Professor Jayadev, Principal-in-charge visited the department and was shocked to see the pathetic state of the lounge adjoining the rooms -around sixty  broken chairs, tonnes of garbage, cardboard boxes filled with papers and empty covers, badly damaged ancient printers and roller printers, rusty towel hangers, magazines, 70s calendars, partition boards, broken  notice boards, albums and hundreds of other nick-knacks strewn all over, with just a narrow walking space to reach the rooms. 

What surprised me pleasantly was that, he immediately rolled up his shirt sleeves and got his department students to remove chairs to his workshop to fix them and make them usable and distribute them  to the departments  and called up the Admin ministerial staff to find out what, of the papers, was important and not. Within an hour, everything was cleared and now, we don't have to jump over chairs and push the garbage aside to find our way to the department.

Whew...I'm glad valuable space is now available for academic purposes instead of being wasted as dump yards. And, but for the vigilant eyes of the Principal, this would've gone unnoticed, as it had, for the past five years. However, it is sad, that the sanitation staff do not take their work seriously and need to be prodded to do their daily work. If this is the case in a department, there is no wonder that the first year students always complain of untidy and unswept classrooms. 

Pro-active heads, who take quick and practical actions, are not afraid to take risks and are  ready to lead by example are needed to get the wheels rolling. In his stint at office, Prof.Jayadev has initiated a number of measures to allocate rooms for the first years; he has asked each department head to specify what they need for the department. He is accessible to students, goes on rounds and is in touch with the ground reality at the institution. 
The Office Automation Software, a valuable asset to the departments and the office, which had remained unused for the last two years, was once again given a new life, again, because the Principal realised the utility value of the software, contacted the software provider, arranged his accommodation and in a week, got it going at full strength. 

I'm really taken aback by  Principals who , heart of heart, through their long years as Professors and Heads of Departments, cherish a desire to transform and usher in changes for the better, for the institution. Maybe, that's how an institution keeps growing, when changes are for the good. 

One already knew that technology was the new buzz word in the campus...but, to have a training programme for about ten days using the video conferencing facility? I would say, 'Way to go, GCE!'

An ISTE sponsored FDP by MHRD delivers lectures and expert talks by IIT, Mumbai professors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Distances have shortened and learners have experts at their doorstep. 

I'm amazed, but wonder, how does it feel to deliver a talk to a camera? In the MIT free courseware materials, lectures are delivered in classes with students which is recorded. Here,  I think it  is easy to relate to the teacher. 

At VIT, at the International Conference on 'Teacher Development' that I was attending last week,  we had four video conferences, with experts from Canada, USA and UK talking to the audience from the comforts of their home or room. With the facility to offer their PPTs too alongside, it was indeed a refreshing experience. Punctuality is the watchword, because they start and end on the dot. 

I should stop eulogising all this, because I only look like a techno-moron all the time, ha...ha...ha.

I recall with fondness my days as an ordinary examiner - assessing, awarding marks, ruminating on the errors in writing, reflecting on methods to be used to improve the situation, coming up with what one believes are  brilliant methods to train students, smiling over the errant messages from students at the end of their papers, marvelling over the skill of students in masking their answers filled with 'make no sense at all' kind of words for pages on end, being engrossed in shading the miniscule circles and rectangles in the OMR sheets, etc. 

Gone is the charm, for I realised as a Chief Examiner that life is dull - one only has to assess how examiners are assessing and gently show them the direction that their assessment should take. The rest of it is filled with signing one's name endlessly...filling in details in registers, proformas, claim forms etc. Ehew...

I believed that having signed my name a thousand times would give me a saintly aura, only to realise that one loses one's sanity and any semblance of saintliness as one goes through hundreds of papers with a microscope in hand to ensure that the good ones are not denied the marks due to them and that the cat-on-the-wall kind of students get what is not due to them...if one understands what I say. :)

All said and done, this was an experience of a different kind. Showed me that I had oodles of patience and tons of adding- up- scores skills.