Education ICT Master Plan 2013-2018

The first Education ICT Master Plan is in the making and I am proud to a part of the team. We began right after the election and will be working on it till November. Last year MoIC and IDA International Singapore did the first eGovernment Master Plan and the next phase is going down to work on the details for a 5-year ICT plan for specific sectors, of which education is one of these.

Our team underwent eight days training together provided by IDA International experts, some of whom were the same people who work on the first Singapore ICT Master Plan in 1990s. Their presence was an inspiration knowing their successful history in transforming Singapore.

The education team started with 15 of us, including MOE officers, DEOs, principals and teachers like myself. Additional resource persons were added to our group along the way when we realized we needed more people with specialized knowledge in some key areas. We began working independently with two Singaporean consultants, and an Advisor and in
over two weeks we came up with the first draft. It was presented to a round table meeting chaired by Madam Secretary and attended by directors of different departments and other stakeholders, including private sectors. It was again presented to Education Minister in a separate meeting. We learnt much from the wisdom of these senior stakeholders of the education sector during these meetings.

Training Period- With Ms. Kar Joo Tan. I am the one sleeping right in front.

The ICT Master Plan aims to rationalize and streamline various ICT projects and activities under the Ministry of Education for implementation over the next five years. It will provide us with a broad holistic vision of how best to harness the power of ICT for teaching and learning.

The work has just begun. Much of the input during the first two weeks were based on our assumptions. Therefore the next month will be invested in validating the facts and for data collection. Upon accumulation of all the require data resources we will sit down to define specific projects and programs, estimate budgets, and specify timeline. Broadly, we are looking at three main areas (1) how to strengthen the integration of ICT into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, (2) how to enhance the ICT capacity of teachers, students and support staff, and (3) what type of nationwide education and learning ICT infrastructure will be necessary to support these plans.

I am glad to be part of this important project that will help lay the foundation for a quality and relevant education in the country. If you have any idea that may be useful for The Education ICT Master Plan, we will be happy to go through it. But remember this is a personal blog and views expressed here are my personal and not reflective of my team or the Education Ministry.

My Lost Turtle, The Free Turtle

When something wrong is going to happen you feel the energy from the first hour but because we are just human we can comprehend it only after it has happened. This morning I was up by 6:30 AM, something very strange for someone who sleeps at 3AM, and then by 7:30 AM I sneaked out of home with our pet turtle. I was like a little boy, wanting to let my turtle play in the Blue Pond which my class created in the school.

The Pond

The little creature lost its friend last year and had been alone in the aquarium so far. If he could talk he would have asked us to set him free rather than being alone among colorful stones in glass confinement. I took him out once and promised to take him once the pond is done. Yesterday I changed the water and cleaned the pond to welcome him there. kezang hates my rashness, therefore I ran out when she was still in bed.
The turtle in the Pond was an instant hit, there were students who never saw one in real before and there were teachers who knew everything about it but yet to see one outside TV. Excited kids wanted to touch it, feel its hardness, see it react, throw pebbles at it when I wasn't looking. I said nothing, I wanted them to experience it. There was crowd after crowd around the pond when I left for class.

During the First Outing

I finished my class with VIII C and rush back to the Pond to find no one around, and my dear turtle gone. The boy who was supposed to look after it has gone to his class too. I searched for my turtle everywhere around the pond and soon called off the search hoping the boy would have kept it somewhere safe.
The boy came to me asking where the turtle is, and perhaps he saw the color change on my face. Soon it was toilet break and dozens of students came to see the turtle but the poor thing was lost. Everybody helped in the search operation. There was no clue about what happened to the turtle, given it's speed it couldn't have ran so far from our reach, its hard shell would have protected it from birds and dogs, what else could have happened?
I couldn't go for lunch, because I was answerable to Kezang who has invested so much of herself to the little animal- from feeding to cleaning. It was her companion when I am in school. I snatched it away from her.
But looking at it from the other side, turtles, or for that matter any animal, are not meant to be kept in glass confinement, there are born free and deserve to be free. We humans exercise our supremacy over all species; eating what can be eaten, taming what can be tamed, and imprisoning beautiful creature for life by giving them a sweet name called 'Pet'. My lost turtle is finally liberated, hope it didn't land up with someone else to be confined in glass box again, hope it didn't land up in a dog's mouth to be crushed to death, I only pray that it finds its way to the river to be washed down to where it belongs, where he will find his kind, to play to mate and to reproduce his genes. Bye little one, farewell.

