Disruptive Technologies, Education and Some Social Issues » Orkut

When Students Become Smarter Than the Teachers

Kenney Jacob — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:52:28 +0000

“Today, in computer class, my teacher referred to “frames” as the newest and powerful development in web development. Bah !! “

I found this tweet here.

This is an age when students are often smarter than the teachers. With the Internet and access to information at finger tips, students devour a lot of information everyday. This often puts teachers at a disadvantage because they are not used to using the tools of the trade.

How are our schools dealing with such a situation ?

In Ernakulam, a school issued an official notice to parents asking them to baby sit their kids when they are using the Internet.

Another school in Trivandrum is totally against the use of Internet by students. They simply believe its not needed at all.

In Delhi, a student was dismissed because he started a poll in an orkut community rating his teachers. Troubles started when some honest comments appeared.

How should our schools be dealing with this situation ?

Provide a dedicated Internet lab to the students.

Make Google and Wikipedia, standard education tools.

Make it a rule that everyone must “Google” before asking a question or a doubt.

And especially when teaching computer science, the syllabus and the teachers should be updated every year, if possible every 6 months.Similar Posts:

Lucifer Speaking – My Love Life – Part 1

JMJ — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:30:17 +0000

My Love Life – Part I

Today I want to talk about my close friend’s love life. He is actually 3 months older than me but I am 1 year elder to him (Please don’t ask me to explain that – you need to know advanced quantum physics to understand it – and if there is anyone who has done PHD is quantum physics – they also need to know molecular biology) Both of us are 24 years old and pretty much followed the same path when it came to studies (computer science stream – and yes he did score better marks than me most of the time)

Well all in all he a very nice guy. A little afraid of girls, Loves spending time watching movies and doing anything on the computer. And by the way is working too…Any way all this started when he was doing his UG. The management was very strict at his college. Though it was a co-ed, they were not supposed to talk to the opposite sex, each sex had their own staircase, and basically there was no freedom.

We were all brought up with a lot of freedom, though we had boundaries. Our parents never put pressure on us to do this or do that not even on our studies. And we were thought to do our stuff on our own – even studies, we never really went for tuition’s (may be once or twice for a month or two)
Anyway – going back to his college day – he used to be always very upset about the way his teachers and the authorities acted at college. One day he and his mates were having fun chatting outside the college (the usual tea shop outside the college). Any way there was an incident where someone tried to tease a girl and it was brought to the attention of the college authorities. The college authorities decided to suspend all the students who were standing by the tea shop for one week as punishment.

My friend – though pissed off with the authorities, was happy to get the one week off. He sat at home watching movies, went to his friends place…he was enjoying himself. By the way at that time my friend had managed to convince his dad to buy him a Mobile phone (a Sony Erickson model) and he had this Airtel connection where he had to pay Rs30/- every month and he could send any number of SMS free for that month. And believe me – he used to abuse that service. Now he can type out an SMS Message without even looking at the screen or keypad – though I have not measured his word per minute speed, I can tell you he is pretty fast and accurate.

Since he was not doing anything – one day he decided to do a small experiment. He started to send out SMS’s to numbers that preceded his number. His msg was introducing himself and asking the opposite number if they were interested in chatting. Just like what you do on yahoo chat rooms. So he was sending this msg to random numbers. Most of the numbers he never got a reply. Other numbers he got negative reply. But there was this number – a girl who called herself Sanitha; SMS’ed back. That was the first positive SMS he had got. Any way he got busy chatting with the girl on SMS and she also used to regularly send back messages.

This went along for a long time. They exchanged personal details. She was from West Bengal, and was studying at a premier intuition. She was the only child in her family. Finally my friend and she decided to meet each other. So the date and time were fixed. They were supposed to meet at a very famous mall in the city in the afternoon on the 15th of AUG. My friend was very excited. At last he was going to meet an SMS Pal. He decided that he was going alone.

In the evening he came back beaming. I asked him “What happen?” He replied “You know what? She lied to me.” I said “What?”

“Yea! Her name is not Sanitha; her name is Moumitha” and he went on to tell me about her, her friends, the fun they had at the restaurant. Though I was a bit apprehensive, I was happy for him. He had at last decided to move into the bigger world and make friends. Any way he started, visiting her and her friends regularly, to restaurants, to the beach…He was enjoying the new found friendship. All his friends used to try and woo him, to try and get him to introduce them to some of her friends. He used to always say “no, she is just my friend and I will not take advantage”

I think this friendship went along for a few months before she decided to propose to him. She had started to love him – she confessed. He told her that frankly he was not in it for the “Love”. Any way she convinced him about it and he also agreed – though he never said the words “I LOVE YOU”, he later told me. I also did not take it seriously, and left it alone. He started spending more time with her. He used to spend the weekend going for shopping with her, or going to the beach, going for movies. He even started talking to her for the whole night on the cell phone….

And before I realized it “Holly Shit” this guy was serious about this relationship. He even called up her parents and introduced himself and told them about his intention of marrying her. This went on for I think 3 years or so. By that time I was out of the country with a good job, and he had signed up for his PG in a better college. Whenever I used to call him, he used to talk about her also, and tell me all the fun they had.

By the way I forgot to tell you about this other girl at his new college. They used to call her “Vath” (Duck). She was studying for and UG engineering course. My friend’s class mate’s told him that this girl was watching him and following him everywhere. That was cool eh? Any way, he was deep into his other relationship, and as I had mentioned earlier, he was afraid of girls – so he never had the courage to go and directly speak to the girl. Any way he had fun with the girl following him around. But he made it a point to let her know through “orkut” that he was already in a relationship and was unavailable.

