DElight

Connectivism - A theory for digital learning

2012-01-27T01:06:00.000-08:00

When I first started working inthe field of Information and communications Technology (ICT) in education, Iwas fascinated by collaborative learning that took place through socialnetworking. The learning was dynamic in anon-formal environment and derived from other learners. In an attempt to understand the role oftechnology in all this process, I came across George Siemen’s (2003) Connectivismor distributed learning theory, which is also termed as “a learning theory for the Digital age”. It is based on the tenet thatlearning takes place through various information sources or nodes (both humanas well as non-human) in the digital network and nobody actually owns theknowledge. Connectivist teaching-learningmodel is based not only on technology as the external construct but alsoencompasses neural and conceptive processes that take place within theindividual.

Considering the current scenario wherelearning is no longer limited to an individual but also outside of us, in ashared environment through shared resources. The emphasis is communication and interactionand it is about learning different things. The knowledge is formed, created by diverselearners who also share this knowledge through personal or public learning networks.The gradual disappearance of barriers to user-generated content has providedimpetus to “create, collaborate and share with relative ease”. Thisdemocratic vision of learning & sharing is one of the foundation pillars ofOpen and Free learning resources (watch the video – The networked Student http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA).

The application of the theory ofconnectivist teaching and learning strategies has been in existence even beforethe emergence of the formal theory. Connectivismwas developed to incorporate the emergence of digital learning environment asall the established theories did not pay adequate attention to the technologycomponent.

For more details, please refer tofollowing links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism

http://p2pfoundation.net/Connectivist_Learning_Theory_-_Siemens

Role of teachers and students in Republic India

2012-01-26T21:54:00.000-08:00

We, Indians have achieved our political freedom andestablished a Sovereign democratic republic. But even now there are problemslike poverty, backwardness,illiteracy, caste and communal differences. Tocreate an awareness of these problems among the common man - teachers andstudents play an important role in eradicating these issues and to change theattitude of the people and to lead the path of our country towards a completelydeveloped nation.

After Independence, in 1947, the constitution of India came intoexistence and formulated an establishment for ruling on January 26,1950. Thisday is only celebrated as the Republic Day.

It is also celebrated to honour the 'Declaration of Independence of 1930' fromthe British rule. Republic day is an occasion for renewing of the pledge andthe golden words in the constitution.

A teacher has to generate a kind of energy which would not only instruct butalso inspire the students which would equip them with ideas and values to enterinto the stream of national life as worthy citizens. To strengthen ourdemocracy, teachers must instil our ancient cultural spirit of tolerance,andacquaint them with the modern wisdom.

In the words of Swami Vivekananda:

"I am not a mere employee; I am not a mercenary; I am a citizen. Thesechildren in front of me are my budding fellow-citizens; I am here to help themto acquire knowledge and character."

The role of students in developing a country is huge. They are the pillars.Only a disciplined, smart, creative student community could help in achievingthe best for the country. They should work for the social and nationalprogress. They should understand clearly that unless they are educated, theycannot join the family of advanced or developed nations.

Therefore let us all be proud to be an Indian and stretch our hands towardsmaking our country stand in one of the best positions in the world.

A Happy Republic Day and Jai Hind!

Padma
D.T.E.A. Senior Secondary School
Pusa road
New Delhi-5.

Engaging with DELL Employee volunteers

2012-01-23T21:59:00.000-08:00

On 18 January 2011, a team of 3 volunteersfrom DELL visited Government Model Senior Secondary School in Kharar, which isone of the three schools in Mohali, where DELL Connected Classrooms were establishedin 2010. The focus of the visit was not only to engage with teachers and studentsbut also to provide volunteers to with the opportunity to learn about theopportunities that DELL has provided to underserved students.

Volunteers engaging with teachers

The bouquet of activities consisted of :

1. Training teachers on effective use of Microsoft Powerpoint presentation in making quizzes.

2.Engaging with grade IX students in enacting a play in English, based on a story from their curriculum

3. Conducting Group discussions with Grade 7 students.

Students engaged in role plays

These engagements often result in broadening of perspectives of students and motivating them as majority of them aspire to become professionals. The feedback from students indicated that one of the biggest take-away for them is the confidence gained through such interactions.

The long term objective of these engagements is to address areas of concern collaboratively.

The Modern Story and Digital Equalizer Hyderabad Pair Up for a Celebration in Youth Filmmaking and Activism!

2011-12-31T05:45:00.000-08:00

On December 5, The Modern Story and American India Foundation’s DigitalEqualizer program celebrated a successful semester-long collaboration at theRailway Girls’ School in Lalaguda, Secunderabad.

The Modern Story (TMS) (http://themodernstory.wordpress.com) is an educationalnonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California with the mission is to bridge the technologicaland narrative divide by introducing digital skills and storytelling practices toyouth and educators. Through a Fellowship program based in Hyderabad, India,TMS positions innovative leaders in the classrooms of underserved youth.

AIF’s Digital Equalizer program has worked in collaboration with The ModernStory for a number of years, and from July through December of 2011, TMSFellows Samantha Love, Srilekha Jayanthi and Stella Tan taught at four DigitalEqualizer schools that are part of the Dell Youth Connect program.

Students and teachers from these 4 schools show-cased their documentaries and spoke about the experience producing their videos. The project topics ranged from Our Environment;
Speak Up! How We Can Make our Voices Heard; Health in India; Societal Pressures on Indian Boys and Girls; Do Men and Women Have Equal Rights in India; and What We Learned in TMS Class.

Memorable moments included a student explaining how she learned aboutenvironmental problems in and around her school. Watch theenvironment video here: http://vimeo.com/33400262 Another highlight was thearticulate emcee, Prithi, a 10th classer and former TMS student!

Every student involved in the program received a certificate of achievement,along with a progress report written by TMS Fellows about the students’performance in the program. Beaming students, proud teachers and celebrating a successful collaborationbetween organizations with likeminded visions truly made our day!

Watch a short video about the celebration here: http://themodernstory.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/tms-final-celebration/

TMS & AIF's DE program look forward to another semester of fruitfulcollaboration beginning in June 2012!

Shift towards Free and Open Source Software in Education

2011-12-31T05:00:00.000-08:00

Taking forward thoughts from the previous posting, this month’s write-up is also based on the observations made during the MHRD workshop where the debate and discussion on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) generated substantial interest among the educators and administrators. They appeared keen on embedding FOSS in multiple sectors, in order to create value for communities & academia, reducing costs and introducing greater efficiencies. Having said this, I searched for documented experiences and came across an interesting study by Prof. Rahul De (Hewlett-Packard Chair Professor of IIMB-http://www.iimb.ernet.in/~rahulde/RD_FOSSRep2009.pdf), wherein he examined 20 Indian entities from government, educational and private sector. The study found that the most compelling reason for the adoption of FOSS was significant reduction in costs and in addition to this, other influencers were improved performance, freedom from licenses and vendors along with the flexibility to modify the code for internal use. The challenges encountered were largely in getting trained personnel and training of personnel.

During the discussion, Prof. Rajaram Sharma (CIET, NCERT) argued that “ICT is not about teaching a product” rather is a means to bridge “knowledge gaps” by facilitating boundless access to resources and people. It implies inclusion of critical cognitive skills along with the technology skills and in countries like India, provision of access has to be cost-effective in terms of of ICT infrastructure and delivery.

In the sphere of school education, the implementation and consolidation of IT@school model in Kerala is looked upon as the best replicable model by schools and bureaucrats across country. In states like Tamil Nadu, the government has provided both windows and Linux and it would be interesting to learn about their experiences. The shift towards Free and Open Source Software in India is expected to gain momentum once the IT policy draft is approved. It mandates that all new e-governance projects must work on open source operating systems, hence necessitating the compatibility of the required hardware and other peripheral devices. FOSS has been adapted to Indian needs (called Bharat Operating Systems Solutions that supports 18 India languages) and is expected to expedite the development of educational software or applications, which has been slow due to restrictive proprietary software.

The platform for the integration of technology in the computing environment of schools needs to be one which imparts understanding to evaluate and adopt ICT according to their requirements. Until and unless such an understanding does not exist, the possibility of significant adoption of FOSS is less. My own experience with the schools and teachers, point towards issues with systems getting corrupted due to virus, expiry of licenses, ignorance regarding prevailing norms in the use of proprietary software (at times my own). In addition to this, the biggest question for everyone is how are schools going to take this forward once the project tenure is over? What will happen if those who have been trained or empowered also move on? Will schools have resources to procure commercial applications? Are they aware of alternatives?

Considering the direction the ICT in Education is being steered to by the Government and educational leaders, it is the time to examine and evaluate pros and cons of FOSS. Being part of an endeavour, which is leading integration of ICT in schools, we need to be ready for the change which is already underway. With a pool of technically skilled resources in the field the possibility of becoming drivers of this change is exciting. Also years of investment in the internal capability building will yield positive dividends if the same resources are trained on FOSS in education. The Karnataka team has already undergone one round of training on Ubantu and it’s for all of us to strive and take up the challenge of innovating ourselves.

DE Scholarship and Award time in Orissa

2011-11-29T20:16:00.000-08:00

20 students (10 boys and 10 girls) won the DE scholarship, which was awarded during the three day “ Suvari” event, organized by the Department for School and Mass Education, Govt. of Orissa. These students emerged on top of the applicants from 160 graduated DE schools as the selection criterion was marks scored in the annual High School Certificate Exam, 2010. Each of the students will get Rs. 24000, spread over a period of two years, covering their higher secondary education. Shri RN Senapati, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Development Commissioner, Govt. of Orissa, distributed the scholarships and the event was attended by the Education Secretary and senior officials.

In addition to this, two graduated DE schools won the "International School award" under the British Council's , "Connected Classroom" program.

Discussion: New ICT4E policy

2011-11-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

Being in the same room as the Principal Secretaries (Education) of various states and witnessing the debate around the ICT in Education was an exciting experience. The workshop, organized by NCERT and MHRD on 19^th & 20^th of October 2011 threw up a lot for us to think, discuss & debate. Some of the highlights of the ICT policy are:

· ICT literacy program to be implemented across all secondary schools, both government and private, within the XI plan.
· States will have the onus of developing their own ICT literacy curriculum and course, based on the guidelines provided by the policy.
· Emphasis on appointment of qualified teachers after factoring in of the requirements of students & schools
· The policy draft also envisages the progress from ICT literacy in computer labs to ICT enabled teaching-learning contexts wherein various ICT tools transform the classrooms into SMART classrooms.
· In addition to the provision of necessary and enabling infrastructure, one of the significant components of the policy is “to provide universal, equitable, open and free access to ICT and ICT enabled tools and resources to all students and teachers”. Considering the socio-economic and demographic diversity of the country it was felt that the best way would be content creation by students and teachers per their need and understanding, upload the same on to a web based digital repository in the public domain. The strategy will be implemented in a phased manner with the intention of consolidation of digital content, conforming to the educational standards and instructional designs.
· Capacity building of in-service teachers has emerged as the biggest requirement by state governments as they have realized that an effective integration of ICT requires training during induction as well as on the periodic basis. As far as the pre-service teachers training is concerned, the policy recommends compulsory ICT training for them.
· Coverage has also been extended to Children with Special Needs (CWSN) and integration of ICT for skill development. The infrastructure, content development and capacity building of teachers will also consider CWSN and effort will be to conform to the international norms. The skill development will focus on job-oriented courses and also provide opportunity to re-skill through an open learning system.
· The Monitoring and Evaluation of the program has been woven into the ICT programme thus making internal and external evaluation mandatory. The policy also envisages the evaluation of the programme by an independent third party by reputed institutes like IIMs, University Departments of Education, Educational Technology or IT.

The following link is to access the policy draft (http://education.nic.in/secedu/ict.pdf) and the intention of this write-up is to elicit a discussion - What collective efforts are needed to align Digital Equalizer with the new policy? So looking forward to your views and comments…

Centralized Workshop for DE-Lite teachers in Punjab

2011-11-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

In April 2011, the AIFT initiated DE-Lite program in 600 DE graduated schools, across 14 districts of Punjab, with the objective of supporting these schools for two more years. A series of district level capacity building workshop were organized for 600 master trainers from 14 districts, during September – October 2011. At district level workshops were chaired by District Education Officers and other officials. This workshop was also reported in media.

The master trainers were introduced to the usefulness of technology integration and pedagogical concepts by AIFT coordinators. The workshop also provided a platform to share the best practices and methodologies adopted by teachers in the schools.

Letter To A Teacher by The School of Barbiana

2011-10-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

Eight boys from the school of Barbiana, a small community in the hilly region of Tuscany, Italy, wrote this book, which became a bestseller in the country and won the prize for the Italian Physical society !!! Written by children from poor peasant families, the book echoes experiences of communities in similar situation across the globe.

Situated in the region of contrasting landscape of woods, stony slopes and a few scattered fields & orchards, the school of Barbiana was founded by a young priest - Don Lorenzo Milani. He observed that most of the children of the community had either droped out, failed or were disillusioned with the way they were taught. In an effort to keep them in the education system, he brought around 20 such children together. The group would study problems directly relevant to their lives, the older children would teach the younger ones (oldest teacher being 16 and the youngest 12!!) and follow the six to seven hour time-table set for them. The book is the outcome of the year-long project which eight children from this group undertook.

