lakshshadweep kala academy award

ARABIKADALILE KADHA GANANGAL GRABS LAKSHADWEEP KALA ACADEMY AWARD

GRABBING MINDS BY TRADITIONAL SONGS

This is the happiest moments to us. Because this year's Lakshadweep Kala Academy award for book publishing goes to Chamayam Haja Hussain's Arabikadalile Kadha Ganangal. The book is published by Media Analysis and research Center. K.C.A.Kilthani also got the award for his contributions in folk song writing. Mr. Kiltani's works are included in the same book.
Arabikadalile kadhaganangal is a collection of folk songs from various islands belong to Lakshadweeps. Most of the songs are prepared in Jasari language. Jasari is a vernacular version of islanders. To write, they use Malayalam scripts. Ratheesh Kaliyadan edited the book and added brief description of the songs in Malayalam.

The songs compiled indicate the cultural background of the islanders. Islamic cult and believes along with exclusive cultural and social deviations are reflected. Islanders depend the main land for their households and all other needs. To collect food materials and all other livelihood items, they have to travel a lot to the main land. Voyage becomes major issue in their life. Various stories related to the voyages are indicated in their folk songs.
Experiences related to travel include sweet memories, horrible days in sea and terrible waiting for wind. all these aspects are highlighted in ballads of the islands. Based upon exclusive geographical features of Lakshadweep, varieties of rituals are also formed which are unknowing to the mainstream Islamic worlds. Kattuvili is an example. This is a ritual practiced by island women. They offer prayer with song to get good wind. Because then only their men can return back to the island.
Other experiences related to meera( toddy), love, passion and affection are some other subjects for songs. Children who leave island for better education is an usual practice. They leave to main land for higher studies. mothers advice their children. They express their fear about the land which they didn't see ever. Feelings of these unmoved mothers, letters to their children etc are narrated well in certain songs.
Arabikadalile Kadhaganangal is a collection of tears in joy and sadness. Traditional songs of Lakshadweep is the content of this award won book.

Five E approach in Constructivism

Five E Approaches to Constructivist Learning
Ratheesh Kaliyadan, P. Muhammed Musthafa, Josekutty
Topic: States of India
Objectives:
To make aware of various geographical features and cultural differences in States and Union Territories
To create awareness on unity in diversity
To generate a feeling of national integration
Step 1: Engage
Brainstorming session on Kerala-Where do you come from?
Is it belongs to highland, low land or coastal area?
Distributes outline map of India and ask them to mark them the middle state of India and neighboring state of Kerala and the boundary state of India
Step 2 Explore
Explore details on the marked state using Google Map.
Explore further details on these states using Merlot and Wikipedia
Step 3 Explain
Prepare note on geographical and cultural aspects of different states
Circulate the details in Yahoo group and post it in Blog
Step 4 Elaborate
Making a photo album of different states including photographs that highlights geographical and cultural features.
Make collage of these features
Upload photo album and collage works in Piccassa
Step 5 Evaluate
Peer Evaluation: by evaluating others work that posted in blog and circulated in Yahoo group
Teacher Evaluation: by assessing each and every interventions of the learner continuously and evaluating products.
Note: Teacher should scaffold with necessary inputs and suggestions in each steps

(Prepared in NCERT's CIET workshop for  Mentor Coordinators at SCERT Kerala)

ICT in Constructivism

CONFUSED WITH CONSTRUCTIVISM?
Ratheesh Kaliyadan


Kerala teachers in school education are proud in propagating that ‘we are the practitioners of social constructivism in actual class room situations’. Yes we are. While practicing the theory in class rooms, we feel a lot of differences from the behaviouralistic pattern. Mainly we concentrate on the process of class room experiences. All the process of attaining knowledge and construction is evaluated continuously. Hence Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation is part of our evaluation system.

In order to implement the constructive paradigm, we use certain techniques and methods. The transaction methods include seminar, assignment, project, group discussion, field trip, debate, brainstorming, interview, interactive sessions etc. In between these methods and techniques, how do we use Information Communication Technology? Is it possible to use E-content or Interactive Multimedia Learning Objects in our class rooms? These are the queries frequently raised by Kerala teachers when ever we start with a discussion about Information Communication Technology.

What do you think about the query? Constructivism is a theoretical platform for knowledge construction. No mentors told that a fixed method or a set of methods are the only way to construct knowledge. There are several ways to gather information. All gathered information are processed and applied it if there is a chance to apply them. Information Communication Technology is one among the various ways. Consider it as a tool to gather information as just you use interview as a tool. Processing of the available information is important in deciding what knowledge you should have attain.

Internet, video, audio files, animations, films….everything can use in class room purposes. There is a possibility to use different media in a learning object which help the learners to achieve more fruitfully.

