tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-366211022024-03-13T06:11:36.880-07:00Small is BeautifulAnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04505996433886209634noreply@blogger.comBlogger224125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-59627077953185465652020-04-26T05:16:00.001-07:002020-04-28T21:39:18.904-07:00Technology for good<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We start with 3 apparently unrelated incidents:<br />
- Last week I decided to keep some time aside everyday on the really high-end design world I used to be part of. Seven years back I moved to Auroville and pretty much stopped working on designing analog and RF chips, the stuff I was trained for, through my undergrad and PhD at I.I.T.M, Columbia by truly phenomenal professors (KRK, Tsividis), who helped me love electronics.<br />
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- I was observing the WhatsApp chat discussion of my college group where it was remarked that technology was value neutral (e.g. facebook) and its the people who use it who are to blame.<br />
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- I was contacted by my mentor (who works on development) about a report on the increase in child abuse online at a time of Carona virus and an AI intervention that was aimed to reduce it and what I could do to support such interventions.<br />
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A recurring question on my mind has been about the claim of technology being value neutral. I realized my question is perhaps not about technology itself i.e. I'm not talking about a cellphone (though we can now talk to one!), a water filter, a 100 GBs data network, an automatic machine gun, or an atomic bomb (though the last two are perhaps questionable). My question is more of the people behind the technology who built/create/sustain them, engineers like me who make a choice, or do we?<br />
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It made me reflect where I have been touched by technology as part of my personal journey in the last 7 yrs at Auroville.<br />
- I first used basic electronics to give children something to tinker with switches, batteries, LEDs, 7 segment displays, sensors, arduinos, etc. This helped children get curious, work with their hands, think logically and be creative.<br />
- Of course I used the internet to learn about stuff I could do with children and document it (at least in the initial couple of years) before starting STEM land - Aura Auro Design (when you youth started blogging and I stopped blogging).<br />
- STEM land-Aura Auro Design that I started 5 years back was created on the backbone of technology. It is an entity where youth could volunteer with children in the mornings and be able to learn and work on technology in the afternoon. Here I learned and used python programming along with the youth. Again we used Coursera online learning and training platforms to learn. In time we also offered courses in programming, hands on electronics and so on.<br />
- At STEM land the centers we created with children we used programming with children to learn to think mathematically and for them to improve their reasoning and logical ability. As a way to express their mastery with something other than examinations, by creating projects in areas their learned. We also used some robotics with children and over the years children have built projects like the electronic voting machine as part of the process of understanding elections.<br />
- With a bit of an effort Isai Ambalam school was connected to the NKN that helped us get access to materials and videos online for children. Most of the material we could put online was thanks to this. We also put a couple of computers in classrooms for teachers and children to have a way to look things up quickly. Some of the children even used these to access videos on how to draw, solve the rubiks cube, and learned these. Overall all the access to the internet and putting out information has been valuable it even helped set up the Support a child program that is maintained by the youth of STEM land and gets in almost half the funds needed to sustain the school.<br />
- About a year back we started working on a group ramping up on VLSI layout so a few youth are supported through this. About 9 months back we also started engaging with Quilt.AI an ethical product research company this brought in some data-science and again programming to show data and trends and scraping. In parallel a group also started on content creation desk research and blogging based on data research and AI data. We now have three tech groups and one content group of youth and all part of a learning organization that is supporting personal journeys of youth learn a skill, mature into looking at their socialization and discover what they really care for - their purpose. As a learning organization time can be put aside for meditation, leadership, etc. In a year on an average we spend a month or more on working on oneself. Also built in are contributions to the community both in terms or time and monitory.<br />
To me while these are not high-end technology and (perhaps some are use of technology), but I consider them technology for good - used for learning, growth of children and the youth. The intent was to use technology for good, be it the projects we or children make, courses we offer or the skills, competencies and inner capacities acquired when working with companies.<br />
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Coming back to the three unrelated incidents, in the third, I attempted to explain to my mentor that my expertise as an engineer was not AI but in creating core hardware technology and what I could do was point her to those in my organization dealing with AI. It was nice to know, that the people we are working with can address responsible use of technology.<br />
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The second incident I think is oft repeated by us engineers ourselves not necessarily because we believe <b>every product </b>is value neutral, but because it makes our life easier to accept the larger system that govern the products we work on - markets, investors, customers, etc. I wonder if the more educated and specialized we get, 'professionally' we are left with lesser choices in the 'real world'. One solution of course has been what I did the last 7 yrs, not let my specialization be my prison and respond with what was needed for what was around me. Even this year, the choice I am making is to keep my skills up-to-date, understand new processes, methodologies and technologies to appropriately guide the team that is building up here that works on tech for good.<br />
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I am (was?) a fairly good engineer (I have the best paper award at ISSCC and over a billion products show for it) and the question for myself after 7 yrs of working on 'technology for good' is what choices will exist for me for doing the same in the 'real world'.<br />
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As Ani joked (as only a spouse can), brain the size of a planet what are you doing with it, in response to when I am in a thoughtful or pondering over are how to support the youth and children I work with make more progress and utilize the opportunities presented to them (perhaps, to 'my' expectations), how to resolve an impasse in my community (where I live and work) that could help it be at its full potential. Things that I need Vipassana for, that allow me to see things as they are, that I can create opportunity for growth, but growth is a choice and that the longer you live in a place the bigger any problem looks! To address them, I still myself, free myself from expectation, create space for others to breath and hope for a quiet insight.<br />
Issues in the technical problems in comparison are significantly well behaved than human problems and looking inside is limited to clearing a cluttered mind. But, perhaps, applying the same methodology as I have to human problems even when I am in a 'pure technology' world may give other solutions than I have found in the past.</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-75578553462580232822019-01-13T23:44:00.000-08:002019-01-13T23:44:12.698-08:00Vipassana: from battle to surrender<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The first time we heard of Vipassana was from marathon training coach in Austin. we were talking about the hardest races to run and he mentioned that the hardest thing he had ever done was attend Vipassana.</div>
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I guess the first time we did go to it as a challenge (10 yrs back) and I had <a href="https://smallisbeautiful.blogspot.com/2008/10/vipassana-seeing-things-as-they-are.html">written about my experience</a> as a little about the technique then. More recently one of the youth I went with also recorded her understanding <a href="http://www.auraauro.com/uncategorized/vipassana/">of the theory</a> after attending such a course.</div>
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Over the years I went for Vipassana 5 times, two times to do the course, once to serve and two more times recently in Dec 16 and Dec 17. In later times the 10 hour sittings a day were physically easier, but every time preparing for Vipassana is like preparing for battle. Not for putting things in order as one is uncontactable for 10 days (you realise quickly and initially with some disappointment that the world moves on fine without you). But, for the wandering mind and the pain the 10 hour sittings (especially Aditan 3 sessions where you can't change your position for an hour).</div>
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The mind especially wanders because the technique works with the truth, ordinary bodily truth of respiration and then sensation and settling down the mind itself takes three days or more. There is no visualisation, verbalization, etc.</div>
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I started practicing Vipassana when I was seriously questioning organised religion, our mothers were usually at the receiving end of my intensity on the subject. I continued through being an agnostic and now again when we moved to Auroville I was open to having faith again and being a willing servitude of the divine consciousness. Vipassana is a practice of purifying the mind and can be practiced irrespective of the philosophy just as sugar works as well with lemon water or (badam) milk.</div>
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In recent years esp Dec '16, Dec '17 I realized that the more the responsibilities I have taken up the longer it has taken to quieten my mind .</div>
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This year I came for Dhamma service, it's 10 days you give to serve in the program and help administration of the course. I was given the responsibility of taking care of the main hall, support serving food, organization teacher meetings, requirements of mediators and a few more things that kept coming up :).</div>
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In my last Dhamma service at Bangalore it primarily compounding and for most part I attended the course as a regular participant. As I was accountable for the Dhamma hall I thought this will be a good practice to meditate and have some daily happenings and make it a little more lifelike.</div>
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However, in the first session the teacher said that I would be required to by and large keep our eyes open, I realised that there will be very little serious meditation that I'll be able to do. Ah well. I did come for Seva. Then the team of dhamma works decided we decided to take turns in meditation. When the first opportunity presented itself for me to meditate I just sort of surrendered something that has been very hard to do before my move to Auroville. I relaxed completely and there were not as many thoughts as I had ever had before. I was not battling against my mind as I had done in the past. I just took the instructions to heart that respiration is already there, the river is already flowing, I just needed to watch it.</div>
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When thoughts came they came with a precursors an image, an incident, a sentence and I could smile that my mind was about to drift and smile and tell myself that I'm about to pop (from the matrix) and come back to watching my breath. What distracted me the most we the thought of writing a blog about it not being a battle but a surrender.</div>
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What helped was before a session reminding myself that I was not a teacher, principal, technical leader of a group, mentor, community member with responsibilities, I was just a human being who had come to learn to be a witness and learn through this experience.</div>
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Also sitting with the teacher and listening to him repeating the instructions again and again suddenly one thing clicked understanding sensation is Anika (temporary) and with choice less observation we improve our equanimity based on observing this reality in sensations. When we get angry we can take a moment and observe the sensations, wait for it to subside and then act.</div>
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The entire course was a lot more hectic than I can imagine but sessions were not as much of a battle. They were hard only when I took myself too seriously and one of my ego heads showed up.</div>
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I also realized that things I was worried about and noticed that my happiness is really my responsibly and that I have become too serious and need to smile more :) (why so serious, as the joker says in the dark knight, comes to mind).</div>
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What also made sense is what the teacher said to one of the students, <u>"don't try to meditate, just meditate"</u>.</div>
