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Your Insight to OLPC 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.
Demographics of the Site and School
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 today. 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. And to our (myself and my senior colleague Harriet Vidyasagar) surprise most of the kids 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.
As soon as we entered the campus, the XO laptop in my hand caught the attention of a lot of kids playing on the ground. They came running towards me and the only question on their mind was: when would I get my XO laptop? They were even more excited on holding the laptop and after some time all I could see is couple of hands on the keyboard!
Then on entering the centre we met Mrs. Shukla, Founder of Parikrma. She was preparing for an Art Exhibition in US with all the paintings done by kids at all four centres. This what the paintings looked like :-
And all these images got me thinking about the kids doing such art work on the XO and then sharing it so that we all get to catch the glimpse of their imagination. Harriet will work with Shukla to see how she can help support their Art programme in the USA to help them raise funds for more XOs in the school. Harriet is also interested in working with Art teachers and artists to create a programme for children working with drawing and paint programmes on the XO.
After that we got our selves introduced to the computer teacher who was accompanied by the teachers of second and third grade. The plan was to give an XO laptop to each kid in second grade.
Then we had some discussion with the teachers on different methods adopted by them for teaching the kids in constructive way. And soon we realised that they had already 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 kids 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.
So before we started discussing the features of XO laptop, we spent a few minutes discussing how XO laptop could be used in their classroom for teaching.
Then we got started with XO: starting with hardware and software features. After that we had discussions on various activities. We did a few exercise 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. We spent the complete afternoon and early evening with the teachers exploring XO and discussing various ideas they had about it.
These XO laptops would be handed over to kids soon in the coming week. Mrs. Shukla intends to have a parent meeting in which they would be introduced to the OLPC project.
- Amit G
Participants
Harriet Vidyasagar,Digital Bridge Foundation (outofindia@gmail.com)
Amit Gogna,Digital Bridge Foundation (amit.gognaa@gmail.com)
Express your Views
23rd April,2008 :- On having the meeting with Parikrma Foundation Founder-CEO and Marketing Head we learned their interest to have 120 laptops for their centre. While the meeting was on and we were explaining them the features of XO laptop suddenly we had their soccer team arrived. There were all smiling faces around because they had won.Atmosphere was really electrifying.And then we had the CEO giving them candies for their achievement.
After that we had a look at their Computer Labs which would be used by the kids to surf internet, play games etc. I was of the opinion that they could have their lab shifted to Open Source OS like Ubuntu etc. We did have a little discussion on it. After that we had look at there e-learning classroom which they have equipped well enough to enable to learning for distant centres.
Support Team - Bangalore
I look forward for support from people from Bangalore and around for supporting this project.With support from you only can we have sustainable and successful running OLPC projects across the country.
Also I appeal to linux user groups in Bangalore to lend their support for this cause.
Key Educational Links
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_activity_guidelines
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sample_learning_activities