Edu-Cater, is a group of educators who are striving to create 'healthy learning environments'. They design interventions for facilitators who implement them in their respective learning environments. Each module/intervention typically spans 1-2 weeks. While their work encompasses many spaces, The Edu-Cater team strongly believes in the power of books and reading, which prompted them to start a project called Treasure Trove.

Treasure Trove sets up mini-libraries in schools or settings that have limited or no access to books. So far the team has helped set up 3 mini-libraries across Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Of the three, the team  engages closely in one of those settings as the other two spaces had all the resources except access to books, which Treasure Trove  helped them acquire.

“We work in a school called Sathya Sai school which is in semi-urban environment in North Chennai. Our target group is Class 5 children. Though this school does not have a proper library, there is tremendous support from their end to inculcate the habit of reading.”  shared Sriram Sampath, one of the founding members of Edu-Cater.  

Siram outlined what the team does via this intervention:

“In the first year of intervention (when kids are in class 5), we empower them with certain skills we deem to be most important like the ability to create, think and collaborate. In the second year of intervention (when kids move to class 6), we want them to feel confident enough to pick up books and read them.”

For both these interventions, Team Edu-Cater is using Pratham Books and StoryWeaver.

Introducing new words and books Treasure Trove shared the story  'The day the vegetables came to school' with children and using the story to introduce them to the words 'Author', 'Illustrator'  and 'Translator'.

“We gave all the children a small spiral notepad and encouraged them to maintain their own dictionary in it.” recounts Sriram. “The students carried  it with them everywhere to record new words that they come across and their meaning. During the course of sharing this story, students noted down many words that were new to them and asked us for the meanings.”

The team noted how children were excited to note down new words and curious about their meanings. “One of the boys had noted down a few words in his dictionary and had managed to locate the meanings of all the words except one during the course of the week.” remembers Sriram “The moment we entered the class at the next session, he headed straight to us and asked us for the meaning of the word!”

Children found many ways to use the notebook, with one doubling it up as a reference book. “He had drawn the parts of the brain in it.  When we asked him why he did this, he told us that he wanted to  use the book as a quick reference for tough content!”

Create your own story “We divided the children into teams and showed them the wordless version of 'The Birthday Party'. We then asked each team to come up with their own stories based on the original. It was delightful to see them express their ideas, which was the primary objective of the exercise. But what moved us was when they referred to their dictionary and introduced the new words they had learnt in the stories they weaved. It was amazing!” recounts Sriram “One group of girls was determined to use the new words that they had learnt the previous week. They created their story and were identifying spots where they could insert these new words. This sort of student ownership and little moments are what we call impact.”

When Edu-Cater asked one representative from each team to come forward and share their team’s story, more than one person came forward from each group to read out their stories.

“Many teams had more than one member reading out the stories as a result, and they took turns to do this. It really is a sign of their enthusiasm and confidence, to read!” feels Sriram.

The Treasure Trove project caters to around 85 children currently and there are plans to re-engage with last year's batch, making the total number of children impacted 170.

You can see more images from Edu-Cater sessions here: https://www.facebook.com/facilitatingisfun/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1489288461383170

The team’s future plans for class 6 include the purchase of a Library In A Classroom. “With this in the repository, we are confident that we can get the class 6 kids to pick up books of their choice and start reading!”

Good Luck to Sriram and his team! We look forward to reading more about them and their work!

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This position has now been filled.

Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children's book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India.

In 13 years, we have published over 3,000 books and distributed over 14 million copies of our storybooks and 16 million story cards. Last year, Pratham Books' increased its footprint by going digital. As an industry leader, we were one of the first publishers in the country to open license our content. All this content is now available on StoryWeaver, our digital platform that hosts stories in 60 languages. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free.

We are looking for an Art Director

Today, Pratham Books creates books suited to both print and digital mediums in multiple languages. We are looking for an Art Director to help us create visually appealing picture books with a strong understanding of how each of these mediums work.

