Enhancing education for IT literacy using spoken tutorials

Abstract

This paper addresses the different aspects about IIT Bombay's Spoken Tutorials initiative to transform Indian education and its resounding success in training students in different aspects, such as programming languages, simulation and circuit design platforms and office productive tools, using free open source softwares (FOSS). The Spoken Tutorial project aims to provide IT training through audio-video tutorials. In this paper, we discuss its methodology, objectives, features and its potential advantages. We also present some suggestions to enhance the functionality and effectiveness of Spoken Tutorials. There seems great potential in Spoken Tutorials project to act as a game changer in any student's career, and this can be better unearthed provided due care is taken in awarding Spoken Tutorial certificates during the well appreciated process of educating masses in IT skills. In order to better understand the impact of this project on students, we conducted a survey of around 150 students, who had participated in Spoken Tutorial courses. The findings of the survey are also presented in this paper. Most of the students well appreciated this and they also felt motivated to do more FOSS courses of Spoken Tutorials.