First faculty orientation. February 18th and 19th 2010.

well, you might have guessed by now that your madam's and sirs and me have met some where before, infact we have been thinking and talking about each one of you from a long time now...and yes, I have tried to capture the moments for you...Here goes the minutes of the first orientation The Centre for Study of Culture and Society and the Centre for
Internet and Society came together on the 19th and 20th of
Febraury,2010 for the first orientation of the Pathways project.
The place:- Uttrahali, one of those moors away from the city, with its noise and pollution...
The setting:- clear blue sky and white fluffy clouds in the horizon....
The transport:- Two huge qualis's for the comfort of your teacher's...
the grand escape,the kick start:- well,a mailing list has been configured for determining what we can do with you..(:)) and looking forward to seeing you all in person...
enthusiasm among the participants and organisers engaged them in an
active conversation on diverse topics. The Ford foundation is planning
to re-look at the 'Pathways' project which it runs worldwide. Program
officer Ravina Aggarwal,reaffirmed Ford foundation's commitment to
support innovation,diversity and inclusiveness while taking care of
quality and retention. Professor Tejaswani gave an overview of the
Higher Education Cell at the Centre for Study of Culture and Society
which strives to help connect Undergrad colleges, universities and
research centres. It also shepherds the Networked Higher Education
Cell,the Regional Language Resources cell,the Social Justice cell, the
Gender Studies cell and the Integrated Science cell.Professor Milind
pointed out the necessity to recover our subjugated pasts and tap into
knowledge which is mostly de-legitimised in the classroom.The Pathways
project seeks to set up Social Diversity Cells in each participating
institution that will help organise and coordinate
activities.Professor Ashish emphasised that personalised needs of
learners could be targeted through this project . Thus it would help
generate research in the field of pedagogy. He drew the connections
between an Institutional repository with archives of material that
complements the course, put by the course teacher. Thus the
teacher/students actively participate not only in download but also
upload of information.

The larger objective of this Higher Education Cell initiative is to
make higher education hospitable to hitherto marginalised students by
improving the quality of their access to the institutions.On the first
day, Professor Ram, placed the intentions of the pathways project in
juxtaposition of the law of our country. He highlighted the struggle
for access to public spaces and equal opportunities. He also pointed
out the persistent inadequacy in representation, ambiguity in defining
classes and necessity for new data to review and question the law.
Through the Pathways project, 20 -25 students from a marginalised
background would participate in a communication and technology
workshop conducted by the Centre For Internet and Society. Ashwin
commented on why the existing efforts to address social justice issues
have not been successful. 'Initiatives with focus on spoken English
skills do not efficiently translate in the purposes of knowledge
production.According to a survey 13 percent of Internet usage in India
is in English,while 83 percent of regional languages are used.Most
standard parameters to measure higher education have been
ineffective.In class, rather than development of critical skills being
the goal, the present mode resonates with an absence of resource
culture.The real demand of higher education, would only succeed in
developing clusters of researchers among small institutions at the
undergraduate and post graduate level.He strongly feels, that if the
approach to study is linked to problem based learning, which would
exist through virtual and physical means it would help to generate
resources to deal with the student's context. If linked with
organisations which act as training spaces. The Young trained
researchers,go back to the classroom with an angle of interaction
which has changed their perspective for life.The problem of
'un-learnabilty' is also linked to the 'un-teachabilty' of our present
curriculum.Through the workshops keeping in mind student competence we
hope that the students take up questions, use resources, develop
written output taking the questions asked forward and collating
present resources.' The model is open ended which creates alot of
opportunity for the teacher/student to negotiate with
blogs,wikipedia,institutional repositories and worldwide wealth of
information.Professor Srinivas pointed the embedded nature of social
conflict and culture. It is not possible to look at stereotypes as
good or bad but to try and understand what is happening.

Mr. Nishant Shah observed that in the trend of Internet
technology,tools are obsolete within a short span of time. The
workshops would focus on developing and sustaining skills to be tech
savvy. He affirmed that technology was for the marginalised but it
cannot be envisaged as a solution for all problems.The solution was
outside technology but we can use it to enable conversations.In his
painting of the digital classroom, the teacher can remove the burden
of being the primary and the only source of education. He emphasised
that choices for what platform to be used would be taken by the people
who use it,that we rather not endorse or question it
negatively.Through introducing the students to 'conditions' of
learning and being 'stakeholders' in the learning process we can open
dialogues and debate. The Pathways project hopes to successfully
design circles of trust inside,among and in between the 9 colleges and
the participating organisations. Thus the student don't have to wait
for 20 years to say what they want but in conversing with their online
community they create knowledge collaboratively.

Mr. Sunil Abraham, co- director of the Centre for Internet and society
emphasised that the trust placed in the youth is not misplaced. He was
enthusiastic about the potential of collaborative authoring. Citing
the example of the Mata Amritadamand College's private archive
containing four terabyte of information created and maintained by the
students. He visualises the potential of recording college lectures
using affordable mobile phones to help students go through concepts
more than once.He showcased the large variety of items that could be
uploaded on the Eprints. The Pathways project has chosen to use the
Eprints software to create a digital repository. Each repository would
have its server located in the college and would be linked with the
other participating colleges. Thus giving the students across colleges
an opportunity to solve their doubts and learn together. The
permanence of Internet histories would make most students vary of
doing harm as accountability would be linked in this circle of trust.

The participating colleges from Karnataka were St.Aloysius
College,Mangalore, Fr. Stany Souza and Mr. George Roderigues, Dr.A.V.
Balinga College,Kumta;Dr. M.G. Hegde and Shivanand Bulla,
Vidhyavardhaka College,Mysore, Dr. S.V. Marigowda and Mr.Sunil kumar.
From Maharashtra St.Xavier's College, Mumbai; Professor Sangeetha
Chavan and Professor Jyotiram Gaikwad; SIES,Mumbai,Professor Asha gala
and Ms. Sarita Balkrishnan, Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Dr.S.B.
Iyer, Mr.Vilas Londhe. From Kerala, Farook College, Kozhikode,
Ms.Aysha K.Swapna, Mr. Muhammed Rasheed, Union Christian
College,Aluva, Ms Geethika and Mr. Eldo Varghese, Newman College,
Thosupuzha, Professor Ravi K Pillai and Professor Joe Jacob.