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As I mentioned before technique works on no imagination and no visualization and works with the truth of the moment as experienced by me and helps me train my subconscious mind to change the habit pattern of generation attachment and aversion. And yet, as the ego weakens e.g. in the Bhang state of the total dissolution of the physical body you experience and observe something more than just mind and matter and its obvious interaction.</div>
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The course trains an individual to work for their own salvation and indeed one has to put in time and work, but what is often overlooked is that there is grace when you work sincerely. This time I could feel this grace actively supporting me.</div>
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A picture of my team of dhamma workers who handled 70 odd meditators.</div>
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I don't even know what they do. We just got together and as the teacher said worked beautifully as a team, supported the meditators and went our ways.</div>
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-4774011475426673342017-03-12T00:07:00.004-08:002017-03-12T00:07:49.199-08:00Change in culture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Four years back when I moved to Auroville I would post one or two puzzles a week on the school notice board at Udavi. I had announced them in the classes I taught and there were always two children U and D in the school (in 10th grade) who would attempt to answer the puzzles. They would discuss the puzzles among themselves and often submit a solution to the puzzles. Sometimes they would have doubts and come and explain their logic to me and ask me to find a flaw.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I did some visual puzzles with arranging match sticks and these some of the 6th graders were interested in, but by and large, I got one or two solutions for the puzzles with barely any discussion about the puzzles.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last week Naveen took up the exercise of putting up a puzzle a week in STEM Land. There has been quite some discussion about the puzzle - the 9th graders applying algebra to solve it and the younger attempting to do it without algebra. I even noticed a volunteer who has come to learn STEM has been attempting to solve it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It remains to be seen how much of this buzz translates to children taking the initiative to submit their queries, especially as we have not marked any prizes for their submissions. Nonetheless, I can see a change in culture, of attempting puzzles, that was missing in the children before.</span></div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-62317089002353067442017-03-11T23:29:00.004-08:002017-03-11T23:29:35.991-08:00Deep learning...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone had recently asked me to give them an example of what I considered deep learning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The STEM Land (@ Udavi) display that the children in the 9th grade had broken down and a couple of letters were not lighting up. A couple of children in the 7th grade had expressed interest to fix the display. I had walked them through how powering a leg of the display lights up one of the 7 segments (and the decimal point). They had been fascinated by being able to fix something and over a couple of classes went ahead and fixed it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After fixing the board and seeing it work one of the children was interested in doing something more with the Arduino. What the 9th graders had done was the treat a digit as a unit and light up one digit at a time, etc without changing the essential message of what was being printed. But this child wanted to do more. He wired up the 7 segments to a separate Arduino pin and wanted to control them individually.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He managed to light up a 1 by end of a class. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mentioned to him that this will soon get out of hand if he did not start organizing the code (in a language he was learning) into functions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Later that day </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">one of my youth asked me to give them an example of deep learning in STEM Land.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next morning B didn't have a class, but during lunch, he </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">came by and asked me to show him what these functions are. I told him that it was similar to the setup and loop that are already present, but with any name he wanted and they could be called into action when needed, similar to the blocks in Scratch. His face immediately lit up and he said ok, I understand blocks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He had an activity class after lunch and he sat down to implement what he had in mind. He ran into a couple of errors of syntax (defn of functions needs matching '{}', calling functions in C needs '()' ), but then he did not ask for me for about 45 minutes. Then he came to me and said that he needs some help in extending the functionality. I went up and saw what he had done and realized that he had made a single digit counter that went from 1 to 9 every one second. He had now decided to make a clock out of the arduino and had added a second 7 segment display to get the second digit of the clock he needed. I thought he would have missed the logic of the first digit continuing to run when the second was set, but he had got that logic right and implemented this as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could find nothing wrong with his program and I think was a little surprised how much he was able to progress in a single session starting from wiring up getting the logic of an entire set of digits right and moving on to the next logically. Perhaps, the issue is with the hardware and we are attempting to draw too much current from the USB and none of the displays were lighting up. The debug continues</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...but it gave me an answer to what I presently consider an example of deep learning, taking a concept in an entirely different context from blinking light->fixing a 7segment display->individual control of segments and putting it all together to shift between digits in the hope of creating a clock with very little help from an adult.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, there are not enough outputs in the Arduino to create all the digits of a full-fledged clock and I let him know, but it seemed he was happy with what he could get.</span></div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-58273907193618869342017-03-07T07:36:00.001-08:002017-03-07T07:36:19.296-08:00Second STEM Land at Isai Ambalam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We started a second center of STEM Land at Isai Ambalam School on 1st March. The children at the school had been learning the games and puzzles and had set up stalls to engage those who had come. Some had created small projects like a name board with a welcome sign to a few 5 graders explaining a small LED circuit with a switch and a resistor, to games that the children had put up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 9th graders from Udavi had come for the inauguration and also brought their own games, rubiks cubes, etc to show the younger ones at Isai Ambalam the spirit of STEM land.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The opening is well documented in the following posts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.auraauro.com/stem-land/stem-land-inauguration-at-isaiambalam/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.auraauro.com/school/inauguration-stem-land-isai-ambalam-overview/</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wanted to talk about one moment of the opening ceremony when the entire Aura Auro team (7 people) were at the entrance. We could see all the people engage with the stalls and no one noticed any of us missing or all of us had gathered together. I just let it soak and we waited for a few minutes before starting the silent clap that slowly gathers steam till everyone was paying attention.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The best moments of a teacher are the moments when you are no longer needed.</span></div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-38200297496876945502017-03-06T02:10:00.000-08:002017-03-06T02:10:10.875-08:00Multiplication tables with children who never learnt it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are children who are able to hold their fort without knowing the multiplication tables in the calculations in Mathematics. Some are quick at addition, some remember specific tables and extrapolate quickly. They survive till 9th grade where </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">powerful mathematical concepts are introduced with milder calculations and are able to generally manage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, for most children for whom the number sense has not landed and are slow with calculations, the lack of knowing the tables is a serious hindrance in survival and any possibility of enjoying mathematics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We took up the challenge of identifying 7th, 8th (and 9th) graders who did not know their tables. We worked with the children in identifying what they already knew - generally the 2, 5 tables. For a couple of children, the short-cut for the 9 tables was quick and they were comfortable with using that quickly. Some have the hand rules for 6x6 onwards, but it appears too slow for practical use. The table tricks were kludgy and not used e.g. some knew methods to write down the 7 tables, but it was too easy and not practiced enough to be usable in action and certainly not at random.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The common issues for children were 3x6 to 3x9, 4 tables, 6x6 to 6x9, 7x7 to 7x9, 8x8 and 8x9. I looked at a demo of the Vaughn Cube. Now, the demo is public domain and looking at the video it is easy to figure out how it works. They have given enough in the video (unknowingly?) to figure out not just how it works, but work out the details of the method. The rest of the post is about our Indian hack of the same and what we did with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The idea is simple, replace mathematical facts with objects that you need to remember in a 3-D room. The sounds t(1), n(2), m(3), r(4), l(5), ch(6), ka(7), f(8), p(9) are memorized in simple ways. An advantage of an object between two number is that it both 3x7 = 7x3 are the same. Iya one of the children who had a lot of difficulty with learning the tables announced that other than the 8 and 9 tables he knew everything. When I drew a pic of the 9 tables on his request he suddenly realized 9x3 = 3x9. Hey Anna, 9x3 is the same as 3x9. Then he noticed that all the other objects were also familiar, this makes the table so much easier he added. I had attempted to convey the same to him earlier and when I shared his Aha moment with his teacher she remarked that she had told him as much many times. I guess, it doesn't matter how many times someone tells me something, it only matters when I get it.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AyNjt-oMej8/WL0xo-3TX7I/AAAAAAAAF3E/GwE6bLQ5kGwvMmawnZ3PlInNG9gxS28OQCPcB/s1600/IMG_20170306_152113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AyNjt-oMej8/WL0xo-3TX7I/AAAAAAAAF3E/GwE6bLQ5kGwvMmawnZ3PlInNG9gxS28OQCPcB/s320/IMG_20170306_152113.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What we did with it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1: Game: Figure out as many of these combinations by watching the video. As it gets tedious, use the skip forward and back feature to make it a little interesting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2: Exercise: Practice with what you know and find out what is missing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3: Project: Make a mini project in Scratch that shows the objects as you type in the questions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4: Practice, Practice, Practice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5: Project: Make a game that tests rigor by asking tables at random, build on it to time yourself. By now I have quite a few kids who want us to test them because they have gotten so good at it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Some notes, </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- With some practice, the children who had given up on the tables in the past were able to remember tables.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- However, these are mathematical facts and it lacks a logical framework that children can work with when things go wrong. e.g. if the child remembers the wrong object it can be an absurd result.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- I'm still sticking with when all else fails (flash cards, logic of knowing 5 tables, knowing squares and adding and subtracting) perhaps give visualization a try.</span></div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-40530992287572015402017-01-16T09:18:00.001-08:002017-01-16T09:18:29.955-08:00Training of Savarayalu Nayagar Government Girls High School @ STEM Land<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A note regarding the teachers workshop last week with<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> Savarayalu Government Girls High School. Their principal Hemavathi had visited STEM Land with 10 of her children and (the computer instructor from KV Jipmer) a few weeks back and spent the day here interacting with the children and seeing their work.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found the girls were very thoughtful and identified three areas that they wanted to add in their school - fun, challenges like puzzles, creativity in doing projects from their experience at STEM Land.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hemavathi is the general secetary of the Pondicherry Science Forum and a very respected teacher trainer in the government. