BOOK BANK FACILITY FOR FE TO BE

The library is providing the “Book Bank” facility to all the students FE to BE.

Date and timings are as mentioned below :

Date : 16/01/2016

Timing :10.00am to 1.00pm and 2.00pm to 3.00pm.

Sachin Tendulkar's near-death experience while crossing rail tracks

Sachin Tendulkar recalled a scary experience which he underwent during his school days while crossing the rail tracks.

Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar on Wednesday recalled a scary experience which he underwent during his school days while crossing the rail tracks.

The former India batsman was speaking at the launch of two initiatives by the Mumbai Railway Police - SAMEEP (Safety Alert Messages Exclusively For Passengers) and B-Safe.

"Right from the age of 11, I travelled by trains in Mumbai. When I travelled, I had a kit-bag. I have also experienced jostling, being pushed in and out of trains...these experiences will stay with me," Tendulkar said.

"In school, I had gone to Vile Parle to a friend's place. We five or six boys... had practiced in the morning and had gone to his place for lunch. Then we decided to watch a movie. After watching the movie, we got late for practice and hence we decided to cross railway tracks and go to the platform, and board the train at Dadar," he added.

The 42-year-old talking about the horrific incident said, "While crossing the tracks, halfway, we realised that trains were coming fast on all the tracks. We ended up crouching on our knees in between the tracks with our kits. That was a scary experience and then onwards we never crossed train tracks."

Tendulkar also urged all rail commuters not to sit on train roofs and to avoid travel if the train is crowded.

"I feel in today's world every minute matters, there is competition everywhere. I feel, a lot of time (the thinking is) if we cross railway tracks, then we will reach quicker, there will be benefit of five minutes instead of crossing the bridge while going to the other platform. These are small things - one, you are breaking the law, and you are risking life for five minutes," he said.

"Your family and friends are waiting for you back home and if you reach there five minutes later it really does not matter. It is important to be there, safe and sound, rather than be in hospital. I will request: do not sit on the train roof and travel if the train is crowded. Everyone is hard pressed for time, but still (I ask you), leave that train, be patient and do not break rules," Tendulkar said.

Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sachin-tendulkar-near-death-experience-while-crossing-rail-tracks/1/570197.html

SFIT Student's Council FB Page

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Plant a tree with a few clicks

SankalpTaru’s model also benefits farmers who help in maintaining the fruit-bearing trees and benefit from them

SankalpTaru founder Apurva Bhandari. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

New Delhi: Home to 1.2 billion people, India is the second-most populated country in the world, but its tree-to-people ratio is not very high and stands at only 28 per person. China, the only country with a higher population, has 108 trees per person, according to a recent study published inNature. To remedy the situation, technology-enabled non-government organization SankalpTaru Foundation is providing a platform to facilitate the planting of trees.

Its mobile app was launched in July 2013, aiming to bridge the gap between people’s busy schedules and their willingness to participate for an environment-friendly country.

The app helps people to plant at any desired location with a few clicks on the website or from their app, and in turn is used by the worker at the plantation site of SankalpTaru across India.

“We have plantation locations across India which range from Ladakh to Tamil Nadu. We have locations in Thar desert, Himalayas, Maharashtra and Gujarat,” said Apurva Bhandari, founder of SankalpTaru Foundation.

The model revolves around schools and rural farmers so that users can grow fruit-bearing trees that can contribute to the livelihood of farmers or involve school students and teachers in plantation activity in schools.

SankalpTaru workers will plant a sapling on behalf of the person who selects a location and makes a contribution. A mail will confirm that the sapling has been planted.

The sapling is also photographed and geotagged by the ground-level worker so that the user can see its progress as it grows into a tree and the beneficiary who will nurture it. The user then gets regular growth updates to keep him/her more connected to the tree.

“For corporations, we have taken it a step further, where we create virtual forests for them through which different employees come to that virtual forest, plant trees and the virtual forest gives a lot of branding mileage to the company and connects a lot of employees who plant trees there,” said Bhandari.

