Australian Odyssey 

The busy travelers wrote their memoirs in the form of newsletter, website, power point presentation and puzzles on MS Word. Their travel guide was Aruna Maruthi, a teacher of M.E.S. Kishore Kendra and also a winner of the Intel^® Awards 2003. She inspired her class to discover and learn on their own rather than straight from the text book. 

The academic unit involved bringing out the difference in climate, landforms, fauna and flora. The students were asked to compare and contrast the features of Australia with that of India. The students of M.E.S. Kishore Kendra were able to analyze the data given and could deduce the climate of Australia. They used paint and word to create a maze and jigsaw puzzles! Students used excel spread sheet to present data regarding exports, imports and tourism industries of Australia. They visited the statistics centre in Encarta and presented the data in the form of graphs.

They collected information about the species of marsupials in Australia. The students composed a newsletter on coral reef. Reefs, about 2 million years old, like rainforests, have very productive ecosystems. The coral receives 95% of the food made by single celled plants zooxanthellae, and in return they are fertilized by the coral's waste products.

They created a website giving details about places of interest in Australia. The landscape is breathtaking with creeping sands, lagoons, caves and the outstanding Remarkable Rocks weathering for centuries the nature’s seasons. The students gave a report on rare birds and animals of Australia. The website visited by them- http://www.ozbird.com/oz/allatm gives in details information about birds and other aspects related to the country.

The project encouraged creativity, team spirit and self- learning. The teacher sums it up “The students could hone their technical and life skills. It lead to enhancing creativity, self learning and innovation.” The teacher’ approach was democratic as she suggests, “The students are free to research on related topics and present them.” She conveys, “One group of students wanted to find out if animals in Australia differed even in the past. They took the class on glorious journey to the past.” This kind of self-study often leads students to speculate. She was particular throughout, that all the assignments answer the essential and unit questions.

According to the teacher, with this kind of excitement and interest in academic projects involving TAL activities, the school sure becomes a place of fun and learning. No wonder, ‘“The students prefer to come to school, to staying at home” mentions Aruna Maruthi. This tempts all to know more about the school. M.E.S. Kishore Kendra is a student centric school. It is situated in Bangalore, the Garden city of India. The school offers kindergarten, primary, middle, high school and pre university sections. The rooms are spacious, well lit and ventilated. It has two well-stocked libraries, two computer labs and all other facilities. The medium of instruction is English. Students belong to different economic and social backgrounds and speak over 12 languages.

To facilitate TAL activities, the students of the primary and of the high school section, share a computer lab with 22 computers. Each class gets two periods of forty minutes a week. Though Internet surfing is not the order of the day, students are provided with a well-stocked CD library to collect information and they make full use of it.

At the residence, about 30% of students have computers. The teacher says, “When I group the students I see that at least one student has access to the net at home.” The parents are supportive and encourage their wards to work on the computer to complete their projects. The students also attend short-term computer courses during vacation. 

Aruna Maruthi talks about her achievements in a modest way “I became an MT in 2001. I began integrating technology, bringing the world into the classroom. I surf the net, plan lessons with innovative tasks and create an atmosphere for active learning. Students enjoy the lessons and it is a journey of exploration. I create puzzles and mazes .Teaching is highly satisfying now”. She shares all about her skills fearlessly “I had no computer skills and I used to click the mouse opening a lot of windows! My trainer had a hard time, closing them. I still do it at times.” A motivating thought for all beginners of tripping over pebbles while trying to cross a mountain.