S. S. Radhakrishnan      
      Great educationist, philosopher      
and second President of India      
In "Religion in Transition"     
i

Three years completed for another site for teachers ! ? Well, yes.   This site Dear Guru 1, was born out of request and specific need expressed by many teachers who felt that most of the other teachers site deal with either professional education for teachers or just provide links to resources without much scope for sharing expertise and exchanging thoughts. Exceptions are there but again those are more oriented towards the western context and culture. The need for an e-platform for teachers from developing countries who are just entering the on-line and e-based teaching era still remains. I had developed this site with the aim of attracting input from the teachers from the developing countries, in particular from Indian subcontinent and to provide a forum for exchange of ideas between them and those from more developed countries who may be able to contribute to the needs of their counterpart from developing countries by sharing their experience and practical ideas.

As a teacher we all know that the environment may be different but our needs and potential for using technology as a tool are similar. Hence, peer-group interaction based on personal experience and innovations actually tried in the class-room may prove more beneficial than any amount of theoretical studies and research. Your response and feedback proves that there lies the justification for Dear Guru 1 .

This is meant to be a site 'for the teachers', 'by the teachers' and 'of the teachers'. The contents , therefore, as in the past will depend on the amount and theme of the feedback and contribution from the teachers and educators. In this issue the contents have been 'framed' according to what I felt may give an idea of the broad philosophy of this site that is teaching is learning, a teacher never ceases to be a learner. We will look forward to your feedback and suggestions, and of course contribution to make this site more useful and focussed to meet the need of all "no. 1 teachers" who are also "no. 1 learners".

Based on the feedback received during past two years from other teachers I have been motivated to present Dear Guru 1 as a total teacher's site incorporating most of the ideas received from them.

All are welcome to share the platform to learn and let others learn by sharing their views, ideas and experiences...

The aim of this virtual centre is to collaborate between Institutions in developing, sharing, and disseminating mutually beneficial and interesting applications of technology in education and learning. Two of the four major initiatives of VCTEL are first, redesign of basic science courses using new forms of technology and second, delivering Distance Education to working professionals. The institutes collaborating in this interaction are from India the IITs, IIMs; and from USA the Carnegie Mellon University