Draft Suggests That Government Promote Blogging in Indian Schools

If the recommendations made in the national policy on use of technology in Indian schools go through, blogging could become huge in India.

The draft recommends that Internet access be provided in all schools and that students be encouraged to blog as part of curriculum.

This draft policy, still under discussion, says - "Blogs are powerful tools to support creative writing that can be published and shared not only with the teacher but also with peers and the world, alike."

The document will be submitted to the Ministry of Human Resources under Government of India. And this particular recommendation on use of blogs in school education as a "tool to support creative writing" was originally made by Shuchi Grover in this paper [pdf].

Update (August 06, 2008): Shuchi Grover responds to the Mint story:

Pallavi, I am thrilled to see quotations and suggestions from my paper "Technology as a Tool and Enabler in the post-NCF 2005 Constructivist Classroom in India" that I submitted in response to a call for papers to help draft a National Policy for ICT in School Education.

I have to clarify though that these are quotes and suggestions from my paper and NOT the draft policy, so your article has misrepresented facts, besides omitting to cite the correct source of your quotes. All the technology tools that you have alluded to- blogging for creative writing, spreadsheets, databases, concept maps, hypermedia & the "use of digital devices like robotics kits, digital microscopes, graphing calculators and GPS devices for science, math and social sciences curricula" come from my paper and NOT the "draft compendium". I do not even know if these recommendations are being considered for implementation in actual Policy!

You may be interested to know that I was invited to a meeting of educationists at NCERT as a follow-up to this - academics and educationists who have unfortunately been sidelined from this process of drafting a National Policy. The process described on the CSDMS website, has saddened several luminaries in the field of education in India, and we are hoping, jointly, as a group, that we will be able to influence the process better than large corporations with vested interested who the MHRD is looking to instead. This group includes, among others Dr. Krishna Kumar, Padma Sarangapani, Poonam Batra, Anjali Noronha, Rohit Dhinkar & Vinod Raina. Read this article by Gurumurthy K.

I expect you to publish a revised version of this article with corrections, without omissions and certainly with appropriate acknowledgments. Thanks!

Shuchi Grover
Educational Technologist
http://educatorslog.in
http://shuchi-edblog.blogspot.com