Pushpa and C.B.Jain Centre for Technology - Stewart School Bhubaneswar, 5th July 2011

American India Foundation has set up a state of the art technology center in Stewart School Bhubaneshwar and will be implementing two of its signature programs as mentioned below, for the academic year 2011-2013. The center has been set up with a generous grant of the Jain brothers (Arun Jain and Ajit Jain - Stewart School alumni) - sons of Mr. CB Jain, a retired IAS officer belonging to the Orissa cadre. The centre has been christened as "Pushpa and CB Jain Centre for Technology." It is interesting to note that Mr. Ajit Jain is Head Insurance in the Berkshire Hathaway Group of Warren Buffet and is reputed to be the second in line of importance after Mr. Buffet himself.

Advanced Corporate Programs for Stewart School, Bhubaneswar

• Connected Classroom
• Adove Youth Voices

Connected Classroom

Connected Classroom has an ability to stimulate learning on multiple levels, technology can enhance the classroom experience for both teachers and students. The highlights of the program are as below:

Provide Purpose-Built Technology

Equipping teachers and students of all ages with technology designed just for them is one feature of the Connected Classroom. The Latitude™ 2100 netbook is designed to meet the technology needs of students from primary to secondary schools, and is suitable for any classroom environment. It also offers a broad range of notebooks in the Latitude E Series family, powered by Intel^® Core™2 Duo Processors, for more complex applications. Ideal for teachers, the Latitude XT2 Tablet is an ultra-portable, high-performance device. With a multitouch screen and pen, it allows for greater teacher-student interaction.

Address Multiple Learning Styles

Using multimedia technology to provide visual, auditory and kinesthetic experiences, teachers can significantly increase their students’ understanding and retention of lessons. Interactive whiteboards, projectors and audio systems help teachers differentiate instruction for multiple learning styles, individualize lessons for each student’s needs and encourage students to collaborate and communicate their ideas through technology.

Assess Student Progress

Teachers are able to encourage participation and track student progress through response systems designed to help engage and actively assess student performance. These systems can also be used to encourage critical thinking and problem solving by enabling students to create questions as part of the learning process.

Enable Everywhere Learning

 

Extending the classroom beyond its four walls is another feature of the Connected Classroom. From any device, it can assist in providing access to rich content from any device so that students can access learning material anytime, anywhere — from the classroom to the kitchen table.

Adobe Youth Voices

Adobe Youth Voices is a program with three guiding principles: Engage, Enhance, Exhibit

Engaging young people in exciting and meaningful new ways, Adobe Youth Voices provides an unparalleled opportunity for middle school and high school youth to communicate their concerns, aspirations, and vision. Young people, who may have been feeling disengaged, learn how to think creatively, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively — all critically important skills that can help them attain a competitive edge in school, their careers, and life.

Enhancing educators' skills and resources, the program provides comprehensive professional development in teaching strategies that incorporate cutting-edge digital tools. Those who work with youth can learn new ways to encourage the use of 21st century communications skills in telling stories that make a real impact.

Exhibiting participants' work is a key element of the Adobe Youth Voices program. The program provides youth with forums in which to share their vision and voice for a public purpose — via traveling art exhibits, film screenings, festivals, Internet, publications and through other local and global venues.

In India, American India Foundation is the partner for implementing Adobe Youth Voices in 46 sites (Government, Aided & NGO run schools) in Delhi & NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad and/or Orissa.

Adobe Youth Voices portal help collaborate educators & youth to other partner sites and prove an online platform to share thought & work around the globe.

