Govt. Sr. Sec. School Nangal Jamalpur in Rewari, Haryana, has had a computer lab for many years, but it is not used regularly. At the school, most desktops were covered in dirt, and some were kept as scraps. When asked why don’t they use it for teaching, a teacher replied, “it is very challenging to take students to the lab every day. She further added that “even if we managed to do this, it would take us half a day to set up the equipment and then teach using it.” In spite of knowing that smart classroom setup can help improve student’s learning outcomes, all of them think it’s easier to use a blackboard and textbooks. But they do not want to make an effort on a resource that consumes half of their start teaching through it.

At this time, people of End Poverty NGO saw this and said there has to be a better way to utilise the money spent and the digital tools supplied to the government schools. 

What did they do?

That’s when the NGO collaborated with iDream Education to implement the iPrep Digital class, in Government schools across 16 districts of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. 

In the school mentioned above, teachers asked to set up a Smart class in their Chemistry Lab. The second time we visited them after the training, the teachers showed the experiment on the big screen while students were doing the same experiment in the lab simultaneously. 

Re-envisioning teaching through digital adoption

Digital has become a natural part of teaching, and the hardware, along with the digital content has begun to be used regularly by the teachers for experimental videos, academic video lessons, and also for tracking their own usage of digital content through a reporting dashboard. This implementation of digital classrooms successfully eliminated the infrastructural and psychological challenges that limit the use of technology by teachers. 

But how did this happen?

Unlike a computer lab or a conventional smart class setup that requires a lot of accessories, an iPrep Digital Class is a single equipment Smart Class that is set up using either an Interactive Flat Panel Display or Smart TV for classrooms.

In this collaboration with End Poverty NGO, we implemented a 50inch Mi TV smart class, which just requires a wall in the room or lab to hang the TV with one stand and 4 screws. It is a simple setup process that the local electrician can easily perform in less than 30 minutes. 

Reaction of Teachers Towards a Smart Class Setup

When teachers experienced such ease in setup, it suddenly made them think that if it is this easy to set up, it should not be too difficult to use and manage either. And that’s exactly what they witnessed when we began the training. Just like they use the TV at home, in a similar way, they accessed the TV in their school and used digital content with their remote in front of us.

One teacher at the end of our training came forward and said, 

“…Oh, with content, its display is also in Hindi. Glad! I would be able to navigate through it very easily; as you can see, the settings on my phone are also in Hindi….” 

Therefore, we say iPrep Digital Class in the form of PC Free Smart Class setup fits the natural psychology of teachers using a TV in their homes. On top of that, we provided them with offline digital content, removing their dependence on the internet; they don’t have to spend time searching for relevant study material. They just plug the Pendrive, play their lesson videos, and teach through it. 

The Result

Teachers no longer resist using technology for teaching. In fact, they have happily supplemented their classroom teaching with digital content provided in the Smart Class setup. Regular usage with no hassles has enabled them to increase classroom engagement. They now strongly believe that they would also be able to achieve improvement in educational outcomes. 

At iDream Education, we continue to support schools, students, and teachers through our different digital learning and teaching solutions. Additionally, we keep in touch with them every month by sharing usage data, which helps the school principal evaluate teachers’ contributions to every class, identify challenges, and plan repetitive training whenever necessary. 

If in case you would like to know more about our digital learning solutions, comment below or write to us at [email protected] 

idreameducation.org

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