Lesson: I shouldn't be rash, must fence the Pond before I bring in the fishes and other aquatic lives I could get.

Translation of a Teacher's Dream by Students

I am a dreamer and have thousand things going on in my head. If I hadn't become a teacher I would have died of frustration. School is the place where I can express myself freely. I translate my personal dreams into spaces in school and spend sleepless nights of satisfaction. My students enjoy my wild ideas and become part of them, often adding their share of craziness. We work endlessly during our holidays and learn to celebrate work as art of life. I harness their talent and make them polish their skills. Students are treasure house of talents.
My school is right next to the river but strangely the campus is very dry and dusty. I had a refreshing feeling at a water body in sight would chill our mind and then planned a pond in the park. It took a long time to bring the mental picture on the ground but my VIII C students had the required skill to give shape to it.
I consulted two engineers but for a project of our scale students are the best engineers. My friends generously donated cement and love, and kezang prepared her best fried rice for my class during the long concreting hours.
More than the pond itself, the time I spent with my students gave me deep insight into their lives, about their families, and their life during vacations and at home. It's very inspiring to discover that many of them have worked as temporary labourers and paid for their schooling expenses. While the kids from well to do families take so much interest in learning from the experts friends. It strengthened our bond as class and as team. Tomorrow morning they will be so proud to see the whole school admiring our pond.
Following is a glimpse of our journey in creating the pond, in picture over a period of one month.

The First touch.

Groundbreaking (helping hands from Basketball team)

Laying foundation 

Concreting during a holiday

The shape is formed, first layers concreting done and watered for strengthening.

Trying out Colored-cement for the first time- Polishing was done with help from 5 experts from senior classes.

First Guest to my Pond is my Family- Sunday Morning 

Isn't it refreshing? 

Now the pond is waiting for fish, turtle, frog, lotus, or anything that will survive there to give students visual of some aquatic life. The least we have planned is to shift 8 fishes from school fishery farm (8 fishes because it's class VIII's work) and put 29 beautiful stones, each with roll numbers of my 29 students for, what they call, Long Remembrance.
When I have luxury of time I would like to share about amazing projects my teacher colleagues have done in Bajothang too because I think I am being very selfish my sharing only about those thing me and my class did on my blog.

Disclaimer: No teaching time was wasted in building this pond because we did it during weekends and holidays. And no contributions, in any form, were asked from students except their free time and skill.

#SherigCollection in my School

I am very happy that Sherig Collection brought Boaz Shmueli and Galit Shmueli to my school, which was a sudden decision of Boaz after he saw my tweets about the Book Fair and teacher crowd in our football ground. We pitched a tent outside the book fair stall with two computers and ended up stealing the show from the main event. We invited every passing teacher to our tent and no teacher left without being thoroughly amazed.

See how we stole the show!

Sherig Collection is a selfless initiative by Rigsum where Boaz and Galit work. It's a collection of offline learning resources for children, and if you are a teacher, student or a concerned parent you must get it. It's now available in nine Dzongkhags, with teachers who attended the Book Fair in Bajothang. Details of the sources can be obtained from Sherig Collection Facebook Group. If you are in or close to Wangdue I am your server. 

Busy in Bajothang

The Sherig Collection is basically a 24GB answer to all Bhutanese issues such as internet connectivity, internet speed, budget limitations and computer efficiency. It's too good to be true and you must own it to believe it. Come with external hard drive! 

When two of them were not so busy I chanced to  show them around. They were full of appreciation for the so many creative works done by our students.

At WiFiPark gate with Gasa Principal

Near Curiosity Post 

Thanks to my 8 C students who helped in pitching the tent and to Chidanand and other eLearning Club members who sticked around helping the team during the weekend. And Thank you Rigsum and team for Sherig Collection. I hope, and will work toward reaching, the collection to as many schools as possible. 