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">She was thrilled with the motivation and self-direction of the children who she saw were able to work independently and effectively. In her visitor note she wrote that STEM land gives her hope.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She put this in action and this week she organized all her 20 odd teachers from different subject areas including languages, Social, Sports and music and of course Math and Science to come during the holiday to STEM Land for training. We prepared a 4 hrs module on teacher training including use of stewardship tools that look choice of working from possibility and fears and doing things differently. Initially the teachers were not sure why we were introducing the stewardship tools that we said benefited us as teachers and are useful irrespective of the area you are working on, however, they were able to put this in practice the very next session when we<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> jumped into getting teachers who had been fearful of computers for 30-40 yrs to program with Scratch. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The teachers were very engaged and delayed their lunch by an hour and a half to work. They also interacted with a few children during the breaks. Three 8 grade children (Punidhivel, Kabilan and Vignesh) and Yuvaraj (9th grade) also joined the teachers and it was wonderful to see the teachers open to learn from the children. Thanks Anand and Geetha for responding to the children's request and letting them express themselves, it made a difference.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reflections at the end of the day from the teachers gave us hope of changes in attitudes both towards technology and how they work with children. One of the teachers talked about how she and other teachers had assumed that being strict and making children sit straight and control their movement was making children learn, but now she saw what the body language of a children engaged in what they were learning looked like and would like to see that in her children. She also felt that she could have learnt a lot more if she had not grown up in a culture of fear of failure and that she will be bold in her actions for the benefit of children. Another teacher mentioned how she has always been externalizing actions (as school and we) and she will now take responsibility for her work as she sees its for her growth. An elderly teacher remarked that he had seen many schools both high class for well off children and poor schools. But, Udavi was special, its a high class school for children who are from poor families.</span></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Given the positive response of the teachers we are continuing the engagement with them with a visit to their school tomorrow. Hope our work here makes the lives of the 450 girls and the 20 teachers in </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Savarayalu</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> more meaningful and joyful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(for STEM Land team - Arun, Bala, Muthu, Naveen, Pratap, Ranjini, Sundar, Sanjeev, Vaidegi)</span></span></div>
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-10700040632373633732016-07-03T04:48:00.006-07:002016-07-03T04:48:55.775-07:00From '15 does not have a square root' to 'what is the square root of 0.05'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After such a long break I though I will start with something simple. A couple of questions from children. A couple of weeks back one child said <i>15 does not have a square root (only 16 does and that is 4)</i>. I wondered what kind of creatures children thought surds are. I had done some square root work with 10 graders using graphs and it seemed to give them some idea that these are also numbers of some sort a month back, but it was a passing comment and I let it go.</span><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, a volunteer started coming into STEM Land and I asked him as I ask all adults to work on some projects to inspire children. I suggested creating some sort of graph in scratch for children to see the squares of non-whole numbers. He started it and got as far as creating squares for whole numbers (similar to what the 7th graders with Sundar did last year) and then gave up, preferring to use his time more productively by finding children who wanted to be taught.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, another week went by and I decided to take up this project and made a rudimentary squaring version with visual boxes (my hope is always to make something functional, but so terrible that anyone who sees it will want to modify it :-)). I went in yesterday and showed it to the volunteer. One child came by and asked what we were up to (never underestimate the curiosity of a child), I showed him, then another, then another kid. They played with it for some time. Then I modified the program to calculate a square root. This seemed to garner a little more interest. They started playing with the program and one of the 10th graders had an activity class and connected it to the graphs he had drawn and started explaining it to the younger kids. My work was done and I walked off leaving the computer to them.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Towards the later half of the session one girl came to me and asked me what the square root of 60 was. I walked her through my guess and she concurred, but murmered something about off screen. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A little later she came back and asked me what the square root of 0.05 was. Hey where did that come from? She explained that she was tying to figure out how small a figure she can get and saw the really small square of just 4 of 1/100 and she triggered the software by asking it to calculate the closest square to 0.05. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went back and put 60 into the program and realized she was testing where the program ran out of space to fill the boxes. Boundary conditions, interesting...</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>[Thanks Swathi for suggesting graph notebooks and that areas up to 2 decimal places can naturally be represented in a graph notebook.]</i></span></div>
<div>
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Boring digression from the story:</b></i></div>
<div>
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we look at a regular graph sheet it is divided into large 1 cm squares. Within these the squares are split vertically 1 mm lines and horizontally in 1 mm thin lines. There are also helpful guide lines at 5 mm that are a little thicker than the 1 mm lines. These lines divide a single square into 10 vertical pieces (0.1) and 10 horizontal pieces (0.1) and together into 100 smaller 1mm^2 squares. The big square is whole and a smaller square is 0.01.</i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Here is a picture:</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd14nE75ub1Vac4Dn1fyKSq1XPOOtAphwxknooqg2ovJkmGLQMDrSw7dC-JR01AO_oxo0L3MI-RqHU8fU3bd-EkK1VbOqeiCtA0e2W2qUgu3Ne1iJETMa48F5caj4pDtTf1A63Qg/s1600/graph_paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd14nE75ub1Vac4Dn1fyKSq1XPOOtAphwxknooqg2ovJkmGLQMDrSw7dC-JR01AO_oxo0L3MI-RqHU8fU3bd-EkK1VbOqeiCtA0e2W2qUgu3Ne1iJETMa48F5caj4pDtTf1A63Qg/s1600/graph_paper.jpg" /></i></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Children are comfortable with decimal numbers on the scale. They can easily mark out 5.4 cm on the graph paper and soon realize that its 5 dark lines and 4 light lines. </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>If we marked 5 cm in both x and y axis and completed the square we will get 25 full squares. No surprise, area is multiplication.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The same happens if we mark 5.4 cm in both x and y axis. What is the area of this? The following image may be a helpful... 25 big squares (=25), 4 rods x 5 (4x0.1x5 = 2) vertical and same horizontal (=2) and 4x4 (1/100) (=0.16). </i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHyQEFtfLDdTvKG6kt3mwnsrNPAq5LvgVaRsCc1gsvNAFzFJr4xD306Kj4-xafF9dz5TfVoov27LKnV2TPFXnlbtDzS7mUA0tN9DbxWi57fUwBYQDm5XgOA3oSnla1p63GS4Qgjw/s1600/5.4square.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHyQEFtfLDdTvKG6kt3mwnsrNPAq5LvgVaRsCc1gsvNAFzFJr4xD306Kj4-xafF9dz5TfVoov27LKnV2TPFXnlbtDzS7mUA0tN9DbxWi57fUwBYQDm5XgOA3oSnla1p63GS4Qgjw/s320/5.4square.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Now playing with modified program of a square root.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hu2p0F7Iwmc/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hu2p0F7Iwmc?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Here are the programs to play, break and make something better!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>Squaring program :</b> https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/115474246/</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>Square root program: </b>https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/115470991/</i></span></div>
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-19661685699806118112016-01-10T04:54:00.001-08:002016-01-10T04:54:33.734-08:00A year of Aura Auro Design<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Aura Auro Design is now a year old! We put together a small reflection of the year gone by! Here is the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/auraauroreflection">pdf</a>.</span><br />
<h4 align="center" class="western">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Aura
Auro Design – First year reflection</span></h4>
<div align="right" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>learn,
grow, work, teach</b></div>
<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sanjeev Ranganathan, Bala Anand, Sundranandhan Kothandaraman, Vaidegi
Gunasekar</div>
<div align="right" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Jan
2016</b></div>
<div class="western">
<b>About this note</b></div>
<div class="western">
Aura Auro Design, a project of SAIIER, is a team
of engineers Sanjeev (AV), Sundar (AV), Bala (AV) and Vaidegi
(Bio-region) who teach in the schools (Udavi and Isai Ambalam) 3 hrs
a day and learn, grow and work in electronics 5 hrs a day. The
project explores innovative ways of STEM education primarily through
their STEM Land initiative. The team also finacially supports Udavi
and Isai Ambalam schools, Reach for the starts program and AV
maintenance.</div>
<div class="western">
At the end of the first year of Aura Auro Design
we report briefly our activities in the first year, reflect if we are
aligned with our original goals and what direction or goals we set
going forward.</div>
<div class="western">
<b>Brief summary of goals of Aura Auro Design</b></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">-
Exploring if an alternative business model where the primary goal is
personal development and growth of its staff and contribution to
community can be effective in the real world.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">-
To create an enviroment where skilled youth can engage with children
in schools to learn beyond simple procedural learning from 5</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">
to 8</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">
grades and move into application and problem solving.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">-
To create an alternative to examinations as a way for children to
demonstrate their learning.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
<b>Some activities of the first year</b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Engagement with Isai
Ambalam school and Udavi school 3 hrs a day</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Participation in the
Stewardship for New Emergence workshop and working with Dr.Monica
Sharma to look at system parameters to include in our work to be
effective in the long term</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Learning about
learning – reading and presenting chapters of – what did you ask
at school today by <i>Kamala Mukunda</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Taking up two courses
of Interactive Python through Coursera and make variety of python
games</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Conducting an
electonics class open to anyone in and around AV that used
simulations and building circuits as a way to practical learn
electronics</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Noticing breakdown of
replicating and propogating the same patterns of education we wanted
to address and the breakthrough of creation of STEM Land</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Creating a space for
youth to come in and interact (and learn) with children and build
things with them</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Slowly seeing
engagement from children from various schools of Auroville in STEM
Land (Isai Ambalam, TLC, Last School) in the hope of enabling
learning engagement between children of various schools, backgrounds
and nationalities</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Making progress on 3
software projects (80% completion) and 1 hardware project (90%) that
was proposed by Aura Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Putting aside time
(three hrs a week) during work time to read</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Tracking our growth
and documenting the work of children through the blog
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="uz-Cyrl-UZ"><u><a href="http://www.auraauro.com/">www.auraauro.com</a></u></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Presenting a paper at
epiSTEM6 at HBCSE (Homi Baba Center of Science Education)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.auraauro.com/showcase/">www.auraauro.com/showcase/</a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- Learning to work
together and collaborate, moving towards a Likert-Emberling Stage 4
organization</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Papers and Articles
in 2015</b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">-
Ranganathan, S., Anand, B., Kothandaraman, S. & Gunasekar, V.
