When 15-year old R. Sugumaran, a student of a Chennai Corporation school used a computer for the first time on Tuesday, following a cursor on a digital blackboard, he became part of a global network of students tapping into the potential of Khan Academy videos.
The only difference being that the voiceover was in Tamil. As a pilot project, a company, Report Bee and AMM Foundation have rendered Tamil voiceovers for 42 Khan Academy educational videos that are used by students in several countries.
The project, ‘Cloud Vidyashram’, is being implemented at the Chennai Corporation Higher Secondary School, Maduvankarai and Sri Ramaswamy Mudaliar Higher Secondary School, Ambattur where a batch of class XI students are getting to revisit fundamental mathematical concepts through videos. Students will not just watch videos offline, but also pick up worksheets modelled on the Academy’s worksheets, mark their own progress and self-evaluate using answer keys.
Anant Mani, CEO of Report Bee, said that they wanted to make sure that the dubbing did not come out like a “badly dubbed Hollywood movie.” The voiceovers are timed to the visuals which are in English, and try to be faithful to the original in terms of voice modulation, and sense of humour, he added.
On why mathematics, Arun Venkatachalam, from the AMM Foundation, who is the co-lead of the project, said that they zeroed in on the subject because it was streamlined across education systems.
The project launched recently and spanning three months, will broadly cover concepts such as real numbers, data handling and algebra. Of this, R. Swetha another student at the school, is looking forward to the content on algebra.
R. Shankaranarayanan, headmaster of the Chennai Corporation school, said that students were enthusiastic because they were learning by doing.
“The emphasis is on self-driven learning and evaluation. The children are by themselves and there is no teacher monitoring them. They can pause, replay, and watch it all over again till they understand the concept without hesitation,” said Sharanya.