The universal appeal of the book lies in its quest of for better schools for the poor, understanding their needs and nurturing them. The book points out that “During the five elementary years the state offered me a second rate education. Five classes in one room. A fifth of the schooling that was due me……… Right from the start a poorer school for the poor”. The compulsory school system makes it difficult for children without support (at home and otherwise), to cope with the pressure to succeed and if they couldn’t, the parents were told to “ send him into fields. He is not made for books”. Barbiana was a school for children “not made for school” and required courage from parents to send their children to this school. The transformation of children from reluctant recipients in the class room to creators of their knowledge underlines the importance of kindling curiosity and keeping it burning. While addressing teachers, children were very vocal about what drove them out from the school system, how schools made them illiterate and filled them up with the hatred for books. They also pointed out the fact that, “if schooling has to be so brief, then it should be planned according to the most urgent needs”.

Every educationist need to read this book, nay have this book with them as a reminder of where we go wrong, how we make children unhappy and uprooted. The statistics analyzed takes a look at factors responsible for loosing children, the practice of discrimination against children from working and farming class. It also brings out the need to lower the barriers and share the gains with all.

The DE website by Punjab

2011-09-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Digital Equalizer has initiated development of curriculum based projects by students, in addition to the teachers training on techno-pedagogy and Digital stories by the AIFT Coordinators. Considering the number of projects & lesson plan developed every month, it was felt necessary to create a common platform to enable access and share projects made by all schools.

The DE Punjab has developed a website (www.depunjab.co.cc or www.aifchandigarh.co.cc) to facilitate access and sharing across grades, subjects and schools. At present the complete state curriculum based projects ( also called edukits) in the local language has been uploaded for grade 9. In addition to the curriculum based projects, the website also enables AIFT coordinators to upload school wise MIS, reports pertaining to Digital Equalizer and ICT and also monitor the program implementation effectively. The teachers' forum is intended to provide technical support to teachers, in an interactive way.

DE contest award ceremony in Punjab

2011-08-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

The award ceremony for the DE contest (2010-11) for the state of Punjab was organized on 25^th June 2011, in the Hoshiarpur district. The function was incorporated with the special seminar on “Improvement in Education” and was chaired by Mr. S. Sewa Singh Shekhwan, Honourable Education Minister, Punjab of Punjab. Mrs. Mahinder Kaur Josh (Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Education Department Punjab) was also present on this occasion.

The topic of the contest was "Is technology putting too much pressure on environment?”.

All the district level education officers, school heads and members of PASWAK committees & Sarpanches also attended the seminar. The function honored the National Competitor students (from sport and academics) and DE contest winners. The AIF team was represented by attended by Mr. Santosh Singh (Regional coordinator ), Mr. Simardeep Singh ( Zonal coordinator), Mrs. Anju jain (Zonal coordinator) & Mr. Harpreet Singh (LCC).

Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) End of the Year event in Bangalore

2011-07-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

600 students and educators from 20 AYV sites in Bangalore, a popular young hero Mr. Prajwal Devaraj as the chief guest and screening of movies by participants were highlights of this event.

The presence of Mr. Bopanna and his team from Dream a Dream added excitement to already charged environment. Students were awarded certificates for their participation and schools presented with mementoes for their encouragement.

For more details please click on the following link.

https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fflashnewstoday.com%2Findex.php%2Ffifth-annual-adobe-youth-voices-programme%2F&h=8AQCIdTlg

The Summer of 2011 in DE Schools

2011-07-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

An engrossed class in Andhra Pradesh

The summer camps conducted across states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Karnataka saw enthusiastic participation by students and extensive support by Principals, teachers and management. In Delhi and Andhra Pradesh, a nominal fee was charged, which did not deter students from participation. Desire to learn more, longer time duration of exposure to computers, effective utilization of holidays were some of the motivating factors for summer camp enrollment.

The camp not only gave a chance to students to brush up the basic IT skills but also provided a platform to undertake projects and activities, they felt were critical or relevent. The groups worked in a democratic way and many students found themselves in the role of mentors, helping the AIF faculty in managing the classes as well.

Students in Delhi

Principal of DTEA R.K Puram (Delhi) , Mrs Saroj Gupta said that “Team work was the key takeaway for students” and recommended that this be an integrated component of Digital Equalizer program.

The summer camp also provided AIF the opportunity to prepare students for the project-based learning approach, once the schools reopen after the vacation. In fact in Tamil Nadu, students were given intensive training on this module.

Bhuvneshwari, a class 12 student of DTEA Mandir Marg has a blog and she wrote about her experience during the summer camp (http://dteascience.blogspot.com/) On the whole, it was not an isolated experience but further integration of the Digital Equalizer program in creating technologically enabled non-threatening learning environment.

ICT in Education - Interesting reads

2011-04-27T22:31:00.001-07:00

Here are some interesting reads on ICT in education on different themes. Both of these have been authored by Swati Jha of AIF.

The first one speaks of the document released by Intel, in collaboration with UNESCO (New Delhi), called “ICT in Education Policy: a toolkit”, which aims at integration of ICTs with UNESCO’s vision of human development through education. The toolkit is expected to enable policy makers in formulation of the vision and master plan for the ICT in Education, at the national and state level.

The second one is an overview of the report released by Mckinsey & company in November 2010 on "how the world's most improved schools keep getting better".

Please click on the links below to read through these reports.

1. ICT in Education

http://www.box.net/shared/b9lz7izmdd

2. Best schools getting better

http://www.box.net/shared/6xpi2vhgii

Happy Reading!

DE Contest Prize distribution event - Bangalore

2011-04-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

DE contest prize distribution took place on 21st April 2011 at R V Teachers' College. State level prizes and district level prizes were awarded during this event. The first prize winners from Mysore, second prize winners from Gadag and third prize winners from Dharwad DE centers were present during the event. Schools from Bangalore who had won the district level prizes were present too.

Smt. Fahmida Begum and Smt. Prathima from DSERT graced the occasion as special guests. They lavished praise on AIF for implementing a program like DE and motivating the students and teachers in this fashion. The prize winning projects were also displayed during the event. The event was followed by lunch session and the groups dispersed later.

Earth Day at Dell - Students participate

2011-04-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

It was a joyous moments for 20 students from Govt. Higher Primary School, Munnenkolala, Bangalore, to gather with their neatly pressed uniform in the school on 22nd of April 2011 to go for a visit to DELL office.The students had lined-up in the school by 9 am and were extremely eager to visit the DELL office. They were to participate in the ‘Digital Painting’ competition as part of the Earth day celebrations.

The Dell team gave the students and teachers a avery warm welcome to their office right at the doors and escorted them to the reception for registration and other formalities. The proud faces of the students was a sight to see! A training room was ready with 20 desktops to be used by the students to make paintings on the chosen theme of "Earth Day". Many students focused on their own computers to complete the task while a few were inquisitive enough to peep into the neighboring monitors. AIF coordinators helped make the process verys smooth and hassle-free.

Once the contest was over the students were led to the cafeteria for lunch. The students enjoyed the overall experience and offered a "Thank you" card to the Dell team. AIF and the school representatives jointly take this opportunity to thank Dell for all the support.

AMAT inaugurates new DE center

2011-02-21T01:29:00.000-08:00

10th Feb was a day of joyous celebration for the local folks in Muthsandra village, at the outskirts of Bangalore. For the Digital Equalizer center in the school was inaugurated by Applied Materials (AMAT) that very day!

Govt Higher Primary School, Muthsandra is the 122nd DE center being supported by AMAT and the school is located off the old airport road in Bangalore. This DE center would serve more than 160 students and also train the 8 subject teachers.

The event was well attended by the local leaders, the members of school development and monitoring committee and the parents of the students. The AMAT employees also turned up to cut the ribbon and mark the beginning of the center. AIF would train the teachers and students of this school for the next three years.

AYV Films win honors!

2011-02-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

Celebration time! AYV film got 'Best Puppetry' Award at NCERT 16th All India Children's Educational Audio Video Festival.

‘SAVE PETROL’ is a stop motion animation film made by students of Jamia Middle School. The award includes a trophy and cash award of Rs. 5000 and is given the under student category at NCERT Golden Jubilee Festival 2011. The festival select films that are educational in nature i.e. fits in the school curriculum. The award is prestigious as it is conducted by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research & Training) which is the apex government body in India that design K-12 curriculum framework for all Indian public & private schools. Additionally, all the 5 AYV films submitted to the festival were screened during the 3-day film festival.

The film can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4ZFSLBBaRA

"Save Petrol" is a non-verbal stop motion animation based upon the famous story of Rabbit & Tortoise but tweaked to the contemporary needs and urging people to save petrol.

Another AYV film 'SAVE TIGER', a prorject developed by youth at Rani Dutta Arya Vidyalaya in MEDIA LITERACY CAMP at NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY has been awarded SPECIAL JURY AWARD by INTERNATIONAL KIDS JURY in the recently held CHINH INDIA KIDS FILM FESTIVAL.

AYV Workshops

2010-12-20T01:28:00.000-08:00

Delhi Educators trying their hands on stop motion animation

The Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) program in both Delhi and Bangalore took off to a great start with workshops back to back. AYV is in its 5th year in both these geographies and has been running on in about 31 sites.

The workshop in Bangalore (14th & 15th Dec) focused on script writing for documentary films. Script writing is one area that the AYV educators in Bangalore thought they needed much help in, from the previous years. The workshop began with forming the entire batch of educators into five groups of six members each and each group eventually brought out a detailed script with shots, scenes and sequences also penned down. The workshop ended with a very brief showcase of the stop motion animation process, guided by the Delhi AYV team through web conferencing.

The Delhi workshop (10th & 11th Dec) was based on review of previous years' projects and discussions on specific components of the different stages of making a film. The sessions were facilitated by Samina Mishra (a Documentary film maker & Children book writer) & Roopak Chauhan (AYV Coordinator). Samina also showed one of her work done with youth and shared her experience on how to get youth involved in the media making process. AYV portal was also touched upon before the groups experienced a hands-on session on stop motion animation.

The educators will now go back to their sites and work with their youth participants. The idea is to implement all the learning from the workshops into action during the next few months and bring out projects that are the voices of the youth!

Educators in Bangalore involved in a discussion during the workshop

Dell Employee Volunteering in Hyd

2010-12-20T01:21:00.000-08:00

Dell employee volunteering idea took off to a great start with the employee teams visiting Govt Girls High School Bollaram Bazaar in Hyderabad on Dec 6th. They brought with them "Christmas" as their theme and held a painting competition for the students. The students had the freedom to draw anything relating to the theme. The paintings were then evaluated class wise and two top prizes were given away. The employee teams took the paintings to their office and these would soon adorn the walls of the Dell office.

Mr Venkatesh, Head for Application Services from Delhi, Mr Badri Krishnan, Dir. Engineering Solutions & Mr. Sumit, {Program Leader, Dell Services Delivery) along with other 20 Dell employee volunteers participated. Apart from these prizes, all the participants also got chocolates.

The senior managers met with the AIF team trying to understand more about the DE program and then interacted with the teachers. Teachers expressed that having a computer lab in their school made them feel so much more confident and knowledgeable.

Since the Dell and AIF teams want this to not be a just one-time event but have a continuous engagement with the schools going on, the idea is now to identify areas where they can add value. These could be related to not just computers but even their mainstream academics.

Some photos are available at

http://www.shutterfly.com/lightbox/view.sfly?fid=a3410ab914f3877e9a16dcf07a6807f9

Anglo Arabic School - Welcome to DE!

2010-11-22T01:46:00.000-08:00

DE program was officially started in the Anglo Arabic School, Delhi on 2nd Nov 2010. Mrs. Amrit Paul and Dr. S D Paul from Samarth Foundation inaugurated the DE center, which Samarth Foundation has established. The school has a total strength of 1750 students and is a Govt-aided institution.

The school is located in a 350 year old heritage building and is one of the oldest educational institutions in Delhi. Established as a Madarsa during the Mughal era, the school was a recognized premier institution of learning in the early 20th century. Like any other government aided-schools, the Anglo-Arabic school is also trying to overcome the challenge of low learning achievements of its students.

The DE program will focus on capacity building the teachers and students from the grades 6 to 8. THe teachers will be trained in batches and the first batch consisting of 15 teachers (out of a total of 40) started its session on 11th Nov 2010.

Subrat Sarkar's paper at the Education conference

2010-11-22T01:42:00.000-08:00

The Second International Conference on Excellence in School Education recently concluded in Delhi. The conference aimed to look at the issue of quality and excellence in education across a broad canvas of socio-economic settings. A set of case studies drawn from these domains was presented during the conference.

Subrat Sarkar, State Program Manager of Orissa DE program, presented a paper during this conference. He specifically focussed on the "Resource Center Training Model" that is being implemented in Orissa currently. The model is innovative since it capacity builds the Govt education system which addresses the sustenance aspect of the program. The modus operandi and the rationale behind this model were discussed in detail.

Those interested in learning more about this, may download the abstract file and the complete file from the links below.

http://www.box.net/shared/pbvi1ueqrc

http://www.box.net/shared/08cjp4g4tc

DE Prize Distribution event

2010-11-22T01:28:00.000-08:00

16th Nov 2010 was a day to remember for the students and teachers of DE schools in Karnataka. For it was the day when their work was viewed, applauded and celebrated by a large audience. It was the prize distribution event for the DE contest winners and the DE poster contest winners from across the state in all 18 districts.

The event washeld in R V Teachers' College for the winners of DE poster contest and DE contest of 2009. The prize winners came from the districts of Mangalore, Udupi, and Dharwad, and also the full service and large scale program schools in Bangalore. AIF team also joined in applauding for these champions.

Officials from DSERT gracefully accepted to be part of the event as our guests and Mr. Sundarakrishnan J, Director DE program also participated. The projects made by the students were displayed during the ceremony and the student-teacher teams were given away prizes for their projects. The guests all spoke and congratulated the students for their commendable job and wished them best luck further.