DE Working Group Meeting

The DE Working Group Meeting under the Chairmanship of the Additional Secretary SME Department, Shri IC Barda, OAS (SAG) was held on the 30^th of May 2011. The meeting started at 10.50 am and ended at 11.45 am. The other members who attended the meeting are as follows:

• Aparti Mallick, OAS (S), Joint Secretary, SME Department
• Subrata Sarkar, State Program Manager, AIFT

The following decisions were taken as part of the meeting:

• The annual plan based on the output indicators (Program Booklet on Syllabus Based Learning using Computers), for the Secondary Schools will be sent to the teacher trainees by the SME Department.
• Annual plan for the Upper Primary Schools need to be reconciled with Samadhan before being issued by the department.
• AIFT will depute its trainers to visit the department once a week, to give inputs to the trainees for better use of computers as part of their day to day work.
• OPEPA will send their hardware experts to the 52 Secondary Schools included as part of the DE program, to have a look at the hardware problems and make the non-functional systems functional.

DE Team - Internal Review

A Digital Equalizer (DE) review meeting was held on the 13th of May, 2011 in the State Resource Centre (SRC), SCERT, Bhubaneswar. The meeting started at 10.00 am and ended at 6.00 pm.

 The meeting was attended by the following participants:  

J. Sundarakrishnan,                            Director, Digtal Equalizer Program, AIFT

Subrat Sarkar                                     SPM, Digital Equalizer Program, AIFT, Orissa

Anup Mohanty                                    Zonal Coordinator

Santanu Kumar Mishra                         Trainer, SCERT, Bhubaneswar

Gulty Rath                                         Trainer, SCERT, Bhubaneswar

Mrutunjay Mishra                                Trainer, RNIASE, Cuttack

Sanjay Biswal                                     Trainer, PMIASE, Sambalpur

Shanti Bhusan Padhi                            Trainer, DPIASE, Berhampur

Manoranjan Bhoi                                 Trainer, DIET, Dolipur

Mohan Chand Padhan                          Trainer, DIET, Sambalpur

Chinmaya Kumar Sahoo                       Trainer, DIET, Khallikote

Pankaj Kumar Pati                               Monitoring Expert, Sambalpur & Bargarh

Jyoti Prakash Sahu                              Monitoring Expert, Ganjam & Gajapati

Soumya Ranjan Rout                            Monitoring Expert, Kendrapada

The following issues were discussed as part of the meeting:    

•  The core objectives of the program were discussed by Director, DE.          
• The main advantage of having this new model (Centralised Resource Centre Training Model) was highlighted by the Director.
• Zone wise presentations were made by trainers and concerned monitoring expert.
•  Zone wise training status and output indicators were discussed threadbare.
•   Director laid stress on the initiatives we can incorporate to achieve our output indicators at the school level.
• Director focused mainly on field level issues such as teacher training and support at the school level by the monitoring expert.

The following decisions were taken as part of the meeting:

• Effective utilisation of the time by the monitoring expert spent at the school level. This presupposes a thorough planning on the part of the coordinators before they start visiting a particular school.
• Monitoring expert to give time to classroom observation to validate whether the concerned teacher is imparting pedagogy sections effectively.
• Sensitization workshops for teacher facilitators to be conducted at the Zonal Resource Centres   by the monitoring experts, on a monthly basis .
• The SCERT Trainers were instructed to conduct workshops (Value Addition in integrating technology in teaching) for the Teacher Educators at the respective Zonal Centres after the completion of 18 days of training at SRC.
• The teacher educators of the six zonal centres to conduct training sessions for teacher trainees undergoing training at the Zonal Resource Centres(ZRC).
• Zone wise competition for trained teachers designing good projects and conducting lab transactions.
• Monitoring experts shall make a register and make a note of student’s (rand picked) views on the DE Program.
• Monitoring experts will make a note of how students are conducting lab transactions in presence of the teacher.
• Monitoring expert will observe as to how teachers are conducting lab transactions effectively using EDUKIT.
• The Coordinators were asked to make DST and submit it by 3^rd of July.

