Please click on the link to explore our journey.

TOILET CONSTRUCTION AT PALAVAKKAM AND KANNIGAIPER

You may view the album here and the videos here Palavakkam Kannigaiper

Under Asha’s Sugadharam project, we address the renovation and repair of toilets in schools we support.

PUPS Palavakkam

Asha has been associated with PUPS Palavakkam since 2014. This is a primary school with a total strength of 130 students with 61 boys and 69 girls. There was a girls’ toilet at school but it had no water facility, electricity and the walls were badly damaged. The children were unable to use it. The children had to either wait until they got home to use toilets or they would go out in the open. A toilet block with two toilets, a urinal area was built. An old single toilet was also incorporated within this new toilet block. New plumbing was laid, water connection was provided, with new motor and 1000-liter capacity tank, new tiles and painting work was undertaken. Plumbing related repair and some flooring work were carried out in the boys’ toilets.

The toilets were inaugurated on 20 September, 2024 by Asha’s Volunteer Mr. Rajaraman and the HM of PUPS Palavakkam, Mrs.Chinthamani. Teachers Federation Secretary, Mr.Selvam, Sangamam Co-ordinator -Mr.Srinivasan , Asst. Co-ordinator- Sathish Kumar B and other Asha staff were also present at the inauguration. The toilets have been in use by the students since.

The construction of the girls’ toilet cost approximately Rs 4,00,000 and repair work in the boy’s toilet cost Rs 50,000.

PUPS Kannigaiper

We undertook the construction of new toilets at PUPS Kannigaiper, a school associated with Asha for 11 years. The school has a total strength of 80 students with 42 boys and 38 girls. The boys’ toilet in the school required to be demolished, and the girls’ toilet was in a state of disrepair. Asha had previously undertaken repair work of both these toilets back in 2018. These toilets were old even at that time. Our repair work had extended their life till now.

This year, we constructed a new boys’ toilet with two rooms and an open urinal, while the girls’ toilet was fully renovated. Both facilities were upgraded with water supply, lighting, plumbing, plastering, and painting. Construction began in June and was completed by September at a total cost of approximately Rs 4,50,000 – new toilet costing Rs 4,00,000 and the renovation costing INR 50,000.

The toilets were inaugurated on September 20, 2024, by Asha volunteer Mr. Rajaraman and the school’s Headmaster, Mr. Udhaya Kumar. Sangamam Coordinator Mr. Srinivasan, Assistant Coordinator Mr. Sathish Kumar B, and other Asha staff were present at the event.

Sangam 2024 is the fifth edition of the annual flagship event of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras Alumni Association (IITMAA). The event took place on September 14, 2024 at The Westin Hyderabad Mindspace. The theme for this year’s event was “Sankalp for Viksit Bharat”. Several panel discussions were organised on topics ranging from startups and technology to sustainable development and student wellbeing.

Asha’s co-ordinator, Mr.Rajaraman Krishnan, an alumni of IITM, was invited as a panelist in insightful panel discussion on the topic ‘Societal Impact or How to make an Impact?’. Balaji Sampath the founder of AID India, A. Ravishankar the founder of Chudar and Ravi Gundlapalli the founder of Mentor Cloud were the other panelists in this session that was moderated by Malati Raghunath, a guest faculty at IITM. The panel talked about how IITM alumni may do more to impact the society and help make Viksit Bharat.

IMPACT ASSESSMENT – RURAL TECHNOLOGY CENTRES

IITM Pravartak and Asha launched the first two Rural Technology Centers (RTCs) in January 2022 at Kanakamma Chathram and Seethanjeri in Thiruvallur District. Following the successful start of the second term, two more RTCs were established in July 2022 at Poondi and Kannigaiper. In October 2022, the fifth RTC opened in Kayathar, followed by the sixth in Kalugumalai in February 2023 and seventh one in Thomur in July 2023. Even as the RTC opened in Thomur, we had to close the one in Poondi because of the unexpected demise of the teacher there, Ms. Dhatchayani. In 2024, we have opened three more RTCs in Nalantinputhur, Periyapalayam and Kilpennathur with 9 RTCs in operation now.

The RTCs have been running successfully and we completed five terms so far. In one year, the RTCs generally complete two terms – February to July and August to January. The term completion is marked by completion of course and project work. Project work is followed by an inter RTC competition called RTC Impressions. The projects submitted are evaluated and the best of the lot are selected under various course categories. The children are then given an opportunity to present their projects before a panel of judges and winners are announced at the end of the event.

Here we are documenting the impact created by the RTCs. The impact is being measured in terms of the following,

1. Courses being offered.
2. No of students being taught at the schools and at our centres.
3. Students performance in our Assessments.
4. Project Submissions and our students’ performance in that.
5. Standardized Assessment- Baseline and Endline study.

Courses Offered

Several courses are offered to students at our RTCs. The basic being the Digital Literacy course which teaches the children how to use the computer and the Internet. We teach them the basics of the Windows Operating system, teach them how to use usual office software (text document, spreadsheet and presentation). We also teach them how to search on the Internet, exchange emails etc. Apart from this Basic Programming, Web Development – 1, JavaScript Animations, Physical Programming, and Media Editing are being offered. We plan to introduce Web Development – 2, Intro to Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Details of the other courses offered is given below-

Basic Programming– Here we teach them programming using Scratch. They learn standard aspects of programming as a sequence of steps. They learn conditionals, loops, subroutines, variables etc. They also learn specific aspects of Scratch like controlling the looks, motions, sounds etc. of sprites. Their project is an involved program in Scratch.

Web Development – 1– This is based on Code.org module in CS Discoveries. This will teach them how to create a page using HTML and CSS. Their project work will be to create a detailed web page with several sub-pages etc.

Javascript Animations – This is also based on Code.org module in CS Discoveries. They will learn to use Javascript within their Applap programming environment. They will gradually transition from block based to text based programming. Their project will be to develop an animated game in the environment.

Physical Programming- This is also based on Code.org module in CS Discoveries. They learn to read the sensors in the AdaFruit Circuit Playground Express card. They also trigger sounds and led lights in the board. They use the Applab programming environment. Their project is a detailed program using all the features of the board.

Media Editing– This is an advanced course created by Asha. There are many tools for editing photos, audio files, and videos, and for creating videos, collages, documents etc. These are found to be useful in a wide variety of careers. We hope to introduce students to these kinds of tools through free and online tools. Their project work will be a well edited video or a collection of things around a theme put together using Canva or Presi.

We are planning to introduce more courses over the next couple of terms. These include,

Web Development – 2– This takes off from where Web Development -1 course stopped. It teaches them how to develop a client-server webapp. It teaches them JavaScript, node, expressjs and a little bit of MySQL to implement the backend. Their project will be a full-stack web application.

Intro to Robotics -In this course the students will learn how sensors and actuators can be used together to make a Robot perform something. We may use the Circuit Playground Express cards that we are currently using to teach physical programming to move the students to the next stage of building their own Robots. We are currently evaluating the options available in terms of hardware to use for the course.

Artificial Intelligence – Code.org offers a mini-module on Artificial Intelligence which teaches the students how deep learning works. We plan to add to it practical knowledge of how to use Chat GPT, Dall-e, Bard and other popular AI tools. We further plan to teach the students how companies are using the AI tools and integrating it with other things that they are doing using prompt engineering.

In addition to the courses being offered in the RTCs, our RTC teachers go to schools and teach 3 hours every day. The teachers spend mornings teaching at the government schools associated with the RTC, and run the centers in the evening. In these schools all the children in classes 6 to 9 are taught basic digital literacy and basic programming using Scratch. Over 3000 students in these attached schools are being taught our Asha CS curriculum.

