Difference between revisions of "BalaSwecha"

Revision as of 04:28, 29 May 2015

BalaSwecha is an initiative of Swecha which aims at reducing the digital divide at the school level by introducing computer aided education. ThoughtWorks is the technology partner for this initiative. This wiki shall be used to create a roadmap and to keep a track of the tasks.

Road Map

Current Status

• Associated with 12 government schools in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
• Trained over 200 teachers during a course of two Teacher Training Workshops
• BalaSwecha OS is built on Ubuntu 10.04, to ensure it works on NComputing devices
• Pilot project to cater to students of VII and VIII grades, with minimal multimedia content
• Multimedia content sourced from various Creative Commons / Open Education Resources

Plan for the next six months

• Install BalaSwecha in 50 more schools, from the contacts gained through Teacher Training Workshop
  • Swecha GNU/Linux Users Groups to help in deployment and assistance
• Update the current distro from being based on Ubuntu 10.04 to a later version
• Update the distro with better multimedia content and increase the number of such items
• Update the distro with newer and better applications that help in practical approach to learning (like Step, a KDE app)
• Create a user-friendly environment

Tasks

Distro

• BalaSwecha should be updated to be based on a later version of Ubuntu, preferably an LTS release like 14.04
  • This should, however, not break the compatibility with NComputing devices
  • The latest versions of some applications, including Kalzium and Step, are not supported on 10.04
• The distro should be built to run on low-end systems
  • Many computers in these schools have less than 128 MB RAM
• The distro should have a user friendly mechanism to group content according to:
  • Class
  • Subject
  • Chapter
  • Topic
• This mechanism could be a simple CMS, currently Moodle is being used. The advantages of Moodle being:
  • Self-assessments
  • SCORM content, for self-paced interactive learning

Applications

Mathematics

• Math Formulae:
  • Images in geometry could be shown in 3D explaining how to calculate area, perimeter and volume. Formulae will be saved for easy reference.
  • Similarly, algebra, trigonometry and probability could be explained in the form of interactive quizzes and figures.
• Math Tricks: Tricks which helps the students calculate faster (like multiplication of two digit and three digit numbers, squaring numbers ending with 5, or multiplicity rules ). Initially the app should help them learn the trick with simple examples, later a fun games where the students will implement the trick and give answers.
• Algebra: Found out from teachers and students that teaching and learning algebra is difficult. So an application that teaches the below along with few examples and quizzes:
  • Basics of algebra
  • Solving equations
  • Solving inequalities
  • Ratios and proportions
  • Exponents
  • Negative exponents

Languages

• Speak English: Learning and practicing speaking, listening and writing skills. Topics to be covered:
  • Pronunciation
  • Sentence formation
  • Spellings
  • Picking up small conversations in english
  • Improve their reading speed
  • Listening

General Knowledge

• General Knowledge Quiz: Questions in the form of multiple choice, matches or animated content.The questions should be general knowledge based covering the topics of our constitution to life science to geography to current affairs.
• Offline Wikipedia: This will be helpful for both teachers as well as students to learn.

Life Sciences

• Biology Quiz: Mapping the human body parts (http://www.zygote.com)
• Biology experiments (Class 8)Microscope –
  • When a leaf or skin of vegetables or human parts are placed it should show its cells.
  • It could be used for experiments like chlorophyll testing which iodine is put on the leaves.
  • Also to examine human (RBC,WBC) and vegetable skins to see the cell structure in each and nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane etc.
  • Microorganisms like bacteria of different shapes, amoeba etc.

Content

• Multimedia Content
  • Video content explaining the concept.
• Example Simulations
  • Simulations for STEP.
  • Molecular models for Kalzium.
  • Scripts for Stellarium and Celestia.

Open Hardware