More importantly, we had a couple of teachers and students also share their experiences with the larger group about DE program and the contest, in particular. They all expressed that their "DE experience" has been very joyful and that they have been continuing the "DE way" after AIF"s exit from these schools.

New DE center by Samarth Foundation

2010-10-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

Dr. S D Paul cutting the ribbon to mark the beginning of the DE center

5th October 2010 marked the inauguration of the Digital Equalizer lab funded by Samarth Foundation. Dr. S D Paul launched this DE center bat the Vasant Vihar Slum Center, New Delhi. The school is run by Shantidevi Charitable Trust (SDCT).

The lab would cater to around 400-500 students and 30 teachers from the slum. SDCT also offers remedial classes for these slum children in order to improve their exam scores. This DE Center is a pilot and first of its kind where AIF plans to use technology as a supplementary tool outside of the school set-up for improving the learning outcomes. Additionally, this center has the potential to connect to the AIF-livelihood’s MAST program as well in the near future.

Samarth Foundation is sponsoring one more DE center this year at the Anglo Arabic school which would be inaugurated in the third week of Oct. AIF thanks Samarth Foundation profusely for the generous help extended.

SCERT State Resource Center launched

2010-08-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

Sri. Pratap Jena inaugurating the SCERT State Resource Center

The SCERT State Resource Center - DE Program Orissa, was inaugurated on August 3rd by the Hon'ble Minister, School and Mass Education, Govt. of Orissa, Sri. Pratap Jena. All the higher officials of the Govt education department were present during the event and it was the result of a year of hard work by the AIF team working with the Govt. authorities to launch the model. This is an innovative model where the State education department officials would be trained on using technology in classroom over a period of two years. The model will work efficiently since it involves the officials to take the program forward and thus ensure the sustenance of the program.

About 322 trainees, including teacher educators and administrators, have been nominated for this training program. A carefully planned follow up course of action has been designed for this training with specific officers designated to assign responsibilities to the trainees. AIF team will coordinate with the officers in charge for this training program and get weekly updates from them about the attendance of the trainees and their progress and challenges.

The training has been structured in different phases based on the trainee groups:

1. Teacher educators - technology in pedagogy over a period of 18 days divided into phases
2. School and Mass education officials - modules covering technology for their use in daily work
3. DIET administrators - a combination of pedagogy and technology sessions

Lab preparation in all the 6 zonal centers are in progress and all the respective zonal heads, who were present as part of the inaugural ceremony, have been instructed to complete the same under any circumstances by the first week of September. Training calendar for the same is under preparation and will be rolled out from September second week onwards.

DE Day in Chennai

2010-08-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

DE Day - a day when every academic activity in the school is performed digitally, using computers! A novel idea by the DE team was first implemented by the Chennai team and was organized at Jaigopal Garodia Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Saidapet on August 4th 2010. Mrs. Sheela Rani - Head Mistress, teachers of the school, Mrs. Girija – Zonal Coordinator, and cluster coordinators of Chennai district participated in the celebrations.

The celebrations were all planned by the students who formed a committee amongst themselves and laid out a plan for the day. The idea behind the initiative was to recognize the work done by the teachers and students of the DE centers and be able to create a platform for them to showcase thier prjects and skills in using computers as a tool for their learning other subjects. Stduent projects like those on Importance of trees, global warming, etc., were presented and the students who made these projects got an opportunity to talk about their experiences while making the project and their learning from out of them.

The other schools in the DE program in Chennai were also involved in the event and a head of another DE center, Mrs. A. Parimmala Devi Ashok (Madrasa Govt. Hr. Sec. School) was invited as the chief guest. She stressed on the importance of the use of computers in their learning. Mrs. Girija kumar, DE Zonal Coordinator, spoke how important is it to organize these celebrations so that the students and teachers feel motivated to make more projects. This was followed by some cultural performances by the students.

Going forward, this event will hapen once every month in different clusters and schools and the other states will follow the suit.

From the Director's desk

2010-07-09T03:51:00.000-07:00

"While schools in South have re-opened and summer vacations just getting over in the North, it is time to reflect on some of the focus areas of DE for the coming year based on past experience. The DE Program completed its 3 year tenure in most of the states i.e Punjab, Karnataka, AP and Orissa, exception being TN where the 150 schools would be entering into the 3^rd year . The Scale model in partnership with state governments would be implemented in new set of 584 schools from the 2010 academic year which would be 200 each in Punjab and Karnataka, 104 in Orissa and 80 in AP.

The areas of focus for this year would be:

a. Empowering the DE team by rolling out Instructor Led Training Manuals (ILTM) across all the states. ILTM essentially addresses the issue of modularization and standardization of the content to be used by the DE team. I believe that the DE Coordinator is the back-bone of the Program and every effort should be made to provide support to the backbone.

b. The focus would be on efficient delivery, tracking the application of DE methodology at the process/ transaction level and seeking inputs from teachers/ students on the learning achieved on a continuous basis. Very often the focus is on –putting infrastructure, events but very little on learnings achieved. The focus would be clearly on learning outcome(s). This would be done through interactions, designing and asking questions and providing feedback to teachers/ students.

c. The innovation piece is critical for any technology aided program. This could have huge implications on cost , training methodology, duration of the program itself and could serve as pointers for future.

a. The Orissa model which is being attempted at a scale entails a combination of centralized training followed by adequate , periodic monitoring and support at the schools for a 2 year period.

b. Similarly through the support of Dell, we are rolling out connected classrooms in 10 schools to test the effectiveness of netbooks in a classroom set up loaded with curriculum software. The second intiative under Dell is the setting up of Center for excellence for Teachers in 20 schools of AP. I have always felt that teacher motivation is key for any school program as teachers who are usually bogged down with loads of work struggle to access a high quality Computer Lab with broadband in a government school set up. In order to bridge this gap and to motivate the school teachers this center would allow teachers to plan and integrate the use of technology as an instructional tool. It is just not enough to teach but inspire the students. By providing an enabling environment this pilot is expected to deliver value to teachers. Needless to say the center would also be used by students to explore and express their understanding of their work.

c. The Google pilot based on Video Led instructions training is being tested in a Delhi DE school. If successful this would have tremendous impact in terms of bringing education which is quality invariant into multiple classrooms simultaneously through the use of technology. This would be something directly relevant to RTE.

d. The AIF-DE scholarship program would be launched in the state of Orissa for 20 students.

e. Connecting the dots between LAMP-DE-MAST is something which is in the offing this year. The LAMP which is Primary grade focussed, DE which is elementary-secondary focused and MAST which is focused on providing employment opportunities to school pass outs or drop outs could come together under one common roof.

Finally it is the employees ( DE team) who will make or break the program. I sincerely hope that this year the team would get tremendous learning opportunities to enrich their experience.

DElight has completed two years as of today and thanks to all the tremendous support from its readers!"

- J Sundarakrishnan

Adobe Youth Voices Year end events - 2010

2010-07-09T03:43:00.000-07:00

It's celebration time!

AYV has succesfully completed its 4th year in India and thanks to the excellent efforts of the DE team, as many as 31 sites have completed their well-made projects in time. The year end celebrations happened successively in both Bangalore and Delhi on 1st and 6th July respectively.

In Bangalore, the event was attended by as many as 325 people, including about 250 youth participants, 30 educators and AIF-Adobe employees. The event was graced by Mr. Yash, a popular Kannada actor, as the chief guest. Mr. Yash expressed deep appreciation for the youth for their social consciousness and agreed that the same must be seriously followed in the professional film industry too. Mr. Miguel Salinas, Senior Manager of AYV, also took part in the event and shared that the films made by the youth actually portray their learning experiences and the capacity they possess. Mr. Sundarakrishnan, DE Program Director, expressed that it's important to bring such technology to the youth unless which the youth can never realise their full and true potential. 16 projects (documenatry films and photo essays) were screened during the event and prizes were given away to all the youth and educator participants.

In Delhi, the ceremony included students from 14 schools and showcased a sample of films ranging from documentaries, public service announcements, story-telling and stop-animation. As Chief Guest of the ceremony, Managing Director of Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mr. Naresh Gupta, spoke of the tools students used in order to produce thought-provoking work. Mr. Miguel Salinas, and AIF’s Tarun Vij were also present and congratulated the students on the quality and creativity of the films and talked about the constructive learning that occurs through the DE and AYV programs. Mr. SundaraKrishnan, DE Program Director closed the event with inspiring words on how students may take their skills forward in the future and opened up the floor for students to share their experiences with the AYV project.

AIF has been the implementing partner of AYV’s work in India since 2007. The collaboration enters its fifth year during the 2010-2011 academic calendar.

Soon, the best of the films made during this academic year will be screened here on the DE Blog.

Media coverage

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/78965/creativity-marks-adobe-youth-voices.html

GHS Cotton pet team with Mr. Yash and Mr. Tridib

Adobe team visits AYV sites

2010-07-09T03:39:00.000-07:00

Adobe team interacting with the youth from Christel House India

Adobe team visited AYV sites right before the year end events in both Delhi and Bangalore and were pleased to see the work done by educators and youth. The idea was to see what's happening at the ground and to interact directly with the youth and educator participants to understand their learning and challenges faced through the implementation of the program. The Adobe team comprised Mr. Miguel Salinas, Senior Manager of AYV and Pooja Singh, Community afairs specialist.

In Bangalore, Christel House India, Govt High School Jyothipura and Vivekavardhini High School were visited. The educators had managed to bring some of the older students back for the visit since they had a lot of experience to share with the team. The students presented their projects sequentially and spoke about what they learned from out of that year's project, the things they liked, the challenges they encountered, and everything. They also posed questions like why have they been selected in AYV, what after five years, how could they take this as their career, etc.

In Delhi, the team visited Rani Dutta Arya Vidyalaya, where students presented their projects and had a long discussion related to their career and on how to take their AYV skills forward. The team was also pleased with the animation project. Delhi Tamil Education Association School and Chandra Arya Vidya Mandir were the other two sites visited. In Chandra Arya Vidya Mandir, youth participants this time have worked on shadow puppetry film, which is the first of its kind in AYV and the team was very pleased with the innovation. Not just that, the visitors also tried their hands on the shadow puppetry, trained by the youth! Mr. Miguel also saw a DE project and was appreciative of the students' efforts in integrating technology into their learning.

The AYV program is now four years old in all of the sites in India and would enter its fifth year.

Community Action week in Adobe campus

2010-06-13T22:39:00.003-07:00

The student participants in Delhi interacting with an Adobe employee volunteer during the event

DE-AYV students were the cynosure at the Adobe community action week event held on 12th May in Delhi and Bangalore. The event is an annual event in the Adobe campus and different NGOs and organizations involved in community work are invited to participate. The employees get an opportunity to learn more about these NGOs and volunteer to assist them in anyway possible and it also is a platform for the organizations to make their work more visible and well spread out.

The Adobe Youth Voices participants (educators and students) got an opportunity this time to take part in the event. In Bangalore-Adobe campus, Govt High School, Jyothipura, Vivekavardhini High School and Christel House (a Non-DE Center) participated in the event. They presented their films from this year and previous years and the ones screened included documentary films, animations and photo essays. The students got an opportunity to explain the process of what they did while making these films and also describe how they have found the project more useful. The Adobe employees expressed appreciation on the works and wished to participate in the making of these films from this year onwards.

In Delhi, the event was different with the students and Adobe employees working and learning together about different Adobe software applications. The sessions were interactive and a lot of fun with the youth being introduced to various aspects of Photoshop and Premiere software. Posters, photos of the students, etc were used to show what photoshop could do to an image and the students were absolutely excited to learn the same.

This is the fourth year of the program in both Delhi and Bangalore and the program would continue for the next academic year, 2010-2011.

The Adobe team with all the student participants during the Bangalore event

AYV Media Review Workshop Delhi

2010-06-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

The Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) year 4 media review workshop was held in Delhi recently for all the 15 sites. The idea of this workshop was to provide a platform for the sites to come together and share their works mutually. This would enable discussions and further brainstorming on the film making techniques and ideas behind it.

As envisaged, the event turned out to be an extremely interactive and engaging one with all the participants divided into 2 groups. When one media piece was showcased, two youth participants who made the media presented the details on how it was made. The other participants asked questions and shared their opinions and viewpoints about the media piece.

Additionally, media experts were also involved this time to give their opinions and suggest changes to the participants wherever necessary. They also touched upon the technical aspects which is a very important aspect of any film. Small technical changes could always create a large difference. In a span of two days, a total of 38 media pieces were reviewed! Participants expressed their thanks to the entire team for sharing their opinions mutually and for giving constructive feedback on the works.

The experts involved in the workshop were Sanjay Dev, who has 20 years of experience in print & electronic media as a journalist, director, producer & script writer, Nakul, an alumni of Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, Sakshi Gulati, a media educator and a workshop educator for young children, and Arjul Chowdhry, who has 10 years of experience with news channels like DD News, Asian News International, All India Radio, ESPN, etc.

The films made by the AYV participants would be screened during the year end event to be held during the first week of July.

"DE Working Group" meeting in Orissa

2010-05-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

The first "DE Working Group Meeting" in Orissa took place on the 5th of May 2010 under the Chairmanship of Director TE & SCERT, Prof. Dr. Sebak Tripathy. A brief overview of the new DE model in Orissa was presented and details of the training calendar and module break-up were discussed. it has been decided to refer the training module to an academic committee for further discussion and approval.

The other members who attended the meeting were - Vivekananda Mohapatra, Director Elementary Education, Dr. SK Kantha, Dy Director, Academics, SCERT, Bijaya Kumari Patra, Dy Director Science, SCERT, Pravat Kumar Mishra, Asst. Director MIS, OPEPA, Namita Chhotray, Coordinator, SCERT Subrat Sarkar, STL, AIFT, Anup Mohanty, ZC, AIFT and Mrutunjaya Mishra, Trainer, AIFT. This will be followed by the first Steering Committee Meeting under the Chairmanship of the Principal Secretary which will be held on the 13th of May 2010.

