Karthikeyan Master's science classes for students of Classes VI, VII and VIII are seeing some fresh interest for the last few months. “The class turns silent when I switch on the laptop to show them little slides or colourful images related to their lesson. Teaching using computers is a novelty for me as well as students,” said K. Karthikeyan, teacher at the Panchayat Union Middle School in Sivaganga.
He is among the 81 teachers who received the ‘Technology in Education Award' presented by Intel and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) at a function here on Monday.
The science teacher helped by three students won accolades for their project ‘Education for Women', where they did field trips, conducted awareness programme and studies to explain why women were not progressing in their village. All this using computers. The little innovation that Mr. Karthikeyan is experimenting with in science classes is also a follow-up of his computer classes from Intel.
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Around 450 entries were received for the third edition of the competition, which was open to teachers from government schools across the State. Twentyfirst century skills such as digital literacy, critical thinking and problem solving skills were judged in each of the submitted projects. Teacher D. Kumaran and his students from Sri Gopal Naidu Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore, won the award for ‘Road Safety'. “Conducting road safety training has become easy with slide shows and presentation,” said Mr. Kumaran. Three Block Resource Teacher Educators were also awarded for using technology in education. M. Kutralingam, Principal Secretary, School Education, said the initiative has facilitated many teachers and students to become computer literate.
B. Suryanarayanan, Director (Sales and Marketing), Intel India, said that around 40,000 teachers were trained in computer with the help of SSA. Some teachers are even participating for the third year, he said. R. Venkatesan, State Project Director, SSA, said the projects were selected on merit basis.