The Sherig Collection in Bajothang

I wanted to write about the Sherig Collection right after I get back but now I see it has already come out in Kuensel and I am hopeful you all read about it. The 23 GB collection is the answer to all the Bhutanese school's question about internet connectivity and speed. It has my personal favorite Khan Academy and Wikipedia and your computer could become a mini internet server.
Read the detail report from Kuensel by Gyalsten K Dorji- he interviewed me too.

I started eLearning club in my school this year and we had big dreams but small confidence until we got our hands on Sherig Collection. Now my club is on a mission to promote the resources in and outside the school. We are designing Wiki booths in different location to make the resource accessible by every student. Our club is also going to build national question bank besides creating YouTube channel on Bhutanese syllabus- wish us luck.

Thanks a million to Rigsum and its research team for working beyond business and contributing significantly to Bhutanese Education System. I wish you the best in the second phase of Sherig Collection. Please invite me again. 

Meeting ThimphuTech.com Authors

This morning I traveled early to Thimphu to attend a presentation by the two authors of Thimphutech.com, the most reliable blog on technology and tech-services in Bhutan. I will write about the program in the next post ( you can already read about it on their blog-Click Here).
This post is just to express my joy of meeting two great people Boaz Shmueli and Galit Shmueli, today and spending enlightening time with them. It has always been my dream to meet the two of them but on two occasions earlier I failed. I decided I won't let go this chance and even the luck gave with me- I received personal invitation to attend the presentation from Boaz, and my principal yesed it right away.

Boaz, I, and Galit

Rejected Seats in Government Schools

Last year at this time I was going through a similar feeling and almost the same thought when I wrote "The Best School in Bhutan" where I was trying to differentiate my definition of best school and the definition people and even the authorities have put together. Nothing changed ever since but it brought personal gratification, having figured out the foolishness with which people hunger for reputation and glamour.
Education Ministry defines Class XI intake capacity every year, based on which the qualification mark is set but the recent trend of brilliant students choosing private schools over government school raises one important concern: has the government studied and considered the number of qualified students not take their privileges and therefore leaving seats in government school vacant, which could be otherwise given to students who ran short by a few points? I am of the opinion that we should keep at least over 100 students in standby, who could be considered in government schools after private school admissions are over.
There are students with brilliant marks who are welcomed into private schools and there are students with brilliant parents who can take their kids to private school for so many reasons despite having qualified but on the down side there are students who neither have brilliant marks nor have brilliant parents, for them it's the end of their schooling life. Giving away those seats rejected by the lucky students to those for whom the road has ended would be godly. No less than 100 seats are rejected every year, which could other wise change 100 lives forever.

There should be a system in place to find how many more students can each school take after the admissions are over to make full use of government resources, after all a class of 20 students takes as much resources as that of class with 40 students.
A simple example from my school might shed light on the wider picture: 66 students qualified for class XI, of which the top five students (with 85%- 92.8%) have opted to move to private school on special admissions and one has changed school. A few new students came in from other schools but the whole total could only make up for a section of Science and Commerce stream each. One student who want to take up Arts stream had to be moved to Punakha because we didn't have enough students to begin that stream. We have done the same for the last three years in row after we phased out boarding felicities. My school alone has provision for at least 30 Arts students who can put up on their own as day scholars, and I am sure there could be many schools who same capability.This happened not because of our ministry's miscalculation but by the outflow of qualified students to private schools- which of course is not tracked and considered.
How do we track the outflow? What provisions can be created to make maximum use of government schools and give higher education to as many children as possible?

