Project Kaleidoscope aims to improve the quality of education, by providing teachers with digital tools and computer literacy to students.

Project Kaleidoscope is a pilot project with the objective of transforming classrooms in 45 government schools in Taranagar, Rajasthan into smart classrooms by installing computers, projectors, printers and internet connectivity.

We fellows at Piramal Foundation for Educational Leadership (PFEL), working closely everyday in schools of Taranagar, have found that the students are able to understand and apply concepts when lessons were presented to them in an interactive digitised format. We conducted smart class sessions in various schools to consolidate our findings. These sessions have also helped our teachers realise the importance of technology in classrooms. 

Based on these findings, we have designed Project Kaleidoscope, which is a 4 phase pilot project. Phase 1 of Project Kaleidoscope aims to digitally enable 10 schools, which in turn will spearhead the phases to come. 

Just like a kaleidoscope which infinitely changes in shape and form every time you look into it, we aim to provide these digital tools as a  portal for our students to acquire infinite knowledge every time they use them.

We are a team of youth having graduated from top universities in different states of India following a dream to bring social change in the field of education. We are fellows at Piramal Foundation for Educational Leadership (PFEL),  working towards our goal.

We work in many of India’s government schools to improve the quality of education. We do this by co-ordinating with the Headmasters and Teachers in these government schools, to improve their pedagogical and leadership skills. We have partnered with more than 1400 government schools in states such as Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi, impacting a total of 300,000 plus students studying in these schools.

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In this age of digitisation, we would like to provide our students with the opportunity to be abreast with the available technology so that they are in sync with the world. This also provides the teachers the necessary tools to enhance their skills and access to the wide range of learning/ teaching material on the internet. This ranges from a simple YouTube video about the solar system to a complex 3D rendering of the human heart.

                                    

Curiosity can be the greatest teacher and introducing these inputs would act as the perfect catalyst for students to learn.

More than 87% of India’s schools do not have access to computers. This means that students are exposed to computers very late in their career. As a result they struggle in jobs that need them to be computer literate. This limit the opportunities that are available to students that attend Government schools.

Computer literacy can also be provided to students, as part of their curriculum.

We plan to purchase Desktop PCs at Rs.25,000 x 3 (approx $1200) per school and projectors costing Rs. 20,000 x 3 (approx $900) per school, printers costing Rs. 5000 (approx $75) per school and Internet connection costing Rs. 2000 (approx $30) per school.

With Computers and Projectors to be installed in classrooms of 3rd, 5th and 7th grade. The schools that we work in, are Upper Primary Schools with classes till 8th grade, hence we have chosen 3rd, 5th and 7th grade for the pilot project.

We are going to provide schools with in-class software that Government of Rajasthan has created based on textbook syllabus. We also plan to use software from Khan Academy to centralise content. Meanwhile we are working on creating a separate curriculum to train teachers to use smart class efficiently. 

The state government provides the in-class software that is made directly from syllabus set for these schools. Therefore students can learn their syllabus through audio visual elements. Combining this in-class software with the valuable information available online, education in these schools can be truly revolutionised.

We fellows at PFEL, will work closely with the schools, monitoring the adaptability of the project by the teachers on a weekly basis in every school. We will also monitor the progress of students through continuous assessment tests. 

Phase 1 aims to digitally enable 10 schools. Phase 2 & 3 adding 10 more schools and ending with Phase 3 enabling the 15 remaining schools.

We have allocate 3 months time for every phase, starting from June 2017 for Phase 1, with Phase 4 ending on May 2018.