Project Smart shala in Dantewada, Jharkhand

Shifting the Teaching-Learning gears from ‘Black board’ to ‘Digital Classroom’

The Journey:

Low attendance rate of students coupled with unavailability of subject teacher in primary and upper primary schools have reduced the quality of teaching in the class rooms. In order to cater to these two problems, it was thought that if Smart class room can be created, students will be attracted to come to school and participate in the class room. At the same time, teaching by use of ICT will help the issue of unavailability of subject teacher. As an ADF, I proposed to take up the smart class room initiative in few Govt schools. However, the very idea was not accepted by the district administration. Without leaving the hope, I put all my efforts to demonstrate it one school by raising funds through crowd funding and try to convince the administration. Raised Rs 50,000 as crowd fund and then demonstrated it in one school. Within 50 days, the results such as attendance, parents’ footfalls in SMC and students willingness to discuss the topics raised in class room increased. A report was submitted to the district administration as a result it’s now being scaled up in 100 schools through CSR funding.

Aim & Objective:

To boost the quality of education in Primary and Upper Primary schools via ICT models and providing e-education access to children and teachers.

Intervention in 2 schools through crowd funding, Lead District administration to scale it in 100 schools.

A demo lecture on Food Chain to class 5 under Smart Shallas

 

The Classroom Revolution

In smart shallas, a computer with a speaker connection and a projector displays the subject contents, that is available on DISHA platform also NCERT contents are available on its website. Moreover, the QR codes are also available in the text books, along with some concepts that are accessible on the Youtube. The subject contents are either being taught by an in-house teacher or an external teacher from a faraway place through the video conferencing method or offline recording and sharing via watsapp. The walls are being painted with Logo of Google, FB, Twitter etc, so that the children are exposed to the new forms of communication.

Components Price
Laptop 20,000
Projector 22,000
Speaker 500
Wall Paintings 10,000
e-content NCERT/DISHA/QRcode/YouTube

 

Impact:

These digital classrooms are helping the students to improve their attention; teachers of such pilot schools have reported that there have been reductions in absenteeism and school dropouts. The students have learnt how to start a computer and play their VLMs, by their own. There are some outstanding outcomes, revealed by teachers, like regular attendance, ease in teaching learning process, building communication between teacher and students, increase in community participation, peer learning, students discussion etc. Smart Shallas, got dumped in 100 seconds; now will be going to 100 Schools.