Dzongkha Teachers and Computers

You have no idea what it means to dare teaching twenty Dzongkha teachers how to use computer but I am not new to this challenge. This batch of language teachers we have in Punakha Center mostly began their career before many parents fell in love and some talks about my grandfather being their contemporary. Now imagine how I would look standing there doing this job of teaching them.
We were never trained to handle this nor the course was designed to suit them. The computers are just the ones we are using-everything on the machine is in English and even the text book and the presentation slides are in English. The problem is not with them, they are highly educated and very confident and ready to learn. The issue is with the computer- they'd heard a lot about this super machine but they are upset that the machine is just another stupid box that won't understand Dzongkha. I assured them that computer can be programmed to display everything in Dzongkha but the problem is I was not trained enough to do so much and rest didn't have the passion. (Point to be noted, My lord lol)
The best adjustment we can do for them was to install Dzongkha Unicode on their computers so that they could at least used computer to type text in Dzongkha. It's a simple two part process; first install Dzongkha Keyboard and then install Dzongkha Fonts followed by a few steps to Add Dzongkha Keyboard on Language Bar but to do it on so many computer took me and my partner Tshewang Rinzin one precious hour.
That's the beginning of another problem; there are a few teachers who never went to Dzongkha Unicode training and therefore they need another course to understand what we just did. Without Dzongkha characters printed on the keyboard it takes ages to get a word on the screen. (Point to be noted, My lord lol)
By afternoon we made some progress with some people and rest are waiting for me to bring them the printed copy of Dzongkha Keyboard tomorrow. But like all the batches we met we had fun being mischievous and with Dzongkha teacher like them I never forget to share my dirty jokes and make them cough their doma out. During the breaks I listen to their wisdom and bother them with my endless questions on history. I am looking forward to eight more days with them!

Note: This is not intended to class whole species of Dzongkha Teachers in Bhutan as alien to English language or computers, I am just talking about this group of senior teachers who didn't go to English medium school and therefore resulting in the gap. Dzongkha Teachers now are highly versatile, they have mastery over Dzongkha and does equally well in English- and to surprise the hell out of all my vice principal,Lop Melam, who is also a Dzongkha Teacher is an expert in both computer hardware and software including Mac stuffs.

Empowering Teachers

I haven't been on winter vacation for three years, and even forgot how it feels like to go on short summer breaks. I am paid and used for empowering teachers in our country and like me there are forty others spread across the country to leave no teacher behind on this aggressive computer literacy project. We don't have Sundays in our weeks nor do we have any national holidays once we begin but after every ten days our trainees change. I had the privilege of training over 200 teachers in four Dzongkhags giving me 200 reasons more to smile in life. 

If you are a teacher in Bhutan you already know what this project is all about and how important it is for your career regardless of your participation yet but not many of us realized that the program is much more than just a compulsory certifying course. Most are coming because they learnt that the certificate from this training is going to be a mandatory document while applying for promotion or scholarship. I have seen many teachers walking into my class with what-the-heck look on the first morning and on the last day the same people shake my hand so hard with gratitude and I could assume what's on their mind: I didn't know this was going to be such a life changing ten days.

Batch-2, Motithang Lab, 2013 Jan

I will sum up the curriculum of the ten days and let you decide if I made sense in saying it's a life changing ten days for teachers: 

• Teachers learn to draw diagrams in Microsoft Paint, and this also help beginners gain Mouse balance.
• They learn to setup question paper in Microsoft Word- Multiple choice, Filling Blanks, Matching, Labeling diagram and True or False. They also learn to plan their lesson in Word.
• They learn how to prepare lessons using PowerPoint Presentation. Animation amazes lot of them.
• They learn how to store student's marks in Microsoft Excel and prepare mark sheet there. All necessary formulas and functions are taught and practiced until perfected. Many teachers cannot believe that it could be so easy, quick and accurate. 
• Then we take them on ride on internet. Google for anything and everything they ever want and mostly for downloading diagrams and pictures they would require for their presentation, question papers or regular lessons. Wikipedia for information resources. YouTube for video resources. Email for communication- everybody leaves the training with email address. And for advance users we teach them blogging, in short- they are shown the power of Web 2.0 tools. This make it very hard for us to drive them home after 5.
• What more a teacher wants? In these ten days teachers are given enough time to practice daily and two days are dedicated for their assignments alone. 

