lucknow life has never been quite the same after windows especially for the 600odd students of a government primary school in madantoosi village approximately 60 km off lucknow where the arrival of a spanking new pentium 3 multimedia computer was installed on june 30sponsored by an organisation of nris the progressive education society pes this is the first computeraided education project to be launched in uttar pradesh due to its simplicity and low cost of maintenance the government plans to repeat the madantoosi experiment in 100 other schools with the option of further expansionaccording to urvashi sahni project director madantoosi computer education project mcep we are looking at a paradigm shift in our education planning by harnessing technology and using it in a creative and innovative way we feel the benefits will percolate down to the information havenotssarla devi a teacher of the school said that the attendance of the students has skyrocketed after the computeraided education project was introduced i was overwhelmed by the response of the students during the 30minute sessions for three days these village children were taught simple applications and through a method of trial and error these children have easily adapted to this technology despite their limited knowledge of english today a total of 239 children are adept at skills ranging from opening and closing files to making simple presentations in power point word paintbrush loading cds and using the virtual key board in hindifaced with teething problems like a vagrant electricity supply the village community found an indigenous solution in the form of solar panels according to sahni the madantoosi experiment enables them to leapfrog the lacunae in the existing system of education in up if high quality interactive software in hindi is made available we will be able to circumvent the problem of low attendance lackadaisical and obsolete teaching methods with a constantly updated curriculum the computer would prove invaluable in plugging the gap in the teachers knowledge and also supplement multigrade teachingaccording to rammurthy a student who has taught several children in his class the retention and assimilation of complex concepts is made easier with illustrations and voiceovers the villagers needless to say are tickled pink at having their kids tinkering around with their new computer