Monitoring at a click

Using mobile is a boon not a bane. That’s what the management of Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women says.

The college has introduced a new mobile technology to monitor attendance and store internal assessment marks. In order to help the students improve their skills in competitive exams, plan their career and get jobs in various industries, the college has introduced this initiative.

The service is provided by Ipomo Communications India Private Limited. For attendance purpose, the college has provided a mobile handset to the teachers in which all the students’ names are saved.  Once the teacher enters the password, he/she gets the names of the students along with their respective courses-sections-subjects.

After the attendance is taken, the data is saved in the main server.  If a student is continuously absent for three days, an SMS is sent to the parents. “Each student has a specific code and when we enter that code, all the information about that student like register number, section, parents’ names and internal marks are displayed,” informs C Manjunath, a professor.

While writing tests also, instructions are given to the students on the handset.  Four answer options are given for each question with students having to enter the correct answer.  Once the exams are over, these handsets are returned to the college. The PUC students are now cracking model papers for CET and CPT exams on these handsets.
A pilot project was conducted in July for PUC and after getting a positive response, the technology was introduced in degree course too.

Nearly 150 mobile handsets have been distributed among the lecturers and the students get these cell phones during exams. K S Anuradha, Principal for PUC, opines that it makes teachers as well as students responsible.

“Nearly 3,500 students are studying here and it is difficult to monitor the attendance of everyone. After the introduction of this initiative, we have been able to take attendance within a few minutes and 80 per cent of the lecturers are comfortable in handling cellphones. The parents are also happy as they can keep track of their children,” she says.

And she doesn’t forget to mention the director T L Shanta’s name, whose support was essential in bringing this technology to the college.  Shilpa Nagaraj, a second PUC student, is all praise for the technology and says that girls are more regular to classes these days.

“If we miss classes continuously, a text message will reach the parents to meet Principal or the class teacher immediately. It is beneficial for the students, parents and teachers. Even if we miss classes due to a genuine reason like attending fests, sports, seminars and workshops in other colleges, we are marked absent. That’s why some girls are upset,” she adds.

“I have written an exam which was more like the IQ and EQ tests. It truly helps us enhance our knowledge,” she appreciates.  Though the teaching fraternity has received the new initiative whole-heartedly, the students feel it will affect their freedom.