Ladies of Khuruthang with my Partner Mr. Parsu Ram

By the end of the program nobody talks about the certificate they came for because they have too many new things in their head to wonder about. And for me repeating things over and over ceased to be boring, in fact I enjoy amazing people, I love the screams of excitement when teachers accomplish something. I have made wonderful friends and learnt values beyond holidays- I am living a meaningful life without Sunday, I am on a mission to empower teachers!  

Losing True Wisdom

I have witnessed many elderly civil servants retiring from their jobs because they have reached the retirement age inscribed in Civil Service Rule of Bhutan, and I was with the notion that it's a right thing to create space for the younger generation who would bring about newer and efficient ways of working.

18 Dec 2012, His Last Day in Bajo

But last month when Mr. PKB announced his retirement I was deeply saddened and shocked. By rule his has become old enough to retire but in school he was enjoying the best years of his career. His age is neither visible on him physically nor in his professional performances.
He traveled from India in 1978, even before my parents got married, and became a primary teacher in our country. Ever since he traveled back rarely and on two occasions he returned with his head shaved- when his lost his father and mother. Now he has no more reasons to go to India because in last 34 years in Bhutan he has made Bhutan his home.
 In 1997 he was transferred to Bajothang School where he taught High School for the first time. But a man of his wisdom could not only overcome new changes but also conquer them; he became one of the best known high school Maths teachers in the country.
He was among the dozen teachers who began Bajothang school in 1997 and have been serving in this school for last fifteen years during which he transformed the lives of thousands of Bhutanese people either academically or humanely.
When I heard about his resignation I ran to him and suggested him about writing to ministry for extension of his contract, but he shook my hands and asked me, "How long can it be extended?"
He had already applied to a private school that was more than honoured to welcome him, because he was known for his dedication and work ethics. He was happy to go where he was wanted and I was happy for him. But for Bajothang School and for the Education Ministry it's a big loss, and our policies need a serious revisit.
I am not qualified enough to talk about the general civil service but when it comes to teaching family I have observed that older the teacher gets better he becomes in terms of knowledge and wisdom, and for teachers like Mr. PKB students die to learn from him. But because we have mixed teaching with general civil service we are losing teachers when they have acquired so much to give. Looking at how renowned universities across the world take pride in their old professors, our system is making fools of itself by not investing in our reputed teachers.
Compulsory retirement age is set perhaps to create more employment intakes capacity for younger generation but in teaching system we are in permanent shortage of manpower and I am surprised we are letting go the most ripened teachers from our family.
Bajothang will miss this great maths teacher but we are happy he will continue to teach in Bhutan for many good years of his life.

Character Certificate Misunderstood and Abused

Schools hold Character Certificate of a child as hostage and demand ransom of good discipline from them. It's also used as the ultimate weapon of punishment. It's a confidential document that the child gets to see only when he leaves the school. Therefore, Character Certificate is misunderstood and abused. But the true intention of this life defining document was never spelled out and therefore this heavy paper weighed very light so far. It's now coming into the light with Educating for GNH spirit, it may take time but the greatest achievement is in having it started.
Because we were brought up in such environment we look at our children through the same belief that a child is worth his scores in his marksheet. The toppers are praised in school and at home, they are favorites of teachers and parents. Colleges want them, job markets await them. Of course, these children do deserve the massive attention they are receiving, there is no way we can afford to compromise that but we must realize that we are just looking at the academic intelligence and worse using that to measure children's worth.
His majesty always stressed on "Emotional Intelligence" when talking to children. Emotional Intelligence is not something we can find among high marks alone. Emotional Intelligence defines a good human being but by giving absolute importance to marksheet we are totally disregarding the true worth of our children. Character certificate, if used correctly, can not only acknowledge those emotionally intelligent kids but also groom the normal children into achieving that goodness.
Character Certificates contains 10 Personal Qualities, which defines an emotionally intelligent child.

1. Leadership Quality
2. Punctuality
3. Honesty & Integrity
4. Willingness to Adapt to Rules
5. Respect for others
6. Civic Sense
7. Creativity
8. Participation in activities
9. Work Ethics
10. Conduct

We have always seen and used this document but we have never known it well. Children should see and understand every personal quality with specified criteria (See the sample Rubrics) and given opportunity and motivation to build on those qualities.