(Dec 2015) Using programming with rural children for learning to
think mathematically, </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">epiSTEM6,
HSCSE (Homi Baba Center of Science Education)</span></i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">-
AV Times (Dec 2015), ALICE in STEM Land</span></span></div>
<div class="western">
- <span style="font-style: normal;">The Hindu</span>
(Oct 2015), Making, tinkering and engineering their way to knowledge</div>
<div class="western">
<b>Beief conclusions</b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- We needed to keep the
priority of learning and growth over work often in mind to avoid
getting carried away with deadlines, products and short term
efficiency. Though it requires a partner company that is
understanding of our work holistically, it has been possible to make
some progress on projects with <span style="font-weight: normal;">Aura
Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd and they are continuing to support Aura Auro
this year.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- It is possible to
create a space where children can learn through inspiration rather
than through compliance. It is significantly more effort for teachers
vs 'efficient' classroom teaching and requires us to be true to AV
goals of constant progress and unending education.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We have been inspired
with the work done by children to demonstrate what they are capable
of when given a chance. http://www.auraauro.com/category/showcase/</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Going forward:</b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- The work at STEM Land
is meaningful not only for the children we are working with, but also
for children throughout the country. But, we need a lot more rigor
and research to make this happen.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- We need to find
mechanisms of accelerated growth as electrical engineers and work on
time management and presence to be effective at work in the time we
have allocated to it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- We need additional
people to support our work at STEM Land and will be supporting
another youth Naveen (AV) to help us organize the space and keep it
open from 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Mon-Sat.</div>
<div class="western">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">- We hope for a
richer interactive experience with Aura Semi this year and also grow
the number of youth supported in the project to 5 over the course of
six months (June).</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Reflections from the
team</b></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><b>1)
Bala Anand</b></i></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> I
started the year as a novice knowing very little about work and life.
Aura Auro has brought a big change to me. I have learnt a lot during
this one year. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> As
Aura Auro is an electronics centre, it is essential that I am good at
it. I knew very little at the beginning. Aura Aura has given me an
oppurtunity to learn and grow as an Engineer. I have learnt to
anaylse circuits, run simulations, build PCB boards, windows and
linux administration, programming in python, etc... I am learning to
design circuits, working efficiently by managing time and being
organized and learning to work being part of a team. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> Teaching
was completely new to me. Over the year I have come to terms in
managing a class. It gives me happiness to guide the children and
share some of the knowledge I have. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> Setting
up STEM land in Udavi was a big learning curve. I was put in
situations where I felt I was responsible. Though I did fail at times
it was a learning experience. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> We
presented a paper in Mumabi, episteme 6 – international conference
on Stem education. It gave us an oppurtunity to talk about the
different things we do at school. The paper was accepted well and
felt that we are going in the right direction.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> Making
contributions to schools and to Auroville makes me feel that I am
doing something to the society around me.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> Attending
Steward for New Emergence (by Monica Sharma) workshop early in the
year was a big positive for me. I learnt lots of tools and that
helped me at work, school and personally.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"> Overall
Aur</span>a Auro has been a place where I am growing daily, learning
and experimenting new things.</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><b>2)
Sundranandhan </b></i><span style="color: #00000a;"><i><b>Kothandaraman</b></i></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Time
Lapse</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"><span lang="en-US">The
year 2014-2015 was diverse and had a lot of beautiful experiences to
offer me. Being part of Aura Auro Design team the learning as an
engineer was extensive. I can tell this journey is offering me a lot
not only as an engineer, but also a teacher. The Whole oneness of
</span></span><span style="color: #00000a;"><span lang="en-US"><i>learn,
grow, work, teach</i></span></span><span style="color: #00000a;"><span lang="en-US">
has made me realize something special, that I am exploring on how to
offer at various instances of being myself...</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"><span lang="en-US">Working
with children is a sense of blossomness, I see myself grow along with
the children. Wanting to learn something comes form a inner space of
the freedom to learn it, that is the experience I share along with
the children towards their growth at STEM Land. The work shop
Stewardship for new emergence has given me a whole new perspective
approach to accomplishment of specific goals and evaluation measures
on them.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #00000a;"><span lang="en-US"><i><b>3)
Vaidegi Gunasekar</b></i></span></span><span style="color: #00000a;"><span lang="en-US"><i>
</i></span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My
stands are Perseverance and Agency <span style="font-style: normal;">(capacity
to act in any given situation)</span>. AuraAuro laid a clear path for
my career as well as social activities (teaching). In this duration
of one year I learnt many things in Electronics (which I never even
thought of in my under graduation) and Teaching (how to teach and
classroom management). This gives me satisfaction on what I did in
the entire course of learning.</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>As
an Engineer </i></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I
can see myself that I'm growing as Engineer. I'm not doing the same
work repeatedly. Everyday I'm doing something new or in different
way. This makes me think, engage and apply thoughts based on my
previous mistakes. AuraAuro also created space to collaborate and
discuss when I face an issue or when I build something.</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>As
a Teacher</i></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As
per my perspective, a teacher was one who give all the instructions
(what to do and don't). But Aura Auro broke that idea. It created a
environment where I observe and guide the students instead of giving
them each and every instruction to do something. In the middle I
learnt being 'effective' is more important than being 'nice' to all
the children.
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US">I
also learnt that </span>“ If you want to understand something,
change it. But, if you want to change something, understand it.”</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US"><i><b>4)
Sanjeev Ranganathan</b></i></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Aura
Auro has been an amazing growth experience and helped me undestand
the gaps in my engagement with children. I find I am finally
beginning to understand Sri Aurobindo's first principle of true
teaching that nothing can be taught and starting to take my first
steps towards being an integral teacher.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">STEM
Land offers a possibility of putting free progress in action with
children or attempting to teach not by compliance, but by
inspiration...but much work is needed, both on us and by us in the
future. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>References</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.51cm; text-indent: -0.51cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Mukunda,
K.V. (2009) </span></span></span><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">What
Did You Ask at School Today, </span></span></span><span lang="en-US"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Harper
Collins</span></i></span><span lang="en-US"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.51cm; text-indent: -0.51cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
<b>A Big Thank you to</b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- To Saracon and
Chandresh for providing us the workspace to initiate this effort.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- To Aura Semiconductor
Pvt. Ltd. for supporting this initiative financially and providing
challenges for us technically</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- To the stewardship
for the new emergence program for leadership development and helping
us work as a team from possibility rather than fear</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- To the many people
who helped us set up STEM Land including (but not exclusively) -
SAIIER for their support on purchase of materials, equipment, books,
etc. For letting us revamp and use two cupboards that were up for
disposal, Freecharge.com for second hand laptops, friends for
purchasing robots and puzzles. Sree Nair for donating bigshot cameras
he designed. Aura Semi for inverters. PCG for the second mindstorm
and some new games and puzzles, children for organizing STEM Land
themselves.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>About our partner
Aura Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd.</b></div>
<div class="western">
Aura Semiconductor is a fabless semiconductor
company providing high performance RF & analog solutions. Aura
Semiconductor was founded in 2010 with focus on developing technology
leadership in the areas of RF, clocking, audio and power management.<br /><br /><br />
</div>
<br />
<div class="western">
<br /><br />
</div>
</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-91803572589567789012015-12-21T04:02:00.002-08:002015-12-21T04:02:39.373-08:00A Reflection on “Nothing can be Taught”<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 100%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I reflected upon my interpretation at different times as a
teacher.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of
Sri Aurobindo’s: 'The first principle of true teaching is that
nothing can be taught.'<sup>1</sup>
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="__DdeLink__13_1492333528"></a>
When I started teaching I wanted to be a good teacher. I planned my
classes, used many resources and TLM (Teaching Learning Material),
had many classes with activities, attempted to open the minds of
children, and took a lot of notes. A workshop called the 'Stewardship
for a New Emergence' helped me notice my growth as a teacher and
capture the fleeting insights - it helped me be more patient and
capable of listening to children. At this time, I interpreted the
first principle of teaching as the learning I was going through to be
a better teacher and a better person through my experience. I took
the principle to refer to spiritual experiences that are our own. For
example, in a typical classroom I would teach different points of
view, or of looking at something to support diversity or handle
misconceptions and children would work with TLM and at times the
computer<sup>2</sup>.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I
continued working with children I noticed that my best classes were
not the ones I prepared the most. Some classes had a flow and some,
in spite of planning (and a few because of <i>much</i> planning) were
hard. An almost identical incident or comment from children that
derailed one class would have no impact in another. I noticed that
this had less to do with the environment around me or what children
experienced at home and more to do with the environment I was
carrying with me to the classrooms and who I was being while I was in
the class. I also noticed children were learning more when I was
instructing less. Practically, my classes were getting more activity
based with much peer learning and less lecturing. I often used
computers with children creating projects to learn the material. I
read up on constructivist theory and learned that each child (and
adult) builds their own knowledge and I only needed to create an
environment to let learning happen. I noticed that it was my 'I have
a PhD and can show other ways of doing this' ego that was coming in
the way of learning and was able to consciously make a choice to let
opportunities to teach go, and let opportunities for learning
flourish. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 100%;">My
interpretation of Sri Aurobindo’s first principle at that time was
that this also applies to practical learning through a constructivist
approach</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 100%;">3</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 100%;">.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 100%;">Some
time has passed since then and I no longer see spiritual growth and
practical learning as two distinct applications of the first
principle of true teaching. It appears that every true learning is
with the engagement of our entire being and is spiritual and helps us
follow our core. Practically, now the environment I am working to
create at STEM Land is such that a session with children is about
self-discovery. It’s not about a procedure or the underlying
concept, but about their experience. The environment offers choice
and looks to the children to take responsibility for their learning.
