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2008 Toronto International Goan Convention
Theme: Goan Identity And Networking Today.
http://2008goanconvention.com/index.php

Mario Miranda Festival, July 24-26,  2008 Old GMC Building
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2008-July/077732.html

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Sukumar Anikar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  [1] and Prasad
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> managed to get across to me a copy
of a DVD … and what a DVD at that! It contained a whole lot of
fascinating educational software for school children.

A couple of nights ago, I ended up 'playing' some educational games
with Aren, 5, and told him that my friends had sent the same across
free. "Did you say 'thank you'?" he asked me in turn. In fact, he kept
'playing' on these games, though it was almost midnight, and even
though he's too small to obviously understand many of the concepts
being taught here (decimal fractions, and what not … but big enough to
be interested in the wild animals of the jungle and to try and
comprehend how fruits and a balanced diet gives us the energy we need
to do work). The 'games' sent across in this DVD work excellently and
without flaw (so far) on my Ubuntu laptop. They have been adjusted to
work with the GNU/Linux operating system.

It drew my interest enough to dash across another email to Sukumar and
Prasad, requesting more programmes.Given the medium of instructions
being used (and subjects taught) in Goa, I am particularly interested
in software dealing with:

English language
Hindi language
Maths
Environmental Science
General Science
Social Science
Co-curricular subjects

Check out the long list of what's available.
http://www.azimpremjifoundation.org/html/E_Learn_Mat_table1.htm

The Azim Premji Foundation is actually keen to work with educational
institutions (rather than with individuals, if I understood right) for
obvious reasons.

Said the APF in a mail to me: "We always support the state governments
by providing them the Digital Learning Resource (DLR) for deployment
in Government schools. Generally, the support is by providing the
right to replicate our content to the state, without any costs.  Our
Digital Learning Resource is not provided if the intended use is for
commercial purposes. We also share content with NGOs and other
institutions who manage schools where there is no barrier on
admissions and where no fee is being charged."

And Mr Anikar added, "Almost all our titles or Digital Learning
Resource are trilingual i.e. in English, Hindi and in any one of the
regional languages. While we have just 10 titles in Marathi the same
is not available for immediate release as they have to be validated by
a state government. However, we will share other titles that are in
English and Hindi. Further, we are also in the process of making our
content compatible with [GNU]Linux platform and hence for the present
we will be sharing only such titles which are compatible with both
windows and Linux and those that have been tested.  The remaining
titles would be shared on a future date and on completion of testing.
We will be clustering our titles in a couple of DVD's and send it
across to you in the next week…. We also wish to state that there is a
process that needs to be followed in implementing the Digital Learning
Resource in schools which we will share the same with you once you
confirm the receipt of Digital Learning Resource."

And: "A note of caution — our Digital Learning Resource are not meant
to help in computer literacy. The target group is children in the age
group of 6-14 years and the Digital Learning Resource primarily
presents concepts related to Maths, Science and Language related to
the curriculum for classes Standard I to Standard VIII."

By way of background, from their website: "Azim Premji Foundation has
commenced the digital content creation effort in the year 2002. So
far, Foundation has created over 100+ master CD titles for the classes
1 to 8 and the same have been translated into various regional
languages in India including few tribal languages. The content is
created with the pedagogical focus to enable the children to directly
use and learn where the teacher will act as facilitator. The
attributes of the content are; curriculum oriented, child-centered,
self paced, interactive and multimedia based content."

You probably know that Azim Premji is the Chairman and CEO of one of
India's largest software companies, Wipro. Wikipedia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azim_Premji] says he was rated the
richest man in India between 1999 to 2005 (and is probably among the
top five now).  This impressed me: "Premji is known for his modesty
and frugality in spite of his wealth. He drives a Toyota Corolla and
flies economy class, prefers to stay in company guest houses rather
than luxury hotels and even served food on paper plates at a lunch
honouring his son's wedding."

Check it out. Really useful stuff. The educational content on the DVDs, I mean!

–
[1] Head - Technology for Education, Azim Premji Foundation, #134,
Doddakannelli, Next to Wipro Corporate Office, Sarjapur Road,
Bangalore - 560 035 Tel: 91-80-66144900/901/902 (Board)
91-80-66144922 (Direct) Fax: 91-80-66144903 Mobile: 09449820054
www.azimpremjifoundation.org

--
FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
784 Nr Convent, Saligao 403511 Goa India
Ph +91-832-2409490 M: +91-9970157402
16,000+ photos from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/
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                    Tri Continental Film Festival 2008
                           July 25 - 30, 2008
                               Goa, India

              http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/
            http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf
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