Initiatives in Classroom Transformation – ICT

17^th March was a red letter day for many people involved in education reforms. For on that day, a middle school teacher from the Chennai (corporation) School, made history when she stepped up to the podium at the NGO 2012 seminar – a prestigious gathering of NGOs from across the Country - and declared to the world that she is a Champion Teacher.

The people, who had gathered to hear a teacher speak, ended up listening to the inner voice of a life changing experience. The teacher’s voice trembled with emotion and she could barely string together meaningful words in English, but she communicated in the universal language of love –straight from the heart and with passion. 

Yes, Sridevi is a not just a Champion Teacher, but a real champion in life who surmounted many challenges and today she could face the world with enormous confidence. “Sridevi Miss” as she is affectionately called by her children (she always refers to her students as ‘my children”) is part of the Reinventing Education Program – an education partnership program conceived by IBM and driven by Govt. school teachers in two southern states of India – Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu.

As I watched Sridevi articulate the transformation that she helped shape in her classroom through the Reinventing Education program, my mind raced back to 2007 when it all started. The setting was the Andhra Pradesh Residential School.  There were a group of noticeably bored set of teachers, head masters (HMs)   and education officials.  Apparently, they did not relish the idea of spending a Saturday afternoon listening to someone who wanted to for some reason –to build a smarter planet

 Anticipating a ‘techie’ to walk into the classroom with a laptop in tow, they were a tad disappointed to see me with no such gadgets. They had set up an LCD projector, again anticipating the inevitable powerpoint presentation and had closed all the windows rendering it dark and gloomy.

I walked in, and asked them to open the windows so that I could see their faces. I told them to switch off the LCD projector too. Now I could clearly see and sense that I had certainly created some curiosity and wee bit of attention. I introduced myself and my company IBM. I explained to them that I wanted to discuss with them about an education reform initiative proposed by IBM and asked them to list out their expectations. Now the audience’s curiosity turned into déjà vu. With practiced ease, much like a student reciting memorized lessons, the teachers and HMs started to narrate a ‘shopping list’. They said, computers are very good and their school needed more computers. Some of them wanted CDs for all lessons from 1- 10^th grade. The more adventurous demanded that all teachers be given laptops! I only wondered if it were that simple, IBM could have just completed a one day laptop mela and sent me home without a job!

I realized that the teachers are so conditioned by the onslaught of technology companies on their sensibilities that they equated technology with gadgets and stuff. Wanting to shake them up from their techno – gadget fantasy, I gave them a simple exercise.

Requested all of them to forget about computers, technology and gadgets for a moment close their eyes briefly and reflect on their school days – when there were no such ‘distractions’.  They obediently closed their eyes and soon they were travelling back in time. After few minutes when they ‘got down’ from their time capsules, I asked them to narrate a few things they remembered about their school days.  

Now the narration was different, they are no longer producing a shopping list but articulating their experiences. Many said corporal punishment, strict teachers, lots of homework, exams all the time, too many books (heavy), memorizing tables and formulae etc. Some of the ‘enlightened’ teachers also said only boring lectures and no computers (sigh!)

I grabbed half a chalk that had been thrown on the floor by an exasperated teacher and made a list of things they told about their school days in a column on the not so black board. Quickly I had run down the length of the board and also had difficulty holding on to the remnant of the half chalk, I barely managed to scribble on the top of the column “Education in 1970s” – I could have as well named it ‘education woes’ – then I stopped.

Turned around facing the audience again, I asked them to close their eyes one more time and this time I wanted them to ruminate on education today, in the present, in the 21^st century. They closed their eyes but quickly opened them with an understanding smirk and smiling eyes when they discerned the irony. Nodding in agreement to their dignified silence, I rubbed out 1970 from top of the list and replaced it with 2007.

The silence was broken when one teacher said ‘nothing has changed sir’ same boring lectures, more homework, more books and more memorizing. Then I asked them can IBM bring in the change? Can supplying 100 computers and 1000 CDs change the situation? Almost the entire classroom joined in unison and said No - We will have to bring in the change. I then said, IBM will join hands with them and we will make the change.

Thus began the long journey of Reinventing Education that had transcended the narrow understanding of technology, broke the barriers of attitude and years of conditioned behavior and transformed ‘boring’ teachers into bold Champion Teachers and insipid classrooms into thinking Transformed Classrooms. Presently there are more than 400 teachers who are touched by the Reinventing Education Program.

