The Coimbatore Corporation and the American Indian Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works across India in education field, will soon launch an initiative to impart training in using media tools to Corporation school students.

This will enable the students to create documentaries, animations or photo essays on problems in their neighbourhood, which could be shown to the government officials concerned.

American Indian Foundation Director (Digital Equaliser programme) J. Sundarakrishnan told The Hindu here on Wednesday that students of Standards VI to X would also be trained in conducting brainstorming sessions to solve problems in their locality under this ‘Digital Story Telling’ initiative.

He said that the civic body had already agreed to sponsor five video cameras for implementing this initiative on a pilot basis.

The AIF officials said that initially the project would be implemented in five Corporation schools and was likely to be scaled up later based on its response. While this concept was an extracurricular activity, it would also include a few components of the curriculum.

A flexible training schedule would be drawn up to ensure it did not affect the student’s academics. The training would be provided during and after school hours besides on vacations. Some of the topics being contemplated include conserving power, health and hygiene besides saving water.

Concept

The concept of ‘flipped classroom,’ an educational model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed, would be experimented in the Corporation Special School for the Deaf in R.S. Puram, where all students and teachers will be provided with tablet computers.

Short video lectures created by the teachers would be uploaded into the tablets, which the students can view after school hours. This enables the teachers to devote in-class time to exercises, projects, or discussions, Mr. Sundarakrishnan said.

Students can watch, rewind, and fast-forward the lectures as and when they need.

He was in the city for a review meeting with the Corporation officials. This project was part of ‘Digital Equaliser’ Programme for which the civic body had inked a three-year MoU (2012-15) with the Foundation.

Chennai Corporation on Tuesday started a dedicated bus service for students resettled from Kannappar Thidal to Kannagi Nagar last month.

As many as 40 students will be able to use the bus to reach their school in the vicinity of Kannappar Thidal where they are enrolled. According to a senior official of Chennai Corporation, the expenses for hiring the bus has been borne by the Chennai Corporation . The students belong to the families that were evicted last month from the land near Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to facilitate construction of additional tracks for Asian Athletics Championship.

More than 170 families were shifted from the area to Kannagi Nagar. The eviction was carried out by the civic body to hand over eight acre-plot of land to the Sports Development Authority of the State for creation of additional infrastructure for the Asian Athletics Championship. A Rs.40-crore package to renovate the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium to re-lay its track and upgrade facilities to bring them on a par with international standards was approved last year. Last week, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced that the State would not host the 20th Asian Athletics Championships as a mark of protest against participation of Sri Lanka in the event, citing news reports of war crimes by Sri Lanka.

As residents questioned the logic of the move in the middle of the academic year, the civic body made arrangements to help the students cope with the challenge of travelling 40 km for the rest of the academic year.

Residents of Kannagi Nagar, who were relocated earlier by other departments, stressed the need for similar initiatives. “Other departments should also arrange bus facilities to students who belong to resettled families. Many students develop an emotional bonding with schools. Such move may be helpful,” said Meenavan, a resident of Kannagi Nagar.

“I wanted to board the bus to reach school today. As the bus was only for Allikulam students, I was not permitted to board the bus,” said Ahmed, a student of standard VII in a school in Santhome. Many resettled students also claimed that they had to take two buses to reach school in areas such as Santhome.