subjects’ contents are divided according to the syllabus of these classes and students are able to read, watch or listen any lesson on topics from the book. To make easy understanding, animation photographs are included.

It also include a Short Message Service (SMS) based assessment service. Once the student has read a chapter in this interactive book, they can then initiate an SMS session by sending SMS to a short code.

“It will be like a quiz on how much he understands the lecture,” a PITB official said.

Chief librarian at eLibrary, Rawalpindi, Sher Afzal Malik said, before launching this web base application, a training session was arranged for science teachers and head teachers of the government schools to guide them how eLearn programme can be helpful for them and the students.

An official of the Education Department informed that smart boards have been installed in more than 55 government schools of Rawalpindi that enable teachers to show the required graphics and videos to students, helping them understand the topic and concept.

Sher Afzal Malik said students or the administration of private schools can avail the video lectures from the eLibrary in a universal serial bus during office timings, while those students who do not have Internet or laptop facility at their homes can study at the eLibrary using the latest laptops and Internet available at the premises.

The eLearn project is a great initiative towards online learning as it will improve the quality of education in both private and public education institutes. Multi-language audio recordings will help students understand the concept, school teacher Sheraz Ahmed said.

“The animation and video content helps us understand the lesson well and if we have missed the lecture due to any reason, we can learn the topic through this website,” Grade 9 student Kashif Mahmood said while talking exclusively to Daily Times.

Published in Daily Times, September 6^th 2018.