The significant change was, the teachers never again asked for computers, laptops and CDs. Instead they had asked me – teach us how to use them in my classroom, teach us how to open an email account. Show us how to download pictures and information from the internet and how to convert them into interesting lesson plans.

We listened, started training the teachers in pedagogical tools, ICT and together we created a Reinventing Education portal for the teachers to collaborate, share and learn. Today teachers like Sridevi for whom computers were once associated with computer labs and boring administrative work, are using it as a powerful learning tool.  For her presentation at the NGO 2012, she had downloaded education quotations from the internet, created a PPT, loaded it on a pen drive and made a wonderful presentation.  Today she proudly says: “ because of Reinventing Education, I have become a leader in my school, the commissioner and education officers invite me and ask my views on bringing in any changes in curriculum. I take pride in sharing my experiences with other teachers. My students find that I am a completely different person now and they say I smile more often. In my classroom even the quietest child will boldly answer any questions or even better ask me more questions”

The rousing applause that marked the end of Sridevi Miss’s presentation woke me up from my reverie. As people gathered around congratulating her, IBM’s tag line of let’s build a Smarter Planet – suddenly rang very true.

Corporate Philanthropy: Where We Stand

In one of my previous blogs on "Partnerships" I have highlighted how Indian companies have forged successful partnerships with community organizations to leverage their respective core strengths. In this recent article, Ann Cramer talks about public-private partnership as an innovative approach. You can go through the full article and see many good examples.

Corporate Philanthropy: Where We Stand

CSR and Social Impact

At the beginning of the year, it is customary to make a list of top 5s or top 10s of several global events. I thought of delving into the top 5 reasons for companies to invest in CSR as well as key success factors. Weber Shandwick and KRC Research did in fact conduct a research in October 2010 and surveyed 200 CSR executives and have come up with the following 5 reasons/ success factors:
1. Having an Impact on critical issues in society and seeing an organization's value in action
2. Non-profits as partners are vital to the success of CSR
3. Almost 90% of the executives said that Senior Leadership Support drives CSR success
4. Companies prefer to tackle multiple issues as part of their CSR (environment, education, global development etc)
5. Employee engagement and Community Engagement are equally important factors for the success of CSR efforts.

The implications of the study is immense as it reiterates several beliefs that drives CSR initiatives as well as underline the importance of stakeholder engagement - both internal and external. The fact that companies are looking beyond checkbook philanthropy  to actually making a social impact and actively engaging in societal issues is very heartening. It is also great news for Non-profit organizations as the large corporations view them as "valuable partners'  who bring in the necessary expertise. It is also good to hear that companies are concerned about a variety of critical issues spanning education, environment and many other issues aligned to their core competencies and business objectives.

Overall, the  outlook for CSR and corporates engagement with society looks positive and CSR investments are all set to increase in 2012 and beyond.

The know more about the study and its findings do visit:  impact.webershandwick.com

Corporate Volunteering

Corporate Volunteering is the buzz word in CSR. Many companies already have an employee volunteer program in place and many other companies are contemplating. As part of my research for this article I found that NASSCOM foundation has come up with a booklet on corporate volunteerism titled: "Volunteer in Action".  This booklet provides the 'do's and don'ts of volunteering as well as testimonials from many volunteers. The booklet only skims the surface of what is a very popular  but underutilized medium of employee motivation.

In fact, world wide there is a shift from traditional volunteering (e.g cleaning up the neighborhood, painting school walls, tree planting etc) to more technical form of volunteering aligned to Company's business vision and objectives. This is called "High Impact Volunteering". This trend to move up the corporate volunteering value chain to High Impact Volunteering include: International Employee Volunteering as well as Skill Based Volunteering.

International employee volunteering is when companies send employees from one country to work in another. This corporate citizenship strategy may be an aspect of a company’s global volunteering program in that employees from one region or market travel internationally to volunteer alongside employees in another region or market. 

Currently, only a few companies have employee volunteer programs that include opportunities to go abroad. The recent report “Global Companies Volunteering Globally” noted five large multinational firms that have publicly committed to expanding their international employee volunteer programs; BD, Dow, GSK, IBM and Pfizer. Besides the five noted in the report, a number of other companies are currently investigating or enlarging their international employee volunteering programs.

Skill based volunteering aligns employee volunteering to the strategic business motivations and leverage the corporate assets and expertise to raise the bar and result in high impact. Employee volunteering that is aligned to corporate strategy like stakeholder relations, customer focus, competitive context and leadership development have more chances of drawing on the workplace skills of employees and the company’s distinct corporate resources.