Mark Sheet	Character Certificate
Measures academic performance Identifies academically sound children Guarantees a good Job	Measures Human values Identifies good human being Guarantees a good Life

The most painful question is, why invest so much in something that no one will even look at? That is something Educating for GNH going to change eventually, one day Marksheet and Character Certificate will weigh the same. This is a big change in system and mentality that requires lots of time to set up. The best place to begin is the schools. Schools can already start investing in human values in their little ways.

Current status of Character Certificate	Expected Role of Character Certificate
It’s a confidential document It’s marked once in a year It’s marked at the end of the year It threatens the children It’s used as a weapon Only bad character certificate has effect on the child’s career, good certificate go unnoticed. It's a summative assessment.	It should be a mirror to the child on daily basis It should be marked several times in a year It should be marked in the beginning, middle and end of the year to motivate. It should motivate children It should be used as a guiding tool Good Character certificates should  be given due importance It should be Formative assessment.

With strong system in place Character Certificate can redefine that way human world functions; we will not only have the most intelligent people governing us but also the good human beings. Intelligence alone is only capable of making great stuffs like nuclear weapons, it takes emotional intelligence to build homes and make live saving drugs. 

This is what intelligence without emotion does!

The Inner Search in Schools

When Meditation was first introduced in schools a few years ago, it was received with good humor. Students found it funny in the beginning and boring gradually. Most teachers never believed in it and some believers soon forgot it. I never really understood why this was happening. But I tried hard to advocate that it was to do with calming our mind and sharpening our focus on studies-which was how I vaguely understood and I discovered I wasn't fully wrong.

Meditation before the Evening Prayer in Bajothang

Now that I have the complete understanding of the intention behind introducing this in schools I would like to share it with my readers. It's a very simple ritual a school should follow whenever possible to give students a quite moment of calmness, in which they get time to be mindful. Mindfulness is the key in this practice. It's a known fact that nobody wants be bad, nobody wants be in trouble, but they land up being without their intention. And one bad thing leads to another. That's the result of not being mindful. We are always in rush.
Everybody has a choice at all times, we make many decisions every moment of our lives and our decisions shape us. While making those many decisions we have two voices talking to us from within our head, one is the good one and other is bad, but how many of us know which one to listen to?
That's what's happening to our students everyday, they don't want to land up in problem but they got into trouble by the wrong decisions they made. They didn't know they have picked on the wrong choice. Not many of us make right decisions at all times either. They need help. But no external help can solve your internal problem, how long can anyone rely on help considering the hundreds of decisions we have to make everyday. The help is right there within ourselves. We only have to focus and that focus comes from training our mind. That's why Meditation is brought to school, and I believe in it, because a mindful child will live a meaningful life.

There are different types and levels of meditation, please Google it. I picked on the simplest one and I am trying with my students every day and I have asked them to spare one minute every morning and evening for it. They know why they are doing this, and with them I am also in search the good voice myself. This could solve many of life's problems, this could be the answer to all the disciplinary problems in the school, and this could be the revolution against social problems, if at all we take it with genuine seriousness.

Note: Meditation in school has no connection with any religion, the only connection it has is with ones mind and therefore with ones life. 

Understanding 'Educating for GNH'

Over 102 teachers in Wangdue attended the workshop on 'Educating for GNH' in my school since yesterday. I wasn't among the seven who were supposed to attend from our school but by some last minute twists three of our representatives couldn't make it giving me an easy entry. I handed over my charges as the second in command of Examination committee to a colleague and joined the workshop.
I lost my much awaited weekends by agreeing to attend the four day course over the weekend but after hours into the course I realized I have made a right decision. I wasn't ignorant about the concept of educating for GNH, I was rather bombarded with too many information from third party sources that I failed to appreciate it, perhaps that's what happened with many people. And perhaps that's why many were cynical about it. For me this workshop was all about filtering information, putting them in order and making sense out of them, and I succeeded right away. The concept is very simple and workable.
With the project we are identifying the possible values we are imparting through any subject and naming those values, because when we have a name then we have at least something less abstract to stress on. However, core of it is letting students find purpose in whatever they are learning so that they find purpose in their lives. Our roles are spelled out as the most important factor in their lives, we are to create the bestest conditions, and to make sure our schools have the right environment that is sensitive to both their physical and psychological needs and that we teachers are both the "message and the medium".