The NGO works towards two objectives: to provide people who want to plant trees with a sustainable credible platform, thus making plantation more organized.

“People claim that they have planted 1 million plants in an hour, but what happens then? We decided that every plant that is planted should grow to become a tree,” said Bhandari.

The second objective was to facilitate livelihood support programmes through tree plantation for farmers. The on-ground coordinators work closely with the beneficiary farmers in maintaining the trees and also train these beneficiaries on sustainable farming methods.

Once grown, these medicinal and fruit-bearing trees can act as a source of livelihood for the beneficiaries.

The initiative won a Manthan award in 2015 in the e-Environment category.

“If you plant a tree in a park and it grows, there is an impact on the environment. But if you grow a plant for a farmer and it becomes a tree, then it becomes the source of livelihood. IT is helping integrating the whole process and making the process transparent,” said Bhandari.

Bhandari added that the biggest challenge initially was to mobilize resources, but as the concept offered transparency and visibility, many companies showed interest in the programme and helped it kick off.

The NGO has till now planted 316,665 trees across India and has tied up with 30 countries, while more than 21,000 people have been beneficiaries.

The first tree was planted by former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in Uttarakhand.

Source:
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/eZvRUkK9ar2WJHOhn0oPrN/Plant-a-tree-with-a-few-clicks.html

New exam to replace JEE this October for admissions to engg

NEW DELHI: Learning by rote or attending coaching classes will no longer guarantee admission to popular and premier engineering institutions in the country.

The Union human resource development (HRD) ministry will soon set up a National Authority for Testing (NAT) to conduct a new entrance examination — starting this October — that will replace the two-tier joint entrance examination (JEE) main and advanced tests for entry into engineering colleges.

The JEE is a national common entrance examination conducted to provide admissions to several engineering courses.

The focus now will be to standardise the test so that it can’t be cracked by coaching institutes or “teaching shops” and learning by rote — which bring down the standard because such practices fail to teach analytical and logical skills needed for scientific research. The new system will test the logical and analytical abilities of students rather than knowledge on subjects. The first such test from October will screen students aspiring for admission to the 2017 session, sources said.

Under the new system, students will be able to write the test online four times a year. About 4,00,000 students will then be shortlisted for the joint entrance examination (JEE), which will follow the same pattern of the current advanced test and examine their knowledge of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

The score will be used f or admission to IITs and NITs.

The NAT will be constituted after approval from the Union cabinet and registered as an independent society under the HRD ministry.

The concept was given inprinciple approval by the ministry at a meeting last week, where contours of the authority were discussed.

“The NAT is a general aptitude score like SAT and will be used for JEE. The National Authority for Testing will be mandated to design and administer world-class aptitude tests to judge innovative abilities, l o gical t hinking, problem solving and critical thinking of students,” said a senior official.

Officials said the NAT would be nurtured to evolve as a globally-acclaimed organisation for educational and psychological tests with the ability to design exams for people from diverse cultural, linguistic and social backgrounds.

The NAT is likely to have a technical wing too along with wings for tests, IT, administrative and finance. “The technical wing will have educationi sts and psychometricians while the test wing will comprise administrators specialising in conducting tests,” an official said.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that the offline JEE main exam for 2016 will be held on April 3 while the online test is scheduled for April 9 and 10.

Source: Hindustan Times dated 11 January 2016

Ex-IITian comes out with innovative school learning startup

Two ex-IITians have come up with a unique open- school communication and social learning platform that allows teachers, parents and students to interact freely and effectively on mobile phones. Ritesh Singh and Akshat Goel wanted to provide innovative solutions for effective knowledge transfer in our ecosystem. Hence, they chose the name ‘Eckovation’ for their startup, a portmanteau of ecosystem, knowledge and innovation.

