An ICT-Based System to Improve the Learning Experience in a Large Classroom

Use of ICT in the area of education has been increasing in the recent years and is expected to be so in the near future. While most of the systems are used for offline learning, use of ICT in classrooms is also popularized with the introduction of smart classrooms. Typically, a large classroom (with over 100 students) suffers from difficulties in audibility of lectures, teacher-student interaction, monitoring attention of students, collecting attendance, and conducting examinations. This paper describes an ICT-based system (named Avabodhaka) to enable effective lecture delivery and to facilitate interaction in large classrooms apart from other activities mentioned. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) paradigm has been assumed for this system. The system delivers the lecture slides and audio of the lecture to the students' devices in real-time. The system also enables the students to post their queries to the teacher's device during the lecture and facilitate interaction among the students. This system also facilitates collecting attendance, conducting and evaluating tests in classroom. A preliminary study was conducted in a classroom to understand the acceptance of the system. From the response of the participants we found the system has facilitated better interaction in the classroom.