While many students come to the RTCs from attached schools, there are some who come from other schools as well. Admission are open to all and are free of cost. All RTCs offer the Basic Digital Literacy and Basic Programming courses. In addition, they also offer courses such as Web Development, Physical Programming, Animation using JavaScript, Media Editing. However, the specific courses provided by each RTC will vary. All students are given the opportunity to enroll in any of these advanced programs.

No of Students Being Reached

Our teachers provide basic introduction to computer science at the attached schools where they teach for a few hours every day. Here is the list of schools our RTC teachers go to-

Enrollments at our RTCs have been rising steadily over the years. Our teachers visit the nearby schools and inform students about the courses on offer and the RTC timing. Students who are interested in learning more, travel to the centers and pursue courses there. Though all the children who enroll do not ideally complete each course, with the intervention of our teachers, the numbers have been getting better with each term.

Note that the Term 3 at Kayathar and Kalugumalai (i.e. their first terms), our team canvassed extensively in the neighbouring schools. HMs were encouraged to pitch the idea to parents who were enthusiastic to send their children to the RTC. Also, since the town is much bigger, children could travel very easily to the center. Hence, there was a spike in enrollment at these two RTCs. However, the enthusiasm did not translate well with the children who did not pursue the course and dropped out in between. We have now addressed the issue by targeted canvassing at schools to students instead of parents. Students who are serious about pursuing higher computer education come to the center in the evenings.

But for this aberration, you can note that the enrollment at our RTCs is increasing. The number of students who complete the courses has been showing a steady increase. Note that with a single teacher RTC, we aim for an enrollment of about 60 students and with a 2 teacher RTC, we aim for an enrollment of about 100 students in a single term. This is the number of students that the teachers will be able to manage comfortably.

Here is a table showing when the various courses that were introduced and the number of children who have completed each course across all our RTCs.

As you can also note, with rising seniority of our students, the percentage of students enrolled in the more advanced courses is steadily rising.

Assessment Mechanism Overview

We have developed a comprehensive assessment system to evaluate student learning and the overall impact of our efforts, consisting of three key components:

1. Project Work

As a part of the course work, all our students participate in a detailed project work. This occupies about one fourth of the total time for the course. For eg in our RTC courses, the instruction happens for about 3.5 months and the project work for about 1.5 months. Project work fosters deeper learning and serves as an assessment tool.

2. Individual Student Assessment

All the children take 1.5 to 2 hr assessment on computer individually and have to clear that to be counted as having completed the course. The assessment will cover all the topics they would have learned in the course and will include a couple of involved exercises that will require the students to demonstrate on a computer the skills they have learnt.

3. Standardized Assessment

To benchmark Asha’s programs against external standards, we use Northstar Digital Literacy Assessments. Administering this requires a lot of time as there are several different assessments that test different aspects of digital literacy. We conduct this as a sample survey, administering it to a random group of newly enrolled students as well as those completing the program.

In the following sections we talk about the project work and the standardized assessments. The Individual Student Assessments are the summative assessments for our courses and are therefore not aligned to any other standards. The course completion numbers indicate the number of students who completed and cleared the assessments. The course completion certificate is given to students who have adequate attendance who also complete their project work and pass the assessment at the end of the course.

Standardised Assessment (NorthStar)

There aren’t many standardized assessments available for computer science. We found a good one for digital literacy – the NorthStar digital literacy assessment https://www.digitalliteracyassessment.org/#take-assessment

From Term 4 onwards, we have started conducting the NorthStar assessment for a random selection of students who are taking/completed the digital literacy course. These are the End Line (those who have completed our digital literacy course) and Base Line (those who have just registered for our digital literacy course) results that are shown below. Here are the results for the assessments done for Term 4 with some notes explaining the results.

As observed, the Endline students’ scores showed a 30% to 50% improvement over the Baseline students across all content areas. The average Endline scores exceeded the 50% threshold in all subjects, demonstrating significant learning gains from completing our one-term Digital Literacy course.

These are the results of the Baseline and Endline assessments done for Batch 5 in July 24-

Key points about these assessments:

• Some Baseline students had prior exposure to computer science, particularly those from Asha primary schools or schools where Asha conducts the Explore program. These students typically performed better than those with no prior experience.
• Our curriculum uses OpenOffice, while the NorthStar assessment is based on Microsoft Office. As a result, many Endline students missed questions due to differences between the two platforms.
• Although our curriculum was developed independently of the NorthStar assessment, future iterations may include additional topics such as document orientation, spreadsheet sorting/freezing, and security, as well as emphasizing terms like ‘ribbons’ and ‘margins’ to align more closely with the assessment.
• Teachers had to explain the questions in Tamil since many students struggled with English, a challenge for digital literacy overall.
• Some students accidentally advanced to the next question by clicking elsewhere on the screen and didn’t know how to return, indicating a lack of familiarity with computer navigation, particularly among Baseline students.

RTC Project work

Project work at RTCs forms the backbone of Asha’s work with the children. It complements the instruction they receive in the first part of their course with goal oriented learning and also provides them an opportunity to understand how Computer Science is used practically in real life through Intensive Learning. Project work also offers a medium through which Asha is able to evaluate the children’s learning and the effectiveness of the pedagogy. Students work on the projects for nearly two months at the end of their course. Completion of a project with minimum quality is required for the course certificate. Every RTC submits projects under each course category which are evaluated by teachers other than their own RTC teacher as well as volunteers. The best projects are selected for the RTC Impressions. Participating at the RTC Impressions is a source of motivation and pride for our students.

Here are the projects submitted over the terms-

There are some general points to note here.

1. The number of projects in the advanced courses is steadily increasing. Till Term 4, the number of presentation project from the Digital Literacy course accounted for more than 50% of the project submissions. That fell significantly in Term 5. Now the project submissions in the advanced courses account for close to 33% of all the projects. We expect this to continue growing.
2. After the first couple of term as asked the RTC teachers to restrict the number of students in a team to 3. That is being followed rigorously now. This has brought down the average size of the team to around 2. We are comfortable with this number.

We usually review all the submitted projects and select the best ones for an RTC Impressions competition. The judges who judge at this competition come from academia and the industry. They have always left extremely impressed by the quality of the work being done by these young children. The subjective measure of the quality of the projects being submitted has also been increasing over time.

The selection of student projects from a host of submissions holds significant value for both the students and the learning environment:

1. Recognition of Effort: Being selected boosts students’ confidence and recognizes the effort they put into their projects, motivating them to pursue learning with more enthusiasm.
2. Sense of Achievement: Students experience a sense of achievement when their projects are chosen, reinforcing their belief in their abilities and encouraging a growth mindset.
3. Healthy Competition: The process fosters a healthy competitive spirit, driving students to improve the quality of their work and learn from others.
4. Skill Development: The preparation and presentation of projects hone essential skills like research, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving, providing practical learning experiences.
5. Public Speaking & Confidence: Presenting selected projects allows students to build public speaking skills, enhancing their ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently.
6. Feedback & Improvement: Projects that are selected receive feedback from teachers, peers, Asha volunteers and judges, helping students understand their strengths and areas for improvement, which is valuable for their growth.
7. Exposure to New Ideas: Selected projects often represent innovation and different approaches to a problem, inspiring other students and expanding their understanding of various topics.

When the students are provided an opportunity to present their projects at events like RTC Impressions to judges who come from various fields of IT and academia, it becomes a matter of great pride for projects to be selected. Q&A session with the judges also gives them a glimpse of how the projects are analyzed by others. Being put on spot and asked to demonstrate their learning on a podium before their teachers and peers is intimidating to a few students, but since the environment at the RTC has been created to be open and friendly, most students demonstrate a level of confidence that leave the judges amazed.

Over the years, our esteemed judges have praised the RTC students for their courage and mostly for their innovative ideas. The students are given tools by the teachers who are themselves in the process of learning, and the students utilize these tools, expand their learning through their own research and come up with ideas that surprise the teachers themselves.