As an Art Director, you will be responsible for the design and production of books created for both print and digital. As most of our titles are migrated to StoryWeaver, we are looking for someone who is tech-savvy and eager to find ways of minimising loss between print and digital book design. This will require you to work closely with our editorial team and external content creators we collaborate with (illustrators, consultant art directors). The candidate needs to have excellent graphic design skills and experience in print production.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage a team of graphic designers to ensure that the book design is completed within agreed timelines
• Work with freelance illustrators and consultant art directors to create visually-appealing books keeping in mind print and digital requirements
• Find innovative ways of reducing losses when a book is adapted from print to digital, or vice versa
• Ensure highest quality of print books
• Work closely with the editorial team to create stories with rich, diverse and nuanced visual narratives
• Bring in expertise of typography, keeping in mind multilingual content

Required skills

• 6-8 years of experience in Graphic Design
• Strong understanding of print production
• Strong communication skills
• Expertise in Photoshop, InDesign
• Ability to multi-task
• Be a team player

Nice to have but not mandatory:

• An interest in illustration and book publishing
• Knowledge of children’s books

Location: The position is based out of Bangalore

Salary: Will commensurate with experience. We are looking for a passionate individual who wants to be part of a team that is creating a new model in multilingual publishing to address the scarcity of books for children in need.

Write to us: Email your resume with Art Director in the subject line to careers(at)prathambooks(dot)org

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Vineetha from the Partnerships Team talks about StoryWeaver’s collaboration with the Kerala government’s initiative, KITE, (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) to take our books to more teachers, classrooms, and students through their digital initiatives.

It’s a bright, sultry day in May at Cotton Hill high school in Trivandrum where an ICT training session for 150 primary school teachers is underway. Cotton Hill school is one among the 500 such locations across the state where teachers are currently being trained by the KITE,a Kerala government initiative, on the latest ICT innovations for the classroom. Over the last 3 weeks, the academic team at KITE has been conducting large scale trainings for nearly 90000 teachers  at nearly 500 locations across the state part of ICT capacity building initiatives.

 

Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) is a Govt of Kerala establishment set up to foster, promote and implement modernisation of state run and aided educational institutions in Kerala.

As part of the Hi-Tech school project that works with over 9000 primary schools, it is conducting a large scale training for government school teachers. The objective of this training is to train teachers on the latest tools and platforms and basic ICT tools such as  open source software for documentation and processing, spreadsheets, audio recordings,and more.

 

And here’s where StoryWeaver fits in.

StoryWeaver, is now one of the tech platforms that primary teachers in Kerala will be trained on annually.

Our collaboration with KITE is very special to us, thanks in no small part to their commitment to the open source philosophy. In fact, KITE was recently in the news for its massive success with the use of open source software in Kerala government schools. After our initial meetings with the KITE team, and our shared commitment to ensuring open access, we couldn’t wait to get this collaboration off the ground. It began with the annual training that StoryWeaver was integrated into. The academic team at KITE explored the platform and further trained master trainers who took the programme out to the field and the 90000 primary teachers across the state.

At the training in Cotton Hill school, we met Sadhana M and Anthony Raj, two government school teachers and masters trainers for KITE who are leading the training on StoryWeaver. Cotton Hill school is one of the 12 centres in Trivandrum where this training is being conducted.

When asked about the common struggles they face as language teachers, Sadhana who has been teaching in government schools for over 20 years, says “The level of the books is either too high or too low. It’s always a challenge to find something that’s just right for our students.”

When  asked what the children liked to read, they added that in most schools in Kerala, children are exposed to mainly English and Malayalam books, in addition to some Hindi books. Anthony Raj, who teaches English,adds “Children are only going to learn to write and communicate better when they can read. Children need to read more to develop vocabulary in any language. So, reading is not something we can afford to ignore in classrooms.”

 

 

The teachers and trainers at the centre echo the role that technology plays in education in today’s day and age. They mentioned how all teachers are invested in their professional journeys, where tech plays a huge role today. They add that considering how comfortable children are with technology, it’s time for teachers to catch up, and platforms like StoryWeaver are a great way for teachers to integrate technology in the classroom.

For us in the StoryWeaver  team, workshops and trainings are a great way for us to interact with and learn from the educators on the ground. The KITE workshop was no different.

We saw the trainers using Ammachi's Amazing Machines to highlight how stories could be used to teach Science, while another trainer showed how Busy Ants could be used to introduce vocabulary and grammar in early grade classrooms. The Readalong stories a big hit with the trainers and teachers alike, who agreed that AV stories are always a great way to engage students’ attention and build listening and reading skills. We would like to thank the KITE team for letting us be a part of their work, and are committed to supporting this collaboration to work with more teachers and children across Kerala.

We came back from this workshop with a lot of ideas and suggestions, and of course, renewed commitment to put ‘a book in every child’s hand’. With partners like KITE, we know we’re a step closer to this vision.

 

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