DE Review Meeting

A DE review meeting was held on the 13th of April 11. The meeting was chaired by the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, School and Mass Education Department and the others who attended the meeting are as follows:
IC Barda, Additional Secretary, SME Dept
BC Patnaik, Joint Secretary, SME Dept
Aparti Mallick,Joint Secretary, SME Dept 
Subrat Sarkar, State Program Manager, AIF
The following decisions were taken as part of the meeting:

• Training to start in all the remaining three centres – DPIASE Berhampur, DIET Khalikote and    DIET Dolipur, from the 2^nd of May 2011.
• Training in all the three operational centres – PMIASE Sambalpur, DIET Sambalpur and RNIASE Cuttack, to resume from the 2^nd of May 2011.
•  Performance on the DE Output Indicators, integrated as part of the annual plan for all the 104 schools to be made compulsory and a letter to this effect to be issued by the SME department.
• A letter on the roles and responsibilities of each of the stakeholder as part of the DE program, will be issued by the SME department.
•  Maintenance of the computers in all the 52 secondary schools will be carried out with immediate effect and those schools having computers which are all non-functional or of low configuration, will be replaced with upper primary schools having computers and within the same district.
• The State Level Steering Committee under the Chairmanship of the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, SME department, will meet once a quarter to take stock of the DE program. Additional Secretary, SME Department, Director Secondary Education, Director Elementary Education, Director TE and SCERT and Joint Secretary SME department, will be the other members. Joint Secretary SME department will be the convener.
• DE Working Group under the Chairmanship of the Additional Secretary, SME department, to meet on a monthly basis, for resolving routine administrative issues while at the same time taking a stock of the DE Program. Joint Secretary, SME department, and the State Program Manager, AIFT, will be the other members.
• A DE District Level Steering Committee under the Chairmanship of the respective Circle Inspectors to be constituted in all the districts. The committee will meet on a bi-monthly basis to take stock of the DE Program and the performance on the “DE Output Indicators.” The District Project Coordinator SSA, DIs, Headmasters of the DE Schools, and the AIFT monitoring personnel, will be the other members. A letter to this effect will be issued by the SME department.
• A resource group under the chairmanship of the respective headmasters will be constituted in each of the respective DE schools. This will be the lowest level planning and monitoring mechanism taking stock of the performance of the teachers on the DE output indicators, on a monthly basis. Selected teachers chosen by the respective headmasters will be the other members. Apart from taking stock of the DE program on a monthly basis, the group will also monitor the quality of teaching aids, projects developed by the teachers and the students on a monthly basis.
•  A zonal level project quality monitoring committee will be constituted in all the IASEs under the chairmanship of the respective Principal, for reviewing the quality of the projects, teaching aids, prepared by the teachers and students of the schools, under the respective zone. The committee is to meet on a bi-monthly basis. Apart from the Principal, selected teacher educators nominated by the Principal and the AIFT trainers will be the other members.
• A state level project quality monitoring committee will be constituted in SCERT. Director TE and SCERT will be the chairman of the committee and the other members will be Deputy Director Science, SCERT, Deputy Director Science, Directorate of Secondary Education and Deputy Director Pedagogy, OPEPA. The committee will meet once a quarter to review selected projects submitted by the various zonal centres.

Review-cum-Refresher - Gopalpur on Sea

The entire DE Orissa Team spent four days in the quaint little fishing hamlet - Gopalpur on Sea as part of a two day workshop conducted by trainers from Ezvidya who had flown in from Chennai which was followed by a two day internal review-cum-refresher. While the workshop focussed on "Multiple Intelligence and Creative Thinking" fine tuning and honing the skills of the "Trainers" through presentations, working sessions, Q&A and feedback the two day "Internal Review-cum-Refresher" focussed  on freezing the annual plan for each of the schools incorporating a detailed plan for each of the teacher trainees with set targets on each of the DE Output Indicators to be approved quarterly. A performance appraisal of each of the monitoring expert will be carried out on a quarterly basis, based on these annual plans.
Apart from the workshop the team spent some time relaxing and unwinding in this sleepy little hamlet, located at a distance of 20 kms from Berhampur and 180 kms from Bhubaneshwar, the capital city of Bhubaneshwar. The two day internal review was held in "Carey Retreat" perched on a hill top, giving a panoramic view of Gopalpur.
Check out the photographs below:

AYV-Lite Workshop

A hands on workshop for the entire DE Team on stop motion animation, PSA (public service announcement) and Documentaries, was held in Unit IV Girls High School, Bhubaneshwar. The workshop was conducted by Akib, AYV Coordinator from Delhi and was held over a period of three days. Two interesting stop motion animations were made as part of the workshop - "better late than never" sensitizing people on being careful while driving at unmanned level crossings and the other on "population explosion."

