Facebook has announced its partnership with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to offer training programmes for teachers and students in India. With this, Facebook will provide training programmes for Augmented Reality (AR) along with Digital safety and online well-being.
The first phase of the programme will be offered to 10,000 students and teachers in the country. If the programme is successful, then CBSE will offer this programme to 30,0000 applications in the second phase. The application will start from July 6 and it will end on July 20. Furthermore, the programme is opened to all interested teachers and school principals. The programme requires access to a computer with Windows 10 and above installed. One should have a Facebook developer account and participants have a smartphone along with access to the internet.
To start with the AR programme, the course will introduce fundamentals of Augmented Reality and captures ways to utilise Facebook’s software, Spark AR Studio, to create augmented reality experiences. “The objective of the program is to give participants an opportunity and platform to learn how to conceptualize, create and brand their own AR experiences. Participants will learn how to use Spark AR Studio and publish experiences on Facebook thereby becoming a part of the Spark AR ecosystem,” CBSE said.
Moving on, the Digital Safety and Online Well-being programme will be lead by training partner Centre for Social Research (CSR) and it will teach students to understand their digital identity and how they can become responsible digital users. “They will also explore misinformation and accountability, especially in the midst of the pandemic, and how misinformation contributes to the spread of panic and anxiety. The program will help students differentiate various kinds of information available on digital platforms and explore options available to identity misinformation, report and reduce its spread,” CBSE added.