Sunday, April 10, 2016

A Seven-Day Workshop on “Creativity and Innovation in ODL” 


One of the activities of the National Centre for Innovation in Distance Education (NCIDE) is to nurture creativity and innovation among the various functionaries of the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system. The NCIDE carries this out through various capacity-building measures from time to time, and organizing training workshop on creativity and innovation is one of them. Towards this aim of nurturing creativity and innovation in the ODL system, the NCIDE successfully conducted a seven-day workshop on “Creativity and Innovation in ODL” on 3rd March, 9-14 March 2016 at the Conference Room of the Radhakrishnan Block, IGNOU and the NCIDE Conference Room in Block G, Academic Complex IGNOU, Maidan Garhi, New Delhi. The objectives of this workshop were to sensitize the Faculty of IGNOU to perceive and understand creativity and innovation in the ODL system, and to generate creative ideas and implement those ideas in the ODL system. 



This workshop was conceived and designed by NCIDE under the vision and mentorship of Prof. Prabir Kr. Biswas, Professor of Distance Education, Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE), IGNOU and NCIDE. This seven day-workshop is essentially a One-Credit workshop of 30 hours, which was conducted both in face to face and virtual mode in the Virtual Training Lounge, an online platform developed by NCIDE for online training 

 Prof. P. K. Biswas interacting with the participants. The face to face interaction and group activities were for two full days (9th and 10th March, 2016) and two half days (3rd and 14th March, 2016) comprising a total of about 14 hours. The participants had been working online in the Virtual Training Lounge for the remaining 16 hours. This was essentially a workshop by the participants and for the participants. In this workshop, 14 teachers from 8 Schools of Studies, IGNOU, participated. Professor Prabir Kr. Biswas from STRIDE was the expert for both the face to face sessions and in the Virtual Training Lounge, and Dr. Jyotsna Dikshit (in virtual mode), NCIDE and Dr. Moumita Das, NCIDE facilitated the participants in the Virtual Training Lounge. 

The first session was conducted on 3 rd March by Prof Biswas in which the participants were asked to talk about their creative contributions in the ODL system. Thereafter a few tasks were assigned to them and they were asked to think about those tasks and discuss with other participants and mentors in the Virtual Training Lounge between the 3rd March and 14th March. The first task that was assigned was to think and generate ideas on how to bring in creativity and innovation in the teaching-learning process in the Self-learning material (SLM). They were asked to keep their learners in view. The distance teachers should know the learners background (demographic, psychological etc.) and their learning styles as well. They were asked to make a note on these components. The participants were asked to list the activities and functions of the efficient classroom teacher and to think how to incorporate all those functions into SLM. It was noted that most of the SLM give emphasis on cognitive domain of learning. Prof. Biswas suggested the participants to give emphasis on psychomotor/skill domain and affective domain also. Keeping this direction in view the SLM may also be transformed into Self-working material (SWM). Prof Biswas suggested creation of an “ODL theme park” in IGNOU and suggested idea generation among the participants. The participants had been active in the Virtual Training Lounge and formed an e-mail group and WhatsApp group also and had generated many ideas on this topic. 



 The Vice Chancellor Prof. Nageshwar Rao addressing the participants at the Inaugural Session of the workshop on 9 th March 2016 at the Conference Room, NCIDE, IGNOU. The participants generating ideas at the workshop on 9 th March 2016. The Vice Chancellor of IGNOU, Prof. Nageshwar Rao was welcomed for the inaugural session on 9th March by the Director (i/c) NCIDE, Dr. O. P. Sharma. Prof. Rao, while inaugurating the workshop, said this workshop on creativity was timely. He said that there is tremendous scope for creativity in ODL. He talked about his own experiences on creativity with examples and said that although there were initial obstacles, eventually his efforts were appreciated. He inspired the participants to be imaginative and creative. He said that creativity should go hand in hand with logic, which would contribute to the quality of services of an organization. He said that the NCIDE should be entrusted with the conduction of more such workshops on creativity and wished the success of this workshop. 

On 9th and 10th March, the participants learnt about various creative strategies and have discussed, generated, analysed and evaluated many ideas on developing a creative self working material and the ODL theme park. They used various techniques such as brain storming, brain writing, cluster analysis, morphological synthesis, headstand, Dot-mocracy, SCAMPER etc. and generated hundreds of ideas, selected, edited and evaluated ideas and had even written poems, which reflect the highest level of their creativity. Prof Biswas also discussed how the access devices can be used effectively in SLM, how to integrate latest and simple technology, and how the ODL theme park of IGNOU can be used for promotion of ODL, 

The Virtual training Lounge and the discussion forums in it were extensively used by the participants. teaching and training purposes, video recording and so on. Thereafter, the participants had been using the Virtual Training Lounge. They have been using it extensively to post their ideas and discuss them. It is a continuous proces

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