Welcome to Inventors4Change

Inventors4Change brings together the projects that the UdiGitalEdu group of the University of Girona has been developing in India since 2013. The common objectives of the different initiatives are: (1) to explore new ways of learning and teaching with the help of Creative Computing and Maker Education; (2) to train teachers in schools for underprivileged children in the Bangalore area; (3) to connect these schools with schools in other countries to encourage children to co-create.

11/27/2013

Meet the characters!


During last week the teams in India and some children in Catalonia started drawing the characters (some of them are already uploaded in our Scratch gallery). Now the rest of the children are modifying the projects of their peers and adding backgrounds. Both characters and backgrounds are related to the common topic for all: children's rights. At the same time they are also exchanging comments and notes through the Scratch website. Their works are really amazing!




11/23/2013

A declaration of the value of global education


We read this global education declaration in Steve Hargadon's blog. We can not agree more, it's fully in line with our goals and values.

A Declaration of the Value of Global Education
Presented at the 2013 Global Education Conference
http://www.GlobalEducationDeclaration.com

Because we are citizens of our individual nations and also part of a larger human family;
Because it is important to learn about other cultures and to understand the similarities that unite us and the differences that define us;
Because global understanding, empathy, and compassion depend and are built on communication, shared experiences, and relationships;
Because we increasingly live in a "global village";
Because we increasingly work in geographically and culturally interconnected ways;
Because we are interconnected physically and our ecological and resource-use decisions impact others;
Because we share a world which appears to be increasingly fragile;
Because complex worldwide problems need collaborative, cooperative, and intelligent solutions;
Because wars, conflicts, abuse, slavery, misinformation, and other forms of oppression both exist and also exert powerful influences;
Because we live in a world that is increasingly "flat" and where Internet technologies have dramatically increased the global connectedness of individuals and cultures;
Because creation and sharing technologies of the Internet and the Web dramatically shift personal and community capacity;
Because the world increasingly is our classroom;

Therefore:
We affirm the universal and inherent worth of every child;
We affirm the deep importance of supporting learning opportunities for all people generally;
We affirm especially the importance of providing wholesome and healthy learning opportunities for all children;
We affirm the need to support the variety and uniqueness of learners, teachers, cultures, and circumstances;
We affirm the importance of independent intellectual inquiry and thought;
We affirm the value of connective technologies and their ability to provide broader learning and thinking experiences;
We affirm the individual, cultural, and worldwide benefits of students learning about, from, and with peoples from around the world;

Finally:
We declare the critical importance of helping our students, teachers, administrators, parents, and all others to connect globally and to learn from each other; we express appreciation for those who provide opportunities for such global learning activities; and we devote ourselves to furthering the cause of global education.

11/20/2013

Inventing stories about Children's Rights


Some of the teams in Catalonia and India are starting to use Scratch to invent stories about Children's Rights. Teachers from both countries introduced the topic with this nice presentation from UNICEF, and now children are drawing the characters for their stories. Next week the rest of the teams will modify the projects of their peers and add some backgrounds. The mixed teams India-Catalonia are working asynchronously and communicating among them through the Scratch platform. During next weeks we will share their projects with you.

The following pictures were taken yesterday at Carme Auguet School in Girona.




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11/15/2013

Chatting and getting to know each other


During this week children watched the presentations of the other groups and exchanged messages and comments through the Scratch website. It's amazing to see how children from disadvantaged areas of both India and Catalonia, from very different backgrounds and learning environments, can chat using English and digital tools. Distances and times are not a problem on the Internet.

It is necessary to highlight the incredible work that English teachers have been doing during last weeks in our participating Catalan schools.

We share some examples of their conversations. They are public, like all the presentations that they uploaded to the Scratch website (you can check the gallery here).

Comments of a project uploaded by children of Veïnat School (Catalonia, Spain):

Comments of a project uploaded by children of Parikrma School (Bangalore, India):



11/14/2013

Children's Day and Children's Rights


Today is Children's Day in India. One of our participating schools in India, Parikrma School, shared this beatiful rangoli on its Facebook. 

We take this opportunity to announce that the issue on which children from India and Catalunya will collaborate by using Scratch during next weeks is "Children's Rights". Now is when the Invention-Based Collaborative Learning really starts. Let's see whats happens! :)

11/13/2013

8000 Km


Last Sunday our project was featured on La Vanguardia in an article by Sílvia Oller. You can read the full text (in Catalan) by following this link. As the article says, the participating schools are 8000 kilometers away from each other, but the Internet and the digital tools override these long distances.

Right now teams are making comments and questions about their presentations with Scratch. Next week they will begin working in mixed teams Catalunya-India.

In this post we included two recent photos from Parikrma School (Koramangala, Bangalore, India) and Veïnat School (Salt, Catalunya, Spain). 

 

11/09/2013

From Girona to Bangalore. From Baliganapalli to Salt


The first stage of the pilot project is now complete, and the teams of the four participating schools have already finished their presentations with Scratch. We are very happy to show you in this post some of the projects created by children. Next week each school will look and try projects from other schools, so that children begin to know each other. Children will also exchange comments and messages in English through the Scratch website.

We embedded some of the presentations below (you need Flash to visualize them). If you want to see all the rest, you can visit our Scratch gallery.

Carme Auguet school (Girona): [turn the volume on]


Veïnat school (Salt):


Parikrma school (Bangalore): [Click on the presentation and press space to start]


Shanti Bhavan school (Baliganapalli): [play the game to see the end of the presentation]

11/06/2013

My name is... Learning English with Scratch


The children of Veïnat school are busy finalizing their first projects. They are learning Scratch but also English. Over the coming months they will use English to communicate with their peers in India. The Veïnat school has students from 18 different countries, and some of them have recently come to Catalonia. This project is a big challenge for them! They are doing the project during school hours, using the periods of English, Technology and Catalan.