On Thursday, S. Meena and K. Lokesh, students at the Government Higher Secondary School in M.G.R. Nagar got to ‘look into’ the human heart in a singular manner. Unlike students in most other government schools who see hearts presented as flat illustrations in their textbooks, they saw one through a 3-D figure on a huge screen.
As a result of an MoU between the School Education department and an NGO, Learning Links Foundation (LLF), their school has become one of two government schools in the State where technology will drive learning in a major way.
The school has been given 11 laptops, 13 tablets, one interactive board, a projector and a wi-fi connection. However, the major advantage is the introduction of cloud computing solution, which provides the school access to a digitised version of Samacheer Kalvi syllabus for classes VI to XII in Tamil and English.
The facility at M.G.R. Nagar was inaugurated by P. Palaniappan, Minister for Higher Education on Thursday. The other school to benefit from the project is the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Sriperumbudur. For students such as S. Gajalakshmi, who have no computer or internet at home, the school is the only place where she can access technology. “My mother is a cook and we cannot afford a computer. I am excited that I will get to handle a tablet in school,” said the class X student.
Usha Bhaskar, project head, LLF said the initiative, ‘Project Aasman’, is being carried out by LLF with support from Dell, which has provided the hardware. “The cloud has a vast repository of teaching-learning resources. This programme will cover eight schools in the country for now,” she said.
G. Shanmugavel, headmaster of the school, said the new facility offered vast opportunities. “Students can revise lessons taught in class. If the teacher is going on planned leave, she can make a recording and upload it,” he said.