I do instruct, children do projects, but it happens when the need
comes up from the children</span><sup style="line-height: 100%;">4</sup><span style="line-height: 100%;">.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote-western" style="page-break-before: always;">
<br /></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western" style="page-break-before: always;">
---</div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western" style="page-break-before: always;">
<br /></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western" style="page-break-before: always;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1.<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Sri. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Aurobindo, (1910)
The Human Mind, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Karmayogin</i></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">. </span></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western" style="page-break-before: always;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span>2. <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Ranganathan,
S. (2014) Program to encourage critical thinking in children –
2013-2014.</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>
Grant report by Udavi School to SAIIER.</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western" style="page-break-before: always;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">3. Ranganathan S., Anand B., Kothandaraman S. and Gunasekar V. (Dec
2015) Using programming with rural children For Learning to think
mathematically, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>epiSTEM
6 HBCSE, IITB.</i></span></span></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> 4. Ranganathan S., STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics)
Land and Resource Center (2015) </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Grant
proposal to SAIIER</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote-western">
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-51957925744689518682015-12-20T03:09:00.001-08:002015-12-22T03:48:35.791-08:0016 Dec 2015 epiSTEME6 conference presentation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Presentation that goes with the paper on epiSTEME6 conference.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Shdvp1VF5mk" width="459"></iframe></div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-72235997296567196412015-11-30T22:22:00.000-08:002015-12-02T08:15:12.526-08:00Stroll through STEM Land<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made a 3 minute video of a stroll through STEM Land on a Sat. We (Aura Auro team) are together at the same time with multiple classes and a few children from around who join us. Here is the video:</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fMWcpJq4d7Q" width="560"></iframe><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few notes:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- The display for STEM Land was made last week by a few children. It switches between a 5 sets of ways of how STEM Land is displayed. The children soldered the board together programmed an arduino to switch between these (with help from Naveen). <a href="http://www.auraauro.com/uncategorized/name-board-of-stem-land/">Here</a> is a blog post with more about this.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- We recently added dobble, blockus and another abalone to STEM Land. Blokus is another great strategy game and dobble is excellent for observation with different scaling. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These additions are popular and extremely good in brain twisting skills. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(We also got bounce off and jungle speed which are also very popular though I am not as convinced about their utility to learning :).)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- Children have been working quite a bit on Alice a 3D programming environment. This allows children to stretch the programming they were introduced to in scratch with a 2D stage to a 3D world. Here is a note on a <a href="http://www.auraauro.com/showcase/alice-program/">game</a> that Rati is creating.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- Blender has also picked up and few children children have learnt more or less on their own. Vaidegi also started putting the 3D printer in action first with things available online and then with learning blender herself this has added the idea of being able to create what you make in blender. The implicit mathematics and visualizing in modeling 3D images is excellent. With the printer you couple this with what can actually be made nicely.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- The 'fan' is a salvaged (thanks Lata) and the children added an external battery adapter (since the one inside had rusted) and Puni is explaining how he noticed that it acts more as an exhaust picking up things rather than what he expected of pushing things away.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- One group of students have become quite good at putting together mindstorm robots. The first one took them 2 weeks. This is their fifth robot and it just took them 2 days to put together. Here is a link with a <a href="http://www.auraauro.com/showcase/robotic-snake/">snake robot in action</a>.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- We have started salvaging old boards that I had around to get components we can use elsewhere and started a fix it lab. We fixed our first phone...yay, more on this later.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- A few Isai Ambalam children join us on Sat since its their day off and so do a few children from Auroville.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Playing, tinkering, making and learning is alive in STEM Land.</span></div>
</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-77355787138946464732015-11-10T00:07:00.000-08:002015-11-10T00:07:02.791-08:00Experiences at STEM Land...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A few recent experiences at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">STEM Land that touched me...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">- I have been </span><span class="il" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">touched</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> how elder and younger children with similar interest are willing to work together as equals. How open elder children are to learn from younger children who have developed an expertise at something.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">- We didn't spend a single rupee on labor to set up STEM Land. A big we (Aura Auro, our friends, volunteers and the children) did it ourselves.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">- I had decided that I was going to let STEM Land self organize. One day some younger children came to </span><span class="il" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">me</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> and told </span><span class="il" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">me</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> that a couple of elder children had taken their laptops. I told them to work it out among themselves. About 10 mins later I had opportunity to work with the elder children and I enquired what happened. The elder children without batting an eyelid said that STEM Land is a place of work and they only took the laptops from two children who were playing computer games and not working seriously.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">- We started working with the 9th grade girls only this term and in the beginning they would only stay in the games, materials room and not explore the technology room. This week I had a couple of girls working hard to create a story using programming in a 3-D environment and connect their mathematics to what they wanted to accomplish. Another group has been working on soldering a display for STEM Land with <i>N</i>.</span></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">- A few Isai Ambalam (the other school I work with) children come to STEM Land on Sat (their day off). They just felt </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">at home and the Udavi children took care of them as their own when they are here for the whole day. A couple of Auroville children have started coming to STEM Land once a week and were unfamiliar with the programming environment and some Udavi children sat next to them and worked and helped them when they were stuck and I was only called once for help during two sessions of 1-1/2 hrs that they worked here.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">- N who has completed his undergrad in EE wanted to volunteer at STEM Land I asked him not to worry about teaching children and just focus on using STEM Land facilities for his own growth. When he started working he realized that children could do many more things than him and learnt from them. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">When we were opening STEM Land we split the opening speech in 2 min sections between four of us at Aura Auro and the children were cheering for each of the youth. When we had completed the children cheered and asked N also to speak. He said, he comes here to learn and have fun.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">- A couple of other youth who graduated from Udavi also come in on Sat in the afternoons and engage with children or play abalone among themselves. I get back to Aura Auro at 2:00 so I wasn't quite sure what to do when the Isai Ambalam kids were here the first week and needed to stay later. The youth said don't worry I'll stay here and lock up once they leave. Next week the Isai Ambalam kids were telling me that they will lock up themselves!</span><br />
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-23528000827557104082015-10-18T06:03:00.004-07:002015-10-18T06:03:33.168-07:00Opening of STEM Land and Hindu article<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had a wonderful opening at STEM Land with children from Udavi and Isai Ambalam hosting games and puzzles stalls and demonstrations of their work at STEM Land. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Here are <a href="https://goo.gl/photos/4E5PFKfFP1Rm6CAz5">photographs</a> from the opening.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One interesting thing that happened was a couple of students Pree and Yuv decided to work together on creating "STEM Land" with a bunch of 7 segment displays and actually completed it over the duration of the event. They were also able to make the display blink as Subash who was observing their product asked for. They built this with an Arduino. Naveen who is volunteering at STEM Land is now working on soldering this together so STEM Land has a display at the entrance.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Hindu covered the event. Here is a photo of the <a href="http://www.auraauro.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Hindu.jpg">article</a>. I can't find the uploaded version of the article so the pic would have to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There has been a lot of energy since the opening and children wanted to learn python and do 3-D modeling. We started, but the progress was slow and I researched for something more advanced than scratch that could do more and found <a href="http://www.auraauro.com/school/alice-in-stemland/">Alice 3.</a> A 3D world that is similar to scratch with drag and drop, but with significantly higher possibilities and complexity. Children are loving it a couple of them have been keen on blender as well. </span></div>
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-2749419851554650492015-10-04T05:30:00.001-07:002015-10-04T05:30:21.561-07:00STEM Land inauguration on Friday 9 Oct 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) Land is an space exploring Science and Mathematics holistically with active use of Technology and Engineering (deriving principles from experience), its also a resource center with Math and Science materials, a maker space and a puzzles and games library. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its impossible to describe what STEM Land is, you need to experience it. Come join the adventure and start exploring STEM Land at the opening and a small fair at STEM Land @<b>Udavi school at 10:45 a.m. on 9th Oct [Main Building], Auroville.</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please RSVP so we can have enough snacks (healthy and unhealthy) for everyone.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to read more about STEM Land, please take a look at </span><a href="http://www.auraauro.com/stemland/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.auraauro.com/<wbr></wbr>stemland/</a></div>
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<br /><b>Why STEM Land?</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though STEM is an acronym it can also refer to an approach to science and math education that is oriented towards application and making, tinkering and engineering. Its Land and not Lab because we are targeting a culture of learning rather than teaching and just as in France children learn French just fine and in Tamil Nadu children learn Tamil just fine, we hope that children will learn STEM naturally in STEM Land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Team:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The center is being initiated by the team (Bala, Sundar, Sanjeev, Vaidegi) of Aura Auro Design. But, we are well aware that the use of the center will involve a lot more and be driven by the interest of the children to learn.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks to:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Big Sanjeev and Udavi school for providing us space and up-ing it based on enthusiasm of the children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- SAIIER who have provided us with the funding at just the right time to set up the center.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Many other friends Ram, Gaurav, Shree, freecharge (company) for supporting materials that are being used at STEM Land.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Many of our friends who helped us set up the center voluntarily, we spent no money on labor and did all the work ourselves and with friends. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Naturally, thanks to Aura for supporting Aura Auro Design without which this would have never become a reality.</span></div>
