(07) Another Turning

Today Akshay Pratishthan received the video equipments for the project. Vijaya from iEarn India was present to handover the equipments to the school teachers. Teachers were happy to get the video camera as now they can get ready for real action. She discussed the status of the project and provided valuable suggestions. She motivated teachers by telling them that they are not only the 'masters' but 'double masters' since they (all ladies) are teachers who manages students and school tasks & housewives managing home, husband & kids. So, for them, AYV project is just like cooking food for guests on a very short notice.

During the conversation, It was suggested that two teachers (Lipika & Anuradha) and the media mentor assigned to the school who were selected to manage this project by EVC should only coordinate the project and no other teachers or resource person get involved in the project.

But this discussion make me relate to the methodology used in implementing the AIF DE program wherein we talk a lot about the team work & collaborative learning, involving ideas from maximum number of individuals (whether teachers, administrators, parents or students).

So, I finally decided not to get involved with the main documentary film to be prepared for AYV project presentation at iEARN conference, Pune. Rather I will work with another set of students separately supported by Rajita & Usha to see how effective the training methodology is and the manual provided by EVC for the similar work around the globe. I will try to involve as many people on board as possible and finally would like to make the students own up the responsibility of the idea, execution and presentation even if it’s a complete mess…

(06) Another dead end…

Today I reached school a bit late and I thought that the AYV class will be over before I will reach the school but we had a two hour long discussion today not with students but among Anuradha, Lipika, Prashast, Rajita, Usha & Myself.

I was more of a listener since I was still not convinced “internally” with using up the idea of “Ramp” for making the documentary film under AYV program because of the same old reason that how much students will be able to talk about their actual contribution at the end of the project. But at the same I have no doubt about the creative nature of the “Ramp” project and that it will come out to be a good film.

Keeping in mind maximum utility of funds, I thought to put forth a suggestion of investing the same amount of money to paint the back walls of 3-4 classrooms which would leave more impact on students since they spend more time in classrooms than on the Ramp and they change classrooms every year, but I decided against it.

Another major learning that happened today was from the students. None of the students got the answers written as instructed and everyone said that they have it all in their mind. This made me think that we need to inculcate reading and writing habits in the students and more important to find out the reasons for not doing so…

1. They didn’t find writing and reading worthwhile/ useful
2. They can’t express themselves properly
3. They don’t know how to write grammatically correct sentences
4. They find writing/ reading boring or waste of time
5. OR they think that they have got ‘fundoo’ memory and can remember it all

Whatever the reason be, we need to find ways to get them interested and to enjoy both reading & writing.

The session ended with a warning to the students that in the next session, student who will not get the writings will be moved out of the project. I personally feel that this is not the only way but…

(05) Day of final topic selection

Today, since Lipika & Anuradha were busy in a school meeting, the students brainstormed on both the short listed ideas (Heavy Bags & Laptop Schools ; Admission in private schools for financially weaker students). All except one agreed on the Heavy Bags & Laptop Schools topic as final.

Only 3 out of 10 students had got the answers to the questions provided to them in the previous session. So, we asked all of them to complete the questionnaire and each one will present his/ her views in the next session.

One student Rahul requested to work on the topic – Admission in private schools for financially weaker students. Seeing his keenness, Rajita and I decided to give him a chance to work on his topic and to present to the group in the next session.

(04) Session 3 - Trying ‘out of the box’ thinking

The selected 10 students were asked to ‘think out of the box’ (and I am really thankful to Prashast for bringing this phrase into the discussion) and come up with new ideas keeping aside our earlier topics on usual social ‘ISSUES’ discussed in the community. It took half an hour for Anuradha & Lipika to get students in desired frame of mind to get some new ideas from them. Both teachers helped a lot in motivating students and facilitated them more as their friend than ‘teachers’ and this worked quite well. Students came up with exciting ideas like:
A day in the classroom; My home, My playground, Hills near my home, Children playing in rain; Students’ coming down from ramp after school is over; People/ events from school bus stand to their home; Reaction of students in front of different teacher, how they act & react!

Two most interesting topics that came up were:

1. Heavy Bags / Laptop schools.
   The discussion started with heavy bags, moved to less copies/ work books, turned towards thick books - more chapters, suggestion for one combined book, requesting a meeting with NCERT (National Institute for Education Research and Training, a body under govt. of India to create books for schools), raising issues on the relevance of content in the books and finally ended on having laptops in schools.
   