The major issue lies in developing the multi media package is How to make more child friendly, interactive and constructive Learning Objects. This is a challenge before the Instructional Designers. A thorough thought is a must while designing such packages for constructivist paradigm. All packages for constructivist class rooms would be a tool to interact in class rooms and to support the process of knowledge construction.

mentor training/ciet

ICT GURUS ARE AT WORK
Ratheesh Kaliyadan

It is a fantastic experience to be together to work for a cause. All of us are teacher trainers or teachers. We are from different parts of the nation. We assembled in a selected venue in our states. For example participants from Kerala assembled in the floor of State Council for Educational Research and Training, Thiruvananthapuram. Resource persons sat in a studio in New Delhi. Together we learned how to use Information Technology for class rooms. Thanks to the satellite facility to video conferencing, we met each other virtually and shared our experiences.

National Council for Educational Research and Training’s Central Institute of Educational Technology provided such an opportunity to learn in video conference mode. The method is not boring lectures. Hands own experience in using technology is the major attraction of the training programme.

Familiarizing various tools of online interaction by operating personally is the strategy adopted in the Mentor co-coordinators for ICT training. Through the training all participants are familiar with various interactive tools like teacher tube, face book, yahoo groups, blog, curriki, pbworks, wikispaces, googledocs etc. Almost all participants have accounts in these platforms now.

The next question is how to use and utilize the platforms. There we need a clear-cut vision. To whom we are working? What are the educational needs for them? How can I create and post materials for our teacher and learner community? These are the questions we have to face.

We are not entertaining practicing rote memory. Assess learner’s rote memory is not an agenda before us. We stand for analysis and application levels of knowledge. To assure it, educational content suitable for such an environment should be developed. It is the next step we have to go forward.

It is sure that Information Communication Technology will provide a different experience to a certain extent. At the same time ICT content should not rule the entire transaction process. At this juncture any ICT content can be considered as a tool to interact with the learners as we use text books and other materials. That is the message lay behind the teacher empowerment programme.

social networks in class rooms

SOCIAL NETWORKS IN CLASS ROOMS
Ratheesh Kaliyadan


Thanks to internet, numerous opportunities to interact with all over the world are possible now a days. The academic communities can explore the facility to improve the academic in puts in different ways. Several communities and social networks are active around us. The teachers and learners practice and generate innovative works also. By sharing the novel idea and experiences, you can motivate similar minded people and enhance your own abilities through suggestions from others. Internet communities and social networks can be utilized for pure academic purposes.

Face book, Wikispaces, orkut, bog etc are examples for general platforms which can be transformed to academic purposes. Any of these interactive spaces can be hared with educational content and experiences. Instead of providing personal likes and dislikes, academic matters should be the agenda of interaction. To be more concrete, I may site an example. I have an account in wikispaces.com . I can post my class room experiences in the pages of my account. If I allow reading this content to my friends or those who visit my pages, the experience is shared with them. If it is an interesting matter to them, naturally they will respond or make a comment. The comment may be an enlightening one.

In a blog you can post a lot. Blog is the nick name of weblog which is the combination of web and log. Once you open an account in the world of blogs, you can add text, photo, video, audio, paintings, colors, animation, and graphics….and more. This is an excellent tool to share your experiences an experiments; Not only to your own students, but to readers all over the world. Usually I use www.mediamarx.blogspot.com to share my views on mediamatters, education, folklore and environment. Blog is a powerful medium today which act as parallel media interventions. Bloggers become investigators also.

If you own a group, again you get a vast space to share anything to the members. They can contribute their idea also. If forms a group of your learners, it would be a typical basement for information gathering. A kind of in-house business of transacting educational content is the major objective of forming groups of teachers and learners. Yahoo groups are popular among academic communities. The ‘owner’ of the group can invite people to join the group via e-mails.

Likewise, there are web ports designed to share educational content. Curriki.com, pbworks.com, teachertube.com etc are best examples for exclusive educational educational content generations. Any body who are interested in education can open an account in these basements and share innovative class room designs, lesson plans, audio-visual documents and other multiple choices. At the same time E-content repositories of interactive multimedia learning objects are also available from NCERT, IGNOU, MERLOT, SAKSHAT etc.

Majority of teachers advocate for democracy. But we are not so much democratic in participating learners in discussions regarding the teaching learning process. We don’t allow them to say ‘what I need and how’. All of us agree that students are not ‘empty pots’. But representatives of such rich, resourceful and experienced learner audience are not permitted to say a word on educational strategy and policy. But here they also get a space to interact. Learners are also welcome to contribute their views. The real democratic discourse begins here.