Nalabana Bird Sanctuary

DE Team visited the Nalabana Bird Sanctuary - a famous bird sanctuary in the Chilika Lake and was lucky enough to find some rare species of winged visitors - Pelicans and Siberian cranes visiting the sanctuary.It was a rare sight and there were around eight lac birds which made it to the sanctuary this year. The famed sanctuary can be approached from Barkul, which i located at a distance of about 100 kms from Bhubaneshwar - the capital city of Orissa. One has to take an hours boat ride - a distance of about 10 kms within the lake, from the Barkul ghat. Check out the link below for the photographs.

Inauguration of Zonal Centre in RNIASE Cuttack

The Zonal Centre in Radhanath Training College Cuttack was inaugurated on the 14th of January 2011 by  Pratap Jena, Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education Department. Debasis Samantray, MLA Cuttack Barabati, Soumendra Ghosh, Mayor, Cuttack Municipal Corporation, Prof. Dr. Sevak Tripathy, Director TE and SCERT and Subrat Sarkar, State Program Manager AIFT were the other dignitaries who graced the occasion. 222 teachers from 34 secondary schools of Cuttack and Kendrapada district will be trained here in techno-pedagogy, over a 18 day training period.

Sishu Mahotsav

AIF participated in the "Sishu Mahostav" which proved to be a grand success. Around 850 students participated from all over the state. They had been selected as part of competitions, which started all the way from village to block to district level from the last week of October 2010, culminating in a state wide mega event, showcasing the best of the talent available. Apart from the students from outside Bhubaneshwar many of whom were visiting the capital city, for the first time about 1000 students from local schools participated every day. Food arrangements were made for 1600 students every day and that too in a meticulous manner. The quality of food was good and even the residential arrangements for the visiting students,the stall details including the layout plan, the cultural events etc. were worked out to the last details, with the personal intervention of the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, which ensured that the event was an all out success.

The Sishu Mahotsav started on the 12th and concluded on the 14th with a mega cultural program and a prize distribution ceremony, with the Chief Minister as the Chief Guest. AIF apart from other activities organized a "Digital Story Telling Competition" which proved to be a grand success. The topic selected for the purpose was "The Spirit of Sishu Mahotsav." 3 teams of four students each, participated over a period of two and a half days in creating their "Digital Photo Essay." Have a look at the photographs of the winning teams by clicking on the slide show below:

It also contains the photographs of the Hon'ble Speaker, Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education and the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Schoola and Mass Education visiting the AIF stall and an interesting photograph of the Secretary interacting with the kids as part of an open question and answer session.

Internal Review cum Refresher Workshop

A three day internal Review cum Refresher workshop (Residential) was held on 9^th, 10^th & 11^th June at Gopalpur on Sea. The workshop focused on work plans for individual schools and the modus operandi for achieving of the same. Apart from this, coordinators were trained on preparing documentary movies. A documentary movie was also shot on the fisherman community residing at Gopalpur.

Refresher workshop for Teacher Trainees at RNIASE and PMIASE

Review cum Refresher workshop for selected teacher trainees of Cuttack, Kendrapada, Sambalpur and Bargarh district were held on 27^th and 28^th  June, 2011 at RNIASE Cuttack and PMIASE, Sambalpur respectively. The workshop mainly focused designing lesson plan integrating EDUKIT. An overall discussion on the annual work plan prepared for monitoring the school teachers at the school level was made.

Workshop on Multiple Nature - New Delhi

A two day workshop on Multiple Nature and Multiple Intelligence was held in Delhi. It was conducted by Steven Rudolph, Director Education, JIVA Institute. 5 members from the Orissa Team attended this workshop.