Here are some testimonials by our judges and students during RTC Impressions-

Ms. Poorva Bhattar, who runs an academic initiative of her own to improve the way Science is taught said, “The most striking feature of the experience is the confidence of the students. They look in the eye and speak. They are absolutely comfortable with machines and programming, indicative of their involvement in learning. And, since they work on the programs on their own, the projects are demonstrative of their logic. The RTC seems to be holding the right nerve which is encouraging their learning and associated outcome. This is a great initiative.”

Mr. Raja Chidambaram, Technical Architect for 18 years in media and Cloud products, said, “I found RTC Team is doing a fantabulous job in educating the children with exposure to latest technology. This is the third time I am participating in RTC Impressions as a judge. In every visit, I could see tremendous improvement in presentation and technical skills. Great job. Keep up the good work.”

Students K. Sukran, V. Santhosh kumar, V. Bhuvanesh who presented on the topic Vivasayam said,” We are living in the village. Agriculture is very important here, so we thought we could make a presentation about it. First we learned Open office features. Then we started the project and it took us two months to complete the project. While presenting, we were very scared at the start because this was our first time. But when the judges came and asked us a very friendly questions and even talked to us, it made us feel confident. The IIT Travel Experience was a very happy moment for us. They don’t take us to competition and excursion from our school. It has given us a good experience and made our parents feel proud.”

Raabiath Faariza, from the Kayathar RTC, who presented on the topic of Kayathar said,” I got the idea from watching a lot of shorts on YouTube, and we decided to give a presentation on the topic. It took me one and a half month to write this topic and we took a lot of pictures and videos in person to do it. It was a new experience for us. Our teachers helped us for our background speech for this topic. I was very surprised to enter IIT Research park Chennai and see the buildings there. I found the topics presented by everyone in the competitions very different and interesting. We won the third prize. We left in the evening eager to come back and do better next time. We visited Besant Nagar beach on our way back. This trip gave me a lot of experience and I went home very happy.”

Impact of the RTCs

As highlighted in the previous sections, RTCs (Rural Technology Centers) have been reaching an increasing number of students both through schools and directly at the centers. All courses offered at the RTCs are completely free of cost and cover a wide range of subjects that will be highly beneficial for students in the future. The Northstar assessment provides clear evidence of the learning outcomes in our Digital Literacy courses, while project work showcases the depth of learning across all the courses.

Note also that, after a couple of terms of not much growth in the number of RTCs, we are once again growing with 2 new RTCs added for Term 6. With more RTCs planned and new courses being introduced, the program’s impact will continue to expand both in breadth and depth. Beyond the direct benefits to students at the schools and RTCs, the program has also made a broader contribution. The RTCs have enabled us to develop effective curricula, lesson plans, and pedagogical methods tailored to students and schools with limited resources. This has informed the design of curricula for other initiatives, such as the ACE program being implemented directly in schools.

The success of the RTCs will serve as a foundation for introducing these course materials in various forms across more schools in Tamil Nadu and beyond.

ACE V2 Inaugurations – August 2024

You may view the album here

ACE, short for Asha Computer Education, is Asha’s flagship program designed to enhance computer literacy in government schools. In 2023, we began the training of 52 government teachers at Thriuvallur to deliver Asha’s one-year computer science curriculum to students across 52 schools. The program was officially launched on October 19, 2023, following Asha’s MoU with the Tamil Nadu Government. Over several months, the teachers received comprehensive training on Asha’s curriculum. Even as they were learning, they applied their learning to teach students at their respective schools, with periodic support and guidance from Asha’s computer science teachers. This model has proven highly effective in

empowering teachers to confidently conduct classes, ensuring sustainable and impactful education.

The need for computer education in rural areas is more critical than ever. In today’s technology-driven world, digital literacy is not a luxury but a necessity. Rural students often face a digital divide, with limited access to resources, making it harder for them to compete with their urban counterparts. By joining hands with government teachers to implement ACE, Asha bridges this gap, equipping rural students with essential computer skills that open doors to higher education, better job opportunities, and a brighter future. As a result of ACE, over 1800 students have directly benefitted from the program.

Given its success, we decided to expand the program both within Thiruvallur and to other regions. This August, ACE V2 was launched in Thiruvallur, Thoothukudi, Thiruvanamalai, and Villupuram. While ACE V1 focused on training teachers to deliver the one-year curriculum, ACE V2 introduces a more comprehensive two-year curriculum alongside its geographical expansion.

Selecting the Schools and Teachers

Since ACE V1 took off successfully, the word of Asha’s work has spread across other schools. Our Computer science teachers who have been visiting schools had an opportunity to discuss the progress and benefits of Asha’s ACE program with the school HMs. 24 schools expressed interest in joining the program in Thiruvallur which were then included under ACE V2.

Our coordinators in Thoothukudi and Thiruvannamalai visited schools alongside the computer teachers to explore the possibility of launching ACE. With the program already running successfully in Tiruvallur, it was easier to bring new schools on board. We prioritized schools where the Headmasters (HMs) and teachers showed strong interest in adopting ACE V2. However, some schools, despite the enthusiasm of the teachers, could not participate due to staffing shortages. In a few cases, Headmasters did not grant permission, which also affected the inclusion of those schools in the program. 13 schools were finalized in Thoothukudi, 11 schools in Villupuram and 5 schools in Thriuvanamalai.

Computers from Amazon

Amazon donated 500 laptops this year for Asha’s computer science projects. The laptops were initially received by our volunteer, Mr. Venkat, in Bengaluru, and subsequently shipped to the Chennai office. The Chennai and Thiruvallur teams inspected the laptops and performed necessary repairs, which included:

• Installing a new operating system
• Basic servicing
• Installing essential software, including the Kanini package
• Replacing keyboards on 10 laptops
• Replacing batteries on 10 laptops
• Replacing trackpads on 15 laptops

After servicing, the laptops were distributed across various schools, with some set aside for the ACE V2 program. In Thiruvallur, 24 laptops were distributed to government teachers, and 54 laptops were provided to 18 schools, with each school receiving about three laptops. Schools that already had hi-tech labs were not included in this distribution.

In Thoothukudi, each ACE teacher was provided one laptop, totaling to 13 laptops. 4 schools received 12 laptops.

In the Kilpennathur block, we provided 21 laptops. Each school was given 4 laptops: 1 each was given to the teacher responsible for V2, and the remaining 3 were allocated for general school use. Since 5 schools participated, all laptops were distributed accordingly. In Villupuram, we distributed 14 laptops – 11 to ACE teachers and 3 to the schools.

Inauguration Function

Thiruvallur

The ACE V2 program was inaugurated on Friday, 9 August 2024, at GHS Thirupatchur, Thiruvallur. The event was attended by Mrs. Johnsirani, Headmistress of PUPS Thirupachur, Mrs. Mythili, Headmistress of GHS Thirupachur, Mr. Rajaraman Krishnan, Asha Coordinator, Mr. Venkat Ramaswamy, Asha Volunteer, and Mr. Srinivasan, Sangamam Coordinator, along with Asha staff, computer teachers, and government teachers.

A total of 24 government teachers from Thiruvallur have joined ACE V2. During the event, computers were distributed to all ACE teachers, followed by the first training session. The government teachers actively participated in the session, contributing to a successful launch of the program. ACE V2 aims to continue building on the foundation of computer education for both teachers and students in the region.

Kilpenathur

Following the inauguration of ACE V2 in Thiruvallur, ACE V2 was launched at Kilpenathur, Thiruvanamalai, on August 13, 2024. The event was presided over by Block Educational Officers Mr. Sriramulu and Mr. Ramamoorthy, with Asha Coordinator Mr. Rajaram and Block Resource Office Supervisor Mr. Selvam lighting the ceremonial lamp to signify the start of this important initiative. Thulasi Project Coordinator Dhinakaran extended a warm welcome to all attendees.