Eckovation allows teachers, parents and students to interact freely and effectively while safeguarding privacy. (Courtesy/Yo Success)

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Founded in March 2014, the app was finally launched this June after more than a yearlong market research and study. CEO Singh, who hails from tier-III town Chapra in 

Founded in March 2014, the app was finally launched this June after more than a yearlong market research and study. CEO Singh, who hails from tier-III town Chapra in Bihar, said he had language issues from the beginning and these never left him.

“So, I was always thinking about solutions that could help people just like me, who do not get access to quality education early in their life. I always wanted to make quality education accessible even in places where only minimal infrastructure exists. That’s how Eckovation came into being,” he told PTI.

From conceptualising to its practical usage, there were many challenges. “We first explored MOOCs (massive open online courses) but they were cumbersome and required a lot of self-discipline on the users’ part. Next, we thought about providing data analytics through an ERP system that monitors a child’s performance and equips teachers and parents with sufficient data to improve a child’s performance by finding gaps, weaknesses and strengths,” he said..

Singh says the major challenge they faced was dependence of teachers on WhatsApp. “Although teachers wanted students to join their classroom learning group, they were wary of their phone numbers falling in the hands of strangers. At the same time, teachers had to block students and parents because sometimes they did not want them to disturb them beyond office hours.”

Though the dependence on WhatsApp was a challenge but its limitations were also an opportunity for Singh and Goel. “For instance - size limit of 100 members in a group, privacy concerns, no control over conversation for teachers, so on and so forth. All of this has been taken care of in Eckovation app plus a lot more features are there to ensure education- focused communication. We are also introducing document transfer on the app. The app, by design, is very light and uses minimal Internet on your phone,” says Singh.

Eckovation allows teachers, parents and students to interact freely and effectively while safeguarding privacy. Except the teacher, it does not allow anyone to see anyone else’s mobile number in the group. “Moreover, we also observed that teachers are not very comfortable in being active 24x7 on the app and rightly so. So they can easily change the mode of the app from two-way to one way thereby disallowing anyone else but themselves from posting on the group. It ensures that teachers only interact when they want to and have the time to do so.”

Also, Eckovation allows open learning by enabling teachers who are willing to share their group code outside of classrooms. “There are 400 such teachers active on the platform. Through this, students who may not have access to quality teachers can take lessons and clarify doubts from accomplished and experienced teachers who are willing to help in their free time.” The ‘Open School Programme’ plans to bring 1 billion users on the platform by 2020.

Source: Hindustan Times

Mark Stories Created by Children on StoryWeaver

Mark Stories Created by Children on StoryWeaver

Did you know that it's now possible to mark your child's story as 'Created by Children' on StoryWeaver? And, you can add additional details like name, age, and so on. It was important for StoryWeaver to have this feature mainly for two reasons: to give due credit to young creators, and for our user community to be able to identify stories created by children.

Here's how you can mark stories created by children. It's easy-peasy.

• After you create a story, hit the 'Publish' button and a form appears.
• At the near-end of the form is a field to add details of the child. In cases where a story has been created by a group of children, it is possible to add details of more than one child.
• Additionally, there is an open field in which you can add any other details which you feel may be relevant. For instance, if the story was created as part of a campaign, a class project, etc.

 

Once you publish the story, these details filled by you will appear on the last page of the book (as shown below). The thumbnail of the story will also be labelled as 'Created by Children'. Stories created by children can be easily found if searched under 'Created by Children' via the Publisher filter.

 If the child's story has already been published on StoryWeaver and you now want to mark it as a child's story - don't worry, it's not too late. All you've got to do is:

• Go to your 'Profile' page.
• Look under 'My Published Stories'.
• Click on the story, press the 'Edit' button and re-publish it. While re-publishing it, the steps are the same as mentioned above in the previous section.

Here is an example of a child-created story.

If you have more questions, write to us at help@storyweaver.org.in and we'll be happy to guide you through this process.

To read, translate and create stories for children in any language of your choice, log on to https://storyweaver.org.in.

Source: Pratham Books - Mark Stories created by children on StoryWeaver