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.

1/31/2016

Creating presentations!


These days, apart from the virtual exchanges through videoconferences, the participating children are creating presentations explaining who they are, where they live, how are your schools... The first kids to upload to the Internet their presentations were the children of Koramangala. Watch their video on our Kidblog!

1/23/2016

Rescue robots at Parikrma


Some days ago, as part of our workshops for children at Parikrma, we conducted an activity inspired by a technological challenge proposed by the University of Girona: TecnoRepte 2016.

Children had to imagine an earthquake scenario, where some people got trapped in a big rupture of the soil. It is necessary to send a rescue team but it is dangerous to descend within the rupture. So the challenge is to build some artifact easy to assemble and move along the broken ground to facilitate the evacuation of people and also provide food and water to survivors down there.


The TecnoRepte in Girona is a challenge that lasts for some months, but in India we proposed it as one-session challenge. So children did not have time to think about complicated structures such as bridges, but in no time they designed some awesome robots that can move through a cable that has previously been thrown from side to side of the break. For the challenge we used the material that we had in that moment: LEGO WeDO Robots.

Once the cable solution was decided by consensus, we were inspired by the LEGO Sky Parade for MIT Mini Maker Faire that Amos Blanton from MIT Media Lab shared with lots of details. From that point, and with very little guidance, the children began to create prototypes and in no time the robots were moving hooked to the cable.

The result of the activity was simply amazing! We would have had great videos of the workshop but there were recurring power cuts in Koramangala that afternoon and we were working almost in the dark. The photos are ok thanks to flash! :)





1/14/2016

Virtual exchange between Koramangala and Gurb


Today some kids of Parikrma Centre for Learning in Koramangala held a videoconference with kids of Institut de Gurb.

They have been talking in English, have introduced themselves, have spoken of their respective countries, and even have taught each other words and expressions in their mother tongues: Kannada, Tamil and Catalan.


This is the stage of the project where teams begin to know each other before they develop collaborative projects on this year's topic: the refugee crisis. So far each school had been investigating the topic, and sharing opinions and thoughts on our KidBlog.

Here you can see a very short video of this very nice virtual exchange. 
 

1/11/2016

Let's the adventure begin! (again)


Today, as part of the fieldwork that our team develops in India, we have started our creative learning activities at Parikrma Centre for Learning in Koramangala, Bangalore.  

It was great to meet again with the children and teachers. This is the third consecutive year that we collaborate with Parikrma Humanity Foundation, an organisation that educate over 1500 children from 69 slum communities and four orphanages in Bangalore.

Today a group of 16 students from different classes were introduced to the project. We made 4 teams of 4, and they already started blogging and commenting on this year's topic (the refugee crisis) in our KidBlog.

These next few days, before Indian children start their collaborative work with Catalan children, we will conduct some activities to promote creativity, critical thinking and teamwork; all with the help of creative learning technologies (such as educational robotics, Scratch, Makey-Makey and many more).

Stay tuned!