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. Jaciuta
Sec. of the School: Sr. Shirley
Holiday Calendar: As per Karnataka State Education Department
Number of Students: 1200
Grade: KG to 10th std.
School have Dial-up Internet Connection avialable(Students don't have access to it)
Start of the Project
9th September,2008 :- This was our first day in Bangalore for OLPC deployments here. My collague Harriet and myself decided to start with Aradhna Convent.We reached school by early afternoon. There we met Sr. Mariamma incharge of the institute. 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. Jaciuta, Principal of the School and Sr. Shirley , Sec. of the School.
So we started our programme with some teachers around 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 response 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 they every period in the class was of 40min and it was difficult at times to adopt different methods of learning keeping in mind that they had to complete syllabus on time.
So now we discussed how XO can prove effective in this case.And now was the time for the opening ceremony of the XO laptop.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. They all were very enthused about XO laptop.
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 (harriet@laptop.org)- Digital Bridge Foundation
Amit Gogna (amitg@laptop.org)- Digital Bridge Foundation
Express Your Views
Here teachers, students and various support members would express their experiences and views on the Project.
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.