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-3202708756604295982015-10-02T02:24:00.003-07:002016-08-06T19:47:00.633-07:00Completed paper on children learning using computers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Many things have kept me away from blogging. This post is about the first, refining a paper that has been accepted at epiSTEM6. epiSTEM is a b</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">iennial Conference Series, to Review Research in Science, Technology and Mathematics Education </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">conducted by Homi Baba Center of Science Education and IIT Bombay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As <a href="http://archive.auroville.org/education/Heidi.html">Heidi Watts</a> who helped me rethink the paper put it the paper now is about how children learn rather than about mathematics or computers. It has case studies on how children have learnt by trying to explain something to the computer through programming. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks also to Vaibhav who proof read the first version that got accepted, but both he and I knew it wasn't up to the mark then :).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Below is the abstract. Here is the <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tsc2TVex5YcnZoWkc2TDNRbTNLenFaV01LX3A3dmt5WThj">link to the paper</a>.</span><br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 0.56cm; margin-bottom: 0.21cm; margin-top: 0.21cm; page-break-after: avoid; text-transform: uppercase;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Using programming with
rural children For Learning to think mathematically</b></span></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 0.56cm; margin-bottom: 0.21cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="__DdeLink__414_1819114753"></a>
Sanjeev Ranganathan, Bala Anand, Sundranandhan Kothandaraman, Vaidegi
Gunasekar</div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 0.56cm; margin-bottom: 0.21cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Aura
Auro Design, SAIIER (Auroville, India), <span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="mailto:sanjeev@auraauro.com">sanjeev@auraauro.com</a></u></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Is
it possible to use computer labs in a rural setting that encourages
reasoning, visualization, abstraction in children (as envisioned in
NCF 2005) while at the same time addressing curricular needs? </i></span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0.21cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>This
paper addresses the question through the use of programming in two
rural schools including integration of curricular areas for
fractions, cube roots, algebra, compound interest, data handling,
geometry, etc. </i></span>
</div>
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<div style="line-height: 0.35cm; margin-bottom: 0.21cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>We
explore three styles of instruction - projects for children to
demonstrate their understanding, challenges to visualize abstract
concepts, and games created by children themselves for mastery.</i></span></div>
</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-90997097227079195322015-08-16T01:42:00.000-07:002015-08-16T01:46:48.896-07:00On work and play...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At an educational meeting we went about making a distinction between 'work and play'. The closest I could come up with was that work was an activity being done that is useful for others and play was an activity not meant to be useful. Of course, I knew it was flawed, self-work is useful for others intangibly and for professional cricketers play is actually work. Of course this doesn't start to capture where work and play seem all mixed up! I could not define it in terms of enjoyment as there have been many times when I enjoyed myself being at work and at play.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An incident with the children helped me understand this distinction differently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While creating an animation of the Earth going around the Sun in an ellipse (with the Moon rotating around the Earth) the children had use the computer to create the solution for ellipse equation they got from geogebra. It was all done and they had created the following animation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(If you are having trouble viewing animations please update your flash player).</b></span></div>
<b><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="200" src="//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/73219600/?autostart=false" width="242"></iframe></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is a short clip of the part where children noticed that the earth was rushing past at the top extreme in the program that they had created.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QIWBGTEFKns" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had felt that being able to solve a complex algebraic equation was enough of a challenge and the children had already spent a week on this project and would want to move on, but the glitch really bothered the children, they were unsatisfied with what they had created. This created an opportunity for conversation about slopes and how things were changing differently when solving in one part of the curve, but faster in the other part of the curve. That we needed to compensate with more points where things were changing faster. It took another three days till the children were happy with their work and it looked like the one below:</span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="402" src="//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/72792248/?autostart=false" width="485"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On reflecting on the incident I learnt that its play when you do something that you don't have to. Of course this definition seems obvious when you are at 'play'. But, it applies equally to 'work'. The moments where I felt I had done something special were the moments when I did what I had to, but pondered over it and did something more. There were already solutions and I didn't have to do more, but I made work play and kept going. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It helped me connect to the idea of the next right answer, the pursuit of excellence in getting an answer and continuing to look makes work play. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a world we would create if all our children could make their work into play.</span><br />
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-7229075210694013342015-08-02T07:44:00.003-07:002015-08-02T07:44:52.752-07:00Copy-Paste (the hard way)...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The children had been thrilled with being able to animate the moon going round the earth and wanted to show the solar system with the earth going round the sun. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks to Arham I had recently seen a video called Earth's motion around the Sun that indicated some of the complexity from the simplistic info that children had:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82p-DYgGFjI</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We looked at it and the children felt that it would be interesting to get an object to move in an elliptical path and replicate the earth going round the sun.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="402" src="//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/70686940/?autostart=false" width="485"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The circle was more or less straight forward with moving and turning in each step, but an ellipse...I talked to them of using Geogebra to draw the curve they wanted e.g. an ellipse and then "copy-pasting" it in scratch. Of course the issue was not drawing a shape, but to get an object to travel along the curve so it needed to be true to the curve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started with a simple case if x+3 = 5, we went over the story and I reminded them that the answer was not important, it was a trivial case and we were trying to get a method that would help the computer do a repeated simple task till it reached a condition. Also to have a simple condition we changed this to the expression x+3-5 and</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> substituted values of x from -3 to 3 to find when the value of the expression goes to zero giving us the correct x.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We then attempted to solve 2x+3=6 i.e. 2x+3-6 and check when it becomes 0. But, it did the following:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For x=-3-->-9 ; </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">x=-2-->-7 ; x=-1-->-5 ; x=0-->-3; </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">x=1-->-1; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> x =2-->1 ; x=3-->3 ; x=4-->5 ;x=5-->7 ; basically missing 0. What would then be the way of capturing where the answer lies. The idea that came to the children was that the result of the expression changes direction. Naturally, the last result will need to be remembered, but how do we check if something has changed direction. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I asked them what they had learnt from integers that might help them do so crisply.They could not quite figure out how to go about it and when they couldn't quite connect after struggle I guided them into the product of integers and checking if the result it positive or negative. Of course here we get the closest integer number, but if the equation is large even though we don't have the decimal parts the curve looks good enough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We then moved to a real equation x+y=3 and for each value of y we swept x...Once it worked for a line we just moved to the curve and only needed to handle the boundary conditions. </span><br />
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-19040208321608500672015-08-01T17:37:00.001-07:002015-08-01T17:54:25.514-07:00Where is the moon now?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One interesting conversation I had recently was asking the children where they expect the moon to be. When we talk about how disruptive technology can be an app line startracker that shows the position of the moon 'right now' gets into a lot of how children think.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the first answer in the sky to where in the sky then conversations on what happens during the day and night. I asked the same question over time to different children and with the changing position of the moon it enlightned different aspects of learning. Here are some of them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) In an initial thought most children thought the moon rises and falls consistently at more of less the same time. So it should be the other side of the earth. But on looking for the moon it was noticed in a very unexpected place. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We then decided to for the moon and record where we see it and the time we saw it. That was a week before the new moon and a lot of children came back with there was no moon this week, but some others noticed that they saw it in the morning. We talked about sometimes seeing moon even after sunrise and sometimes even before sunset. What this all this mean?</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENHe3tg8ZGBH6sn_D1N_ozDnfyYJPke627UqIK70_9um6S9CdPkGSjeq90xXegsQcgnjc-jKeCUNC7lVANbRjZWu2kCVImGHEb7ODs01CjcQ9a5d4_0JWQ4sP54ufwzBhZUrnuw/s1600/moon_image1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhENHe3tg8ZGBH6sn_D1N_ozDnfyYJPke627UqIK70_9um6S9CdPkGSjeq90xXegsQcgnjc-jKeCUNC7lVANbRjZWu2kCVImGHEb7ODs01CjcQ9a5d4_0JWQ4sP54ufwzBhZUrnuw/s320/moon_image1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Drawing the expected position of the moon and trying to represent meaningful information of a 3 Dsetting in 2D that led to frame of reference direction and directions. This led to discussions of which plane we can draw aka where does the moon rise and set. It was interesting that there was a child in each class who through that once the sun sets in the west the moon rises from the west.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) While most children disagreed to the above they could not give any convincing argument to their peer other than that's the way it is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was some discussion of how the moon rises and sets. We have been talking about differentiating science from information i.e. being able to understand a phenomenon so we can use our understanding to explain another phenomenon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of them was understanding the revolution of the earth which explained both the sun and the moon rising from the east.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) The children got some clue of which of their classmates were conveying useful information regarding their sightings and which were just making stuff up :).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5) Discussions on fractions! Based on where the moon we talked about where the moon would have been (w.r.to earth) 12 hrs before 6 hrs before and then the more open ended question of when would the moonrise have been. I say open-ended because it brought up the question of at what degree do we consider it moonrise and what the present angle is...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6) It brought up interest on how to create an animated model of the moon around earth, in fact</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> about the moon and earth around Sun.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7) And then the question, how does the camera see that far in the sky :). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I moved the discussion to possible ways of doing it including a three axis accelerometer that helps is determine where we are looking + gps + the star map + calculation of the moon and planet movements and how that was a <b>cool way to use math</b>. The children immediately got the wiff that I have switched from anna mode to 'teacher' mode and they started to loose interest. One of them even remarked that then we can't see the man-made satellites. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I learnt my lesson and decided to keep my agenda of teaching something aside to avoid messing up with their learning. When asked this question the second time by another set of kids just stuck with, 'no clue, but isn't it cool!'</span><br />