Other distinguished guests included teachers and instructors from Kilipennathur Government Boys Higher Secondary School, and Primary School, Salakuppam. They offered their congratulations to Asha on the launch of ACE V2, recognizing its potential to mirror the achievements of ACE V1. During the event, laptops were distributed to all participating government teachers, reinforcing Asha’s commitment to equipping educators with the tools they need to succeed.

After the inauguration, a comprehensive training session was conducted for the government teachers. Teachers from Nariamangalam and Konalur high schools, along with educators from four middle schools—Kadambai Aranchi, Rayampettai, and Kanalabadi—participated actively. Asha’s computer trainers elaborated on the goals and objectives of the program, sharing their vision for empowering students through digital education.

The event concluded with a heartfelt vote of thanks delivered by Ms. Gnanasoundari, RTC teacher at Asha.

Thoothukudi

The ACE V2 program was officially launched at the Thoothukudi Pearl Project, on 13 August, 2024, marking its expansion to a third location in Tamil Nadu. The inauguration was led by Mrs. L. Regini, CEO of Thoothukudi, who ceremoniously cut the ribbon and lit the kuthuvilakku, accompanied by Mr. Venkat, steward of Asha Chennai, and Mrs. Padmavathi, BEEO of Kovilpatti. Their collective participation symbolized the bright prospects of this initiative.

The event was attended by the Headmasters of VOC Government Boys’ School and MMC School, whose presence lent additional significance to the occasion. Mr. Venkat distributed laptops to 13 government school teachers, reinforcing the program’s mission to enhance digital learning. In addition, three laptops each were presented to MMC School, VOC Government Higher Secondary School, PUMS Ilambuvanam, and PUMS Thittangulam. The CEO’s office also received one laptop, further cementing the commitment to supporting education in the region.

Villupuram

The inauguration of ACE V2 at Villupuram took place on 14th August 2024 at the Block Resource Office in Melmalayanur. The event was inaugurated by Mr. Suresh, District Coordinator of Namma School Namma Ooru Palli, and Mr. Prakash, Block Education Officer. Asha’s Project Coordinator, Mr. Rajaraman, and Block Resource Office Supervisor, Mrs. Jamuna, ceremoniously lit the kuttu vellaku. The welcome address was delivered by Mr. Dhinakaran, Coordinator of Asha’s Thulasi Project.

The occasion was graced by other guests, including Mr. Thirumal and Mr. Annamalai, Headmasters of Melmalayanur and Devanur Higher Secondary Schools. The event saw participation from many High School, Higher Secondary, and Middle School teachers from Melmalayanur, Kovilpuraiyur, Sathampadi, Avalurpet, Annamangalam, Kottapoondi, Melsevalampadi, Devanur, Thadagam, and Sathyamangalam.

The training session was conducted by Mr. Rajaraman, who elaborated on Asha’s vision and core values. The event concluded with a vote of thanks delivered by Mrs. Gnanasaundari, an RTC teacher from Asha.

Curriculum, Next Steps etc

The curriculum followed by ACEv2 incorporates the Digital Literacy curriculum from ACEv1 in the first year and then moves on to Programming using Scratch in the second year. The pedagogy with its focus on Learn by Doing and project work remains the same. Teacher training will also focus on the “Teacher as a Lead Learner” model.

As next steps our trainers will continue having one training session a month to cover the 5 or 6 lessons that the teachers will be expected to teach in the next month. As the program has started only in August, the teachers will have to rush a bit to complete the curriculum by January so that they can have the student teams work on the project for the next month and a half.

Press Coverage

The various ACE inauguration events in these 4 districts received good coverage from local press. Here are some of the articles and news items about these events.

ACE inauguration at Thiruvallur on News Tamil 81

ACE inauguration at Thiruvallur on Vanakkam Tamizhagam

RTC Impressions – July 2024

(by Rajaraman Krishnan, volunteer Asha Chennai)

IITM Pravartak and Asha are currently operating nine Rural Technology Centres (RTCs) across Tamil Nadu—five in Thiruvallur district, three in Thoothukudi district and one at Thiruvanamalai. Two new RTCs have been inaugurated this year at Nalantiputhur, Thootukudi and Kilpennathur, Thiruvanamalai.

Project work is a key component of the courses offered at the RTCs. During the February to June semester, there were seven RTCs that were active. Students from all seven RTCs worked on in-depth projects aligned with their course material. These projects culminated in the RTC Impressions competition, where the students had the opportunity to showcase their work to a panel of distinguished judges. See the full photo album here.

You may view the report on the last RTC Impressions held in Feb 2024 and the one held in Feb 2023. These provide details on why we emphasize the project work and the importance of the RTC Impressions competition.

RTC Courses

We continued offering all the courses offered in the last term that included “Basic Digital Literacy”, “Basic Programming” and the advanced courses that are part of Code.org’s CS Discoveries course intended for 6th to 10th std students. These included “Web Development”, “Javascript Animations” and “Physical Computing”. The highlight of this year was a course that was entirely created by Asha’s own teachers and volunteers on ‘Media Editing”. This was initially conceived by volunteers who identified the broad scope of what could be taught and the tools that can be used to teach that. Then the RTC teachers themselves took that over and broke it into 30 lessons with an activity around each lesson which teaches the children the underlying concepts and introduces the children to the necessary tools. The effort paid off very well and the children produced wonderful projects and went far beyond just the tool we taught them.

Projects Submissions in 2024 – Semester 1

The following table captures the projects that were submitted v/s selected as part of the course work for this semester.

Here is another table that shows the total number of projects selected by all the RTCs in various courses over the terms from the start.

There are some general points to note here.

1. The number of projects in the advanced courses is steadily advancing. Till Term 4, the number of presentation projects from the Digital Literacy course accounted for more than 50% of the project submissions. That fell significantly in Term 5. Now the project submissions in the advanced courses account for close to 33% of all the projects. We expect this to continue growing.
2. After the first couple of terms, we asked the RTC teachers to restrict the number of students in a team to 3. That is being followed rigorously now. This has brought down the average size of the team to less than 2. We are comfortable with this number.

Note also that, after a couple of terms of not much growth in the number of RTCs, we are once again growing with 2 new RTCs added for Term 6.

RTC Impressions Feb 2024 – Organizing

The RTC Impressions this term also was held at IITM Research Park, Taramani. Since the arrangements worked well for last year, we repeated the same arrangements this year. The mini-auditorium was used for Digital Literacy and Scratch Programming competitions, while the hall opposite was used to for Web development, Animation, Media Editing and Physical Computing competitions.

Students from RTCs in Thriuvallur and Thoothukudi travelled to Chennai for the event. The Thoothukudi team had to journey overnight by bus, while the children from Thiruvallur started early morning and reached venue in vans. The Pravartak team organized lunch for all at the venue.

The following individuals graciously agreed to serve as judges for our event-

1. Shankar Subramanium – Entrepreneur and researcher, ex-Prof from IITM.
2. K Arun – Supply Chain Consultant and a programmer as a hobbyist
3. S. Andrews Arokiam – Senior Tech Architect at Ideas2IT
4. Abhishek Savarnya – Academic Coordinator at Asha, Pondicherry school
5. Rubini V.E. – Manager at VOIS – CSR and Sustainable Business
6. Sanjay Rahul – Software Engineer at QBrik
7. Purva Bhater – Runs an academic initiative named Krividya
8. Raja Chidambaran K – Senior Technical Architect at HCL-CISCO Systems
9. Srinivasa Gopal – 25 yrs of experience in IT and 5 yrs as a University teacher
10. Haritha B – Software Engineer at QBrik
11. Sritha S – Software Engineer at QBrik

RTC Impressions – The Competitions

Mr. Rajaraman welcomed the judges and provided an overview of the history of RTC Impressions, as well as the judging criteria. The judges were invited to volunteer for the events they were interested in judging, leading to the formation of four teams. Two teams were assigned to the mini-auditorium to judge the Digital Literacy (Presentation) competition, and the Scratch Programming projects. As the Digital Literacy presentations required a podium, it was set up accordingly, and the Scratch Programming judges conducted their evaluations in a separate area of the hall where students presented their projects.

