Thank you again, India!

Every time our team travels to India we learn a lot of things. The teacher training courses and workshops with children in Parikrma have already concluded, and the collaborative work between India, Colombia and Catalonia is in full swing (for example, there are more than 50 articles posted on the collaborative blog). 

During our weeks of work in South India we have also taken the opportunity to visit other educational projects, non-profit organizations and research groups (Shanti Bhavan, Ananya Trust, Project DEFY, Protovillage, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology). Bangalore is an exciting ecosystem where there are fantastic opportunities to learn about education, technology, creativity and development.

The images in this post summarize the activities we have been doing. They have been automatically generated (with Google Research's Storyboard app) from the videos we recorded during our stay.

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Creative, critical and collaborative learning activities from India

As the children's blog grows, and they begin researching this year's theme, a part of the Inventors4Change team has moved temporarily to India to conduct teacher training activities and workshops with children in the participating schools.

Teacher training is mainly focused on Scratch and collaborative digital storytelling. Workshops with children have also addressed these same topics, but also include low-cost robotics, computational tinkering, unplugged computer science and other activities.

The videoconferences between Catalonia, India and Colombia will start very soon, and then the children will carry out the online collaborative work to co-create digital stories on the theme "learning with and from old people".

As you can see, the project is going full steam ahead! :)

PS: photos by Jordifreix.

 

 

 

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Field work in India 2017

Our Inventors4Change team has finished their stay in India. The objective was to conduct workshops with children and teachers of the schools participating in the project, in this way they know the tools and methodologies that we will use during the collaborative work India-Spain.

For five weeks we have performed workshops and trainings in different schools, and we have also visited other learning centers and projects that stand out for their pedagogical approach or for their educational innovations. For us, every trip is also an opportunity to learn.

In particular, this year during our stay, we worked intensively with the four schools of the Parikrma Foundation, we carried out some activities at Shanti Bhavan School and The Valley School, and we visited the Project DEFY.

 

Our actions included activities such as workshops and trainings on Scratch, LEGO tinkering, cardboard automatas, underwater robotics, drones, Arduino, and other creative learning experiences where we tried to merge technology, art and science. We also conducted videoconferences between Parikrma Jayanagar School and Carme Auguet School, and between Parikrma Nandini Layout School and Institut de Gurb.

Now it's time to create mixed virtual teams with children from both countries, and to start the online collaborative work. Children will use Scratch to create digital stories about this year's topic: the access to education.

 

 

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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.

 

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