“Odia students exploring the world with Aveti Learning during Covid lockdown”
by Sibabrata Choudhury, Aveti Learning
In Odisha people celebrate a popular festival called Raja (pronounced raw-jwa), to celebrate the onset of monsoons. The festival is celebrated during mid-June which coincides with the coming of monsoon clouds that bring solace to the parched lands and farmers.
During this time children put up colorful attire and savor traditional Odia delicacies. Raja is a time when friends come together, play their favorite games and make merry. However, 2020 was a different Raja because of the Covid-19 restrictions that barred outdoor games and social gathering was not allowed forcing children to spend their time indoors.
While school textbook study is important, local culture and festivals shape our identify. Be it children or adults, we look forward to such events to get a taste of earlier tradition and forlorn recipe. Also connecting children with different cultures and places helps them to broaden their outlook and learn different aspects of life.
Smart learning through Aveti Live Classes
Ever since the Covid lockdown was announced in March 2020, Aveti Learning has been streaming live lessons for students around Odisha. The sessions are streamed daily for students who now cannot go to their schools and attend ‘normal’ classes. The sessions by Aveti include interactive learning, video lessons, lecture as well as assignments to students. Over the past three months, students have attempted over 25000 class exercises including 2200 descriptive type essays.
Until now, the journey has been both challenging and enlightening for us at Aveti as well as for the thousands of students who look forward to our lessons every day. Beginning of a week, we prepare a lesson plan which is aligned with the school syllabus. Aveti Team gets cracking every day to put together interesting sessions complete with quizzes, lessons and assignments — it is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. And our teachers also respond to the queries and give feedback on the assignments submitted by students.
Virtual tour makes it interesting and motivating
Another interesting feature of Aveti live lessons is the Sunday virtual tour we have organized for the children. So far, we have travelled to the temples in Khajuraho, by lanes of Agra and visited the famous Taj Mahal, deep Postojna cave in Slovenia, a tour of Eiffel Tower and National Museum in Paris, the art and culture of Belgium and several other places. This interesting journey will continue to many more places in keeping the spirit of curiosity alive among the young minds. As part of the live and interactive lessons we encourage students to study more and explore more about the subjects and submit assignments based on the topic. Students eagerly share their experiences and writings as essays which is our way of inspiring students to practice the habit of writing.
Recently the Department of School Education and CBSE launched a week long campaign to inculcate the habit of reading and creative writing among students and issued guidelines to all districts. Aveti learning through the interactive online lessons has been contributing toward this and will continue to do so in the coming weeks.
Coming back to Raja, my daughter who is 7 years of age, has been confined to the house since March, when the COVID pandemic erupted in India. This year Raja for her was a time spent within the house. She celebrated in her own little way by decking up in her favourite dress and continue with her imaginary games! She has yet to develop a taste for the local traditional delicacies but I hope someday she is able to visit the different cities around the world and learn about the various cultures and people.
Wishing everyone to stay safe and hoping that the Covid crisis gets over and everyone is able to travel like it was earlier.