A third team of judges assessed the Web Development and Animation projects, while another team evaluated the Physical Computing and Media Editing entries. These two teams were stationed in the hall opposite the mini-auditorium. Each judge was provided with scorecards, and the competitions commenced. Students presented their projects one by one, confidently answering the judges’ questions. In addition to evaluating the projects, the judges offered valuable feedback, suggesting areas for improvement and ways the students could enhance their work in the future.

The aim of evaluating the projects was not to be swayed solely by the quality of the presentations but to assess the students’ understanding of the tools and applications they were using. The judges posed questions to gauge this comprehension. While some students responded confidently, others struggled with certain aspects.

RTC Impressions – Prize Distribution

The much awaited Presentation session resumed with the judges and Asha Volunteers taking stage. The judges expressed their delight and appreciation at the variety and the quality of projects presented by the students. The prizes were announced and distributed amidst joy and cheer. The judges were presented by gifts made by all the RTCs.

The list of winners is given below-

RTC Impressions: In Their Words

One of the judges’ K Arun said,” Very impressed with the quality of the projects and subjects taught at RTC. Some students are fearless and presented very well. Others need more practice presenting; so they should also participate in the presentation events, and not just programming events. (The event) was very well organized with multiple computers for all judges to play around with the projects and test the code out.”

Mr. Abhishek Savarnya said, “It was really amazing to see children of different age groups showcase their skills with confidence. The ease with which they navigated through their presentations was praiseworthy. The interest imbibed through these projects is certainly going to motivate children to pursue digital skills to advanced levels. Kudos to the teachers and Asha Chennai for giving the children this platform.”

Mr. Raja Chidambaram said, “I found RTC Team is doing a fantabulous job in educating the children with exposure to latest technology. This is the third time I am participating in RTC as a judge. In every visit, I could see tremendous improvement in presentation and technical skills. Great job. Keep up the good work.”

Mr. Shankar Subramanium said, “Very impressed by the programs vision and the energy of Rajaraman and colleagues. The students put in a lot of effort and the teachers do a tremendous job training them. It is particularly heartwarming to see several students rehearsing.”

RTC evaluation by RIE student

Asha Kanini Report 2023-2024

Asha Kanini project started back in 2014-15 as a way to include teaching of computer science to students as well as finding a way to leverage use of technology to teach all subjects better. As it completes 10 years, many of its purposes have been achieved.

1. Computer Science curriculum for classes 1 to 8 is mature and has been implemented in over 180 schools in TN and UP. Several variants of it have been created to serve specific needs. Government teachers are using a 2 year curriculum to teach digital literacy and programming which is an abridged version of this same curriculum.

2. Asha Kanini, a software to access the best quality content in a very easy manner when teaching any lesson in any subject for classes 1 to 8. This has been made available for the TN and the UP state board curriculum.

Besides these, the Asha Kanini team has served as the IT backend for improving the performance of Asha Chennai as a whole ranging from processing and viewing Assessment data to tracking assets in our control.

Staffing:

During the year 2023-2024, our team has undergone expansion, now comprising five members. Joining the development team are Balasubramaniam and Hemanath. Balasubramaniam is actively engaged in the development of the forthcoming iteration of the Asha Kanini application, while Hemanath fulfills an intern role, contributing to various developmental aspects. Additionally, Rohit, a member of the software team, assumes responsibility for hardware and asset management and makes regular visits to the Sangamam office in Thiruvallur at least once weekly. Gomathy manages the team and Dhanasekar also works on the V4 related tasks.

Asha Kanini Version 4:

Asha Kanini v4 is a major upgrade of our software. There are several system requirements met by this new version as well as new user features.

System Requirements

Since the original Asha Kanini version 3 was launched in 2019, several of the key dependencies have been upgraded. Node has moved from version 16 to 20, React from version 0.14 to 18.2, Electron from version 10 to version 26. Several module dependencies were also deprecated. MySQL version 8 is in use rather than 5.7. A new overhaul of Asha Kanini utilizing the more advanced features of these upgraded software, was long overdue.

Asha Kanini version 4 is presently under development to meet this need as well as other requirements. This iteration comes with the latest React and Electron modules and also aims to elevate UI interface, performance and efficiency.

Enhanced Mapping Experience

At the beginning of each academic year, curriculum and textbook changes occur across different classes. Version 4 introduces a mapping interface that allows teachers to dynamically create and publish mappings for new or modified curriculum directly within the application. This streamlined process is several times faster and more efficient, offering teachers a visual tool to minimize errors in mapping and enabling seamless publication to the server.

This feature substantially alters the way package contents and mappings are handled both by the client and the server. We have introduced a Mongo DB to track the mappings and version control them in the server. The client uses an SQL lite database to manage the mapping and content configurations. This speeds up our search significantly.

Enhanced Search

In version 4, we’ve made significant enhancements to our search functionality by leveraging the Fuse module and introducing multiple filter options. The Fuse module now supports fuzzy search, and we’ve improved how configuration is generated and options are managed. This results in more accurate search results across the platform.

Client Content Updates

We’ve restructured our configurations to be more dynamic and incremental. Unlike version 3, where updates required downloading entire packages even for small changes, version 4 supports incremental updates. This means that only the new content needs to be downloaded, significantly reducing data transfer size, especially for large packages. Moreover, the new version features loosely coupled configurations, optimizing client updates efficiently.

Data Reporting:

We’ve deployed data reporting systems for two active projects, ACE and Explore. Simultaneously, we’re in the process of establishing a comparable reporting structure for our computer teachers at primary and middle schools. These systems provide two important outputs.

• Provide data on the number of sessions taken, number of hours taught, number of students reached etc. which are required for various reporting.

• These also provide valuable insights into the progress and results of these initiatives.

As an example of the former, all the monthly data reporting for Amazon is derived from the data reported by the teachers.

Here are some examples of the latter.

1. ACE and computer teachers: The lesson tracker in ACE shows the progress of the one year CS curriculum on a weekly basis, tracking the sessions taught, missing and repeated sessions and observations by the computer teacher visiting the session. We plan to enhance this view to show the lesson completion status of all schools as a progressing bar graph. The bars will be built of small squares, each of which represent a lesson. Gaps in the bars will mean some lessons were skipped or not reported. Different colors on the graph will mean some lesson was repeated or done over two sessions. Length of the bars will indicate where the school is with respect to implementing the curriculum. This will provide the status of implementation of the curriculum in each school in a single glance.

   

2. Explore: Currently, the Explore report analyzes data collected from various perspectives including curriculum, school visits, and timeline. The report validates our assumptions regarding the number of daily sessions (average of 4), students per session (average of 15 to 20), and instructional days per year (average of 150 to 175).

3. Computer Teachers: In the Learn project, we will be implementing a tracker to monitor progress in computer science sessions, session frequency, adherence to schedules, and the number of teaching weeks for each teacher.

   

Assessment Processing

Teachers upload the list of students along with the student sociological details and the oral assessment status in Oct/Nov time frame. As the written assessment papers are ready, they upload the digitised version of the question papers to the server. The assessment graders then download the blank marksheet for all students in every class in a school and proceed to enter the marks for all questions in this and then upload the same to the server. The server validates all these uploads. Finally the school and teacher details are also uploaded. Reports on this data can be generated for all schools. Further lots of different analytics can be done on this data. These were all implemented in previous years. Several enhancements have been made to the process this year and a lot of support and management is required to ensure smooth processing of the data.

