In India we’ve also put small computer rooms in all the schools. There is a very famous ICT professor in charge, but we went in today and it was chaos. With no teachers allowed to supervise, the kids were watching Tom & Jerry or playing GT Rally, some computers had the fronts bashed in (they were at perfect knee height for the kids!) and some wouldn’t even boot at all as the kids had been switching them off and on by the mains switch.

From an ICT perspective that could be considered good, as if kids are left to be totally free on computers that’s how they learn and come up with the next Google. But with so many students, the computer time is so limited and the main aim for us is to use the Jolly Phonics and Genki English software to reinforce what the teachers were doing in class. So we threw the kids out, re-installed the Jolly Phonics & Genki English software, brought them back and did a model lesson i.e.

1) Ask the kids to launch the Genki English software
2) Ask the kids to quit Genki English.
3) Repeat steps 2 and 3 lots of times, making it into a game to see who could do it quickest.
4) Told them them the theme to select.
5) Told them to select “Game” and press “Start”
6) First team to finish is the winner!

Here’s a quick video of how excited they got, even just pressing “start” never mind the rest of the quiz!

This video does make the school look very, very posh, but it isn’t. Here are a few shots of the surrounding area, plus how many books the kids have to carry home for other subjects!

Then in the evening we had lots of meetings, a nice dinner with teachers from China and now I’ve got to go and prepare their quarterly exam. I don’t know how we manage to cram in so much when we’re here!