Digital StudyHall (DSH)

DHS describes their paedagogical strategies as follows:

"Because students cannot learn by just watching these DVDs on TV, a teacher (or a 'mediator') is placed in between the students and the TV to facilitate learning. This is called “mediation-based pedagogy”. The mediator periodically stops the DVD and engages the students in various activities (asking questions, board work, role playing, etc.) based on content on the DVD.

Through this method, the students learn from better skilled and more knowledgeable teachers and the mediator teachers are also trained. The mediator teachers learn the best and appropriate pedagogies and content of subjects with first-hand experiences ('learning by doing').

'Learning by doing' is ...[a way] to absorb skills and knowledge. This approach of mediator-based pedagogy also has an advantage over short traditional training sessions because, in a short training session, [a] topic has to be kept at an abstract level due to time constraints, and, as [a] result, it is not always clear how such abstract principles should relate to daily topics. This is not the case for mediation-based pedagogy.

Another method used in this project is 'peer-mediation' where the brightest students are recruited to serve as mediators in case of teacher absences, which can be frequent in poorer areas. These student mediators appear to display a high degree of responsibility and enthusiasm when they are put in charge."

From the website, regarding rights to use of the content: "The content is owned by the non-profit Digital StudyHall Foundation. We'd like to think of the content as air: it's freely accessible by anyone. In general, we place the fewest possible restrictions on usage of the content in the repository: the content is free for all "reasonable" uses, including modifications and commercial uses. It would be nice if you credit the Digital StudyHall."

Education.

According to DHS, one of the biggest challenges for schools in rural areas and slums is the shortage of qualified teachers. Government village schools may have 200-500 students with fewer than half a dozen teachers working, and these teachers may not be well-qualified to teach many of the subjects that they are required to instruct.

From the launch of DSH in 2005 to 2008, about 30 schools were covered in the pilot “hubs” in Lucknow, Kolkata, Pune, and Dhaka. The database has grown to contain over 2,500 recordings of lessons in English, math, and science; the materials are available in Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and English. In addition, there are 1,500 additional videos of other materials such as stories, special science and history topics, and training sessions (as of March 2013). As of spring of 2011, DSH was running pilot "hubs" in cities in India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

In an evaluation, observed effects of the teaching materials and methods include a rise of student test scores in participating schools, improvements in subject matter knowledge and paedagogical skills of local teachers, and increased student participation.

DSH was recognised with the 2007 ACM Eugene Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics and the top prize in the education category of the 2008 Tech Awards by the Tech Museum of Innovation. In order to maximise the benefit of the technology, the same approach is also being applied to agriculture extension work (Digital Green) and the awareness campaign for rural healthcare (Digital Polyclinic).