Monday, August 10, 2020

Towards digital mode - SAJAG Youtube Channel


The month of April and May, our phones, social pages have been flooded with online content, invitation for online workshops. The pandemic witnessed the availability of free resources for children as well as adults. It included story telling, read alouds, songs and many interesting activities. But unfortunately most of these content are in English. Very few channels like Goshtrang, QUEST, Anandniketan, Pratham open source have educational videos in Marathi. With the lockdown extended till June here in Kalyan, teaching at the center was not an option. Hence we started making videos for our students. Though accessibility was a major issue, another issue was the issue of content that can be provided on a distance mode. 

  Initially our videos included topics for play, art, letter-writing. reading books etc. But as days extended the need for proper teaching videos were felt by parents, students and teachers too. The existing videos were focused mainly for early grades. But very few videos on remedial teaching were available. And the videos made by school focused on curriculum. We started with activities that can engage them at home and that involved parents too. But during the interaction with parents, we understood that all parents were not able to engage their students.  They expressed their frustration and inability. We then conducted a small survey of 10 parents to understand the kind of difficulties they are facing. 

From the survey, we understood that students are not following any routine and when parents and students come together, the parents are clueless as to how to engage them. For instance, if students sit for studies, parents don't know what to supervise, how to supervise. Along with interaction over phones, we thought that it would be better if videos showing such small concepts are made. And understanding the limitation available in Marathi, we thought it will be helpful if our videos are freely available in online platform. 

The videos were made for 2 target groups: 

1) The standards 3 to 5 as part of the remedial teaching programme. The content included Marathi, Maths, English and Art, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9MhjMgvEiw&t=1s 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp7QJRo5etM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmpeEPxUYw

2) Videos for Parents that cover concepts like setting up routine for children, activities to engage with children, building responsibility and accountability for children. Many articles, books on parenting are available but very few in the medium of videos. We covered first topic of setting routine and activities that children can engage themselves within home. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XY103waH3Y&t=4s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7yhUuXEKs

Do enjoy the videos and give your feedback. The pandemic has speed dialed the path of digitization of our content. A boon in disguise.