Silicon Valley Bank offers scholarships to DE students

2010-04-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

Mr. Suresh seen awarding the scholarships to students

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has offered scholarships to six toppers from Govt High School, Cotton Pet. Mr. Suresh Shanmugham and Ms. Anna Olivier from SVB visited the school and awarded the scholarships. Mr. Suresh addressed the students and urged them to invest more efforts into their studies and perform well in order to be able to receive scholarships furthermore. The students graduated out of their 10th grade in 2009 March and are currently pursuing their Pre-University courses from nearby colleges.

These students' performances over the next couple of years will be monitored by SVB and AIF and decision will be taken whether their scholarships will continue or not. If their performances are found exceptionally good, then the scholarships might be extended to their under-graduate studies also. The decision will be taken by SVB depending on the performance assessments.

The students expressed great joy at this gesture by SVB and are extremely thankful for the opportunity given. This is a great motivation for the other students in the school presently, to perform well in their 10th grade board exams.

DE Seminar

2010-03-01T05:23:00.000-08:00

On February 5, 2010, the American India Foundation (AIF) organized a knowledge event titled as above. This seminar was sponsored by Hewlett Packard. The objective of this seminar was to bring to a common platform domain experts and stakeholders in the “ICT in education space” in order to provoke a discussion on the challenges and successes of implementing computer-aided learning in India’s under-resourced government schools, and to facilitate cross-sharing of learnings from the various experiences.

The issue was widely debated and several perspectives were put forth by the four panelists who expounded on the subject. Mr. Mark Walker, MD, Global Community Affairs, Applied Materials Inc., Ms. Vandana Kumari Jena, Principal Secretary, Government of Orissa, Mr. Dileep Ranjekar, CEO, Azim Premji Foundation, and Mr. Sanjiv Verma, officiating Principal, Government School, Randhawa (Fatehgarh Distt.), Punjab were the panelists during the seminar.

As part of the seminar, Mr. Vinod Dham, popularly known as the “father of the Pentium processor”, who has been associated with the DE program since its inception, was felicitated for his immense contribution to AIF. The seminar was well attended by senior representatives from corporations like Intel, HP, AMAT, Yes Bank, GE Infrastructure, Honeywell, etc. Members of civil society participated actively in the discussion, including representatives from TIE, CARE India, Dell Foundation, Ashoka, Teach for India, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mobile Crèches and USAID, along with the representation from the State Governments.

AMAT team visits a DE Center

2010-03-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

Mr. Mark Walker, MD, Global Community Affairs, Applied Materials Inc., along with other employees of Applied Materials Inc., visited Govt High School, Garudacharpalya, a graduated DE center in Bangalore. The teachers and students of the school have been using the computers and other digital media tools as part of their regular learning in the school.

During the visit, Mr. Mark was shown several projects made by the student teams as part of their monthly deadlines, in the past academic year and the student teams explained how the project was made and the outcomes from out of it. Teachers emphasised how making lesson plans and other materials using the computers and internet has been helpful to them and how such practices have improved the quality of their teaching, over the period.

These teachers and students have been using the lab very effectively, in spite of the school having graduated from the program and with very minimal help from AIF presently.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-04T00:27:00.001-08:00

DElight wishes all its readers - students and teachers of the DE schools, AIF team, the donors and well wishers of the program a very happy and prosperous year ahead!

Have fun and take care. Keep blogging....

Orissa CM inaugurates computer lab

2010-01-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

Secondary Board High School had all reasons to be happy, for it recently celebrated its Golden Jubilee between 22nd and 24th Dec 09. What's more, Shri. Naveen Patnaik, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Orissa himself participated in the event to inaugurate the lab.

There are two state-of-the-art air conditioned computer labs with 25 computers in each and with all arrangements for LCD projectors for each of the rooms. Apart from this there is an air conditioned audio visual room with arrangements for a LCD projector, where teachers will be taking classes.

Given the expertise of AIF team, Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education had requested AIF to give a final approval as far as the lay out of the computer lab and the audio visual room were concerned which included everything from the arrangement of computers to electrical fittings. Selected members of the DE team participated in this exercise and oversaw the setting up of the lab. Additionally, AIF also assisted in making a presentation about the school on the insistence of the minister and has been requested by the Govt team to do training in the school based on the DE model. This will be rolled out shortly.

Shri Pratap Jena - Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education, Shri Prafula Chandra Ghadei - Hon'ble Minister Finance and Excise, were some of the other dignitaries present.

DE facilitator wins BEST ICT Coordinator

2009-11-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

Roopashree Panda, DE Facilitator, Gadadar High School, Puri won the Best ICT coordinator in Orissa. The felicitation was part of the two day workshop on the "Connecting Classroom Program", conducted by the British Council on the 6th and 7th of Nov, in Bhubaneshwar. Since the event attracted a lot of media coverage and since AIF was involved with the organization and coordination of the event right from the beginning, AIF's mention was made several times. The fact that Roopashree belonged to a DE school only added to this.

As part of this workshop, various photo essays were made and the best ones were presented during the valedictory function, chaired by the Hon'ble Minister for School and Mass Education and presided over by the Principal Secretary, Vandana Kumari. It is heartening to note that as part of her address, Ms.Vandana Kumari mentioned that she first came to know of a "photo essay" concept only from AIF and was very impressed to see some of those made by students, during one of her meetings with the Orissa team. The fact that students are now in a position to make photo essays is a big development for Orissa's ICT program and DE program, in particular.

The workshop was almost like a DE ceremony since more than 50% of the participating schools were DE schools. Finally, 16 schools from out of this list will be chosen and divided into two clusters to work on an inter-cultural dialogue with their assigned respective clusters in UK. The program involves travel/exchange visits funded by the British Council & a selected group of people may get an opportunity to visit partner schools during next year as part of the pre-c

Workshops in Orissa

2009-11-29T23:42:00.000-08:00

One of the teachers presenting during the demonstration workshop

Orissa DE team has been a host of several workshops this month and some of these have resulted in strategic recognition for the program.

DE demonstration workshop concluded recently in Bhubaneshwar with the objective of showcasing creative lesson designs developed by DE teachers. Ten teachers from within Bhubhaneshwar participated in this workshop and presented about the way they have been implementing the program along with some examples of projects and other materials prepared as part of the DE program. The workshop was also well attended by officials from the Govt education department like Vandana Kumari Jena - Principal Secretary for School and Mass Education, Prof. Dr. Sevak Tripathy - Director TE & SCERT, Dharanidhar Nath - Director Secondary Education, and others. As part of the workshop, DE Contest 2008 winners took away their prizes from the Principal Secretary. A presentation was made by the students from one of the winning teams.

On a different note, a one day workshop on effective use of computers in teaching mathematics and science, was held in Kendrapada Govt. High school on the 19th of September 09. The intention of this workshop was to show the teachers and head masters from DE schools about how computers can be used effectively in classrooms. As many as 50 teachers and school heads attended this workshop.

Kishore Mohanty, Science Expert, Board of Secondary Education - Orissa, made a presentation on the concept of "CELLS" from the Science syllabus and two teachers from Kendrapada district presented on "ELECTRICITY" lesson. These presentations were followed by discussions on how these projects were made and how these helped in enhancing the existing learning skills in the schools. Other people present in the workshop included the circle inspector of kendrapada schoools and the State Team leader of DE program, Orissa.

Students recieving the award from Ms. Vandana Kumari

Water filter donations by AMAT

2009-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks to this fantastic effort and interest by Applied Materials (AMAT) more than 5,000 students from the Govt High Schools in Bangalore will benefit from drinking pure water in their schools during the school hours.

16 Govt High Schools, where DE program is supported AMAT, have been donated with two such bio sand water filters each and this initiative was formally launched at Govt PU College Domlur, Bangalore on 6th November by Dr.Madhusudan Atre, President Applied Materials India and by Mr. Lalith Prasad, State Team Leader, DE Karnataka. They both emphasised on the importance of availability of clean drinking water in the school and how such healthy practices could lead to a better learning experience.

A typical bio sand water filter doesn't need electricity or use of chemicals and functions on a simple mechanism with very low maintenance. In short, it's the most ideal for a schooling system. Based on the learning from these 16 schools, the effort might be expanded or modified further to suit the needs.

Model Digital story from Orissa

2009-11-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

During the recently concluded refresher workshop of the Digital Story Telling (DST) initiative, the Orissa coordinators, Bharathi, Chinmay, Manoranjan and Shantanu, teamed up to make a photo essay. Here's the splendid final product they came up with.

http://www.box.net/shared/7bfrs234qn

The refresher was aimed at reinforcing the basic ideas of the project and help coordinators view more samples of well-made photo essays. So, as a process the coordinators were broken into groups and one of the groups made a photo essay on the life of fishermen, since the workshop venue was right alongside the Gopalpur beach!

NGO Awareness Mela@Dell Campus

2009-10-12T03:06:00.000-07:00

‘NGO Awareness Mela @ Dell Campus’ was celebrated on the 7th Sep 2009 in Hyderabad. The month of September is marked as the ‘Global Community Initiative Month’ (GCIM). The idea is to get to know more about the NGOs and also reach out to the under priveleged.

This time the mela was aimed at introducing AIF and its work to the Dell employees. A section in the Dell campus cafeteria was made available and with a very casual ambience, the employees poured in batches and gave an overwhemling response.

Mr. Rajiv Kapoor, Local Dell Champion also joined with the other senior managers and reiterated that this was just an attempt to get the employees to be more aware and that they would have further discussions around how to take the volunteer work forward.

Best Digital Story by Narinder Singh

2009-10-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

Digital Story Telling is the newest thing happening in DE program. All the state team coordinators have undergone training in this initiative and now it's time to showcase some of their works.

Punjab was one of the first states to undergo this training and from out of the wonderful projects made by the coordinators during the first round, Narinder Singh's photo essay on Old Age was selected the best project so far.

The film talks about how aged people are not taken care of properly by their children and in spite of all the invaluable sacrifices made towards their children, eventually they're left without any resort! The film contains perfectly adequate and nicely written captions as its support and the soulful music in the background adds the emotion that engages the viewer in a gripping attention to every single detail!

A big congratulations to Narinder. The blog will further feature many more such projects here.

Bal Mela in Govt High School, Doddanekkundi

2009-09-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

Students at the Mela

Govt High School, Doddanekkundi hosted its first ever Bal Mela in Bangalore (the second one in the city within one year) on 12th Sep. This Bal Mela was sponsored by AMD and jointly organized by AIF and the High School.

The Mela started at 10 AM with most of the stalls focusing on Science concepts. The stalls ranged from the topics of heart and respiratory system, to statistics, newton's laws, sports equipments, computer stall and even a tattoo stall. Students and teachers from three other neighboring schools were also invited to take part and learn from the Mela. More than 400 people were present at the Mela and they expressed great joy over such an invitation and also that they learnt significantly from the mela. Strikingly attractive were the stalls on Chipko movement (which was a drive against deforestation) and the crafts stall that included many items hand-made by the students! The mela concluded with a short but entertaining magic show for the kids.

Kudos to all the AMD employee volunteers who tirelessly worked since the past two months towards making the Mela a success that it was and to all the teachers and students of the school for hosting and organizing the mela without any downsides ever!

AMD Employee Volunteers

Yahoo! training for teachers

2009-09-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

Teachers intently listening during a session on email ID creation

Yahoo! was the buzzword last week in the teacher training workshop. An exclusive Internet training funded by Yahoo!, this workshop focused on creation of Yahoo! email IDs for teachers, using Yahoo! search and answers for research on projcts and Yahoo! groups for communication purposes, working on collaborative projects using the Internet and finally using the Instant messenger for conferencing and other quick communication needs.

More than 70 teachers from 8 DE centers in Bangalore participated in this training. There was one computer for evey two teachers that ensured sufficient hands-on experience for each participant. Tools like Yahoo! search and answers triggered their cusiority to look up the web on different subject topics of their interest and share the information with each other through their newly created email IDs. They were all smiles to receive their first ever email and even happier to send Instant messages to each other on Yahoo! messenger!

These teachers would now go back to their schools and with the help of AIF coordinators, train the students on the use of these tools. More than 2000 students would create email IDs in the next two months and work on about 8 collaborative projects in the subjects of Science, Maths, Languages and Social Sciences. Such projects would encourage students to do more research on their project topics and thus expand their horizon of learning.

DE students sparkle at First ever AYV International Summit!

2009-08-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

The main quad hall in Standord campus beamed with energy and enthusaism. More than 100 educators and students from the across the Adobe Youth Voices "global family" were present uder one roof to celebrate the succes of he program and to share with each other their personal stories and experiences. This was the first glimpse at the first ever AYV International summit held between July 29th and Aug 2nd 2009 in Stanford University campus, California.

During the four day meet, the educators and students were led through several workshops and sessions that gave them deep insight into what media making involves, how people from other geographies have approached the process of media making, and what their best practices are. Amongst these, 8 students and 4 educators from 4 different schools represented India out of which 2 were DE centers. With DE they bring the uniqueness of integrating technology into their curriculum already and AYV program has further refined their skills of using technology as part of their learning process. Different themes and sessions during the meet included animations, documentary films, music videos, etc. Youth participants were mixed up in groups so they could experience variety and diversity during their interaction.

