OLPC India/DBF/Bangalore-Aradhna

Your Insight to OLPC Pilot Site at Bangalore - Aradhna Convent School

About the Site

Demographics of the Site and School

School Name : Aradhna Convent School

Nearest Railway Station: Bangalore

Address: Aradhna Convent, Arekere, I.I. MPOST, Bangalore – 560076, India

Head of the Institute: Sr. Mariamma Kunnackal

Head of the School: Sr. Jacinta

Secretary of the School: Sr. Shirley

Holiday Calendar: As per Karnataka State Education Department

Number of Students: 1200

Grade: KG to 10th std.

School has a Dial-up Internet Connection available(Students don't have access to it). They are consideringa broadband connection.

Start of the Project

Kids at Aradhna Convent

Kids at Aradhna Convent

9th September,2008 :- This was our first day in Bangalore for OLPC deployments here. My colleague Harriet and I decided to start with Aradhna Convent.We reached school by early afternoon. There we met Sr. Mariamma who was the Head of the Institution. They told us that they had been waiting for us to get them started with the project since it was almost a week that they had recieved the XO laptops.There we also met Sr. Jacinta, Principal of the School and Sr. Shirley , Sec. of the School.

We started our programme with a small group of teachers sittinga round a table in the Principal's office. As usual we started with discussion on what was their idea about effective and constructive learning. In return we got some responses such as: practical learning, learning by Audio-Visual Aids and Experiments, co-relating textual concepts to real life could prove effective for learning. They also mentioned that every period in the class was of 40 min and it was difficult at times to adopt different methods of learning keeping in mind that they had to complete syllabus on time.

We then discussed how the XO can prove effective and fullfil some of their expectations in learning. We handed over the XOs tot he teachers for what we have begun to term "The Opening Ceremony"! Its a great deal of fun and a wonderful ice-breaking excercise. They get their first physical feel of the XO and by the time they get to opening it ...the "wow" factor of this amazing machine begins to creep in. The teachers around had to struggle a lot for opening the XO laptop. Finally one of the teachers managed to do so. We introduced them to various features of XO laptop(Some of the teachers thought that the antenna was some part to lock the laptop).We introduced them to Sugar and then some little exercises on various activites in it. They enjoyed working and collaborating on mesh and began to see many ways in which they could use it. By the end of the day they all were very enthused about XO laptop. We were informed by Sr. Mariamma that if this project goes well, their sponsors would be interested in supporting a larger number of Xos in this school.

Opening Ceremony of XO

Opening Ceremony of XO

As of now they have 10 XO laptops and they plan to deploy these laptops in one of the grades in primary section. There are about 40 students in each class. And on each desk they have four students seated. So we discussed the prospects of having one XO laptop on each desk.

Soon we would have the kids in the school working on the XO laptops.And look forward for the teachers and kids to narrate their experience on the wiki.

-Amit G

Participants

Principal

School Teachers

Harriet Vidyasagar (outofindia@gmail.com)- Digital Bridge Foundation

Amit Gogna (amit.gognaa@gmail.com)- Digital Bridge Foundation

Sor Pilar Castañeda - Caritas Spain

Francisco Hernandez (francisco@hernandezmarcos.net) - Volunteer at Caritas Spain

Financing

This project has been financed by several companies and individuals in Spain. It is a pilot project. If proved to be useful and conviniently implemented, there will be a fundraising effort in Spain to significantly increase the number of computers.

Express Your Views

Here teachers, students and various support members would express their experiences and views on the Project.

I want to be assosiated with this project, How can I go about it.

Vasuman Das C.J 21, 5th cross, S.G.Layout, VR pura, B'lore-560097

OLPC Support Group-Bangalore

I urge to all the people in and around Bangalore having interest in education to support this beginning we have made with OLPC - An Education Project. aws