TECHNOLOGY: Learning via QR codes

Bibhu Ranjan Mishra explains how the digital learning contents integrated into the school learning system are transforming education

BIBHU RANJAN MISHRA explains how the digital learning contents integrated into the school learning system are transforming education

Many of us are familiar with the electrocardiogram of the heartbeat. But have you ever wondered what the heartbeat of a nation’s learning might look like? Especially, the learning graphs of those who are still in school?

Thanks to the efforts of the ministry of human resources development (MHRD) at the Centre and also individual states, QR code-based learning platforms for school students and teachers have made it quite easy to gauge this in the form of a graph in real time. A QR or Quick Response code is a two-dimensional barcode which contains specific information and can be read digitally.

Sunbird, an open source platform for creating learning content developed by the Nandan Nilekani-run Ekstep Foundation, is quietly empowering school education through MHRD’S project Diksha. Every time a student accesses content by scanning the QR codes given in the textbook using the Diksha app, his/her learning preferences and patterns get recorded at the backend.

The app captures the learning data of a 30-day period through a centralised dashboard and gives a fair idea about the types of content being used and the popularity of various subjects. It also helps in discerning the learning ability of students, why they have not fared well in certain subjects, and accordingly finetunes the digital learning content.

Launched in 2017 in just five states, today, the Diksha project has been implemented in as many of 28 states (and union territories), in some form or the other, for schools affiliated to state boards, up to Class 10.

Even the CBSE is also looking at QRcoding all NCERT text books for Classes 1 to 10 to offer digital learning content. Besides, CBSE is also creating teacher and student resources by crowdsourcing the material from over 100 schools. This includes teaching resources such as lesson plans, power points and teach explanation videos, and student resources such as experiential learning videos, multiple type questions, and long and short answers.

A brainchild of the MHRD and steered by CBSE, project Diksha aims at providing a digital learning platform to empower both students and teachers. They can download the Diksha app, scan the QR codes given at the end of each chapter, and get access to multimedia content in text, audio and video. Diksha’s USP is that it has the flexibility to create content, depending on the requirement of the students and teachers, and can even update it in the middle of the academic session.

For example, with the secondary school board exams just around the corner, the Karnataka school education department is offering the students probable questions and their answers through the QR codes. While the codes are already there at the end of every chapter, the department is now linking these with around 40-45 questions along with the best answers to them.

“Besides, the content which has been developed by one state can now be easily consumed by another state. All they need to do is put a subtitle or a voice- over, and reuse the video by putting it in their QR codes — and this is happening a lot,” says Anita Karwal, chairperson of CBSE.

The technology underlying QR code-based digital learning is an open-source platform called ‘Sunbird’. Initially built and developed by Ekstep Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation run by former UIDAI chairman and Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini, Sunbird is the fabric on which huge volumes of digital learning content have been created. And these are being offered to students via the QR codes printed in the text books.

“Think of it as an equivalent of Linux for learning or open-source software for learning. But this is a technology which has been made in and for India, keeping in view the diversity of the country,” says Shankar Maruwada, CEO of Ekstep Foundation. “Sunbird is not the solution itself, but a digital infrastructure which gives you the ability to solve. One can go to the platform and use it to create content for learning as the MHRD has done for Diksha and several other states and NGOS are doing.”

The content can be accessed online or offline, through a smartphone or a personal computer. The Maharashtra government, for example, is using Sunbird platform to create content on financial technologies for college students. The ministry of housing and urban affairs (MOHUA) has contracted an agency to launch a National Urban Learning Platform by using this platform.

Advaith Foundation, a non-profit set up by Infosys co-founder SD Shibulal and his wife Kumari Shibulal, has used Sunbird to create a learning platform for school teachers called Shikshalokam. In fact, the World Bank has also shown an interest to take the software to several other countries such as Peru and Costa Rica.

But the best use case of Sunbird has been in school education through project Diksha. So far, the Diksha app has seen over 7 million downloads in Play Store while over 500 million textbooks have been published across 15 languages, which are being accessed by roughly 110-120 million children and 30-40 lakh teachers.

“The way we look at it is, use technology as an enabler and see what problems we can solve through it. We have to first understand the problem which we want to solve and then use technology to distribute the ability to solve which we call ‘societal platform thinking’,” says Rohini Nilekani.

Typically, each chapter in a textbook has 1-3 pieces of QR codes. Each of these codes has 1-3 pieces of content in it. For project Diksha, along with the QR codes, the students have been furnished with a unique set of numbers. These numbers, when entered on the Diksha website, lead to the contents that are linked to the QR code.

Certain states have done quite well in implementing the project. Maharashtra, for example, has Qr-coded every textbook across all classes and subjects across eight languages. Some states like Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are working on using the platform for teachers’ training as well.

Then there are states that are thinking beyond text and video. Tamil Nadu is said to be experimenting with 3D content, especially for explaining the intricacies of human organs such as the heart.

From January this year, CBSE has launched another initiative called ‘critical and creative thinking practice’. Under this, five questions are put up every week on Diksha. Focussed on four subjects — Science, Maths, English and Hindi — these questions test a student’s conceptual clarity.

“We will also have online assessment of students on the Diksha portal and app. This way, we will get to know the ‘hard spots’, depending on which, more content will be created on these subjects,” says a senior official in the MHRD.