Further we started conducting assessments for Computer Science for students in classes 5 and 8. The work to support the upload of data for this as well as generating reports for the same was done this year.

Infrastructure and Administrative Support

The software engineers in the Asha Kanini team also provide IT support services for all of Asha Chennai. Here are some tasks that were taken up in 2023-24.

Asset Tracking and Validation

To fortify asset management protocols, QR code integration has been implemented. Each asset is generated a unique QR code which is stuck on the asset. Scanning the QR code validates the asset on the server. This validates the user scanning the QR code and optionally get a photo of the asset and its status from the user. This system ensures streamlined asset tracking and verification processes. The asset verification system helps to verify and tracks the teacher, project and other details of each asset.

Accounts Entry

We have implemented a facility for the accounts team to convert transactional data from Excel into a format compatible with our accounting software so that it can be uploaded directly without having to manually enter every transaction.

System Administration – Management

Rohit, from the development team, is also actively involved in administrative work, especially asset management. He regularly visits the sangamam office for the same. His responsibilities encompass asset management, hardware repairs, and overall infrastructure maintenance. This becomes especially important when we receive a batch of computers from donors. Last year we received 270 laptops from Amazon as well as 50 high end workstations from Ford. Readying these and allocating them to the various projects was handled by the Asha Kanini staff.

Plans for the coming year

In the upcoming year, our main priorities include launching the Asha Kanini v4 version for Windows and Android. As mentioned earlier, this update will incorporate several enhancements including a new Teacher mapping interface.

Additionally, we aim to implement the package processing module on the Sangamam server. This module will simplify the process for teachers to create and modify courses, packages, and mappings. In future, this framework in Asha Kanini v4 will enable teachers to dynamically generate lesson plans and teaching modules independently and publish them as needed. Furthermore, we plan to deploy two modules in Sangamam server, namely Teacher Scheduling and Learn Data Reporting. These tools will allow teachers to efficiently schedule school visits and track progress on lessons conducted under the Learn project.

The development team will also work with lead teachers and focus on creating courses for RTCs including Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Web Development.

There are several other projects in the pipeline, such as, developing a bug tracking module for Asha Kanini, automating error tracking and server management, creating an assessment/worksheet module for the Kanini app, implementing dynamic lesson plans, allowing teachers to generate and share plans using the Kanini app and more.

RTC REPORT (APRIL – JUNE 2024)

During the Feb to July 2024 term, there were 7 active RTCs.

Thoothukudi District:

Kanakamma Chathiram (Thiruvalangadu Block)

Seethanjeri (Poondi Block)

Thomur (Poondi Block)

Kannigaiper (Ellapuram Block),

Periyapalayam (Ellapuram Block)

Thoothukudi District:

Kalugumalai

Kayathar

We had started the process of adding two more RTCs at Nallatinpudhur (Thoothukudi) and Kilpennathur (Thiruvannamalai). As opportunities come (both in terms of funding and teacher talent) we will start new RTCs in other locations. These RTCs are described in the next section.

RTC COURSES

Basic Digital Literacy, Basics of Programming, Web Development, Physical Programming and Animation using JavaScript are being offered at the various RTCs. But the courses offered by each RTC will change to give the opportunity for all students to take these advanced courses. The contents of the Basic Digital Literacy and Basics of Programming will be enhanced a little bit. Here is a description of all our courses.

ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

RTCs currently conduct a rigorous one-hour exam on the computer to test the students. Their project work is also used as a component of their evaluation. In addition to these we also conduct sample base line and end line assessments based on the standardised assessments available at digitalliteracyassessment.org or something similar. The details of these can be found here.

KANAKAMMACHATIRAM

During April, teachers Yamini L B and Eswari R visited GHSS Kanagammachathiram and GHSS Arcot Kuppam, where they taught Digital Literacy and Basic Programming. The RTC was closed from the end of April to May 19 due to exams and the start of the students’ vacation. In May, the teachers spent time reviewing previous material and resumed lessons later in the month. June is dedicated to project submissions, and students have been actively collaborating with the teachers to complete and submit their projects. The teachers continue to teach Digital Literacy and Basic Programming at the schools.

GHSS Kanagammachathiram received 14 new donated desktops through Cognizant. Asha pitched in with the electrical work for the same. The students are now able to use the new computers and have been busy with project submission.

Kanagammachathiram RTC offers five courses- Digital Literacy, Basic programming, Web Development, Physical computing and newly launched course named Media Editing. This course is being offered at Kanagammachathiram and Thomur RTCs only. The students tried the courseand were thrilled to learn something new. They have been trying their hands at the editing skills since then.

Currently, teachers Yamini L B and Eswari R are running the RTC. As Eswari left on maternity leave in June a new RTC teacher named Sasikala has been working since May 20. Once Eswari joins back, Sasikala will start work at a new RTC at Thiruttani.

In the RTC Impressions KKC RTC students Ranjith S and Marudhu Pandiyan R won the 3^rd place in Scratch programming and Chelvan A and Banu Prasad A won 1^st prize in advance programming Animation.

SEETHANJERI

The teachers took classes until April 20^th, after which the RTC closed down for vacation and reopened on 20 May. The students have been involved in doing Project work all of June.

The teachers at Seethanjeri handle 5 batches. M Anusuya handles digital literacy and Radha handles programming, physical computing, animation, and web development.

Some students from Goonipalayam come from poor backgrounds and are not able to afford transport cost to the RTC. Such students are provided bus fare by Asha. Asha also provides snacks to the children at RTCs in the evening since they come directly from their schools.

A few students who are now learning advances courses are in Class 10. Considering the pressure for boards, these students are often discouraged by their school teachers and parents to spend time at the RTCs. The distance and travel time acts as a deterrent to these students. However, the children enjoy their time learning at the RTCs and strive to complete their project work along with their teachers.

During the RTC Impression held in Feb 2024, N. Monisha from Seethanjeri RTC won the 2nd Prize for their project Ludo and Tic Tac Toe. S.Ranjith Kumar, V.Sathvika, N.Sarmi won the 3rd Prize in Presentation for their project Rescue my Friend.

KANNIGAIPAIR RTC

This is a single teacher RTC and B. Nadhiya has been running it. In May, the RTC was closed due to vacation. The students had gone out of town to their native places or on vacation. Since June, the students have begun coming to the RTC regularly. Students have been learning Digital Literacy, Programming, Web development, Physical computing and Animation courses at the RTC.

Nathiya teaches Digital Literacy at GHSS Kannigaipair. Since project work had begun in June, the RTC was run even during Sundays. The students have completed the projects with great enthusiasm. Asha has been providing bus fare to students coming from farther places. This has helped encourage greater participation by the students. They will bring lunch and spend time learning at the RTC for the whole day.

During RTC Impressions, students Sukran, Bhuvanesh, Santhosh Kumar won the 3^rd place in Digital literacy for their project Vivasayam and Priskilla won 1^st place in Physical computing.

Currently the students are working on all the five courses.Some students come from Kannigaipair school, some from Padiyanallur school in Redhills , and a few from Neyveli, and Thirukandalam.

KAYATHAR

Kayathar RTC is a two teacher RTC run by S.Noorul Rifaya and S.Benazeer Begam. The RTC had faced issues with retaining students until the end of the course. The children who are not very serious about their learning tend to drop out mid-course. The RTC teachers have been making efforts to bring in students who are really interested in the courses being offered. Like other RTCs, the students have resumed courses after the summer vacation and have been working on project submission in June.