2. If a student from an underserved school got a chance to study in a big private/ elite English medium school, whether he would like to go or not! His experiences! His complexes! His identity! His achievements! and…

After the discussion, a two page questionnaire available in the training manual on developing the documentary topic were given to students for filling it up during their winter holidays. The questions are:

1. Of the topics brainstormed last class, which documentary topic do you like best?
2. What is your personal interest in this topic? In other words, how does it affects you personally?
3. What are some specific questions that you have about this topic that you would like to explore?
4. Who would be intersested in watching a documentary about this topic? Why would they be interested?
5. Who could you interview about their personal story related to this topic?
6. Who might be a good interviewee to give factual information about this topic? What organisation could you contact?
7. What or where could you videotape to get strong images to go with this topic?
8. Describe creative ideas that will express your ideas and feelings about this topic (for example: dramatizations, original poetry or images, etc).

(03) Session 2 - Is it so Easy...

Today I met Prashast, the media mentor assigned to Akshay Pratishthan. The session that went for an hour started with the discussion on the documentary topic and Prashast’s brief about his idea for the documentary film. While going on a round of the school building, the plain white washed “ramp” (used for the physically handicapped children instead of stair) caught his eyes. His idea for the film was to paint the ramp and the adjacent walls with bright images and then capturing the response of the students, teachers and school administrators. The ramp will be painted by professional workers or some volunteers and students will also participate in their capacities under his guidance. He also showed images of similar work (painted rooms) he had done for a private school in Srinagar.

The idea seemed interesting but I was apprehensive about the response of the students to the idea. Secondly my point of concern was whether AYV program is for ‘students’ or for ‘mentor & teachers’. The creative idea that Prashast suggested seems that 70% of the work will be done either only by mentor & teachers or spoon fed to students and 30% may be the students actual input. What my understanding of the AYV program is that students will put at least 70% of their efforts and remaining 30% technical & logistic support by the mentor and school teachers. Rajita was also of the same opinion as mine. Teachers were also concerned whether school management would like to fund the idea as considerable cost is involved in painting the ramp.

During the discussion, Prashast raised a very good point and used a phrase “think out of the box” to advocate his idea. I also felt that during my first session I could have given the students more space to think on more creative ideas instead of using the heavy word “ISSUES”. But at that point of context, I felt more like getting out of ‘our’ box and getting into ‘another’ box. Since Anuradha, Lipika, Usha & Rajita were also apprehensive about “the ramp” idea as they were not able to visualize the tangible output, I suggested Prashast that he must first talk to students to gauge their level of understanding and creative thinking.

During the interaction with students Prashast talked about their dreams, their interests their imagination but no single view helped us to introduce his idea along with theirs. The session ended without any conclusion and Prashast suggested us to come up with other ‘out of the box’ ideas for the documentary film. Again, I felt that AVY is more for students than teachers or resource persons. To me the first and the last idea must be of the students. Teachers & mentor are there to help them add or delete the sub-ideas in between.

Internally it was finally decided to have two groups for making two different films. One group will work on the topic suggested by Prashast and another group will have 10 students and proceed as guided during the EVC workshop and according to the training manual provided by the EVC while keeping in mind the objectives of the AYV program.

But the above discussion raised a few queries in my mind about the association of media mentors in the AYV program:
==> How to get the creative inputs from the students?
==> How to manage time for the project during school hours with exams around the corner?
==> What is the role of and expectations from media mentor as defined in AYV program?

(02) Session 1: The Icebreaking

This was the first day of AYV program in Akshay Pratishthan. Anuradha, Lipika & Usha (teachers from the school) provided me the opportunity to conduct this first session with 18 selected students from grades 6, 7, & 8. The session started with student’s introduction and brief about the Adobe Youth Voices program and what they are expected to do.

Next, students were asked about the resources required to make a documentary film. Besides names of regular equipments, some other interesting requirements that came from students were Electricity, Special Effects, Reflectors, Title, Funds, Smartness.

Next, each student was asked to give a broad theme/ topic on an issue that affects their life directly or indirectly on which he/ she would like to make their documentary film. The ideas that came up were:

1. Disability – Helping Handicapped people
2. Independence at and from Home – Kids/ Youth
3. Dowry – Say NO to it
4. School – Misuse of funds/ facilities given for the benefit of students
5. Education – For All
6. Discrimination – Specially with girl child
7. Child Labour
8. Cruelty – On poor people (mainly in villages or slums)
9. Cruelty – against animals
10. Smoking – Say no to it
11. Disrespect of parents by children/ youth
12. Negligence – Parents who does not give time to their children
13. Money Power – Admission/ donation in good/ elite private schools
14. Environment protection
15. Environment pollution
16. Poverty – Low income
17. Indifference towards people with diseases like HIV/ AIDS, Leprosy, Cancer
18. Natural Disaster – Rehabilitation

This exercise was done to open up students, to make them think individually and to show them that each student’s ideas are important and respected. After writing down the topics we decided to vote in a democratic style i.e. each student had to vote Yes No for every topic. We zeroed in on 4 topics on which maximum students i.e. 17 would like to make the documentary film: Disability; Child Labour; Education; Smoking.

