Ten-year-old Zainab Rehan Lateefi is determined to be an architect. He also knows what his first assignment as an architect would be ? ?to design a house where not even a single mosquito can flutter its way in.? Lateefi, a student of BGS National Public School in Bangalore, is already working towards his mission along with five of his friends.
Quiz him further about the mosquito menace and he rattles off details with enthusiasm akin to that of an activist ? how mosquitos breed, the threats they pose to our health, the precautions we must take? The group of students wanted to share this information with as many people as possible, but could not figure out how. They had carried awareness drives in their immediate vicinity and were holding talks with the local councillor to find a solution to the swamp in their school?s backyard. A brainwave struck them all and they decided to use ?Think? as their communication and collaboration tool. They used their personal web space, provided by Oracle Education Foundation, to reach millions of students in the protected online community of close to 1,000 schools across 50 countries.
?It has opened new vistas for students to explore and share new experiences. I am sure with this experience students will respond to life?s challenges with a cool head, clear mind and open heart,? said SC Vyas, principal, BGS National Public School.
Their project was recently adjudged the best out of 63 entries. The judges, however, had a tough time choosing six best websites out of the 189 short-listed for the purpose. A Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher in Ujjain, Sarita Tejwani actively used the portal on Think.com to help her students win the best theme-based project titled ?Mind, Body & Soul ? Do we really care!?
?We are overwhelmed by the way Indian students have responded to Think.com over the past three years. Students actively use the community to augment their day-to-day language, literature, science and mathematics learning,? Krishan Dhawan, managing director, Oracle India shared. The huge response also encouraged Oracle to launch it in Hindi. ?The availability of a Hindi interface will open this global learning community to thousands of Indian students,? Dhawan remarked.
?A significant step indeed to bridge the language barrier and the skill gap? is how Kiran Karnik perceived it. ?It definitely opens a whole new way of learning for Indian students, majority of whom are not fully proficient in English. NASSCOM and the IT industry have been making efforts to overcome this so that there is greater employability for students in global industries like IT. The global collaboration and communication skills they pick up using this community will help them join the international workforce,? the NASSCOM president added.
Consider the kind of functions that can be carried out by the community. You can exchange e-mails, create web pages, interact, host collaborative learning activities with other Think members and upload images, both audio and video.
Is there any doubt then that this will be a global interaction?