One of the three facilitators in my room is my physics teachers from Drukgyel, Mr Kinley Gyeltshen. He is such a wonderful person to listen to, he can edutain the adults as much as he did his magic on us as young students back in 1999.

Curiosity Post in Bajo WiFi Park

Curiosity Post

This Sign Post stands tall at the entrance of the WiFi Park and I call it curiosity post. If you look at it perhaps you will only be curious about how it was made because you already know about the things that are written on the planks. But in my school where every year over 700 students will walk pass this and not many will know what these are. They will be curious and the next time they are on a computer they explore, that is what this post is supposed to do.
A school is a world in itself; rich and poor, good and bad, intelligent and dull, happy and sad, beautiful and ugly, and many other extremes. And there is another gap that divides students into two, which is called the Digital Divide, and I am hoping to break that barrier subtly. NIIT's Project in schools across the country is training every student from class VII to XII in use of computer technology and they are introduced in use of internet as well. But how much do they know about using internet as a source of knowledge? and as a tool for collaboration and learning? This post has no magic in it but it can trigger the magic students have in themselves.
I have already had several teachers and guests from abroad who passed by the post and asked me, "What is KhanAcademy?" That's where the learning begins. I love explaining about each one of them,

The Curiosity Post is a piece of art created by the eight students I have in class XI computer Studies. Each one of them carved and painted a board each and we had a tough time deciding whom to be placed at the top. I am happy Blogger won the place on the top.The bird nest on the top is borrowed from another class that has done another project of placing bird nest on trees.

Update 25th Aug: 39 Students from Raffles Institution Singapore visited our school yesterday morning along with four teachers. They spent the whole morning mixing with out students in their classes. Some of our students were stunned by the brilliance of these young Singaporean kids.
 One of the teachers, Mr. Louis, who worked in Bhutan for a year and have returned thrice, told me that his student were amazed by the WiFi Park. He says they have wireless internet connection across their campus but having a specific place outside to relax and enjoy is something new to them.

Creative Works of My Students in School WiFi Park

 I have been dreaming of building a park in my school that will translate the idea of free and open learning environment into a real space. I read somewhere that modern classrooms should be www, which is a pun and interestingly means Wherever, Whenever, Whatever besides its actual meaning.
I planned a park where there will be beautiful benches to rest under the shade of green tress and wherever you sit you could catch strong WiFi connection. The idea was expensive and school had no money. But dreams require passion more than money, and passion I had enough. It didn't take long before I knew I could do it without money. With the plan in my hand I went looking for sponsors and surprisingly I received commitment from many people who would donate cement, wood, nails, electrical equipment, and wireless router.

WiFi Park Board (Hemlal and I carved and painted)

Then I was stranded at the idea of having to make huge number of benches. I would need a carpenter to work for me over a long period of time and he would want me to pay him handsomely. Even if I had money I will run short of bench designs. That is when I turned to whirlpool of creative idea, yes my students. I announced a "Park Bench Making" competition among sixteen senior classes and promised then attractive prizes. Then I went looking for "attractive prizes" while students worked on their benches. The result amazed everybody. Following are some of the benches my students created;

Bench 14, 2nd Prize Winner

Bench 10, Consolation Prize

Bench 5, Consolation Prize

Bench 9, Winner

With major portion of the work happening on its own, I was left with loads of energy to focus on the technical infrastructure, which was completed right away. Then I had to build a pavilion that will not only provide shade but also power supply to charge laptops. A colleague and his class of students volunteered to takeover the work.

The Pavilion

Seven out of 16 benches were awarded prizes based on the judgement of five external judges and acknowledgements were sent to our sponsors. Now the park is ready and opened for operation. You could sit in the shade and enjoy internet.