Going forward, these participants would be encouraged to collaborate with each other and work on common projects so that such exchange programs would bring them closer and enable a deeper understanding of global context in the present day. Currently AYV program is operational in 25 different sites in India between the cities of Bangalore (15 sites) and Delhi (10 sites)

DE Student from Akshay Prathisthan interacts with a participant from San Francisco during a video shoot session

DE and Greenhill school collaboration

2009-08-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

A very successful collaborative initiative between DE and Greenhill School, Dallas, concluded very recently. The fundamental objective of the project was to use technology to bridge the cultural divide between India and the US and at the same time, developing creative writing and critical thinking skills among young children.

The six week initiative began in February 2009 with 20-30 students from Akshay Pratishthan (a graduated DE center) in Delhi and Greenhill, a private school in Dallas using an integrated curriculum to work on a photo essay project on 'My School'. The students were given the task of exploring their school and creating and sharing a photo essay on the most interesting sites in their school. An integral part of the curriculum was communicating with children in the other location through blogs and emails to share their progress and ideas.

The project was a grand success! Among other things, it inspired an amazing level of cultural curiosity among students in US as well as India. Students were exchanging ideas on all kinds of interesting issues from festivals to pets to punishment rules to Barack Obama! Children in India taught their counterparts in the US to play kho-kho and carrom among many other things. They learnt each other's music and musical instruments and dance moves! Needless to say, while we followed a pre decided curriculum, students gave the project its own shape from the very beginning.

While having loads of fun, students increased their proficiency in MS Word, internet navigation, blog interface and creative writing. The project reminded us yet again how technology can transcend cultural and geographical barriers and how its access can open limitless possibilities!

Sejal Desai, a member of our leadership council from Dallas was the point person for Greenhill. AIF is very thankful to her and this initiative would have been possible with out her.

Students from Greenhill school watch a video about Indian Culture and tradition

Bal Mela in AP - A grand successful event

2009-07-22T02:56:00.000-07:00

It was a bright Saturday morning and the ZPHS Puthalapattu school was buzzing with activity as early as 7 am. The school was preparing for the first balmela to be held in Andhra Pradesh.

ZPHS Puthalapattu was the proud host of the first ever Bal mela in the state funded by Applied Materials and facilitated and organized by American India Foundation.

The mela was held on 18th July 2009 in the school premises and witnessed an overwhelming response from the community with more than 500 people from around 20 schools participating in it. There were a total of 18 stalls primarily based on education like grammar, maths and physics and on how these could be learnt better through the use of digital technology. 3 other NGOs, Lead India 2020, PASS (working for HIV) and Indian Red Cross Society, were also given an opportunity to put their stalls up.

Students of the host school played a big role in managing the event nicely. They fancy-dressed and represented different cultures and also different famous personalities. This added a further color to the event. The press was present too and the event has been covered well in the local newspapers. Some of the dignitaries present in the event were Ms. Ambujamma, Mandal President, Mr. T Chandrashekara Reddy, Zilla Parishad and Mr. Chitti Babu, Project officer, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

All in all, it was a memorable day for one and all who were present. AIF takes this opportunity to thank Applied Materials (AMAT) for making all this happen. This is the fourth mela supported by AMAT. Others already concluded were at Karnataka, Orissa and Rajasthan.

People at the mela

Digital Story telling workshops

2009-07-20T01:26:00.000-07:00

Coordinators during an editing session in the Orissa training workshop

Digital Story telling workshops were conducted for the DE coordinators across the country. Digital Story telling is an art of building stories around an idea and conveying these stories through a set of photographs. Digital cameras have huge potential in being used as a learning tool in the schools. And very many innovative projects could be made using these digital cameras by our teachers and students.

The coordinators were run through a two-day workshop that oriented them on the techniques of story telling. The workshops were designed on the basis of traditional media making format which follows a 3 phase approach - pre-production, production and post-production. The coordinators were asked to work on different hands-on activities that gave them the perfect understanding of media making skills. These activities included building impromptu stories, self expression about general principles, etc. During the two days, they prepared a detailed story board and visited their shooting locations to collect pictures relevant to their project topic. Finally, they used the presentation tool to sequence and arrange the pictures in a meaningful way for their final presentations.

Every district under the DE program in different states has been given a digital camera to be used by DE coordinators and teachers of the DE schools to use as part of their learning. With this, the Digital Story telling workshops will initiate projects based on various subjects. Specific deadlines have been set for every state/geography to submit their projects within. This effort is expected to generate such projects and also involve teachers to work with their students while making these projects. Emphasis has been laid on integrating curruculum into their treatment of the project.

Participants during an interactive ice breaker session at Bangalore

Happy Birthday, DElight - DE blog completes one year!!!

2009-07-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

DElight is a year old now! Thanks to all State Team Leaders and other coordinators from inidvidual states for bringing it to the present level.

Thanks to all readers for their encouragement and comments.

DElight has more in store for you.

Keep reading....

Adobe Youth Voices is 3 years old now!

2009-07-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

Students and educators from a Delhi site with Ms. Kiran Bedi, Rashmi, Sanjay and Tarun

Adobe Youth Voices program recently celebrated the 3rd year end events in India in both geographies - Bangalore (30th june) and Delhi (2nd July).

In Bangalore, around 275 people were there which included the students of all schools, youth participants of all NGOs, educators of all 15 sites, employees of Adobe India, coordinators of AIF and partners from other NGOs and corporates.

Ms. Meghana, a popular Kannada film actress came as the chief guest and expressed her wonder about how kids of that age could create films of such high quality. Tridib Roy Chowdhry, Adobe representative from Bangalore said he can clearly see the difference in the quality of films between last year and this year. Prameetha, a Govt High School teacher was allowed to talk and she expressed that the project has built capacities of both students and teachers to such an extent that learning has become such an enjoyable activity now in her school. Educators and youth participants were given away prizes for their works.

In Delhi, Ms. Kiran Bedi was the chief guest of the event. She had witnessed the previous year's event too and was completely surprised to notice such a significant improvement in the quality of the films this year. She wholeheartedly appreciated the efforts of both the students and educators and expressed that there is so much now to learn from the youth and imbibe in our lives! Mr. Sanjay Sinho, CEO AIF expressed that students are able to provide such easy solutions to complex problems through these effective media. He also coined the idea that AYV project must be scaled up to include more DE centers across the country.

Press coverage

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Bangalore/Underprivileged-students-make-stunning-films/articleshow/4721982.cms

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/11961/echo-unheard-voices.html

To view the TV channel coverage, please click here.

Dell supported DE program launched

2009-07-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

Mr. Mahesh Bhalla lighting the lamp to mark the beginning of the program

Dell supported DE program was launched in Bangalore on 27th June at Govt Higher Primary school, Munen Kolala. This officially marks the beginnning of the full service program supported by Dell India in 24 schools across the country. These schools are spread out in three cities - Bangalore (9 schools), Hyderabad (6 schools) and Delhi (9 schools).

On the occasion, Mahesh Bhalla, Director-Sales from Dell, represented and spoke about how important it is for the students to be using the Internet and technology tools for a better learning experience. Sundarakrishnan, Director DE program, represented AIF and threw light on what are the accomplishments of DE and what process do we follow during the three years in a school.

Mr. Ashwath Narayan Reddy, a local community leader and ex-minister, who has worked tirelessly for the good of this school was also present and said he would extend any support needed in making the program a success. The head teachers of other 8 schools were also present along with the AIF coordinators and facilitators.

Press coverage

http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/28/stories/2009062850080200.htm

DE-AYV kids in the US!

2009-07-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

DE kids are going to be part of the AYV summit in the US this summer. AYV summit is an International platform for youth and educator participants of the Adobe Youth Voices program across the globe to share their learning with each other. About 100 youth and 66 educators will be part of this summit, happening between July 29th and August 2nd. From India 8 youth participants and 4 educators have been selected to represent at the summit.

This year AYV sites in India made remarkable films on social issues which were all screened at the recently concluded year end events in Delhi and Bangalore. Following are the youth and educators who have been selected to participate in the summit.

Vivekavardhini High School, Bangalore - Uma Devi (edu), Soumya and Karishma

Christel House, Bangalore - Dhanaraj (edu), Shiva Sagar Rudresh and Supriya

Akshay Prathishtan, Delhi - Ms. Anuradha Sethi (edu), Raj Kumar and Saurabh

Noida Public School, Delhi - Ms. Rajshri Raj Mohan (edu), Avinash and Randhir

Press coverage

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/10063/ayv-summit-two-selected-city.html

To view more press coverage, pls click here

To watch a TV coverage, pls click here

"Experiences from the ground" - article from Sundarakrishnan

2009-06-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

Over the years, DE program has enriched the team members with several best practices and ground level experiences that have provided a wider insight into the ICT initiatives in education. The DE team members constantly interact with people belonging to other organizations sharing these experiences and also gaining their inputs for the betterment of DE.

Sundarakrishnan has recently authored an article "Experiences from the ground" - Digital Equalizer Program. The article talks about Technology in education in a generic sense and goes on to describe the DE philosophy and mantra and learning at an implementation level. The article concludes with the lessons learnt from the program.

A pre-print of this article being published in D-Content Issue: a South Asia publication on Digital Technology and Content for Development of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), can be found here.

AYV Archives - Pehla Nasha by Noida Public School

2009-06-05T21:27:00.001-07:00

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. This week’s blog features the documentary film, PEHLA NASHA made by youth at Noida Public School.

This docu-fiction film tells the story of a boy who is facing pressure from his father to do well in school. Because of his father’s harsh nature, the boy feels so down that he resorts to smoking. Perhaps if this boy’s father had encouraged him in a more constructive way, the boy would not have gotten into the dangerous habit of smoking. The film raises questions about parental involvement in a child’s education and the consequences of youth smoking.This film was made by youth at Noida Public School in Delhi as part of the Adobe Youth Voices program, in partnership with the American India Foundation.

DE kids' call to VOTE!

2009-05-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

DE kids call out for the people of India to vote!! Sounds impossible but it indeed is true....

A brilliant example of empowerment through digital technology. Kids of Rani Dutta Arya Vidyalaya step up to wake Indians up in their own way.

Students had read a lot in the news paper about candidates from a party, voting percentage in different communities and other details. This inspired them to do something from their end, in a little way, to motivate people to vote during elections.

And what came out eventually were the following wonderful PSAs. What's more - these films would be screened on a local TV channel as awareness videos a day before elections (May 6th).

a. Vote for Country
The PSA is about a child asking his father the basis of selecting a candidate to vote. Is it Country or Caste.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcpVk31HXgQ

b. I Will Vote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xXqBXi0DoI

c. Vote for Progress
A PSA to motivate people to vote during for India Lok Sabha Election 2009.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woUFA-GWlLE

All of the above PSAs is made by students of Rani Dutta Arya Vidyalaya under Adobe Youth Voices program supported by American India Foundation (AIF). Please watch them and don't forget to post your comments!!

DE contests 08-09

2009-04-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a downpour of projects from DE centers! Yes and thanks to the DE contests an annual feature at the DE schools. But this time the contests were conducted a bit differently than usual - at a National level rather than just within the respective states.

The first of its kind National Level DE contest for Large Scale DE Program was announced in Oct 2008. Starting Nov 1, 2008, the process involved disseminating the information and process details to all the DE schools. Excited about it as they were, the students and teachers worked extensively in researching for information and gathering all the details necessary for their projects. The process went on for more than a month with multiple teams from every school participating, giving a shot at the different project topics. Topics already suggested by AIF team ranged from a simple idea of "Myself, My school, My community" to a wide-scoped topic like "Global Warming". As a rule, students had to work in groups and so individual-student projects were not considered.

Thereafter, the DE team collated and evaluated the projects through various state level committees and submitted two best projects from each state for final evaluation at Delhi. It was an extremely engaging and learning experience for all, who were part of the process. The entries were evaluated on Content, language, research and the multimedia skills used. The results were announced on 30th march at the DE core group meeting.

At the national level, schools from Ludhiana (Punjab), Karimanagar (Andhra Pradesh) and Alwar (Rajanthan) won the I, II and III prizes respectively. Other than these, every state had two top projects as state level winners.

AYV Archives - Accessibility by APD, Bangalore

2009-04-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

The photo essay takes the viewer through a collection of scenarios in Bangalore where public spaces and buildings deny people with disabilities access to basic needs and their rights. Enjoy and do not forget to post your comments!

Teachers' project sharing workshop - Deshpande Foundation supported DECs

2009-04-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Sreepad of Deshpande Foundation addressing the teachers

A teachers' project sharing workshop was conducted at Deshpande Foundation's office in Hubli during the last week of March. As many as 20 teachers particpiated in the workshop, the intention of which was to provide a platform for teachers to exhibit their works and communicate to key stake holders about their successes and further needs.

Their projects were based on subject topics as well as non-curriculum topics. The teachers interacted with the representatives of Deshpande Foundation and the AIF coordinators, and threw light on what kind of research went into making their projects. They also explained how such projects could be used during their regular subject teaching classes, how the students were also involved in making such projects and how all of this could create a better learning environment. Clearly, these teachers showed that DE has added tremendous value to their existing teaching methods, and how such methods could make the subject concepts much clearer during classroom transactions. Fortunately, the Govt education officers who were also present in the workshop, expressed their appreciation to the teachers.

Several student projects were also displayed during the workshop and some of these projects have won prizes in the DE contests. Going ahead, innovative projects such as photo essays have been planned to be done during the summer vacations and more workshops would be held in other districts and clusters, to give more opportunities for the teachers to showcase such projects. Deshpande Foundation and AIF would together assess if the schools need any additional help in terms of technology and/or other skills to make these projects.