Students from the nearby villages like Paneerkulam, Ayyanaroothu, Paneekarkulam, Suriyaminikkan, Thirumangalankuruchi, Vellalankottai, Nagalapuram, Karisalkulam and Kayathar are using this RTC.

A student named Sutha had discontinued her studies 2 years ago, but now she has developed interest in our program and has joined the RTC.

The HMs from Karisalkulam and Thirumangalankurichi are taking lots of efforts to send students to our RTC even when the school is working on a Saturday.

F.Rabiath Faariza , K.Mohammad Sheik Arsaq and M.A.C.D.Ahamed Abdullah Ebrahim from Kayathar RTC won the consolation prize in Presentation competition during RTC Impressions last year.

KALUGUMALAI

The Kalagumalai RTC is run by Gayathri and Buvana Kirubadevi. The children from nearby villages such as Kaalampatti, Thulukarpatti, Karadikulam, Kattalankulam, Saravanapuram and other private school students are also utilizing our RTC. These schools are from remote areas.

GHSS Kalugumalai that is paired with this RTC also comprises of students from various villages, as it is the only Govt Higher Secondary School in this Surrounding.

Some students who were taught by our Computer Teachers have directly moved to Basic Programming Course. One of the students, Mathan Kumar from GHSS Kalugumalai has won 1st Prize in Basic Programming for his project Crazy Games in the RTC Impression.

Three girls from Kammavar Girls Hr.Sec School named Pavithra, Boomika and Suthiksha had won 1st Prize in Digital Literacy (Presentation) in RTC Impression.

The RTC also supports the students by providing their transport expenses for a group of 20 students who do not have any local transport facilities. The parents have also been very supportive of our efforts.

THOMUR

This term, the Thomur RTC is offering courses in Digital Literacy, Scratch, Web Development, and Media Editing. Media Editing is a new addition to the curriculum. The RTC was closed for 20 days during the summer vacation, during which time the teachers received training in Web Development at the Sangamam office in Thiruvallur and worked on content for the new Media course.

The RTC reopened on May 20, 2024, and the students have since returned. Since June, the RTC has been busy with project work in Scratch, Web Development, and Media. Additionally, the teacher has been visiting GHS Thomur to teach Digital Literacy.

During the RTC Impressions held in February, RTC Thomur had two winners. Sivapriyan received gold medal for web development course and V. Kavya won silver medal for Digital Literacy course.

PERIYAPALAYAM

Asha Chennai’s 7th RTC (Rural Technology Centre) was started in late February and inaugurated at Periyapalyam on 2 March, 2024. The center was inaugurated by our coordinator, Mr. Rajaraman in the presence of the RTC teachers, coordinators in Thiruvallur and children. The RTC has been functional since Friday, 1 March, and children have attended in good numbers.

The RTC will be managed by our teacher Ms. Poonkodi who had been teaching at the Kannigaiper RTC. After the vacation, students started coming to the RTC from 20 May, 2024. They usually spend their entire day from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm learning at the RTC.

So far, the RTC has been running as a single teacher RTC. We expect to add another teacher shortly. Students in the RTC has been joined to the Feb to July term of the rest of the RTCs.

NALANTINPUTUR

Asha’s 8th RTC Centre and the third in Thoothukudi District, Tamil Nadu was inaugurated on 14 June, 2024, Friday at Nalattinpudhur near Kovilpatti. Asha teacher at this RTC visits the associated higher secondary school, GHSS Nalattinpudhur for 3 hours and teaches the children basics of computer science and encourages all interested students to come to the center in the evening to learn more advanced topics in computer science like web development and Robotics for free.

The inauguration function was attended by Asha Volunteers, Mr. Rajaraman and Mr. Bhaskar. They visited GHS Nalantiputhur school along with Asha Coordinator, Mr. Murugan and Asha teachers to talk about Asha’s work and RTC courses on offer. We look forward to the successful working of this RTC under the leadership of our teacher Ms. Malarmathi.

The students will participate in the regular RTC courses, projects and competition from the July 2024 term onwards.

aining government teachers in 50 schools to teach a one-year curriculum under our ACE program. At our 7 RTCs, we teach 6 month courses to 6^th to 12^th std students in digital literacy, programming and more advanced topics.

Assessment Framework

We have also been working in parallel to develop a good assessment mechanism that tests the learning of the students and broadly the outcome of our efforts. There are four components in our assessments.

1. Project Work

As a part of the course work, all our students participate in a detailed project work. This occupies about one fourth of the total time for the course. For eg in our RTC courses, the instruction happens for about 3.5 months and the project work for about 1.5 months. For our primary and middle school program, classes 4 and above spend most of the third term doing project work.

The children learn a lot more doing project work than if they spent the time with more instructions. In addition to this, project work also gives a good mechanism for accessing the learning levels of the children.

The children work in teams for their project work. Teamwork enables peer learning. However it makes assessment of an individual students learning difficult. We have been making efforts to reduce the team sizes. At the RTCs, we limited the team size to 3. The average team size for actual project submission is less than 2! At the primary and middle schools the team sizes are difficult to bring down because of the inadequate number of computers. Therefore we brought down the number to 4 only for 5^th and 8^th std students in the “certificate” schools. See the “Primary and Middle School Program” section below.

2. Asha Assessment

We conduct assessment aligned to the curriculum the students are learning for all classes from 4^th upwards. These include pen and paper questions as well as questions that require them to do something on a computer like create a presentation or write a small program. Each individual student will need to work on a computer independently to take this assessment. We are once again able to do this at our RTCs but not at all the schools. We are doing these only at the “certificate” schools.

3. Standardised Assessment

Even though the Asha assessment described above are well aligned to our curriculum, this will not provide us any way to compare Asha’s CS programs against any other programs or against any standard out there. We were able to find a fairly standardised set of assessments for digital literacy with Northstar Digital Literacy Assessments. Administering this requires a lot of time as there are several different assessments that test different aspects of digital literacy. Therefore we plan to do this as a sample survey administering it to some number of newly joining students as well as some number of completing students.

4. Teachers’ Inputs

Through regular interaction with the students, teachers develop an understanding of the capabilities of a student which do not often get captured by objective measures. We consider this as well as parameters like attendance in awarding certificates to the students who complete our courses.

Assessments at RTCs

RTC terms run from Feb to Aug and Aug to Feb. At the RTCs for the last several terms we have been conducting project work as well as the end of term assessment that is aligned to the curriculum. The term that ended in Feb 24 saw these as well. In addition we for the first time did base and end line assessment with Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment, a standardised assessment. These are described below.

Asha Assessments

The Asha assessments were conducted for all the various courses taught at the RTCs. Here are the average scores and the standard deviation for the different courses.

Students took the test well and their marks reflected their good understanding of the topics. One of the observations that was made during the Asha Assessments conducted at the RTCs was that it is being conducted a little informally. As many of the students are unused to a formal assessment that truly tests their learning, even in their school, conducting one with the questions in English and having to answer on a computer is highly unfamiliar to the students. The more senior students who have sat for the Asha assessment in the past handle this alright. Junior students sitting for their first or second assessment keep asking the teacher what the question means. We should probably have a practice test or two before the actual test.

Project Work

As stated earlier, we were aiming for 3 students per team and the students did a lot better than that. There were a total of 411 students who completed their course across all the 6 RTCs that were active in that term. Between them they submitted a total of 203 projects which brings the average team size to just about 2! We found the quality of the projects also to be good across all the courses. The amount of work spent by the teams on their projects was clearly substantial.

Here is a report on the RTC Impressions conducted on Feb 7^th that also talks about the projects that were submitted.

Standardised Assessment

At the RTCs we conducted the NorthStar assessment for the first time. We conducted it on a random selection of students who completed the digital literacy course in Feb 24. We also conducted it on a random collection of students who had newly registered for the digital literacy course for the Feb to Aug 2024 term. These are the End Line and Base Line results that are shown below. Note the sample size is given in the bracket.

