BalaSwecha

BalaSwecha is an initiative of Swecha which aims at bridging the growing digital divide in education at the school level between the privileged and underprivileged. BalaSwecha is a complete learning platform which introduces computer aided education and virtual lab environment to the schools.

Teachers in the Government schools are not well equipped with technology. Hence they are forced to follow the traditional teaching methods. BalaSwecha gives them an opportunity to teach with the help of multimedia content and the students to explore the subject with the help of the applications available.

The applications in BalaSwecha create a virtual lab environment where the teacher/ student can conduct their experiments and explore the concept beyond their textbooks. It helps in increasing the inquisitive thinking among the students. The students will be exposed to a huge platform where they can explore and learn while conducting experiments.

BalaSwecha is a tool which is built to compliment the teachers than to replace.

Swecha conducts a series of workshops for the teachers from the Government schools on BalaSwecha across Andhra and Telangana states. There are around 300 teachers till May 2015 who had attended the workshops.

The feedback collected during the Teacher Training Workshops and our interactions with various educational specialists.



Road Map

Current Status

• The learning platform in BalaSwecha is equipped with more than 100 applications which create a virtual lab environment.
• With the new User Interface BalaSwecha looks even more appealing.
• The Teacher Training Workshop conducted in May 2015 got another 50 teachers engaged with BalaSwecha

Things to do: (Road map for the next release) =

• UI needs additional modules to accommodate curriculum mapping (2 months , 1 UI(6 weeks) & 1 Dev(2 weeks))
• Work needs to be done on distro
• Size, Desktop Environment, Wubi, Ncomputing, etc. (3-4 weeks, 1 De)
• Website (3 weeks, 1 UI)
• Develop applications to cater to class VIII & IX (5 months, 2 Devs & 1 UI (4 weeks))
• Develop application for Biology and Social

           Cell Division, Microscope, Base Framework, etc (3 months, 2 Devs (3 months) & 1 UI (4 weeks))

• Improve the Knowledge/Content sharing platform for Teachers (1 month, 1 UI (2 weeks) & 1 Dev)

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.