Read Part II of My Love Life to understand the whole story. I know “Falling in Love” is a common thing in India. Though I have liked some of the girls who studied with me; I never had the privilege of “Falling in Love”. Please leave your comments – and let me know what you think of this little story and your own experiences.Similar Posts:

Holidayz – The Movie

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:36:29 +0000

Holidayz is a Kannada movie in pre production stages which will be directed by Hari Anand. The movie is expected to be a movie for the youth. This is the first movie to take feedback opinion from audience even during its pre production stages.

The movie is giving a lot of opportunities to fresh faces. If you think you can do some part of the movie, acting, music, lyricist anything in the movie, feel free to mail the director at directorhari@gmail.com

The movie is already making a lot of excitement among the fans with its orkut community where the director himself is interacting with the users, asking them suggestions and even implementing them. This would be movie 2.0

The movie is based on some real life incidents. A 9th STD girl is writing lyrics for the movie. This movie is so special that a non kannadiga fan is learning kannada to watch this movie.Similar Posts:

Vimochana Samaram Part II – Christian Terrorism

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:11:25 +0000

What you are seeing is an offical church training session on how to stage a demonstration. It was a long queue and they were shouting slogans. I had to post this here cos someone questioned my credibitlity in an orkut forum discussing “Church and Politics”.Similar Posts:

Google Services Not Accessible – Help Please

Kenney Jacob — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:58:57 +0000

Google Services are not accessible on my Windows laptop from yesterday onwards. Search is not working. Cant loging to gmail, orkut or any other google services. The page is stuck midway trying to load. I tried a lot of stuff like virus scans, DNS flushing etc. Still no change. The problem perisists on 3 browsesrs that I have in my machine… opera, IE and firefox.

Does anyone know a fix ?Similar Posts:

Premarital Sex Vs Marrying Cousins and Uncles

Kenney Jacob — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:48:48 +0000

I recently had an eye opening experience in one of the orkut discussion forums. A thread started by a person to boast about Indian culture and thrash western culture turned nasty when discussions turned to the topic “Premarital sex”.

The Indians gained an advantage with this topic, but it was short lived with a reply from a western counter part. The following was his comment.

“You are blaming us for having premarital sex, but its not as bad as marrying cousins and uncles“.

That was the end of that discussion. There was no argument from the Indian side to counter it. We lost the war, but it created a wave of thoughts in me.

Never think of any culture as superior or inferior. All cultures evolved into its current form cos the society needed it. For the Hindus marrying cousins is very acceptable. In Tamil Nadu, girls marry their uncles. From a western perspective its bad.

Cohabitation is very acceptable in the western culture. But parents here faint at the thought of it. Muslims are legally allowed to have 4 wifes simultaneously. Divorce is just three words for them. If you are a non muslim and if you are divorced, you will face some serious discrimination in the society.

Now, Which is wrong and which is right ?

I guess the answer would be, “Everything is right“.Similar Posts:

Entrance Coaching Mafia

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:49:39 +0000

In the last 15 years entrance coaching institutions have flourished in Kerala. They specialise in teaching the tips and tricks to gain a better rank. But during the years they have grown very powerful and arrogant also.

Now they are misleading the students and controling them in ways we never imagined. My cousin, studied in Brilliant (palai) and he got a rank of 600 in Kerala entrance. We are were really happy for him cos he put in a lot of hard work and effort to achieve this. He missed many family events just to attend classes.

But everyone was surprised when he decided not to take admissions this year and repeat the exam once again next year. The Brilliant institute convinced him to repeat so that he could get into an IIT. He joined for classes again this monday.

Poor boy even deleted his orkut account to stay away from distractions and to concentrate on the studies. His orkut friends formed a “Memorial Community” in his name. He is a victim of the “Entrance coaching Mafia”.

The saddest part is that the boy has got no clue about engineering or the IITs. He wants to do an MBA and start a company. I suggested that he repeat for CAT, GMAT or GRE and not for engineering cos that can get him into a better business school or even a good university abroad. But he has no idea about these exams or the opportunities. He trusts and believes in his teachers at the coaching institute unaware of their business interests.

And when we speak of the entrance coaching institions we cant ignore the one lead by a semi God Man in the cultural capital of Kerala. I have never heard any of his students saying anything good about him. Every one complaints that he abuses the students and uses a lot of bad words. I think its a common trait of all God Men.Similar Posts:

Orkut is now Yogurt

Kenney Jacob — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:47:53 +0000

Today morning my friend, Jinson pinged me to say that orkut changed its name to yogurt. Now is it an april fools trick ? Well, lucky that we are one day ahead of US.Similar Posts:

How to Build your Fans Community in Orkut

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:47:14 +0000

This is one excellent trick to build your own fans community with lots of members. I have seen quite a few pull off this trick. And this increases your reputation among strangers, even though might some damage to your reputation among friends.

1. Start a genuine community, may be for your class, school or work group.

2. Publicize it among the target group.

3. Rename it to your Fans community.

Do comment your experiences.Similar Posts:

Private Communities in Orkut

Kenney Jacob — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:21:24 +0000

Orkut adds private communities. By this communities can be private places where the owner has full control and only the members have access to the content inside. Now this is not surprise move from orkut. But what surprised me is the example they have given, as a usage scenario in their official blog.

“Have you ever thought of creating a community poll like “Who is the best teacher at your school?”, but stopped yourself from doing it because the teachers might actually see it?”

Now thats a nice move. Such powers of expression is really needed in the conservative Indian community. Id love to see teachers being rated by the students.

In delhi a school student was suspended for having posted a negative comment about a teacher in orkut. No such event must be repeated. Actuall, schools and colleges must empower students with tools and communication means so that they also can express themselves properly.Similar Posts: