Autoponsibility:attendant consequence of Autonomy

"Person close to action in any human endeavour must have complete freedom of choice" asserts the spirit of autonomy. Autonomy in educational institutions means institution running the course more than the university in general and faculty in particular have freedom to choice. The range of choices to both institutions and faculty range from determining target audience to its courses to designing the finer details of each course. Starting from curriculum design to deciding content and phases and pace a course is left to individual faculty. The assumption is the person in charge is most qualified to make informed decisions and hence must be given freedom to decide.

As we know that every right or freedom comes with its own duties and responsibility. Autonomy is a special kind and higher degree of freedom. So each one of stake holder who have the privilege of autonomy must realise there is equally special responsibility which I call " autoponsibility"

We differ in our Learning Styles- Find out Your way of Learning

Traditionally we have been told that there is only one way of learning: reading and writing. That is the reason for centuries all academic works revolve around these two activities. However, reading and writing approach to learning works well for most of people, it does not work well for all. Educational experts now agree there are different learning styles and each one of us has to find out our preferred way of learning. There are four distinct learning styles

• Visual/Verbal Learning style: Such learners enjoy reading and benefit from written hand outs. They claim to remember by "seeing the words". Such learners enjoy learning on their own and usually excel in traditional exams. Exams provide them a chance to reproduce the words in isolation and independently


• Visual/non-verbal Learning style: Such students learn through charts, diagrams of all kinds, including a video. Texts books with text will not be useful for these learners. Books with illustrations, diagrams can help them learn effectively. They learn "pictures". They use mapping techniques and diagrammatic approach
• Tactile/Kinaesthetic Learning style: These learner learn by doing. During lab experiments they learn by "hands on" They enjoy school trips to museums, factories. They are not good at note taking. They use sketches, work sheets to help their learning objectives
• Auditory/verbal Learning Style: These students learn through listening to "lectures" and recordings. They take part in class room discussions and also debates etc. They learn by "hearing"

The implication is that as a teacher one must be able to classify her students into appropriate groups and meet their learning needs accordingly.

On her part, student must identify her style of learning to maximise returns on learning efforts.

I have been using techniques to help students learn by posting reading materials on the web and also making it available in audio form

Making of N.R Narayana Murthy

N.R.Narayana Murthy (NRN), one of the founders of IT giant Infosys, has published a book A Better India: A Better World. NRN claims that he never wanted to write a book because books contain intentions of author where as he is always interested in the results generated by the intentions. In other words, he is a doer. However he finally penned the book at the instance of his son. The book contains interesting anecdotes and insights into one of the most successful entrepreneurial minds of our times.

Like most young men of every post independent generation in India, NRN was always wondered on why there exists such a inequality in India: poor and rich, urban and rural India and ruling class and ruled. In fact the book recollects a 21-hour long train travel spent by NRN in Europe in early 1970's in answering those questions. At that time he came across three books that he says shaped his personality and inspired him to take the path of entrepreneurship. The books and the lessons he picked from them are as follows.

1. My Experiments with Truth by Gandhi:
Lesson Learnt :Leadership by Example

2. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber
Lesson Learnt: Decent and hardworking people have succeeded against all odds everywhere in the world.

3. Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon
Lesson Learnt: Ruling class and Ruled have different rights and responsibility with a huge asymmetry in favour of rulers

NRN calls them three pieces in his development puzzle. Once he assembled them, he started his entrepreneurial experiments and the rest is history

Surviving Information Floods

We live in a crowded world. Crowded with people. Our world is inundated with information. We all have been experiencing this. You do not have to go anywhere far way to verify this. Just check your INBOX either email or cell. You may be looking for one or two "must read" emails among the heaps of messages crowding messages. And this happens everyday and for some of us every time we open our emails. You are expected to face this daunting task of going through all unwanted emails to find one that is important and relevant. Sometimes, when you are tired, this inundation may also cause you to delete accidentally an important message that you have waiting all along. How do you succeed here?. What is your strategy. Here is a suggestion. Apply the idea of CLEAR for every message that passes through you.

• C- is this information connected to my present work?- How is it relevant?


• L- List of next steps?- What should I do now that I know this bit of information?


• E- Expectation- What is the potential of this information?


• A-Ability - what tools and support do I need to use this information?


• R- Return What is in it for me? or my work

Apply this to every bit of information that comes across you and may be you stand a better chance of success. Or at least you don't get submerged in the information sea.

Web Tools for Teaching: Search Engines

Search engines are the most widely used resource discovery tools on the web. Both general and as well as professional user often depend on search engines for locating information they need. Although there are more than 1000 search engines active on the web, Google, Yahoo and MSN Live are the most widely used ones.

To discover information on the web using a search engine is a simple and straight forward activity. Users have to find a keyword that best describes their information need. For instance, suppose you are searching for information on "curriculum design" using google, you get a result page like this. On this page, it lists millions of links matching the keyword "Curriculum Design" Use can click on the first or any link to gather more information available. As an exercise you may search for key word " lesson plan" using Yahoo. You can compare your search with this

Web Tools For Teaching

Web is a source of immense resources and tools. Web has a huge repository of general purpose and special purpose tools. Since its inception it is increasingly becoming an attractive resource for teachers. At the same time web is a source of resources and also a platform for communication and collaboration. Teaching with web resources in mind is an advantage. Using web resource for educational purposes has begun since the early days of the web. The fact that web had its beginnings in the educational setting makes it still more relevant to be harnessed for educational purposes in general and teaching purposes in particular