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.

12/27/2016

First contributions


Participating children in Catalonia have already begun to share their team video-presentations and their opinions on Acces to Education through their collaborative blog. You can check it here.

This is what Jana and Clàudia (8th graders) from Institut de Gurb said:
We think that the topic of this project [Access to Education] is very interesting. Besides it is totally appropriate for us. By carrying out this project, we have the opportunity to learn English, to practice Scratch and also to enrich ourselves when talking to our Indian colleagues. Although this project seems quite difficult for us, we feel really inspired and we are eager to start. From our point of view, the right to education is extremely important. We have learnt that this is one of the goals for sustainable development that UN wants to achieve by 2030. That would be grateful, but we think it might be difficult. One of the greatest activists who stands for this right is Malala Yousafzai, who was attacked when she was coming back from school.
And here the video-presentations of  children at Escola Carme Auguet and Institut de Gurb. To talk in English is a big challenge for them, but a great opportunity!

11/22/2016

Access to Education

https://kidblog.org/class/inventors4change/

This academic year 2016-17, kids from participating schools in India and Spain will write and share articles and opinions on the topic under discussion this year: Access to Education. The following weeks they will post their contributions (articles and video-presentations) on their Kidsblog

In this edition participating schools are: Parikrma Jayanagar (India), Parikrma Nandini Layout (India), Institut de Gurb (Spain) and Escola Carme Auguet (Spain).

After the research/presentations stage, students will participate in virtual cross-cultural exchanges and they will collaborate to create digital stories about Access to Education with Scratch .

Stay tuned! 

10/26/2016

Inventors4Change 2016-17. About to start again!


We are already designing new creative learning activities for the next edition of project Inventors4Change. This academic year students of Parikrma schools (India), and Escola Carme Auguet and Institut de Gurb (Catalonia) will experience cross-cultural exchanges and connected learning activities, they will investigate the new topic (Access to Education) on their own, and will create collaborative stories and animations with Scratch.

In addition, in January and February, our team will travel to India to work with the participating schools (and also with other schools and educational projects: Shanti Bhavan School, The Valley School, Project DEFY). During those weeks we will conduct teacher training and workshops for children. We are preparing a bunch of STEAM and maker activities including: scribbling machines, LEGO art machines, cardboard automatas, LEGO tinkering with legged walkers (like the one in the photo), MIT App Inventor, Scratch, underwater robots and rescue robots.

Soon we will publicly launch a new spin-off project of Inventors4Change: the project InventEUrs. It is a new European initiative with funding from the European Comission and partners in Spain, Italy, Romania and the United Kingdom. Stay tuned!

7/04/2016

Final digital stories, Inventors4Change 2015-16


During the 2015-16 academic year, children from participating schools in India and Spain have been investigating the refugee crisis. First they used a blog to express their views and findings. Then the teams were presented to each other through videos, and some videoconferences between India and Spain were held. Finally the children used Scratch to invent and create digital stories and animations on the refugee crisis. In these stories, backgrounds were designed by children in India, and the characters were designed by children in Spain. Then they remixed the projects and coded the animations. 

In this post we share a video of one of those awesome stories. It was mostly created by kids at Institut de Gurb. You can see the rest of the final stories here (the 8 projects in the first two rows are the final stories).


3/18/2016

Hello, Namaste, Hola from Salt!


At Escola Veïnat sixth graders have been recording videos to introduce themselves to their peers in India. An interesting aspect of virtual exchanges for Catalan children is that they have to practice English. It's not an easy challenge, but they are doing very well!

Below we share one of these nice videos. For the complete list please visit kids blog (audio quality is low, so turn up the volume!).

3/09/2016

Global Education in Action. GlobalEdTV Webinar Series


On March 2 we participated in the webinar Global Education in Action, part of the GlobalEd.TV Webinar Series produced by the Global Education Conference and Know My World. These webinars spotlight theories and best practices related to multiculturalism in schools and organizations all over the world.

Our contribution was a talk about Inventors4Change, to explain our activities related to global education, the global competences that we are fostering, examples,  results, impact, etc.

The webinar was hosted by Lisa Petro (Know My World) and the guests were: Genevieve Murphy (Know My World & American School Taichung), Dareshanie D'Arpino (Boys and Girls Club of Newburgh) and Eduard Muntaner (Inventors4Change).

Below you can find the video of our talk (8m28s) and the full webinar (1h11m):


2/16/2016

Team-based workshop on underwater robotics with kids of Parikrma


Besides promoting virtual collaboration of schools, an important part of the work of our team also consists of providing training to schools and conducting workshops and activities with children. On our last stay in South India we conducted activities for 8 schools.

In all the activities we have focused on promoting creative learning through a constructive and innovative use of technology.


The most spectacular activity was the underwater robotics workshop, where kids from 5 Parikrma Centres for Learning, divided into 4 teams, spent three full days to build from scratch a remotely operated underwater robot using low-cost materials such as PVC pipes, wood, etc. The students customized their own design over the different phases of the workshop.

Apart of increasing the interest of students for science and technology, and of promoting engineering skills, capabilities and values, the idea is that once the activity is completed, every team understands that with teamwork, effort and a good working strategy, every problem can be overcome.

We were very pleased with the results of the workshop. Students exceeded our expectations, and even taking into account some limitations of materials, they managed to put and drove fully functional robots into the water.


This workshop would not have been possible without the invaluable help of the staff of Parikrma, and without the facilities that The Koramangala Club offered us. Thank you so much to both!

Photos by Jordi Freixenet.
 

2/03/2016

Virtual exchange between Jayanagar and Salt


Today we connected India and Catalonia again. Some children of Parikrma school in Jayanagar and children of Veïnat school in Salt had a great video conference. In a world that requires multi-lateral and cross-cultural cooperation, education exchanges are really important to prepare next generations.

Participating children introduced themselves, talked about their cities, their countries, they practiced English, they learned words and expressions in Kannada and Catalan, but above all, they had a great time!  

The following weeks they will continue their work about the refugee crisis in their KidBlog, they will create presentations, an on March they will start their collaborative work and will create and share animations, stories and computer games.

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!