Empowerment in action! - The Modern Story project

2009-04-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

Piya Kashyap and Remy Fernandes, two youngsters from the US ventured to take up a digital media making initiative under the banner of modern story with DE Centers, AP Residential School Nalgonda Boys (LS) and GHS VIjayanagar Colony, Hyderabad. The teams in the school were guided by mentors for about 3-4 months and worked on the projects.

Amongst these, GHS Vijayanagar Colony is a perfect example of research integrated project work.

Although the school is located in the city, it caters to students who are first generation learners, coming from a financially weak background. The students chose to focus their third and final video on the environment and specifically on air pollution and its causes and effects. The students split into two groups - one focused on research and interviews with people and the other on student activism. For the student activism, they decided to raise funds to buy saplings to plant on the school grounds. The students designed and wrote out informational cards which they took around the community to explain about the project. They sold flower and vegetable plant seeds in order to collect donations. In all, they raised more than 400 rupees.

The team received some valuable insight from RIDHI Foundation, an environmental group working in Hyderabad. They did an interview with the students for the video and also talked to the students about the environment and air pollution. The team later realized that they could not plant a tree on the school grounds. Fortunately, RIDHI Foundation helped and arranged a large scale planting program for the entire 9th class at Vijyanagar Colony High School, where students could buy potted plants that they could nurture in their own homes. Thus they concluded the project with a lot of take-aways from it.

Tangibly, the students are more confident, better equipped with technical skills, their communication, especially with foreign mentors, has enhanced significantly, and are more familiar with the research, story telling and editing skills.

As steps ahead, the modern story plans to continue in these schools and may also include few more schools, exhibit these works at San Francisco's Children's museem, Zeum, showcase their works on the blog, http://themodernstory.wordpress.com/

DE school wins Intel award

2009-03-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

......and what more.... DSERT Director praised the school for its effort! Maharaja's Govt PU College, Mysore is a DE Center in Mysore as part of the large scale DE operations in Karnataka.

A bunch of students from 8th & 9th grades expressed their desire to make a project on Light and its properties. The students gathered to conduct more research on the topic and, thanks to the Internet, within the next 20 days they had more information than they needed! They documented all of this to present to their teachers.

The students then embarked upon bridging a connection between their project and the actual subject topic. AIF coordinator, Somanna, during his visits to the school, played a key role in guiding both students and teachers to approach the project in the right way and collect information. The students were also well prepared. They knew what they were going to learn from out of that project and also how the project could be multi-disciplinary. So the project was through and completed within time.

The interaction between students was very helpful in enabling them dive deeper into the subject and ponder about how more beneficial could the project be made. Additionally the idea of presenting the project in front of a whole classroom of children was very helpful since it helped children develop higher levels of confidence and shun their inhibition.

Mr. M N Baig, Director - DSERT paid a surprise visit to the school and was surprised to see this project. He not only appreciated the team for its effort but also made sure to carry a copy of the project on a CD along with him. This project also won the accolades in the Intel Contest 2008-09 as the Best Project.

AYV Archives - Who Cares by Vedic Kanya, Delhi

2009-03-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

Do we care about some of the most pressing issues facing our society? This is the question that youth from Vedic Kanya raise in this photo essay. The essay focuses mainly on problems of traffic safety and the environment, leaving the audience wondering why we are not taking these matters into our own hands to lessen their burden.

DE Bal Mela in Orissa - A Grand Success

2009-02-20T01:57:00.000-08:00

Students, busy at the mela

More than 1,000 children gathered on the grounds of P S Girls’ High School, Balakati on the 14th of February. They were queuing up to visit the stalls before them to witness the exciting stuff happening at each stall.

This was the Bal Mela in Orissa – the first in the state, organized by the DE team and efficiently implemented by the school authorities. The Mela was funded by Applied Materials, who also support the DE program in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Mumbai.

It was a sight to watch the enthusiasm on the faces of all children. The stalls included simple activities like folding paper to learn concepts in geometry, examination of blood groups, health check up, etc. Children had turned Origami specialists, scientists, astronomers, astrologers and what not! More than 150 students waited late in the evening till 7.30 PM to watch the stargazing program on the school ground organized by the Pathani Samantha Planetarium.

The community members also participated in big numbers in the event and learnt how and what DE has been contributing to the school. People from other organizations like Azim Premji Foundation, Integrated Child Development program, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and others also took part in the event and witnessed the students’ enthusiasm.

AIF-DE team takes this opportunity to profusely thank Applied Materials for its generous support to conduct this event and the school teachers, students and authorities for working tirelessly in making this program a huge success.

A student displays the model of a sun dial at the mela

Tamil Nadu DE program - General Updates

2009-02-20T01:50:00.000-08:00

The Tamil Nadu DE program in 150 schools is approaching the end of an academic year and has made tremendous progress in the past months. The DE team in Tamil Nadu consists of 33 staff members and the schools are visited by 27 different cluster coordinators. Along with the teaching staff, non-teaching faculty in the schools have also been actively enrolling into DE training sessions, conducted by the coordinators. This is a big boost to the program since it makes the capacity-building effort much more comprehensive.

One-day training workshops for HMs were held at Thiruvallur and Ramanathapuram districts. The workshops intended to sensitize the heads of the schools about DE and its objectives. Primary focus of the workshop was to use laptops and introduction to Internet. Heads of the schools now feel much more familiar and empowered to implement the program.

In mid January, AIF leadership team visited the program in Tamil Nadu state, and interacted with the students and teachers of Thiru Vi Ka Higher Secondary School. They were very impressed with the way, a graduated center like Thiru Vi Ka was progressing and expressed the same with Mr. Sivanandan, the head of the school.

The DE team is making plans for summer vacation programs in the schools and hopes to involve more students from the community also to participate and benefit our of the program. Many schools in the program are supported by Applied Materials and DE team hopes to utilize the services of its employees as volunteers, during the time possible.

DEsigner from a DE center

2009-02-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

He designs visiting cards, letter heads, books and catalogs for companies. And his computer skills have been completely acquired in the DE center a couple of years ago.

P K Gupta made the maximum use of the opportunity he got through the DE program in the year 2006-07. Computers became an immediate obsession with him just above all other subjects. He topped his academics in the year 2007-08 with 87 per cent in commerce and he presently works as a designer in Sahib Art Creators, Ludhiana. While talking about DE, he says, “It provided me the facility to practice on computers which was otherwise not accessible and affordable for me. My teachers guided me all through and helped me gain deeper interest towards learning computers. I pursued Post Graduation and Diploma Course after learning computer from school.”

Gupta learned photoshop from the school first and continued to learn more about it later at a private training institute. Thus, DE played the role of a resource provider and skill developer in empowering Gupta to create a livelihood for himself and pursue his learning interests.

AYV Archives - Awareness of cleanliness by GHS Beratena Agrahara

2009-02-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

The school children and educators have done a great animation on the importance of cleanliness in our lives and societies, if when not adhered to, can cause problems to the creator of such unclean issues.

DE team authors an article on Learning ICT in schools

2009-01-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

Sundarakrishnan, Director - DE program and Subrat Sarcar, State Team Leader, Orissa-DE program have together authored an informative article named Learning ICT in schools. The article, published in the XLRI Management and Labor Studies journal, describes the practices of ICT learning in schools and how DE program penetration in Orissa has revolutionized the learning system in schools.

The article's abstract - Computer and information technology arising from it has created a revolution of sorts as far as classroom teaching is concerned. Use of Internet and multimedia tools has engendered a new-found quest for knowledge both among the students as well as the teachers. Use of information communication technology in classroom teaching has given a cutting edge advantage to teachers who have understood and internalized the benefits of supplementing traditional teaching methods with computers, especially Internet and curriculum software, rich in multimedia content. In some instances it has revolutionized conceptual understanding, propelling teachers and students to explore new frontiers.

The complete article can be accessed here.

AYV Archives - Homework by Vedic Kanya, Delhi

2009-01-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

This documentary focuses on an underprivileged girl, Meena, who doesn’t find time to complete her homework because of her family situation. Though Meena is bright and wants to do well in school, she must also attend to the needs of her family, as her mother doesn’t have time to take care of all of the household duties. The film highlights the challenges that girls like Meena must face as they attempt to balance both education and their lives at home.

AYV Archives - Life in Slums by Slum Jagathu, Bangalore

2009-01-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

AYV Archives is an exclusive section dedicated to the exhibition of Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) media products made by Govt High Schools and NGOs, who are part of Adobe Youth Voices project. On a weekly basis, documentaries, animations and photo essays will be uploaded here from sites belonging to Delhi and Bangalore.

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. This week’s blog features the photo essay made by Slum Jagathu, an NGO partner in AYV

The Photos depicted in the project were taken in the slums where some of these children live. The images and text depict some of the challenges and components of daily life that people in the slums are confronted with. These Images are very captivating.

DE empowers women!! Read on...

2009-01-06T17:58:00.000-08:00

DE empowers women distraught by dowry. It's true! This is one of DE's most compelling stories. Read on…

Reena Sen, the second daughter of a small shop owner in Nithar Village of Bharatpur District in Rajasthan, has four brothers and three sisters. Her village is about 200 KM from Jaipur, the capital of the state.

In 2003, she was married into the same family with whom her older sister lived. After the wedding, both sisters started to be tortured to fetch money (dowry) from their parents. Given the small earnings of her father, it was impossible to fulfill this. And so their struggle continued, and eventually her sister was killed in the incident.

After this incident, she refused to go to her in-laws' house and returned to live with her parents. As a livelihood option, she started cooking food for mid day meals in her village school Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalya – K.G.B.V. DE was running in the school, and Reena began observing the DE transactions everyday while she cooked and served food.

Thanks to the initiative of the school's DE coordinator, she expressed her desire to learn more about computers and hence was given the opportunity to do so. She learned the basics and approached the coordinator to learn more about computers to use in her daily life. As days progressed, her proficiency in computers was recognized and she was taken in as the computer teacher. She still serves the school as a computer teacher along with serving food!

As she continues to fight the case against her in-laws, she also runs her family using money the DE job fetches her at the school. This is a perfect example of how community could benefit from DE.

AYV Archives - Life on roads by Akshay Pratishtan, Delhi

2009-01-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

This photo essay highlights the importance of roads to Delhi’s culture. Roads provide a way to commute, a livelihood for street-side vendors, and a means by which people connect. The essay touches upon some of the challenges surrounding roads, including accessibility for the handicapped, cleanliness, and street beggars and calls for continued innovation in road technology and maintenance to ensure that Delhi retains its reputation as “the heart of India.”

DE Bal Mela - A festival of children, by children and for children!

2008-12-15T02:25:00.000-08:00

NDTV Video coverage

It was a children’s festival. They designed it. They conducted it. They rejoiced it. Yes, this was BAL MELA, in Govt High School, Jyothipura, supported by Applied Materials (AMAT) and facilitated by American India Foundation Trust. It was celebration time to all students and teachers of the DE center.

It was structured to mimic a city fair made up of several activity booths manned entirely by Jyothipura students. At each booth, the students showcased a skill, be it technology, science, or art. Over 500 students from neighboring schools visited Bal Mela to participate in the activities and learn more about DE program. This was the second DE Bal Mela across the program after the one in Rajasthan.

The participation of AMAT employees added luster to the whole event. As many as 25 of them took part in the initiative and interacted with the students. They expressed that this was a great way for students to express and exhibit their work.

Two major TV channels also visited to cover the event. NDTV and ETV Kannada channels interviewed students, teachers and AMAT employees to get their individual perspectives about the program and the Mela in particular.

To sum up, the Mela was a great effort from the school, a feast to all audiences and an encouraging platform for students and teachers of Jyothipura school.

To watch the ETV Kannada Channel's Video Coverage, please visit

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=qf4hB9scMP4

The employees of Applied Materials Pvt Ltd with the students of the school during the Mela

AYV Archives - Water by GHS Kalkere

2008-12-14T18:23:00.000-08:00

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. This week’s blog features the documentary film, WATER made by students of Govt High School, Kalkere.

GHS Kalkere, ponders over how important Water is to all of our lives and seeks to provoke thoughts on what’s our attitude towards using Water on a day to day basis. Enjoy the video and please do not forget to post your comments.

CREATE WITH PURPOSE - AYV Workshops in Delhi and Bangalore

2008-11-30T11:00:00.000-08:00

Educators at the Bangalore workshop, are seen engrossed in their team activities

“Create with Purpose” were the buzzwords at the Adobe Youth Voices orientation workshops for educators in Bangalore and Delhi, which concluded this week. Two-day workshops at both the geographies involved running educators through a series of activities to introduce them to AYV mission & objectives, story telling and script writing activities and training on Adobe software.

Educators at the end of these workshops expressed that they were much more confident in implementing the project after they were introduced to the details at the workshop. Prakash in Bangalore and Amit in Delhi were invited as experts to interact with educators to make them understand the fine distinctions of film making. These activities were enriching especially since half of the educators are already experienced in AYV and such activities only opened their minds up further to think of more innovative treatments for their topic ideas.

Employee volunteers from Adobe Corporation participated in the workshops in training the educators on the use of Premiere 7.0, the new version of Premiere Video editing software. Vishwanath from Adobe-Bangalore and Anuj and Subaiah from Adobe-Noida took part representing Adobe.

Going ahead, these educators would continue to work with the students of their teams and complete the planning of their films and move on to capture some footage.

Educators at Delhi engrossed in a discussion with Amit at the AYV workshop

Mark Walker, Managing Director, AMAT, visits DE Centers

2008-11-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

Mark Walker looks on with the students of GHS Jyothipura

“I’m humbled by the experience of rural life just outside of Bangalore”, thus expressed Mark Walker, Managing Director, Global Community Affairs, Applied Materials after his visit to the home of a student of Govt High School, Jyothipura. “I am moved by a video presentation of a powerful advocacy piece on Empowering Women made by the students here”, said Mark in his response to the documentary film made by these students.

