Govt. Sr. Sec. School Nangal Jamalpur in Rewari, Haryana, has had a computer lab for many years but is not used regularly. The time we visited schools, most desktops were covered in dirt, and some were kept like scrap. When enquired, teachers said that it is too complex to take students to the lab room every day. If we manage to do this, then it takes half of our time in switching on computing equipments. They say it is much simpler to use a blackboard and a textbooks. They say, “…we understand the significance of teaching through digital content to make teaching engaging, still find it difficult to take students to lab room…”
After listening to this, project coordinators of End Poverty NGO wanted to allocate resource more precisely.
What did they do?
This is when the NGO collaborated with iDream Education to implement iPrep Digital Class in Government schools across 16 districts of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.
In the school mentioned above, teachers asked us to set up Smart class in their Chemistry Lab. When we visited them the second time after the training, it was fascinating for us to see the teachers showing the experiment on the big screen while students simultaneously doing the same experiment in the lab.
Re-envisioning teaching through digital adoption
This one pattern emerged across all the schools supported under this project. Digital has become a natural part of teaching, and the hardware along with the digital content has begun to be used regularly by the teachers for experimental videos, academic video lessons, and also for tracking their own usage of digital content through a reporting dashboard. This project successfully eliminated the infrastructural and psychological challenges that limit the use of technology by teachers.
But how did this happen?
Unlike a computer lab or a conventional smart class setup that requires a lot of accessories, iPrep Digital Class is a single equipment Smart Class that is set up using either an Interactive Flat Panel Display or Smart TV for classrooms.
In this implementation with End Poverty NGO, a 50inch Mi TV has been used for which we just need a wall in the room or lab to hang the TV with one stand and 4 screws. It is a simple setup process that the local electrician can easily perform in less than 30 minutes.
Reaction of Teachers
When teachers experienced such ease in setup, it suddenly made them think that if it is this easy to set up, it should not be too difficult to use and manage either. And that’s exactly what they witnessed when we visited the school for training. Just like they use the TV at home, in a similar way, they access the education TV in their school and used digital content with their remote in front of us.
One teacher at the end of our training came forward and said,
“…Oh, with content, its display is also in Hindi. Glad! I would be able to navigate through it very easily; as you can see, the settings on my phone are also in Hindi….”
Therefore, we say iPrep Digital Class fits in the natural psychology of teachers using a TV in their homes. On top of that, all digital content is made available OFFLINE, removing their dependence on the internet; they don’t have to spend time searching for relevant study material. They just plug the Pendrive, play their lesson videos, and teach through it.
The Result
Teachers no longer resist using technology for teaching. In fact, they have happily supplemented their classroom teaching with digital content provided in the Smart Class setup. Regular usage with no hassles has enabled them to increase classroom engagement. They now strongly believe that they would also be able to achieve improvement in educational outcomes.
At iDream Education, we continue to support schools, students and teachers through our different digital learning and teaching solutions. Additionally, we keep in regular touch with them by sharing usage data with them every month, which helps the school principal to help them evaluate teachers’ contributions in every class, identify challenges and organise repetitive training whenever required.
If in case you would like to know more about our digital learning solutions, comment below or write to us at share@idreameducation.org
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