Training and interaction with the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya teachers in Dhamtari (01.09.17 – 03.09.17)
“One child, one book, one pen and one teacher can change the world” – Malala Yousafzai. We started September 2017 of the CLIx calendar with a visit to the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV), Kurud Block, Dhamtari District, Chhattisgarh for CLIx platform training. Our bus travelled through beautiful scenery, with lotuses in bloom, marred by the sight of carcasses of trees by the roads being widened.
At the school, we were welcomed by motivated, enthusiastic and well-informed teachers who were eager to learn and to empower their students. They were indeed quick learners, having an IT background.
Our three-day workshop was planned considering the teachers’ background, but India is land of diversity. This bewildering diversity is represented in all facets of life and always present in the environment. This time, we were exposed to another facet of it – diversity of the IT labs of JNVs and their machines.
Apparently, due to a hardware and software incompatibility — though we could do the demo and the training using our own machines — there was trouble with the existing lab computer setup due to incompatibility of hardware. We tried many solutions in the time available, but in vain.
The day was full of learning experiences for us (CLIx technology fellows) and for the participants, as more problems and errors produce more learning.
Guiding for the CLIx platform installation
The second day was productive. The teachers installed Ubuntu (software) and then the docker and the CLIx module.
The excellent and clean environment of school, its hospitality, working facilities, the nutritious food at the school mess, the polite and bright students and the eager teachers made us sanguine about the positive outcomes of the workshop.
As our first day’s activities exceeded the time allowed for them, we could not do the school lab visits. Instead, we ended up working with the teachers who tried and repeated the installation multiple times.
It was a pleasure to see teachers help their peers to solve the problems encountered during the complete process. If the teachers help each other, this culture is transferred to their students as well.
To our satisfaction, the teachers walking out of the workshop were well-informed, and we hope they will take the implementation forward. We happily CLIxed students beyond CLIx schools. Ramjee, Chief Technologist, CLIx, rightly says “Technology Macht Frei” (Technology sets you free).
(Satej Shende, Technology Manager & Prachi Bhatia, Senior Software Engineer, Technology team, CLIx)