Govt High School, Jyothipura is a third year DE Center on the verge of graduating out of the program and has all elements necessary to sustain the program beyond AIF’s exit from it. As part of his visits to philanthropic activities supported by AMAT, Mark Walker visited several DE Centers including the new ones in Chennai and Mumbai, which he inaugurated on 6th and 7th November respectively.

“Watching a presentation on Environment by the teachers of a school that has completed 3 years in DE program is very heartening since it demonstrated what was possible to achieve by these kids”, expressed Mark about his experience at Savitribai Phule Girls’ High School, a DE center in Mumbai.

Applied Materials also supports the large scale DE program in Karnataka in about 73 Govt High Schools spread across the state and full service program in Bangalore in about 8 Govt High Schools.

Science teacher embraces technology! Read on..

2008-10-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Suma displaying some of her projects, at the workshop

Suma, a Science teacher from Govt High School, Kalkere, Bangalore, uses technology while teaching her students. Such innovative methods of learning, she feels, create excitement in students’ minds and provoke their responses better in class.

Suma says, for instance, “Using even images of Scientists, got from the Internet, would have a positive impact on students because the approach is innovative, although this doesn’t directly help them understand the concepts. A change is needed in the way things are taught and technology is one huge change”. Govt High School Kalkere is in its II year of the program, supported by Applied Materials.

Other than using images, Suma constantly explores for content on the Internet and uses such content in her presentations and classes. She was recently at a workshop organized by AIF for the Cluster coordinators of Karnataka Large Scale DE program, where she got the opportunity to display all her projects and demonstrate different ways she uses to address the issues with her students’ learning. This also helped the coordinators understand what context teachers come from and how such methods could help them out.

AYV Archives - Signal Red by VIDYA, Delhi

2008-10-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

AYV Archives is an exclusive section dedicated to the exhibition of Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) media products made by Govt High Schools and NGOs, who are part of Adobe Youth Voices project. On a weekly basis, documentaries, animations and photo essays will be uploaded here from sites belonging to Delhi and Bangalore.

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. This week’s blog features the documentary film, SIGNAL RED made by youth at Vidya in Delhi.

This documentary explores the lives of children selling magazines to drivers on the streets of Delhi. The film highlights the challenging nature of the work (and of these children’s lives in general). It subtly touches upon the fact that the children are desperate to sell the magazines for their livelihoods, yet cannot read the magazines themselves. The film leaves the audience to ponder this fact.

AYV Archives – Echcharike by GGHS, Adugodi

2008-09-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. This week’s blog features the documentary film made Govt Girls’ High School, Adugodi, Bangalore.

The documentary focuses on the increase in cell phone use in the city of Bangalore, and its correlation with traffic accidents. It’s also a general appeal from the students and teachers to everyone not to use cell phones while driving. The sound effects used towards the end of the film, make it all the more effective.

District Collector visits Learning Lab (DE Center)

2008-09-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Mr. Navin Mittal, an IAS officer, District Collector & Chairman of Rajiv Vidya Mission, was invited to Government Girls’ High School, West Marredpally, Hyderabad to give away certificates to students who had attended the DE summer camp during May-June 2008 summer vacation. Nearly 25 students had attended this camp, learned MS Office applications and secured training on C programming language. All this was possible due to the valuable support extended by AMD employee-volunteers.

Mr. Mittal was given a ceremonial welcome by the girl students and was ushered to the lab. He was visibly very pleased to see the Learning lab in action and to learn about the progress made by the students and teachers in DE program.

Apart from the certificates, AMD had also arranged for distribution of uniforms, books, school bags and school shoes for the very poor children of the school. Mr. Andrew Hertog, Vice President of AMD was also present and gave away these to the deserving students.

In all, it was a memorable event and AIF and the school management thank AMD profusely for having added immense value through their association in the DE program. AMD, in partnership with AIF, also supports another learning lab at a Govt High School in Bangalore.

AYV Archives - 'Going Digital' by Akshay Pratishthan, Delhi

2008-09-22T00:57:00.000-07:00

AYV Archives is an exclusive section dedicated to the exhibition of Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) media products made by Govt High Schools and NGOs, who are part of Adobe Youth Voices project. On a weekly basis, documentaries, animations and photo essays will be uploaded here from sites belonging to Delhi and Bangalore.

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. This week’s blog features the photo essay made by Akshay Pratishthan, Delhi. The film is named "Going Digital"

Akshay Pratishthan explores more on the effects of digital revolution in the recent past and throws judiciously equal light upon the positive and negative sides of it. Enjoy the film and don't forget to post your comments.

Hurray! DE school bags Computer Literacy and Excellence award

2008-09-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

It’s celebration time!!! Shaheed Major Hardev Singh Govt Senior Secondary School, Gowara, a DE center in Punjab has bagged 1st prize in the Fifth Computer Literacy and Excellence Awards, recently. The award was instituted by Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Information Technology Government of India and presented by Mr. Thiru A. Raja (Honorable Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology)

The major criteria in choosing the schools for this award included performance of the school in imparting computer literacy to its students, computer skills of the teaching staff, student performance, quality of infrastructure in computer lab, etc. The school excels in all these areas and hence has been, very deservedly, presented this prestigious award.

The school principal, Mr. Bhupinder Singh, has attributed this success to DE program. In his own words, he expressed, “We get continuous guidance through the DE program. In simple words, We are what we are, because of DE!”

Congratulations to the entire Punjab DE Team and all teachers of the school for making this happen!

DE and Panchayat Raj

2008-09-08T03:52:00.000-07:00

In a one-of-its-kind project, DE team in Orissa embarked on integrating DE program to Panchayat system of administration. In a state like Orissa, where almost 47 percent of people live below poverty line, many of the development schemes for the benefits of rural poor, deeply impact rural life. In order to make the choice democratic, the general body of the village, Grama Sabha, intends to empower people to have a vital stake in decision-making process of the Panchayat and enlighten them about their right to decide who the beneficiary of such development schemes would be.

With this political context, DE-Orissa team started mock Gram Sabha, and mock Gram Panchayats, in order to develop critical consciousness in school-going children. Students of B. Dhananjay Bidyapitha, Bailisimouza, Jajpur, Orissa, interacted with Sarpanch (head of Panchayat), learnt about procedures and process of the Gram Panchayats, quizzed him about the number of times the Gram Sabha members have met in last years and what are the developmental schemes, currently planned out by the Panchayats.

They documented these details on their computers, after several rounds of discussions amongst themselves. The teachers feel that such an exposure would certainly open student minds towards village development and related things and enable them to be more sensitive and responsible.

And ask the children! They want to build a Panchayat Portal soon!!!!

AYV Archives - GHS Cotton Pet

2008-09-08T03:20:00.000-07:00

AYV Archives is an exclusive section dedicated to the exhibition of Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) media products made by DE Centers and NGOs, who are part of Adobe Youth Voices project. On a weekly basis, documentaries, animations and photo essays will be uploaded here from sites belonging to Delhi and Bangalore.

These films have been made during 2007 and 2008. We begin this series with an animation film by Govt High School, Cotton Pet (Bangalore), a DE Center supported by Silicon Valley Bank.

Through this film, GHS Cotton pet reveals to us the secret of success through a simple animation of a folk story which describes how perseverance plays and pays so hugely in our lives. Enjoy and don't forget to post your comments.

Technology, Innovation, Creativity ………… all for better education!

2008-08-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

Dr.Sanjay Sinho addressing the gathering at the Symposium

“It’s important to differentiate between computer education and computer-aided education and adopt a child-centered approach, in which learning is central and ICT is a technique” - thus said, Dr. Sanjay Sinho, CEO of AIF, at the Symposium on Education and Technology in schools, at Bangalore on 20th August.

Organized by Quest Alliance, in partnership with American India Foundation Trust, the 3-day Symposium, between 20th & 22nd August, brought together education and education technology practitioners, scholars and experts, academicians, and students for an exchange of ideas aimed towards creative approaches and solutions for technology use in learning.

Speakers, from around the world, explored different perspectives on issues and challenges related to technology and its use in teaching and learning. They also highlighted current work on how technology can improve access and quality of teaching and learning in schools in India and around the world. Topics at the symposium included Teacher training, Evaluation of ICT in schools, Policy & Practice, Learning from International programs, etc.

AMD team visits DE Center in Bangalore

2008-08-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

Susan with students at GHS, Doddanekkundi, Bangalore

The gleam in the eyes of Havanna, a physically “differently-abled” student of Govt High School, Doddanekkundi, pulled Susan back to the school after half a year! Susan Moore, Director, Govt Affairs - AMD, had visited the school earlier during the inaugural of the DE Center, sponsored by AMD.

Accompanied by a couple of other employees from AMD, Susan witnessed students showing their skills at computers, which they have gathered all these days, with the help of AIF DE coordinator, Dakshayani. Six months into the program, students and teachers of the school, have made tremendous progress in the program, learning about computers and using them as effective tools to learn.

Susan and the entire team expressed their joy at the progress made in the DE program. Furthermore, after learning that power was one of the major issues in the school, they expressed their willingness to try alternative sources like Solar panels, etc. AIF team in India would explore such possibilities and see how feasible would such options be.

More and more computers......... thank you AMAT!!

2008-08-18T02:08:00.000-07:00

Applied Materials (AMAT), has been consciously disposing its computing assets in an eco-friendly way and this time, has partnered with AIF to ensure that the donated PCs are supported through their life-cycle in the schools, under the broader umbrella of the AMAT-sponsored Digital Equalizer program. 44 computers, in total, have been donated, so far and 8 graduated full-service DE schools in Bangalore have benefited from this initiative. There is also an idea to extend the assistance and donation to full-service DE schools in Mumbai, as well.

While, Tech Refresh allows the company to offer its employees with newer systems that provide higher processing capabilities coupled with ergonomic benefits, it also allows the company to donate those PCs to NGOs, which can be deployed and effectively used in schools. These donated PCs are in good working condition with enough processor capability and memory for general standard desktop needs.

AIF takes this opportunity to thank Applied Materials for its contribution and valuable inputs in taking DE program ahead.

DE Full-service program in Chennai, TN

2008-08-18T01:56:00.000-07:00

With the large scale program in Tamil Nadu getting underway, the full service program in Chennai, which earlier served 7 schools in the city, has also been revived.

In addition to these seven, 2 more schools, PANANTHOPE RAILWAY COLONY AIDED HIGHER. SECONDARY SCHOOL, Aynavaram, Chennai and GMTTV BOYS' HIGHER SECONDARY SCHOOL, Sowcarpet Chennai, have been added to the full-service program.

Both these schools, together, serve a total of about 1,300 students. The DE Program, in each of these two schools, is being supported by Applied Materials (AMAT), who also support full service and large scale programs in Karnataka. AMAT takes an active part in engaging its employees in several volunteering activities and participating in the program, as well.

Girija has joined AIF as the Cluster Coordinator for all full service DE schools in Chennai. She will be training teachers on a weekly basis, with the help of a facilitator at each school, who would train the students. Additionally, Girija will be the point of contact for DE-Livelihood linkage at Chennai.

Police Officers help DE students!!!

2008-08-04T01:09:00.000-07:00

A model complaint letter written by a student after meeting with Police Officers

DE students engaging with Police Officers to do their project! Sounds interesting and it’s indeed realistic.

Students of Upper Primary School, Napawali, based in Chittorgarh district in Rajasthan, were very curious to know the role of district administration bodies in day to day affairs of the village - especially how police department works and what are its responsibilities. With this idea in mind, students and teachers were helped by the DE coordinator in making a project plan and facilitating the visit by confirming an appointment with police officers.

Students visited the police station and interacted with police officers and discussed on various issues like traffic rules, how to lodge a written complaint, etc. Children spent half day there, to understand the process. The whole event was also well covered by local print media in order to bring awareness about such innovative methods being used in the school.

After the visit, children used the computers to make a presentation to share their experiences and learning. The presentation captures the objective of these activities, research made, process followed, learning outcomes and further follow up actions. Thanks to the teachers, police officers and DE coordinator - Parmedra Khanda, whose cooperation made such an activity was possible.

As part of DE program, several other projects are being made using the Engaged Learning Process (ELP) approach. Teachers readily agreed to adopt such an approach to learning, and actively involved themselves and students in it. Gradually, going ahead, such an approach, coupled with using computers, will become a necessary component of teaching-learning process in the school.

DE Program in Tamil Nadu - 150 Schools

2008-07-28T02:52:00.000-07:00

The American India Foundation Trust (AIFT) is excited about partnering with the Government of TN (GoTN) to implement the Digital Equalizer (DE) Program in 150 schools in coastal districts of TN. The MoU between AIFT and GoTN was signed on 23^rd July for the DE program to run for 3 years, until July 2011.

GoTN has been at the forefront of innovations in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, especially in using ICT for education, and has successfully implemented several programs like Activity Based Learning, etc. AIFT hopes that this partnership with GoTN will become the model for large-scale ramp up of the DE Program in the country.

In the current DE Program in TN, GoTN will provide computers and other infrastructure, while AIFT will provide training and support in each school. As AIFT’s responsibilities, DE program includes intensive teacher training and support for three years, ensuring program continuity even after AIFT hands over the program to the local school. In these three years, teachers and administrators of each school will undergo weekly training and facilitation. In addition, education officials at the district and state levels will also be involved in regular update and feedback sessions.

AIFT currently runs the DE Program in 1300 schools in 13 states in India. The program has been operational since 2002. While the initial years were focused on piloting different innovations to design an optimal program, the current focus of AIFT is large-scale ramp up of the program, in partnership with State Governments.