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Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-45294839408156338482015-07-24T04:53:00.001-07:002015-07-24T04:53:39.398-07:00Hmm...upgrades...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you get around to doing something the second time...there is always something new that happens to keep things interesting.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbt0giqGFJB8tbyNGp01P3Ppvhtw_zw1YQz3JzVSdCE7OvRmuZqhVM16Np0ffsplmvVEd8xpc5-Y9FgGy_jCNhaZxv2dqQrj2fKUCzftOhYm7WxGPS-jyez3CJ7NttFHoTlijPLg/s1600/hmmupgrades.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbt0giqGFJB8tbyNGp01P3Ppvhtw_zw1YQz3JzVSdCE7OvRmuZqhVM16Np0ffsplmvVEd8xpc5-Y9FgGy_jCNhaZxv2dqQrj2fKUCzftOhYm7WxGPS-jyez3CJ7NttFHoTlijPLg/s320/hmmupgrades.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year I had worked with some 7th graders on integer subtraction by making something move from its current position to a target position. Here is a note on the same</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>"Children initially tend to understand negative numbers in integers as a loan. However, even a simple situation like 5-(-5)=5+5=10 becomes hard to comprehend. A number line is a better visualization for introducing negative numbers. This happens implicitly when using Scratch as it incorporates the Cartesian coordinate system. A character (sprite) when placed at (0,0) is at the center of the display. Changing x with a positive number takes it to the right correspondingly changing x with a negative number takes it to the left.</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>As children use a change x function they get a handle of the integers. In time they get curious and check what happens with change y with integers to get a sense of the Cartesian system.</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>As the children felt more confident they created a simple game with integers: the user needs to give the number to add to take a character from a start location to a target location. Though initially the children put numbers and situations they already knew e.g. two positive numbers start:5, target:10, to add:(10-5)=5. The program would then move from the start to start+to add and check that the result is the target. Once the children are comfortable enough to randomize one and then both the starting point and destination, all possibilities of subtraction scenarios arise e.g. start:10, target:5, to add:(5-10)=-5. They also clearly see the need to move left to get to the target. Similarly, start:-5 target:5 to add:5-(-5)=10 also makes sense as the target is to the right of the object."</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/24882671/"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBvdmCCPN2FPGNg7sV1pyoAKNdtsOvF_Au1mguwlYAl3n8wiHKWBKS-zszinRq3cIDRVR7MZ0N9ykYd1FsX33UpzH9q2Sj0R6QC1WaaVB3x2slEqR_aWTn73igYcuPTWOecy_p0A/s320/lastyear.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The emphasis last time was a bit on programming and getting the strings and numbers to match up well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this time the children were implicitly unconvinced about the motivation of the character (in one case) the crab to move. The crab must have had a reason to have a target, right. So they came up with their reasons. The crab was tired and wanted to sit on a rock!</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="402" src="//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/70686310/?autostart=false" width="485"></iframe><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were other stories of a diver catching a fish, of a cat catching a mouse, someone looking for a key, etc). The character was at the current location and there was a visible target that the children could see is behind or ahead of the character. This helped them re-look at the result they got to see if it made sense i.e. positive number means the rock should be in ahead and a negative result is a rock behind me.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-49416200140374344472015-06-23T16:51:00.001-07:002015-06-23T16:53:58.802-07:00Questions of children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I started a science class once a week with young children in Udavi.<br />
<br />
I asked him what science was and the quick answer was experiments, then a study of living beings. I explored if they could tell a living being from a non-living being by creating a rule that we could apply. The children came up with various aspects they could think of it moves (you mean like a fan or car?), it talks (like a tree?), soon the children got the hang of what was going on a conversation got going where a child would propose a rule and anyone who disagreed would come up with an example of why they disagree that the rule is always valid.<br />
<br />
They made a table<br />
Rule for Living and non-living:<br />
Rule Example(s) of Agreement Example(s) of disagreement<br />
Breathing Humans, dogs Do plants breath?<br />
<br />
It was interesting that even through children said living things - they first associated it with humans, then with animals, then plants and then non-living things....<br />
It also took them some time to think in terms of examples of agreement of disagreement. Some of the children initially wrote living things in the first column and non-living things in the second column which were in agreement with the hypothesis. It appears more tempting to classify than to see if it is relevant to a rule...<br />
<br />
We then moved to questions they had, do plants breath. What is breathing? If its taking oxygen and giving out carbon-di-oxide (like a fire?) then its one answer and if its taking in air its another. This led us to doubts and questions children had and how as humans we are prone to have doubts and are willing to put an effort in resolving these doubts, perhaps, that is what science is. I wanted to hear from each child so we started talking about doubts that children had about the world, here are some of them:<br />
- How can you tell if a fish is male or female?<br />
- Where does an electric eel get its electricity from?<br />
- Why do birds fly and not humans?<br />
- How exactly do gills help fish get oxygen?<br />
- Why do plants use carbon-di-oxide and give oxygen and why do humans do the opposite?<br />
... and then it exploded, everyone had something to ask and add.<br />
<br />
I suggested that we make one large list of all of them and go through them. Looks like a nice curriculum for that class to me.<br />
<br />
I also noticed there were many fish questions, I wondered if it was natural or because the new building has a pond within it.</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-12274072127803935932015-06-21T03:57:00.001-07:002015-06-21T03:57:48.094-07:002015 Work of Children with Technology<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-lgHDC0w9RI" width="459"></iframe>Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-52471627190800868352015-06-09T23:04:00.003-07:002015-06-09T23:04:56.324-07:00It takes you 40 yrs to get...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
well, of course to 40 yrs of age!<br />
<br />
It has also taken me time to figure out that I want to create a learning space of constant growth that makes Science, Math and Engineering natural and fun.<br />
<br />
I have already been working on the basis of such a space for the last couple of yrs and now with the team at Aura Auro am ready to create STEM Land.<br />
<br />
STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) Land will<br />
- Work with over 100 children from multiple schools for 4-5 days a week on Math and Science using hands on work.<br />
- Work to transform the culture of right answer and 'sums' to discussions on approaches and patient problem solving<br />
- Remap curriculum starting from 6-9 grades to activities and projects using technology, puzzles, games, etc<br />
- Serve as a teachers resource center for Math and Science teaching aids and activities<br />
<br />
In short provide an alternative model to the current education system.<br />
<br />
I need your help in raising funds for STEM Land. My present target is 23 lakhs over the coming year. Here is a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4tsc2TVex5YUmRQV1hRT1RzSWM/view?usp=sharing">detailed concept note on what STEM Land</a> is about and here is the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4tsc2TVex5YV1NYMXlrT2RLR1E/view?usp=sharing">budget for the same</a>.<br />
<br />
Please send me an email if you can support the initiative. Donations in India are 100% tax deductible.<br />
<br />
Truth and love,<br />
Sanjeev<br />
---</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-44256126961071586542015-06-07T04:18:00.001-07:002015-06-07T04:18:20.256-07:00What was accomplished this schooling year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Primary
work has focused on classroom interventions in mathematics and
problem solving in middle school 5</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">-8</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
grade. Many abstract concepts are grounded in middle school and if
these are missed they leave gaps unfilled resulting in children
having an aversion of mathematics and weak problem solving ability. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">One
of the aspects of work has been in making learning math fun and
accessible for children while changing the perception of what
mathematics is both for children and teachers. I had used puzzles,
games, educational material, construction of models, electronics to
make abstract learning tangible and provide application for children.
This is documented in detail in the CriticalThinking_Report.pdf.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This
academic year I focused on extensive use of technology starting with
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>programming
with Scratch</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
with 6</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">-8</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
graders and mapping aspects of Math curricula through projects and
challenges in programming. Three broad approaches were adopted for
Math curricula through programming: </span></span>
</div>
<ol>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A
set challenges for children that involved demonstrating their
understanding of abstract concepts visually through programming
including fractions, long division, pie charts e.g. demonstrating
what it means to add numerator and numerator and denominator with
denominator in a fraction and what is a meaningful way to add it.</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A
set of challenges were based using programming to understand
mathematical ideas visually including linear expressions,
percentages, simple and compound interest. As an example 5x+10 was
graphed as rectangles of varying heights. Then shapes observed by
varying the slopes or varying the added constants were observed and
interpretations and explanations explored (stair cases of different
kinds including making either the slope or constant a random
variable, etc). This was then modified to investigate solutions to
equations e.g. 5x+10=75 that used the expression and the pictures
and paused when the result was reached.</span></span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Children
created games that helped them understand a concept and then work on
rigor to master an aspect including positive and negative integers,
cube roots that resulted in two digit numbers. Once children get
into the mode of creating their own programs often when the computer
is available they do not drift and get carried away and play games,
they tend to create them. If this is done step by step with values
that they put in place first that they knew the answer of and then
randomizing it they still want to be able to better their own
programs.</span></span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Programming
was also used in </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>English</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
to give life into the stories that the children had created by
animating them in scratch. We worked on this project with two grades
7</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
and 8</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">.
