IT for Change's blog

On the 21^st of July IT for Change organised an interaction for around 50 student-teachers from Netherlands and around 20 of their counterparts from Bangalore.

These student-teachers from The Netherlands were part of Edukans Education Experience Program where students exchange information and knowledge with students abroad. The Indian students were from a teacher training institute called Nottredam. These groups had interacted with each other in various other educational environments over the past 10 days. The agenda of the interaction with the TCoL team was to understand the project, the role of ICTs in Education and its possibilities for the future.

The interaction started with an introduction to the project, which was followed by a short briefing on the National Curriculum Framework and its guiding principles regarding the aims of education, pedagogical practises and Social Dynamic and Concerns prevailing in the Indian Society (from an educational perspective)

This was followed by a demonstration of the computer aided education tools that are being used in the TCoL programme. Mathematics tools such as Geogebra along with some English language and Geography tools were demonstrated, which was followed by a discussion on the usefulness and applicability of these tools.

The students from Netherlands especially loved the Kgeography tool and had a good time figuring out their country’s map and where all its districts lie.

Overall, the students felt that the TCoL was indeed a unique project. One remarked saying that she was really happy that the project was concentrating on teachers and teacher’s empowerment which is so essential to any education system.
This event also opened up new possibilities that such a pilot project can offer to the current teachers. Our NCF 2005 is such a powerful book, which even a developed country like Netherlands cannot offer an alternative too. This batch of students were also impressed that we were using free and open source educational tools within the system as Netherlands still relies on proprietary formats for its ICTs based education. Thus, the interaction turned out to be a learning experience for both the student-teachers and the TCoL team.

The session ended on a sing-song note with a chirpy “thank you” song and dance by the Dutch students which was aped by the Indian students as well! (A picture of this can be found below)

The Dutch Students singing and dancing to their "Thank you" Song

The Government schools have reopened, which means the TCoL team is back in action! During the month of June, we visited our chosen schools and have been installing Ubuntu in the computers there. During the installation process, we have been training the teachers and the students to install this themselves. We had a great experience in G.M.P.S Puttenahalli, where two 9th standard boys installed Ubuntu on 10 machines themselves, after Anupama had just shown them to do it on one. They then started exploring the tools within it, for example, Kgeograpahy, Stellarium etc. It is heartening to see that when children are given the freedom to use the computer, they learn so much by themselves. Unfortunately this does not happen in most schools though, where computer rooms are locked up, children are not allowed to touch computers, too much supervision etc.

Another exciting fact for us was that, the teachers were glad to see us when we visited their school. The comfort level was higher than in the first visit and they were more open about their problems, their usage and what they expected from the project. They also seem more open to learning new tools and exploring different things during the project. Thus, the trust between the schools and the TCoL team is growing.

However, the project still faces its share number of challenges. Constant changes within the government bureacracy, lack of internet facilities, multiple duties of teachers are some of these and within the team itself understanding these challeges as well as how to apply the software tools to the current teaching process. One important hurdle for us to cross is to figure out how to initiate teacher interaction and networking and sustain it.

We also conducted a computer aided learning workshop recently, where the agenda was to introduce the teachers to the web-portal bangalore.karnatakaeducation.org.in and tools such as blogging and discussion forums. We discussed the idea of ICTs in Education, what teachers felt of it and its possibilities, how does it compare to what they are already doing and what areas of improvement did they feel they needed. Finally, we introduced some free and open source educational software to the teachers in the subjects of Mathematics, Logic, Geography and English.

It was good to see that teachers felt that they needed new methods of teaching to supplement the old and felt the need to be on par with private schools. It was also interesting to see that they felt that the main purpose of education was to prepare children to face challenges of tomorrow’s society. Ideas of behaviourism versus constructivism were introduced to them as well as the National Curriculum Framework, which most of the teachers had not yet herd of.

One of the unique aspects of this project is that, we keep asking the teachers what they would like to learn/do in it. These teachers are not used to being asked what they want, so most of the time they have no answer. But, this is improving slowly and steadily. They still think about the school children, what they would like and how to teach them that. But there are signs of their own empowerment coming across in they way that they talk and the way that they interact with one another. They do realise that they need to worry about themselves and build their own knowledge. Only then they feel they will be useful to their students as well.

This was emphasised in the second day of the above mentioned workshop one Maths teacher requested to address another teacher on a problem that she had raised in the online discussion forum. The teacher came up to the podium and addressed the teacher concerned (in default the rest of the participants as well). According to me, this was the highlight of the day where suddenly the project and the team disappeared from the space. It was a teachers space and they were interacting with one another, just using the space provided by us!

We look forward to providing more spaces like this and facilitating more interaction. Exciting times ahead! The teachers now have to choose a topic to explore ICT tools for during the next one year. In the meanwhile, we will be using tools like www.way2sms.com and www.bangalore.karnatakaeducation.org.in to interact and help them.

Krittika Vishwanath

The Teacher’s Communities of Learning Project aims to initiate computer aided learning in Government School Classrooms as well as introduce the idea of teachers networks among 35-40 teachers in one of the blocks in Bangalore.

The project began in March with an orientation workshop where we introduced teachers to the project idea. This was met with a mix of enthusiasm and confusion at the same time. Here we were trying to ask teachers what they want for their own professional development and they kept telling us what they want for the children in the classroom! (This is but one of the many challenges the project faces).

The month after this workshop was spent on school visits, where we saw the situation of computers in the schools, discussed general school issues, interacted with the teachers and the HMs of the schools. The picture on the left is not an anomaly. In a lot of schools, computers are kept along with utensils, other school items and even sewing machines! This coupled with the fact that teachers are not adequately trained to use the computers leads to non-use and sometimes mis-use as well. (We even found videos of porn in one computer).

Thus, the future success of this project lies in getting teachers excited about using computers and interacting with one another. The former seems easier to do as interest in computers has always been there. The networking bit however might prove to be a tough nut to crack. Suggestions, Comments welcome!