IBM’s Corporate Social Corps  is another classic example of skill based volunteering. According to Stanley Litow, the VP of  IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs as of February 2011, in just three years  IBM sent a total of 100 teams  to 20 countries around the world. These teams were made up of 1000 employees from 50 countries in which IBM works. Stanley Litow, views these ‘citizen-diplomats’ as something more than a means to making IBM more productive and profitable. These programs work towards a more civil society on a global scale, to the benefit of all. 

To summarize, Corporate Volunteering is seen as a great tool to motivate employees as well as align the Company's goals and employee skills to the needs in the community. 

Techno Pedagogy -what it means

Information Communication Technology (ICT) programs in development field including Education has been around for many years now. Primarily these were driven by Technology companies or 'IT Vendors' with educationists and as a result education itself taking a back seat.
However, the encouraging news is finally teachers (other than computer teachers) are getting involved in ICT programs in schools. While the technology driven programs of earlier days was mainly confined to computer literacy, recent programs have evolved making subject teachers as the centre in designing the curriculum and integrating technology.
This approach known as Techno Pedagogy which implies the blending of technology with solid pedagogical principles is the way forward for new generation of education reforms. In this approach, ICT will not bypass the regular teaching staff in schools. Techno Pedagogy approach will continue to focus on technology but will have deeper and wider pedagogical relevance.
The University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education prescribe 3 components to develop techno pedagogy skills among teachers. They are: 1. meta-teaching, 2. technology exposure and 3. critical reflection. In Indian context, I find that teachers get to stage 2 without going through stage 1 and get struck there! Also their technology exposure is limited to "operating systems' or "office suite' that does not have any pedagogical relevance. Critical reflection is what is missing.
Thankfully, many organizations in India have realized this gap and are advocating for a more rigorous action, reflection process in the ICT initiatives in schools. This trend should be encouraged and teachers and educationists should come forward to evaluate, reflect and start teaching with technology rather than making technology an end by itself

Business and Professional Ethics

Last week I was in Madurai as a panelist in a Seminar on Business and Professional Ethics. It was organized by the Dept of Management Studies, Fatima College. This timely theme highlighted many facets of business and ethics. Inevitably, it gravitated towards a discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility . What intrigued me was the speakers invariably gave examples from Western countries. While there are many large and even smaller companies in India which has done work at the grassroots level, none of it was presented. It somehow gave the impression that CSR is the exclusive purview of MNCs working in India.

Finally, one speaker stood up and said what is lacking in India is Self Esteem. We tend to be very negative when it comes to our own people and over enthusiastic when it comes to foreigners. Though India needs to catch up on lot of fronts compared to the advanced countries, if we continue to run down our own people, we will not reach anywhere.

My only prayer at the end of the seminar was: "Where the mind is without fear and the head held high...into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my Country Awake!

CSR Practitioners -some insights

As more and more Companies embrace CSR there is a corresponding demand for competent professionals in the field. On the supply side, many young management and development professionals are keen to take up a career in corporate affairs. However, after joining they find the tasks ahead daunting and more so when their peers and managers do not recognize the work they do in the communities.The young CSR professionals in large MNCs /corporates do not have anyone to turn to. Sometimes even their reporting managers with a Communications or Marketing background may not understand what exactly they do.This makes them wonder what went wrong. They think they may be a complete misfit.

I find many development professionals who have built up a good career in NGOs coming to me and asking about switching to a career in CSR. Without trying to sound like I am putting them off, I often urge them to study the company that they plan to join and understand the CSR traditions within the company. Another suggestion is to network with CSR professionals, read CSR articles and develop their understanding of the challenges and constraints before venturing into CSR as a profession. If you are attracted only by the 'corporate tag' then you will not be ready to face the challenges ahead.

A recent article in CSR Asia - confessions of a CSR Practitioner brought out this very succintly. The author - a CSR manager - says: "I think one of the most challenging parts of my job is internal misunderstanding of what I do".  My thoughts are resonated exactly in the above quote. It is a fact that CSR practitioners do not do enough internal stakeholder engagement.

Aspiring CSR professionals must be prepared to engage with internal stakeholders, top management in the long haul for their own good. If they are not prepared to take the initiative in educating their peers and managers within their respective companies  -  they may have to re-assess their decision.