Dr. Madan Mohan Chel, Principal of Sammilani Teacher’s Training Centre Kolkata has always been a visionary. Even though the university course does not recommend an ICT course, he realized the importance of ICT for the student educators and incorporated a compulsory 100 marks ICT paper exclusively for the students of his college.

So, when his college was requested to send teacher educators for an Intel training, he decided to capitalize on the opportunity. Souvik Chel and Dr.Sharmila Nag had participated in XPDITTE training in 2009 which gave them a hands-on learning experience in the use of ICT in classroom teaching. They returned with new vigor to integrate ICT in the teaching learning process. The first step was to remodel the ICT paper based on the learning from the Intel curriculum. Project Based Approaches was integrated to make the subjects more relevant and interesting. A session on the ElementsPBA Course was conducted to further strengthen the concepts of teacher educators and student teachers. Under the guidance of the teacher educators, it was decided that the next batch of student teachers would take up at least one topic on ICT in their practice Teaching. The challenge was to identify schools with appropriate infrastructure which could support this decision. The Principal of Heritage School, one of the best infrastructure schools in the city, was at that time doing her Masters in Education from the same college. Dr. Chel requested her to accommodate the students from the college for practice teaching. With some help from the Intel trainer of the region and the teacher educators, the student teachers planned the lessons to be taught using ICT. A teacher of Heritage school who was doing her B.Ed from the college was asked to coordinate the class distribution etc. Apprehensive at the beginning, the student teachers did a wonderful job, which was much appreciated by the school as well as the Intel coordinator who was present at the classroom session where the lessons using ICT were delivered. The students also made presentations on selected topics as a final presentation on the ICT paper, which were delivered in the presence of renowned educators in Kolkata.

It was now time for the college to move ahead. The computer lab had very few computers and limited space, which made it impossible for all the hundred students to get hands on experience. Dr. Chel decided to move and rebuild the ICT lab. Despite stringent fund provisions, he started ordering computers and looked for opportunities to buy and acquire more computers. The work is far from complete, but the new lab in Sammilani College is the pride of the college and regarded as one of the best in Kolkata.