Message for Institutions

In order to flourish in a dynamic global economy, our students need an education that culminates in 21st century readiness for college, careers and social life. Several of the students need additional preparation to handle increasingly higher expectations of post secondary education, careers and social life. In this scenario, the role of educational institutions is of paramount importance.
Education is flux and the society needs to decide what shape it wants to give the future education. This is time to determine the future direction of our education system. It is necessary for the policymakers to understand the imperatives of the technology that are driving change in education.

Parents, policymakers and students are of the view that our schools are not providing rigorous world-class education that is necessary to succeed in 21st century. There is fresh and growing momentum in the discussion in public and private sector about role of schools in 21st century. The society is increasingly becoming worried about the performance of schools in relation to skills requirement for 21st century. The digital era brings all kinds of opportunities for students ranging from formal to informal, from web to classroom. The educational institutions however are still relying on traditional models of learning and they have not changed their schedules, disciplines and departments. The architecture of schools has changed a little.
The schools in such scenario need designing, organizing and managing their syllabus with relentless focus on the skills set required for 21st century. When we talk about skills required for modern era 21st century, we do not negate the traditional metrics of attendance, graduation and matriculation rates. We do not deny the fact that traditional metrics are important but they are not enough to gauge the preparedness of students in 21st century. There is broader consensus among stakeholders that schools need to be overhauled completely to cater the needs of 21st century students. The schools need to improve student learning, achievements and competencies that help students to get a clear understanding of the knowledge, skills and attributes. It is imperative that schools set clear goals to incorporate 21st century skills that can prepare students to succeed in education, workplace and society as a whole.

We have been using educational innovation with technology interchangeably. Technology has long been seen as a panacea for our failing education system but eventually technology is not a panacea. The effective use of technology in classroom can however change the way our children experience schools.
The schools need to upgrade their infrastructure to welcome technology into their classrooms to sufficiently and effectively preparing students to meet the world outside the classroom.
The schools need to develop a clear cut idea about the social needs and values of the students at hand. The infrastructure should add to the skills you want your student learn for tomorrow’s world. Do not underestimate the value of play, failure and hands-on experience.
We are accustomed to the fact that there have been only two sources of knowledge in a classroom; the teacher and the text book. In 21st century, the centuries old observations and experiences of learning from teacher and the textbook are going to change. Well, if it is so then educational tradition and history is going to be disrupted. It was hard to believe that there could be anything more powerful than teacher and textbook to impart knowledge but today the answer is a big YES. Yes, there are tools that can help you learn in classrooms and even at your own place without a teacher and a textbook.
The most powerful tool in today’s classroom is the INTERNET. If our schools and teachers are denying the prowess of internet, they are doing a huge disservice to students and society as well. It does not take the place of teacher but changes his role in the classroom. Teachers are no more ‘sage on the stage’ but ‘guide on the side’.
For welcoming internet into your school, you need to upgrade not only the teaching models, teachers but infrastructure. We at zahanat.com are committed to provide you the facilitation for up gradation of your school to bring in ICT environment. www.zahanat.com will not leave in the middle of journey from tradition to technology and will provide you necessary maintenance of the system, and all related services to make sure that you use the most up to date and sophisticated tools to teach your students where they can think more critically, solve problems and use their creativity to do things.

The internet has not only revolutionized the ways of communication, it has opened a new venue in education system of teaching and learning. It is evident from the popularity of internet in education system that online teaching, learning and assessment is going to change the traditional models of teaching, learning and assessment.
With the advent of online learning, the students will be able to learn what they want, when they want and where they want to. The onus is shifting on the students. Hence, students need to be active, motivated, and self disciplined learners.
Assessment is one of the crucial components of the educational system. While assessment is the way to better understand the current knowledge a student possesses, the stakeholders are engaged in the heated debate on the effectiveness of traditional versus online assessment.
For a long time student learning was assessed through traditional assessment systems. The most widely used traditional assessment tools are MCQs, True/False, Short Answers and Essays. The true/false and MCQs increase the chance of success by 50% through guessing. Short answers provide assessment of the understanding of students of a particular object or definition. The essays provide overall comprehension of the student about the subject.
The online assessment system comprises of valid, reliable and fair assessments which are aligned to the institutional requirements. The system goes beyond MCQs, True/False and Short Answers to include extended responses and technology enhanced items that allow students to take performance tasks to demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills. The online assessment systems challenge a student’s knowledge and skills to respond to real world problems. The online system contains questions and activities that are coherently connected to a single scenario. These questions and activities measure a student’s depth of understanding, writing, research skills and complex analysis. Though online assessment is taken on computers it is not computer adaptive and will take time almost equal to traditional assessment tests.
Zahanat.com will provide you such online assessment tools that capitalize on precision and efficiency of computer adaptive testing to provide you an improved assessment system on paper and pencil assessments. The online assessment tools provided by zahanat.com will give you the chance to have more accurate scores of all students across the full range of the achievement continuum.

Zahanat.com and educational institutions make a natural combination to provide students up graded systems of teaching, learning and assessment. If you are ready to welcome the 21st century educational system, come to zahanat.com and we will guide you about the infrastructure, classroom and syllabus changes to come up to meet the educational needs of 21st century students.
Zahanat.com is the pioneer education project to provide Pakistani educational institutions the requisite information, model and demonstrational feedback on educational requirements of a 21st century school..