The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Teaching them to use computers in Tamil

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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Teaching them to use computers in Tamil

Staff Reporter

Forty Corporation school teachers undergo training

— Photo: S. S. Kumar

KEEN LEARNERS: Teachers of Chennai Corporation Schools at a free Tamil computer workshop at Alwarpet on Thursday.

CHENNAI: Chennai Corporation will shortly distribute 28 laptops to Corporation school toppers in 2007-08 academic year, Mayor M. Subramanian said here on Thursday.

Inaugurating a two-day Tamil computer training workshop for 40 teachers from various corporation schools, organised by Kaninithamizh Sangam, he said the aim of picking teachers of classes VI to VIII for the programme is to train the middle school students. Last year, 175 teachers were trained in a similar exercise.

A total of 40 students in the Corporation-run ITI in Royapettah would also be trained in using computers. There is a proposal to provide the students with a kit of CD-ROMs from the Computer Society of India, he said. In the next few weeks, the civic body will distribute around Rs.40 lakh among toppers of classes X and XII. A total of 152 students who scored above 1,000 marks in class XII and 1,053 students of class X who scored over 400 marks would receive cash prizes of Rs.1,000 each, the Mayor said.

Training in activity-based learning programmes for the teachers had ensured that the concept had been successfully implemented in the civic body’s schools, he said.

The computer workshop being held at Alwarpet is the second of its kind for corporation school teachers, said Kaninithamizh Sangam president Anto Peter. The Sangam is an association for Tamil computing that includes Tamil writers, software makers and IT professionals. The aim of the workshop is to familiarise the teachers with the computer and teach them the method of using Tamil CD-ROMs by installing the correct software technology, Mr. Peter said.

About 25 companies manufacturing software in Tamil are associated with the Sangam, said ‘Avvai’ Natarajan, former Vice-Chancellor of Tamil University. Bringing down the price of the CD-ROMs to Rs.25-Rs.30 would make them more accessible.

The participants would be taught about various fonts used in Tamil, conversion of fonts and use of font drivers. The training would help them to set question papers instead of the current practice of outsourcing it, teachers said.

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