The idea of learning through videos, animation and graphics has finally become a reality, at least for the students of Cotton Hill Government Girls Higher Secondary School in the city.
Multimedia aid
It became the first government school in the State to install smart classrooms, thanks to a project funded by the school Parents-Teachers Association (PTA). As many as 16 classrooms spread in UP, HS and HSS sections have been converted into smart classrooms under the initiative which was inaugurated by Education Minister M.A. Baby recently.
If you are wondering what actually goes into the making of a smart classroom, here you go: the smart classroom tools basically consist of a laptop, screen and multimedia projector. At Cotton Hills G.G.H.S.S. these have been provided by the Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (Keltron).
“This is probably the first such initiative in the government school sector in the State. As many as five classrooms in the HSS section, 10 in the High School section and one in the UP section have been installed with multimedia facilities under this project,” said school PTA vice president, Ashok Kumar.
Teachers of the school will be making use of syllabus-based modules prepared by IT@School Project as well as multimedia resources developed by other reputed agencies for teaching in these smart classrooms. While teachers in the HS section have already been given training by IT@School for IT-enabled teaching techniques, the training for HSS teachers is currently progressing at the school.
Internet-enabled
“The idea is to enhance the teaching and learning experience through audio, video, 3D animation, graphics and pictures. Soon, we will also be getting Internet connections to each of these classrooms to enable live video streaming and use of online resources. The speciality is that all the resources will be based on free software,” said teacher Alice Skariah. The venture is also expected to encourage more participation from the students in the learning process, she added.
School HSS section Principal, S. Mini, said that the smart classrooms were also renovated before installing the facilities. “To accommodate and enhance the experience of using the multimedia facilities, each of these smart classrooms has also been revamped by COSTFORD. The project, which cost around Rs 7.5 lakhs, has been entirely funded by the school PTA,” she said.
The school already has six computer labs with 65 systems as well as a language lab, she added.