In the end students were asked to brainstorm among themselves during the week and come up with specific ideas on the selected topics.

(01) The Journey Begins...

A five days AYV workshop was conducted from 24thNovember to29thNovember at Jamia Convention Center, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. The workshop was conducted by Angad Bhalla, Mirium Neptune & Carrie Lynch from EVC (Educational Video Center) and attended by members from participating organizations.

The aim of the workshop was to provide guidelines, basic technical and programmatic skills to the resource persons about how they would motivate and assist students/ youth in making a documentary film on the topic that they feel relevant.

A lot of learning, exchange and fun happened during these five days. The main components of the workshop were: what is a documentary film, video equipments, brainstorming, story boarding, field visits, editing and presentations. One of the important aspects of the workshop was introduction of the media mentors (professionals who will provide technical support to the participating organizations in making the documentary film). Each organization is attached to one media mentor who will work with them till the completion of the project.

The workshop ended with setting a deadline (April/ May 2007) for completing the first phase of documentary film which will be showcased in the iEARN national conference at Pune.

My Involvement with AYV

I am currently working with American India foundation, a not for profit organization as DE Program Coordinator. AIF is currently implementing its flagship ‘DIGITAL EQUALIZER’ program in about 650 school in 13 Indian states and Akshay Pratishthan & Chetram Sharma Kanya Inter College are two of them.

In short, DE Program builds the capacity of the teachers, students and over all school to judiciously make use of ICT/ Computers in teaching-learning process and in-school administrative tasks. The 3T's that form the cornerstone of the DE program are - Technology: Hardware Infrastructure; Tools: Software, internet and learning tools and Training: Student, teacher and school administration. For more details about the Digital Equalizer Program, click here.

Adobe Systems is also a partner with AIF in implementing the AIF-DE program in two schools, one in Noida and another in Bangalore.

iEARN, another not for profit organization is the implementation partner for Adobe Youth Voices program and is also a partner in AIF-DE Program and works with students and teachers of DE centers (schools).

All of the above have many common threads running across – one of which is me. Being a part of AYV program provides me an opportunity to learn how media enables youth from the under served communities & schools to think creatively, communicate effectively and work collaboratively.

To know more about Adobe Youth Voices Program vist:

1. My previous blog - December 2006
2. Adobe Website
3. iEARN Forum
4. EVC Website

Introduction - AYV Program

Adobe Youth Voices is a global philanthropic initiative that empowers youth in underserved communities worldwide to comment on their world using multimedia and digital tools to communicate and share their ideas, demonstrate their potential, and take action in their communities. Adobe Youth Voices shows the power technology brings to learning and enabling youth to think creatively, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively — critical 21st century skills. Working in collaboration with five leading youth media organizations, Adobe will introduce the program at 36 sites worldwide by year-end, including locations in San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Seattle, London, and Noida and Bangalore, India.

Adobe Youth Voices will provide young people access to multimedia tools and training, enabling them to explore and comment on their world through video, audio, multimedia, digital art, animation and Web design. Additionally, Adobe will support exhibition of Adobe Youth Voices projects at community festivals, film screenings and conferences.

Adobe Youth Voices first-year sites named in INDIA, Seattle, New York, Bay Area and London

• Delhi/ Noida, India — Akshay Pratishthan School; Bal Panchayat; Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group; CRS Kanya Girls' Intercollege; Kislay; Mizzima News Group; Noida Public Senior Secondary School; The Kutumb Foundation; and Pravah.
  
  
• Bangalore, India — The Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA); Government Girls' High School, Adugodi; Government High School, Jyothipura; Government Urdu High School, Barlane; Samvada; Slum Jagattu Media Group; and Vivekavardhini High School.
  
  
• San Francisco Bay Area — Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula, East Palo Alto and Redwood City; Build San Francisco Institute; Children's Discovery Museum; Downtown College Preparatory; Galileo Academy of Science & Technology; and KIPP Heartwood Academy.
  
  
• Seattle — Aki Kurose Middle School; Hamilton International Middle School; High Point Community Technology Center; James A. Garfield High School; McClure Middle School; Nathan Hale High School; Washington Middle School; and Youth in Focus.
  
  
• New York — Bronx Leadership Academy II; Bronx Satellite Academy (Arturo Schomburg Satellite Academy); Lang Youth Medical Program; The School for Legal Studies; and Westside Collaborative Middle School (MS 250).
  
  
• London — Islington City Learning Centre Highbury; Kids Company; Lilian Baylis Technology School; Paddington Arts; and St. Charles Catholic Sixth Form College.