Ridhu N.K., a resource teacher at the Samagra Shiksha, Kerala South urban resource centre in Fort here, folds a piece of paper to make a boat.
She then outlines the folds on the paper using a marker to form triangles and rectangles. She also uses sandpaper, scrubbers, earbuds, and threads to make shapes so that visually impaired students can touch and understand them as part of White Board, a project of the Samagra Shiksha to prepare study material for differently abled students.
The aim of White Board is to make the online classes more inclusive as not all different abled students are able to follow the classes telecast on the Victers channel.
Lessons are adapted to suit six categories of students - hearing impaired, visually impaired, intellectually disabled, those on the autistic spectrum, having specific learning disability, and cerebral palsy.
There are 12,000 differently abled students studying in government and aided schools in the district. All 12 block resource centres under the Samagra Shiksha in the district are doing the content adaptation for the six categories of students for specific subjects - Class IV Mathematics, Classes VII and X Hindi, and Class VIII Chemistry.
The remaining 156 BRCs in the State too are adapting various subject content for Classes I to X.
The classes are taken by special resource teachers with support of BRC trainers and coordinators and shot on mobile phone. Prior to the shoot though, the scripts are discussed by a group of expert teachers.
The videos from the BRCs are uploaded via Telegram app for final editing by a team. An SCERT expert committee also verifies it and suggests corrections. The videos are then uploaded on the White Board YouTube channel.
Over Youtube
Resmi T.L., district programme manager (Inclusive Education), Samagra Shiksha, says the YouTube links of the videos are sent by the resource teachers to parents over WhatsApp groups for children to view them. The resource teachers then provide the children further support. Parents are given instructions in the videos on how to help the children with assignments using materials available at home.
The preparation of videos in the second spell has been taken up entirely by the BRCs, with animation and other graphics thrown in, she says.
A video of Ms. Ridhu giving Mathematics lessons to visually impaired students and that of Sheeja Jasmine, resource teacher at the Parassala block resource centre (BRC), teaching Mathematics to hearing impaired students have won praise from officials associated with White Board, says Ms. Resmi.
