Schools in the city are in for some serious revamping and are going to be even more fun and educating. Gone will be the days when children sang along to nursery rhymes looking into their books, or learning the human body or molecular structures with images chalked up on the board. More importantly, gone will be the black-board itself at schools in Kerala!
At the Sri Gujarati Vidyalaya, near the Kozhikode beach, from the next academic year onwards, the students will be learn nursery songs and stories sung and narrated in sweetmelodious voices. It does not stop there, the rhymes are accompanied by visuals which can be viewed in the monitor set in the classes. The story of the cap seller and other stories for the kids, Hindi rhymes such as ‘machli jal ki rani hain’ and ‘chanda mama gol hain’, English alphabets and nursery rhymes, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and many more will also be taught to the kids in the smart classroom.
All the 16 classrooms from kinder-garden to Plus-Two at Gujarati Vidyalaya has been transformed to smart classrooms. The traditional black board has given way to green boards. A monitoring screen has been set in each classroom. The contents in the system will also be updated regularly. A technician has been appointed at the school to supervise and update the system and contents. “I felt it more indepth when I saw the digestive system being taught in the smart classroom. It even explains what happens when food stuck anywhere in the digestive system. Normally we never remember all these after the class hours. But once you learn them through the smart classes, it is hard to forget it. This is the difference. And for the kids, when they see all the stories and poems in the classes as if they were watching them in a TV monitor, class hours become homely to them.
It would be also helpful the teacher to manage the class,” said Hanza Jayanth, the Principal. The stories and poems can be listened in both female and male voices. There is also a karaoke option so that the students can sing along. For the higher classes, vacation classes have already started using smart classrooms. “Today we had a class on gaseous state in physics. I felt the class very interesting and effective, as the visuals seemed to be very catchy. Now we just need to go through the text and can surely scrap the ‘mugging up’ practice,” remarked Margi R Patel, a standard nine student of the school. This is the fifteenth school in the district in which Next Education, a Hyderabad based company, is setting up the smart classroom.
“A payment of `75,000 has to be made to the company in three instalments. An amount of around `50 will be added up to the monthly fee of each students to recover this amount,” said Hanza Jayanth. Meanwhile, the Silver Hills Public School is also setting up the smart class rooms in 12 classes from standard 1 to 12 as well as in all the divisions of KG. The students can utilise the smart classroom from the coming academic year. “A Delhi based company is setting up the smart classrooms and the work will be finished by May 30. We felt that it was necessary to keep ourselves updated in this rapidly changing world. Our students should not lose in the race ahead,” said Father Thomas, the Administrator of the school.