OLPC India/DBF/Bangalore.Parikrma

Your Insight to OLPC India Pilot Site at Bangalore-Parikrma

About the Site

Parikrma Humanity Foundation is a nonprofit company aiming to help the poorest of the poor break their cycle of poverty and to enable them to live meaningfully.http://www.parikrmafoundation.org/ 30 XO laptops are deployed for their Adobe Learning Centre.

Parikrma Centre for Learning

Demographics of the Site and School

Parikrma Kids on XO

Fascinated by XO

School Name : Parikrma Center for Learning

Establishment Year : 2003

Education Board : ICSE

Type(Municipal/Government/Private): Parikrma Humanity Foundation (Private)

Location: 7 kms from Bangalore Station (South Bangalore)

Nearest Railway Station: Bangalore

Address: Jayanagar, Bangalore

School In-charge: Kalpana Singh

Affiliation: Parikrma Humanity Foundation, Bangalore

Timings

8.15 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.( Monday-Friday) 08.15 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.( Saturday)

Holiday Calendar: As per Karnataka State Education Department

Number of Teachers/Administration staff: 14

Funding of the Project

Foundation Making Miles for Millennium (http://www.metersmakenvoormillennium.nl)

Driving across the world with a mission: 'Primary education for every child'. Dutch couple Gertie Clabbers (32) and Harrie Vollaard (36) are driving 20.000 km in 6 months with their old timer Volkswagen campervan because of the millennium goal. On their route they visit and support with their foundation Making Miles for Millennium several OLPC implementations in Russia, Mongolia, Nepal and India.

Start of the Project

10th September,2008 :-

Parikrma Foundation got started with OLPC project on 10th Sept 2008. Here is in brief a day spend at school with kids and teachers with XO around.

30 XO laptops had reached the premises of the Parikrma a week ago. Surprisingly most children on the premises knew about it. The teachers were already given four XO laptops two months in advance for them to explore.Though they had not studied Sugar and other features of the laptop in detail.

Mrs. Shukla Bose, Founder of Parikrma prepared for an Art Exhibition in the US with all the paintings done by children at all four center. A view of the paintings is given below :-

Art Work Done by Kid at Parikrma

Ganesha on Cycle

What a beauty!

The children created such art work on the XO and then shared so that others could have a glimpse of their imagination.

The teachers quickly adopted constructive ways of teaching in the class, very different from the traditional ways of teaching. They had adopted a system of continuous assessment, monthly tests and thus not overloading the children with a final exam pressure. They also pay special attention to subjects like art , music and sports. The teachers of the school also had recieved some formal training from external consultants/experts in creative methods of teaching.

Before starting to discuss the features of XO laptop, the launching team spent a few minutes discussing how XO laptop could be used in their classroom for teaching.

Starting with hardware and software features, the team discussions had on various activities. They did a few exercises with teachers on mesh network. Various activities in the XO caught their attention and after some time they were all lost in the XO world. The inaugural team spent the complete afternoon and early evening with the teachers exploring XO and discussing various ideas they had about it.

Teachers at Parikrma on the XO

Teachers exploring Sugar on XO

Express your Views

Kids at Parikrma Centre,Bangalore

In 2009 another 25 XO laptops were donated to Parikrma.

Key Educational Links

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_activity_guidelines

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sample_learning_activities

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