5-min education videos for 2-min noodle generation

Got an Android or Windows phone, an internet connection and Rs 99 a month to spare? You can now get five-minute education videos of Maths, Physics and Chemistry for engineering entrance exams - right onto your mobile phones

Manju Latha Kalanidhi

Stuck at coplanar and perpendicular vectors lesson in Maths? Struggling with moment of inertia of a rod or trying to make sense of stochiometry concepts in Chemistry one week before the big entrance and one month after college closed? Education videos that can be downloaded on phones can come to the rescue of last minute learners, say mobile learning or M-learning experts. By 2020, M-learning is expected to be a few trillion worth market in India.

"Surveys reveal that downloading of education apps has gone up thrice from 2009 to 2011. The propensity to pay for education app is much more compared to games. India leads when it comes to downloads of education apps," says Madumati Narayanan, CEO and Founder of MPower Learning Solutions, a Chennai-based e-learning company that has launched a host of education videos for students in the country.

"Considering students are always glued to their PCs and mobile phones, and spend a few hundreds on their weekend outings alone, we decided to tap this segment and provide them academic content on mobile phones at that price," Madhumati says.

Students can get the entire content for a month and pay month after month on further usage. "Rs 99 a month for one subject is less than a coffee at a fast food outlet," she adds. The videos can be downloaded from the company's site or through a web app or even from Google Playstore.

"Education is teacher-centric, not student-centric. In the current system, the teachers teach whenever they want and whatever they want. There is not much time or scope to clear all doubts during the class. There is a pressure cooker atmosphere in AP, especially two years of intermediate. We are looking at a method where good faculty can give good content on gadgets on an affordable mode."

So what kind of faculty teach in the video? "Top-of-the-line! For engineering, we have roped in professors who have been teaching in IIT for 25 years. mPower also runs campustocorporate programme which serves as a finishing school giving training on communication, leadership and interview skills etc besides an app building vocabulary for students. For first-timers visiting the site, there are 200 free videos.

The soon-to-be launched Version 2 will have a pre-test and students can go through the course and are given scores. For students who have subscribed to the videos and want to see it again, they have a top-up recharge as well. For details see www.videos2learn.in.