Download Python in Science and Engineering Education in India

Python in Science and
Engineering Education in India
Prabhu Ramachandran
Department of Aerospace Engineering
IIT Bombay
SciPy ’09
Caltech, Pasadena
Aug. 21, 2009
The context
Poor state of education
Low literacy (65% as of 2001)
Low growth of schools/enrollment
(< 10%)
High dropout rates (>30%)
Lack of quality education
National Mission on
Education through
ICT
Improve situation through ICT
MHRD
http://www.sakshat.ac.in
$ One billion in three years
60% for connectivity
1 GBPS × 30000 colleges
40% for content
Requirements for funding
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Related to education
Inter-institutional
Open content/source
Fit in scope
Powered by the extra-ordinary
Mr. N. K. Sinha
Some initiatives: NPTEL
National Program on Technology
Enhanced Learning
http://nptel.iitm.ac.in
NPTEL >> MIT OCW!
Some initiatives: Virtual labs
Virtual experimental setups
CDEEP
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IITB: Center for Distance
Engineering Education
Programme
www.cdeep.iitb.ac.in
100 courses from IITB
Educational methodologies
Open Source mission
Adaptation & deployment of open
source simulation packages
equivalent to MATLAB, ORCAD
etc.
≈ $ 10 million
Open Source mission
Adaptation & deployment of open
source simulation packages
equivalent to MATLAB, ORCAD
etc.
≈ $ 10 million
IIT Bombay’s take
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FOSSEE: Python, Scilab
Blender based animations
FOSSEE
Free Open-source Software for
Science and Engineering
Education
http://fossee.in
Thanks to Prof. Kannan
Moudgalya!
The Goals
Imagine that . . .
every student knew Python
every course used Python
Imagine that . . .
every student knew Python
every course used Python
Imagine that . . .
every student knew Python
every course used Python
700,000 engineering students per
year!
World domination!
We’d like to make that happen!
With your help!
We’d like to make that happen!
With your help!
How?
Courses
Documentation
Workshops: teacher/student
training
Conferences
Supporting core projects
Some details
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Started in May 2009
About $200, 000 for this year
More if we do well
10-20 people
Today: 6 on Python
The Plan
Courses: Software Tools, Techniques
and Practices
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Basic Linux tools
Basic and Advanced Python
Version Control
TDD
LATEX
Under design/development
Courses: Numeric and symbolic
computation with Python
Advanced material, separate
course
Content
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Well designed courses
Teachers: Slides + material
Students: handouts
Books?
Screencasts
Exercises
Tests
Certification?
Conversion of existing courses
Support existing courses with
Python code (in place of *lab),
integrate with NPTEL etc.
Get Python in the syllabus!
Useful material
Whatever it takes!
Improving docs, development, etc.
SciPy conference in India soon!
We’d like your help
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Developers and writers
Spoken tutorials/screencasts
Documentation
Feedback
Review of content generated
Visit us!
We’re really excited about this!
Thank you!
Questions?