'Design modules to empower IT students'

Educational institutions should initiate object-oriented analysis and design modules (OOAD) for students. These modules could be implemented using institutional intranet, thus empowering them to face the needs of the IT industry.

This is what speakers had to say at the discussion on 'Learning Experience in Software Engineering' organised by Ascendum on Saturday.

In his opening remarks, K R V Subramaniam, CEO, Ascendum said that with the employment base in India's IT sector (excluding hardware) crossing the one million mark, the demand for trained software engineers who can deliver from day one is on the rise.

While academic institutions are churning out software engineers with generic skills, most of them are faced with a severe faculty crunch, he added.

While institutions today emphasise on imparting lessons based on the industry requirements, the mode of doing so is still largely traditional.

He pointed out that typically corporate training programmes for new recruits were too traditional for the recruits to absorb and retain that knowledge.

At the panel discussion Chandar Sundaram, academic lead, Microsoft India, Sandhya Ramachandran, founder and CEO, Sudiksha Learning Dimensions, R K Gupta, principal, ICFAI Institute of Science & Technology shared their experiences.

Reinforcing the need to adopt e-learning as an effective tool in corporate training, Y C Roy, associate vice-president, training & education - Valtech India, said, "Ascendum's e-learning courseware caters to three kinds of learners, the oratory learners, who learn by hearing: the visual learners who learn by watching and the kinesthetic learners who learn hands-on through trial and error.

Every software engineering course should have a kinesthetic learning module so that students are able to retain much more and thus the learning process is enhanced.

Ascendum's Learning Solutions is involved in various custom e-Learning development initiatives for its global clientele like Broadcom, LogicVision and CDISC.

Ascendum also has an in-house initiative to design, develop and offer excellent e-Learning courseware products aimed at students and professionals alike, said Subramaniam.