Bengaluru: How does one bring more than what is expected to a conventional classroom? Former physics and mathematics teacher Jyoti Thyagarajan and techpreneur Sridhar Ranganathan started on a journey and in their pursuit formed Meghshala, a not-for-profit trust, which is based on a learning management system called CloodOn, which is hosted on the cloud.
The trust creates lessons to empower teachers to educate children effectively with the help of Teachkits, which are multimedia lessons designed for use in classrooms. “The goal is not to supercede the education system that gives teachers and principals the authority, but to help teachers use technology. Teachkit consists of a tablet and a small projector. The tablet has content loaded on to it and the teacher can project the content for students, creating one learning community,” she says.
“Our Meghshala teachkits contextualise world class pedagogic practices into everyday classroom learning with the use of images, videos, activities and strategies. This helps convert the classroom into an active learning space. We also provide teaching ideas to effectively execute these lessons in the class which will ensure that teachers receive in-context training. With this, teachers can deliver excellent lessons in the classroom," says Ms Thyagarajan, who has more than 30 years of teaching experience and continues to work towards improving the education system in the country.
The Trust, founded in 2014, has already reached out to over 130 schools. “They include unaided government schools and a few private schools, and it has been done in the last one year alone,” she says.
The innovative approach has started showing results. In Raichur, in schools where Teachkit has been adopted, the attendance in classes has increased three times. Teachkit, the content for which has been developed by a team of 24 members of the Trust, can be used from first to eighth standards now. It covers mathematics, English, social studies, science in English and vernacular languages.
Their effort has been getting national recognition too. Of around 800 NGOs, Meghashala was voted to be among the top 20 not-for-profit organisations.
On their future plans, Ms Thygarajan said, “We are looking at skill development among children and that is the direction we are headed in. We want to do exciting things and to get quality education delivered across the country."
