Changes

===Principles for ICT in education===

===Principles for ICT in education===

====Digital Natives====

====Digital Natives====

While considering ICTs in Education, we need to consider that the generation of children entering schools are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native digital natives].  They are born into an age where rapid changes are taking place in digital technologies, and learning to navigate the digital world is an essential skill. An important point to keep in mind here, however, is that these conditions of nativity are not uniform.  Socio-economic disparities are  mirrored in  disparity of access to the digital world and many economically deprived children are deprived of this aspect of education too. It is also important that teachers acquire and internalise technological and pedagogical skills to the extend that they can facilitate the classroom process while working with digital natives and non-natives.

While considering ICTs in Education, we need to consider that the generation of children entering schools are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native digital natives].  They are born into an age where rapid changes are taking place in digital technologies, and learning to navigate the digital world is an essential skill. An important point to keep in mind here, however, is that these conditions of nativity are not uniform.  Socio-economic disparities are  mirrored in  disparity of access to the digital world and many socio-economically deprived children are deprived of this aspect of education too. It is also important that teachers acquire and internalise technological and pedagogical skills to the extent that they can facilitate the classroom process while working with digital natives and non-natives.

==ICTs in education as Public Resources==

====ICTs in education as Public Resources====

An important principle in public education, is that curricular resources and the tools for creating such resources need to be publicly owned, so that they are freely available to teacher educators, teachers and students without restrictions. In the same manner, digital tools and resources used in public education, should be publicly owned. Use of free and  digital tools/resources can provide a rich and diverse public digital environment. Digital resources are non-rivalrous (meaning that sharing does not reduce availability) and hence promoting public creation and sharing of digital resources (both e-content and software) is an important step to ensure systemic benefit from ICTs in education. The National Policy on ICT in school education therefore recommends the use of free and open source software applications. Use of proprietary products can create vendor 'lock-in' which could be detrimental to education. <br>A free and open source operating system such as GNU/Linux is widely used. This can save public funds on license fees on procuring proprietary software and upgrade fees at later dates.  There are a large number of freely shareable educational tools on GNU/Linux, pertaining to mathematics, science, social sciences etc which can be used in  schools. There are large number of additional freely shareable tools , such as IBUS which supports word processing in more than 50 languages, including most languages used in India or the ORCA screen reader necessary for the visually handicapped or Scribus for desktop publishing. All these tools can be pre-installed in a 'custom distribution' of GNU/Linux for a one-time installation. A custom distribution of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux system will be provided to all the schools for implementing the program. This software distribution will have all the software applications that are part of the text book and hand book. Since all applications are free and open source, they can be periodically upgraded without license fee implications. The department will provide an updated version of software distribution annually.  

An important principle in public education, is that curricular resources and the tools for creating such resources need to be publicly owned, so that they are freely available to teacher educators, teachers and students without restrictions. In the same manner, digital tools and resources used in public education, should be publicly owned. Use of free and  digital tools/resources can provide a rich and diverse public digital environment. Digital resources are non-rivalrous (meaning that sharing does not reduce availability) and hence promoting public creation and sharing of digital resources (both e-content and software) is an important step to ensure systemic benefit from ICTs in education. The National Policy on ICT in school education therefore recommends the use of free and open source software applications. Use of proprietary products can create vendor 'lock-in' which could be detrimental to education. <br>A free and open source operating system such as GNU/Linux is widely used. This can save public funds on license fees on procuring proprietary software and upgrade fees at later dates.  There are a large number of freely shareable educational tools on GNU/Linux, pertaining to mathematics, science, social sciences etc which can be used in  schools. There are large number of additional freely shareable tools , such as IBUS which supports word processing in more than 50 languages, including most languages used in India or the ORCA screen reader necessary for the visually handicapped or Scribus for desktop publishing. All these tools can be pre-installed in a 'custom distribution' of GNU/Linux for a one-time installation. A custom distribution of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux system will be provided to all the schools for implementing the program. This software distribution will have all the software applications that are part of the text book and hand book. Since all applications are free and open source, they can be periodically upgraded without license fee implications. The department will provide an updated version of software distribution annually.  

===Integration of ICT in education===

===Integration of ICT in education===

====ICT In school education====

====ICT In school education====