The 7</span></span><sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
graders had also used programming for math and their results in terms
of how elaborate and complex they could make their stories even
though they were younger and were attempting the stories the first
time as well was interesting.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Beyond
Mathematics and English, programming was taken further into </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>sensing
the real world</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
using Makey, Makey. This helped children respond to a real life event
like touching a plant, water or items with some moisture content (not
complete insulators). Using this the children made their own version
of a water tank filling alarm and a non-touch (pressure based)
burglar alarm. These exercises helped children connect the
programming to sensing the real world and think of applications where
they can make use of these aspects in real life.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">To
complete the loop of </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>controlling
in the real world</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
we also worked with the Finch robot and controlling the actions of
the robot to go around obstacle courses and deliver small paper balls
into goal buckets. The most popular game we created was the parking
game with a random set of commands that made the robot move around
and having to predict where the robot needs to be placed to reach a
certain goal. We used this version at a school fair with success.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It
should be mentioned that this approach is significantly different
from ready-made material available for children like online lectures
(those available in local language), or animation videos that are
more or less passive. The so-called educational games that attempt to
'replicate' rigor use the same methodology of trying to get a high
score used in the traditional system with the same pitfalls e.g. if
given a choice children play games that they are already good at to
get a higher score rather than stretch themselves with new games. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">However,
a paradigm shift is made when instead of trying to program the child
through the computer, we let the children be in control and program
the machine. In the first paradigm the computer is always right, the
child is always a user and playing catch-up. In the second the
children realize that the computer actually needs to be given
step-by-step and can't make the simplest connections on its own. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It
changes the dynamics of children using machines and their thought
process in how they think of an action and break them down. It also
helps children truly appreciate the amount of work that goes into
making a computer look smart!</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">More
interestingly the children learn a lot of implicit knowledge and
conventions by using them e.g. the Cartesian system when trying to
move their objects in the directions needed. Children who feel like
failures with test scores in time bound examinations, persevere and
feel proud when they are able to demonstrate their learning.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We
also used </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>physical
technology</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
primarily the DIY bigshot cameras that can be assembled by students
and over 60 children from various grades assembled the cameras, took
pictures and put them on the computer and then used instructions
backwards to disassemble them for the next group to use them. The
exercise of group work, reading and comprehending instructions and
analyzing the pictures was interesting. The hand crank also gave a
context to look into gears, ratios. A lot more could be done in
optics, imaging. But, the children were very curious about the 3-D
images taken by the camera and experimented quite a bit with depth.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The
computer lab at Udavi, Makey, Makey, Bigshot cameras and the finch
robot were donated by friends and visitors who saw the impact of
technology on children and the interesting mathematics that the
children were able to do. Further class notes and work of children is
available at (</span></span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="uz-Cyrl-UZ"><u><a href="http://www.smallisbeautiful.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #00000a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US">www.smallisbeautiful.blogspot.com</span></span></span></span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">).
</span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Just
as the response of children to technology is obvious so is the lack
of teachers who can play with this interesting resource and engage
with children. This was especially true for teachers engaged with
village children. As part of filling this gap I founded </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Aura
Auro Design (</b></span></span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="uz-Cyrl-UZ"><u><a href="http://www.auraauro.com/"><span style="color: #00000a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-US"><b>www.auraauro.com</b></span></span></span></span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>)</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
in collaboration with Aura Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd. this year. Aura
Auro Design works with 3 electronics graduates and trains them in state
of the art analog design (5 hrs a day) while engaging them for (3 hrs
a day) to work with schools with a focus on learning through
technology. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This
has created a small team of local skilled and technically savvy youth
who are learning and teaching at the same time. Aura Auro makes
explicit that every teacher needs to be a learner.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">It
has also created a team that is working on STEM research in rural
India to deliver results beyond what one person is capable of.</span></span></div>
</div>
Sanjeev Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36621102.post-35970711408603338642015-05-02T23:25:00.002-07:002015-05-02T23:29:07.853-07:00A year in pictures at Udavi School<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are a few albums related for the 2014-15 schooling year at Udavi (primarily for the 6th grade), special thanks to Sudhir for the pictures. <b>Click on the pictures</b> to take you to the appropriate albums.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> Electronics, makey, makey, battery and magnet based motors.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6142747709294978577"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZ7_AfJfkV-0WDClXaNygzLoSr-FC0UclPrAzo6FHJGPExD1iiiGMw2Y76Ce3wKRweryL3Xk4_HzA4kzVI62jbNw-1xiCZCnLgbR0ST5Yhbky0efFNGIG_l4dQkG3i025bc-bdg/s1600/DSC02349.JPG" width="200" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Makey Makey and water level detection.</b></span></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6077128066157034673"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKN2S2JgUReY2qfKzmnhhEcbQXTUIbfU72e3elPVY6ukhs3O8tXtUy5crnZLKYtJ9UVWfRHAcaAylDmJFQkf-x3Xj89jvhBGYmpReOtaJsxbOTGP0cU0dD-Hq1O4vQRhlY897SjQ/s1600/IMG_20141030_103209.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bigshot cameras (assembly, pics taken by the cameras, measuring the voltage of the pathway from the motors to the battery, etc).</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6th Grade assembly</span></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6142745959065727009"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKB_EiM5rBCS2uzO6HfFaKJmCn5BtBHeiKswnQpE00_Ho0S7LFi-AcV6yHm_5YZHzh_EHf1LGPW9mMIFcjlmCLZtjbex_LLfkoiPti2ePr9Rh6_urEdVumzz572riEx92zUbMGA/s1600/DSC01487.JPG" width="200" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7th Grade assembly and pics taken</span></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6025917441064268769"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVP21FyaMKxMRyE30zhJzqjopFiyySbH5onZhPdty7gehFMmSrvvlWpXZWc4H9RMJhu40nPjKsSojEH71RmJSpINVeYTQiMEoSRhXIYzYMB1wguPw37TVkn_nMfkjhlAnrUOUrdA/s1600/IMG_0050.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8th Grade assembly</span></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6041185125894524193"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbe9R0Sey8eQASRNfAH5nSnQnvVNvRK0XquF0yLkizuhTj6yEv701WobWeEKIi6zAZKuKC_isu3SPYxjuVsefsM7MrpdRqMCaDijbEneQT0FpOHsHFCjUBmhIj-cfCvy334HPrWw/s1600/IMG_20140709_092737.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8th Grade visit to crocodile park trip documented with the bigshot cameras they made</span></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6041186127845068225"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-MSEjjrYhDVDfhiFsR03tKVRW26T5dszrWGEtzuvQE7vUbl_uT6o7rKAEisjH6B1hFHXak2WK6uQ79RA3x7yyj8yA_KK7f0qJAS0gAAQ2SwWOCT37P16GFoKVCTvDg2iqsJZ4w/s1600/IMG_0121.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><br />
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<div>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Puzzles and games and interaction with Aura Auro youth</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>.</b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFO7DixSGrWImaGVppxVWo_PXh4oeYg8b_bsIV-v2X-WE-vvylUBn7gVy43jpEJ6sJtAYusrYqDD7xOv9hEJigTSSZs0EN-5rM5Qg20jDSGjtptzlAZpPCBa6rpC6-LVY77_oLg/s1600/DSC02063.JPG"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFO7DixSGrWImaGVppxVWo_PXh4oeYg8b_bsIV-v2X-WE-vvylUBn7gVy43jpEJ6sJtAYusrYqDD7xOv9hEJigTSSZs0EN-5rM5Qg20jDSGjtptzlAZpPCBa6rpC6-LVY77_oLg/s1600/DSC02063.JPG" width="200" /></a><br /><b>Working with their hands on blocks and building models</b></span></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6142751829275732145"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmzV2TcKlUPdrGfcBa7uV11H2cp4n8GMXixVLt67Cwarjlq7p5ct-Yf2jMQ26Ered3pbnzdqFPcLhD49LxSvXwSB98H1lJboBBVZWMugMRJWo8VYeLL1lUBAyi9_-K7th3Xc3k7A/s1600/DSC01569.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Using wooden blocks to understand squares and square roots</b></div>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6142748898825342449"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNY6hD57ATTX5HpMVhv4l69XWK7a5MM2HahWEhXA9inV0xp_09QDLV6fdw6PBMv5sDfl5wQteO3hJYJlJqUo-zq1ZfBFxzp_CKSX7hO7V4SL-3kG0_S7jO-tsTkjVPzcKUzXwftw/s1600/DSC01311.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>End of the year demonstrations</b> set up by children included demonstration of polarity of motors, games based on continuity, resistance (pencil lead extracted by burning out the wood at just the right temperature), makey, makey burgulary alarm. It also had the children perform about the plants in the solar system and build a rocket that moved.<br /><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100834450277262696510/albums/6142762747206964353"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5fJ7POCtTkz8jQeUyhVG8Fn4ICOQMxhOHL2ZWuFupavJMLS_M-f2QXcO3hwVGJrQl7o3j5nTEj45dhHiebDme_kZ80QJb1wVN9Gxu5JwgW-Wx7pmfDuSlblYOczAKUPy6lUwng/s1600/DSC02461.JPG" width="200" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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Ranganathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372480781047572879noreply@blogger.com0