Message from the Education Secretary, TN (Thiru M Kutralingam): Education is not just learning in classrooms but also gaining knowledge on how to lead a proper life. It is a powerful driver of social change. Education is key to creating, applying and spreading new ideas and technologies, which in turn are critical for sustained growth. Through DE program, we are enabling an environment to change the role of the students from passive receivers of information to active constructors of knowledge.

Snaps and press coverage can be viewed at:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AZOWbZy4asndA

http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/24/stories/2008072459860800.htm

http://www.tn.gov.in/pressrelease/pr230708/pr230708e.htm

Genpact Team visits a DE Center in Hyderabad

2008-07-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Genpact volunteers interacting with the students

Genpact's (an IT Multinational) team of 32 members with 7 expatriates visited the Railways Girls' High School, a graduated DE center in Hyderabad, on 19th July. They came with an intention of imparting life skills to the students and to interact with them. The team had people from a variety of backgrounds - Marketing, Finance and IT and couple of them also with Business Management (IIM graduates) background.

The worry initially was the language barrier but the team was surprised with the kind of enthusiasm and effort, the students put in, in understanding them. Railways school has only recently been converted into an English medium from Telugu medium of instruction, and they have been working hard to master their English Language skills using internal and external resources. While the volunteers were consciously making an attempt to keep their talks slow and simple, the students made an effort to be attentive and proactive.

The visiting team was divided and assigned small groups of students each. In all about 480 students took part in the activity. The volunteers mainly focused on career development and guidance on how to move ahead in different career streams of today. As felt by the school authorities, the presence of Genpact team and their interaction with students was a great exposure and the girl students received it very well.

Mr. Prabhakar, a senior teacher expressed in his own words, "It was a dream-come-true for the students of our school. I’m sure, the 32-member team from Genpact felt the same. The queries and questions asked by the students surprised them. Afterwards, they shared their experience with me. Most of the students are first generation learners with great ambition in life. And this visit has certainly had its impact on the minds of these young girls in building their careers".

Innovative ideas to capacity-build DE Coordinators - Punjab

2008-07-21T03:08:00.000-07:00

As known under the DE program, a coordinator imparts computer and internet education to students and teachers through comprehensive activity based learning technique.

Hence, capacity building of the coordinators is a very crucial component in imparting training to the teachers. In view of this, the coordinators in Punjab have been asked to develop and work on projects that are based on subject topics, using Project Based Learning approach, every month. The best project for the month is decided by a panel of experts and shared with the coordinators during the monthly review meetings.

This idea has helped the coordinators in exploring deeper into subjects and improving their expertise through the use of technology. Moreover, it keeps them constantly engaged in meaningful activities and identifying newer ways of teaching.

Going forward, such projects by the coordinators will be shared on Delight, as and when they are made.

DE Artists!

2008-07-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

This section is dedicated to exhibiting the art works of students in DE projects. The images above are made by students of GSS Ratti Rori Daggo Romana, Faridkot, as part of a project on Eclipses.

Students involved in this project studied the various forms of Eclipses and how the positions of Sun, Earth and Moon change in these different forms. With their own innovative way of presenting a diagrammatic representation of eclipses, they drew these pictures using Paint Brush tool and included these in their essays.

Cheers to their creativity and to DE, for making this happen!

'Srujanika' Workshop for DE Coordinators, Orissa

2008-07-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

Training in Progress

Srujanika Workshop was conducted in order to sensitize DE coordinators on how to deal with young minds at schools. The workshop, that happened during the third week of May, also focused on activities that use readily available materials around us that could go a long way in making students understand concepts better. Emphasis was laid on the use of natural objects and phenomena for exciting a scientific curiosity in the child's mind and for encouraging them to do things themselves to explore and understand the principles of science in an enjoyable way.

For instance, DE coordinators were introduced to 'Origamy'. Origamy is a Japanese method of paper folding and is being used worldwide as a tool for learning Geometry and related concepts. Students understand various geometrical patterns, theorems, angles by the activity of paper folding. Since, the two sides of the origamy paper are of two different colors, the products emerging out of this activity appear very attractive. This is seen as a potential 'learning by doing' activity that would interest children owing to its varied characteristics.

Additionally, Srujanika training focused on a constructivist pedagogy, based on activity / problem based learning approach in dealing with students while discussing on science. The Coordinators learnt about the principles of learning and activities and additional reading materials were provided to them to design these activities.

All this learning would be taken back by the coordinators to make their annual plans for implementation during the academic year, which has begun in April 08 but would resume operations from early July.

DE students explore an archaeological site!!!

2008-07-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

Students and DE team at the site

DE Project students exploring an archaeological site and learning concepts of geometry, structures, etc sounds imaginative?! Well, it may sound more realistic now, thanks to our coordinator and DE team in Bhubaneswar.

Balakati Boys’ High School, located about 12 km from Bhubaneswar, the capital of the state of Orissa, is rich with its cultutral environment. Adding to this cultural richness is the presence of 64-Yogini temple of Hirapur - just 1 km from the school. School students knew about the site but did not know the heritage value of the school. Nor did they know about the historians, who were involved in the construction of the site.

The idea of exploring the site emerged when the DE coordinator, Santanu Mishra, thought that students could perhaps develop a better sense of belonging to the subject of history, when given an opportunity to practically explore such sites. DE team elicited responses from students of grades 8th and 9th about the site and initiated students into study of Iconography. After being briefly described about the architecture of the sites, students went to the site and were asked triggering questions by facilitators and coordinators. They asked the local guide about the features of the deities, how to identify them, the type of rock used in the construction and the like.

Students discovered, that the temple is a hypetheral temple i.e., a rounded temple without roof. And students were asked to measure its perimeter and area. Other architectural features were identified and measured by using geometrical formulae. DE Coordinator and science teacher explained the concept of area of geometrical shapes and explained the rationale of formulae of the area of circle, triangle, etc. Students came back to the school, discussed their findings amongst themselves. They downloaded photographs, and documented their description using computers.

Now, they feel so much more knowledgeable about it. Indeed, DE has proved to be a great tool to have the concepts understood in a better way!

Adobe Youth Voices Year End event - Delhi

2008-07-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) Program completed successful two years in India with a total of 25 sites in Delhi & Bangalore. The second year completion was marked through a ceremony held in Delhi where 260 young participants from 10 AIF-DE schools & NGO sites from Delhi, Noida & Gurgaon along with their teachers and media mentors were present to share their experiences and showcase their media projects. The program was implemented by American India Foundation with financial support from Adobe Systems Inc.

During the event, documentaries & photo essays created by the participants addressing socio-economic, education, environment and other community issues were showcased. Films like Home Work, Do I Know (My Fundamental Rights), Little Mind were appreciated by all. Dr. Kiran Bedi (Ex IPS Officer) graced the occasion as Chief Guest and awarded certificate to the students and their educators.

Dr Bedi praised the work done by students & interacted with them. She spoke about the ability where all the five senses of a human being are employed and which collectively enhance creativity in a person to act in the right manner. For children this form of education will be more effective in the present competitive scenario. Through such activities children imbibe life skills which further reflect in their studies, projects & extra curricular activities and it's important, she urged, that the students to take all the learning forward and make it an integral part of their lives.

Also present were Dr. Naresh Gupta Senior vice-president (PCPBU) and Managing director (Adobe India) along with his wife Nidhi Gupta, Nidhi Raj Kapoor (Director Communications - The American India Foundation Trust), Rashmi Soni (Senior Communications Manager - Adobe India).

"I am very pleased to see the incremental success of this program. Our vision for Adobe Youth Voices is to grow the program within our existing locations and to increase its reach and response by adding new sites and support." says Dr Gupta. "We want to further solidify the base of educators and media mentors available so that they can effectively share resources and ideas and support a larger number of youth to prepare them for 21 century critical skills." he added.

In India, AYV has seen great improvement in reach and response in year 2 after implementation was taken over by AIF as the numbers of sites have increased from 14 to 25, total student participation has increased from 320 to 700, total number of educators has increased from 28 to 51 and the number of projects created has gone up to 45 from 17.

My First Day at the blog by J Sundarakrishnan - Director, DE operations

2008-07-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

In the coming weeks here at DElight, you’re going to read a lot about the exciting educational work that’s being done with technologies in DE schools like Tracker software, Video Documentaries, Animation, Projects Based Learning, Bal Mela - just to name a few. But before we jump too far ahead, it might be useful to talk about where all of this got started: blogs.

If you don’t know what a blog is, you’re not alone; according to reports, nearly two-thirds of Internet users don’t have a good idea of the meaning of “blog.” In case you fall within this group, you’re in luck, though - you’re looking at a blog right now!

But this is just a website, right? Yes, it’s true. Blogs are a type of website, but there’s more to it than that. While no one’s exactly sure how many blogs there are, estimates often range from 30 to 100 million of them, all over the world.

Anyone can start a blog. Right now!

Of course, there’s a bigger question - why would we, as a DE team, want to create our own blog? The answer to that might vary , but here are a few thoughts which came to my mind

Communicate with Donors/ Partners/ Stakeholders: I can see blogging as an outreach tool for interacting with donors or partners. It’s not always possible to have a face-to-face interaction with partners, especially in a set up with different time zones and busy schedules. A blog allows us to summarize what’s going on in the program and share it with the partners/ stakeholders. And most blogging tools allow readers to comment on what’s been posted, so partners are able to respond to different blog entries and have an online conversation with the team.

Communicate with Experts/ Peers / Teachers: The DE program team can blog so that they can have a professional dialogue with their colleagues. Everyone can benefit from discussing the various challenges we all face in our work, and blogs serve as a mechanism for sharing those ideas. Some bloggers in the ICT4D space have quite a following because of their knowledge, thinking and creativity. In many ways, blogs like these serve the same purpose that email discussion lists have served for more than a decade - they become a platform for discussing topics of interest to a large group of people. Blogging is different, though, in that it’s more personal and intimate, customized to your professional interests and needs.

Showcase student work: There’s nothing like seeing a Coordinator/Facilitator/Teacher beam with pride because of the success of their students. Blogs can be used as a platform for highlighting the best work of your students, showcasing their talent to an audience that goes beyond the classroom.

At this point of time I am hoping that the DE team would be sharing the developments on the ground regularly to promote the cause of a meaningful interaction among the DE fraternity and look forward to an active participation with many of you.

You are requested to post your comments/ suggestions at digitalequalizerblog@gmail.com

Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) Year End Event - Bangalore

2008-07-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) celebrated its end of the year II celebrations at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, on July 1st. The event was graced by Ms. Tara, a popular Kannada Cine actress and winner of several National awards and Sri A S Murthy, a popular theater artist and great lover of kids. All the 15 sites from Bangalore participated in the event and 15 different films belonging to each one of them separately were screened. These works consisted of several documentaries, animation films and photo essays that covered a range of social issues.

Mr. J Sundarakrishnan, Director, DE Operations presented the vote of thanks on this occasion. He mentioned that AIF has moved upward from being a participating partner to an implementation partner. He expressed that the AYV program has created "enhancement clusters" and the way forward was to identify champions from these clusters to increase the coverage of students for new projects in the existing sites so that benefits could be maximized.

Also present at the event were Smt. Vandita Sharma, Secretary of Primary and Secondary Education department, Govt of Karnataka and Mr. Tridib Roy Choudhury, Director of products, Adobe India.

To view more images, pls visit

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AZOWbZy4asnZQ

SVB Visits GHS Cotton Pet

2008-06-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

Kim, Ash Lilani, Suresh and Roma from Silicon Valley Bank, visited Govt High School, Cotton Pet. Students took them on a virtual tour of the school through a PowerPoint presentation and showed them the art works and other DE-related projects made in the school as part of the program. We had several photos, students had clicked, as part of AYV project and these snaps were displayed on the table, across the corner of the DE lab. Visitors were thoroughly impressed with the way school has been performing in the program and expressed it openly. They wanted to have a copy of one of the snaps in a conference room in their US office!

Towards the end of their visit, the group members decided to announce a scholarship for the students of the school, who will pass out of their 10th grade in the coming academic year (March 09 exams). Accordingly, 3 boys and 3 girls, who are the toppers in their respective categories, would be supported by the group, up until the completion of their Pre-University Course (11th and 12th grades). They made this announcement to the 10th grade class students directly, which is definitely motivating for the students.

AMAT goes green

2008-06-24T01:38:00.001-07:00

Applied Materials (AMAT) and AIF, together celebrated Earth Day on April 22^nd 2008 at Govt High School, Jodihosakuru, a full service DE center funded and supported by AMAT. The idea cropped up with AMAT wanting to have its employees participate in community activity and what better way could it be, than having them plant saplings at the DE Center and educating them about the importance of growing and fostering trees!

AMAT partnered with Tress for Free, an organization that helped us in getting the saplings free of cost. As many as 30 different spots were identified in the school premise and saplings were planted, jointly by AMAT/AIF employee volunteers, teachers and students. The School Development Committee president also showed up towards the end of the program and, as active as he always is, assured that proper protection would be ensured around these saplings

Karnataka DE program rolls into the II year

2008-06-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

The Karnataka large scale DE program, a partnership between AIF and Govt of Karnataka, has rolled into the II year, with the beginning of the fresh academic year. June 08 marked the start of a new academic year in most southern parts of the country and children, vehemently, have started getting back to their schools with loads of books, pens and excitement!

The 40 odd coordinators of the program attended a workshop during the last week of May and revisited DE objectives, prepared their annual plans, so as to be completely equipped to go to the schools back. The road blocks faced in the 1^st year of the program, are all resolved. Govt of Karnataka has refurbished all the computers in Mahithi Sindhu project and these are now ready to use.