As you can note the scores for the Endline students had improved between 30% and 50% over the Baseline students for all the content areas. The average scores for the Endline students is above the 50% cutoff on all the subjects. This shows the significant learning across all these areas of digital literacy from taking our one term Digital Literacy course.

Some broad points to be noted about these assessments are,

1. Some of the BaseLine students had some exposure to computer science. These are typically students from Asha primary schools or from schools where Asha teachers have been going to conduct the Explore program. As you can note, typically, these students did better than students with no computer exposure.
2. In our digital literacy curriculum, we teach using OpenOffice. NorthStar assessment is based on Microsoft Office. Most our students (end line) got some of the questions wrong because of this.
3. We designed out curriculum completely independent of the NorthStar assessment. However, having done these assessments once, we may include a few things in our curriculum as well like,
   1. Document orientation, margins, sorting/freezing in spreadsheets etc.
   2. Some more emphasis on security.
   3. Emphasise some terms like ribbons, margins etc.

This would impact the Endline scores a bit in the subsequent terms.

4. In most cases the teachers needed to explain the questions in Tamil as they couldn’t understand the English question. But care was taken to not accidentally reveal the answer. Lack of English knowledge is a big problem with digital literacy as a whole.
5. If the students click somewhere else on the screen, it moved to the next question. They weren’t sure how to go back to the previous question. This also indicates a lack of familiarity with using computers. This was especially so with the Baseline students.

You can see detailed comments from our teachers on the kind of questions in the assessments and some of the questions our children had challenges with here.

Assessments  at  Primary  and  Middle  Schools

Our assessments at primary and middle schools have been improved significantly this year. Both the project work and the assessments have seen changes as explained below. Both of these need further improvements as well. We are yet to start standardised assessments at the primary and middle schools. We hope to start those next year.

We are teaching computer science at 180+ primary and middle schools – 165+ in TN and 15 in UP. There are very few government-provided computers in these schools. Therefore, the only computers present in these schools are computers that we have been able to obtain from donors and donate to these schools. Our computer science instruction is constrained by the lack of computers. This lack of infrastructure is especially telling when it comes to project work and assessments. Project work is done by teams of students in 4^th/5^th std and in 7^th/8^th std. We would ideally like to restrict the team size to 3 or 4. However if a class has 25 children and the school has only 3 computers, a team size of less than 8 will not be possible. Similarly conducting assessments will require each individual student to work by themselves independently on a computer. In such a school that would mean that we can only conduct assessment for 3 students at a time. Given that the assessment takes about an hour, this means the assessment just for that one class will take more than a day.

Another problem is that many of the schools among this 180 have been added over the last couple of years. At these schools we are still in a catch-up mode. 5^th std students may still not be taught the 5^th std curriculum and so on. This is especially a problem with 7^th anf 8^th std students. We start them with the digital literacy lessons taught to younger classes (i.e. OpenOffice, Windows, Using Internet etc.) before going properly into programming. This also means we cannot conduct the usual assessments with them unless they have had at least 3 years of continuous instructions with us.

Given these constraints, we decided to identify a subset of schools where there are adequate number of computers and where the curriculum is also caught-up and the students are being taught at the correct level. In these schools we decided we will conduct projects and assessments the way they should be conducted. The children in 5^th and 8^th std will receive certificates marking completion of their digital literacy and programming courses respectively. We named these schools “Certificate” schools. In April 2024, 42 of our schools spread across various projects were designated as Certificate schools. The hope would be eventually move all our schools to certificate schools.

The number of projects submitted are shown below.

• Certificate Schools: 
  5th std strength – 527
  4th and 5th std strength – 1050
  No of Presentations submitted – 241
•  Non Certificate Schools:
  5th std strength — 1804
  4th and 5th std strength — 3377
  No of Presentation Submitted – 505

We mandated that the team sizes for 5^th std should be 4. Even including the 4^th std, the average team size per submission at Certificate schools was 4.36. At non-certificate schools that ratio was as high as 6.69. Note for the non-certificate school we included only our projects Sangamam, Thulasi and Pearl which were more mature in terms of curriculum implementation. Here is the data for programming projects.

• Certificate Schools: 
  8th std strength – 173
  7th and 8th std strength – 351
  No of Programs submitted – 82
•  Non Certificate Schools:
  8th std strength — 404
  7th and 8th std strength — 845
  No of Programs Submitted – 136

We are working on a separate report on Asha Impressions that will provide more details about the best projects among these. However, looking at the quality of the average projects, the presentation projects submitted by the 4^th and 5^th std children were of a good quality. When I visited these schools before the project submissions or between the project submission and Asha Impressions, I could also see that most of the children indeed knew how various aspects of the presentations like slide transition, inserting audio etc. worked.

However, both the quality of the projects submitted as well as my personal observations were not so positive regarding the programming part of the curriculum. Most of the programming projects were barely the kind of programs which they should be doing as part of class exercise while learning various concepts like looks, sensing, pen operations etc. Many of them did not demonstrate a technical mastery and even those that did, did not go much beyond that to build that into a project.

Even during my personal visits, I could notice that when I gave a challenge to the children (kind of programs which are in our assessment), many of them didn’t know where to start. Even the teachers did not seem 100% confident.

Asha Assessment

We conducted formal assessments at the 42 Certificate schools of which 13 were middle schools and 29 were primary schools. We conducted exams for about 500 5^th std students and for about 180 8^th std students at these schools. An external invigilator (computer teacher who goes to other schools) conducted these tests. The children wrote the tests individually working on their own computers.

The assessments also confirmed what we noticed in the project work. Here are the average marks for the students in the various questions in 5^th std.

The 5^th standard student did uniformly well in all the questions and in particular they did well in the presentation question. Here are the average marks for 8^th std students.

While the students did OK in the questions on digital literacy, they did not do well in the programming related questions – both the unplugged activity and the Scratch program. In personal observations, we could see many students in 8^th std struggling with the programming question without much idea as to how to do it. Even the 46% marks they have got on an average for basic things like adding the necessary sprites and background. Very few students, got the logical programming part correct.

Our Learnings

Our rigorous assessments and emphasis on project work has revealed several things about our own programs. By and large our RTC program, which has been going through these rigorous assessments and projects for 3 terms now, is doing well. The learning levels of the children as reflected in their assessment performance, quality of the projects submitted as well as their performance in the Northstar standardised assessments, is alright. There are some minor additions to the curriculum that can be done to our digital literacy curricula which we will be incorporating.

Our school program for the primary school children is also doing quite well and the children seem to be performing at an adequate level. However, there are deficiencies in our teaching of programming to the middle school students.

In discussion with the teachers, we found several reasons for this. Here are some reasons we do not have too much control over,

1. This was one of the Corona affected batches. In particular they did not learn Computer Science during their 4^th and 5^th stds. That meant that basic computer usage itself was taught to them only after they returned from Corona and this meant they did not receive much programming instructions.
2. Many schools do not provide the 8^th std as much time with our Computer teachers as other classes. As this is the final class before they move on to the High/Higher Sec schools, the other subject teachers focus more on them.
3. Poor infrastructure. Insufficient number of computers affect all schools. Even the Certificate schools have barely enough computers and does not give sufficient time for students on computers.

We also found factors which we can do something about.

4. With the limited number of computers, the classwork is also mostly done in teams. During the assessment, it became clear that there are weak students who haven’t learnt much. Teachers need to do more to ensure all the team members participate.
5. Teachers’ own understanding and comfort with Scratch and programming was not up to mark. We have to continue focussing on teacher training as we have been doing.

In addition to these, we felt some of the rigour that we have been bringing to the ACE program in terms of the structure of the curriculum and the reporting expected from the teachers can be brought to our primary and middle school computer teachers as well.