Pune: In an effort to make education beyond traditional teaching and learning system, a Satara-based rural school teacher, Balaji Jadhav, is creating an animated flipbook for primary section students to make learning interesting.
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has introduced the flipbook which gives the ease of turning pages on a click. Inspired by an idea adopted by a Germany-based school where students learn lessons through animated flipbook, Jadhav has started creating an animated flipbook for Marathi medium syllabus from Std I to V.
“Unlike usual flipbooks, this animated flipbook gives a 3D image of every topic in a chapter. A teacher or student can click on the URL mentioned on each topic to get a video started which will explain the topic in animation format. This brings a topic or chapter live and makes it very interesting for students,” said Jadhav.
Jadhav has created a portal called www.shikshanbhakti.in in which students and teachers can view these videos. The advantage of this portal is that it can be accessed without the Internet.
“The main objective was to make a system which doesn’t need an Internet connection so that it can be accessed by masses without any hindrance. Teachers and students can download PDFs from this portal and watch it anytime offline. It can be shared in pen drive and used in multiple devices at a time,” said Jadhav.
However, Jadhav states that the schools should have required infrastructure to access this portal. “Mostly every rural school has been provided with at least two computers, while there are many schools who have with the help of crowdfunding opened a computer laboratory. Students can watch it on a tab as well,” he said.
It also allows students to solve questions and answers related to chapters and listen to audio clips. Vasudha Kamat, Curriculum Development Officer at NCERT, has appreciated Jadhav’s initiative and stated that this kind of innovation will bring revolution in education.
“She said that my work will be informed at the higher level in NCERT. So, if it gets accepted then we can expand this venture for syllabus of English medium as well. I will need resources to include English medium subjects. Many schools have also approached me to share the portal after it is completed when they saw the first video uploaded on YouTube,” said Jadhav.
At present Marathi subject of the primary section has been uploaded on the portal. Jadhav stated that by October-November, all the subjects in Std II and IV will be completed and uploaded on the portal.
