In India,especially in Kerala, schools reopen normally after summer vacation on 1st June 2020. But in 2020-21 academic year witnessed a special scenario caused by Covid 19 pandemic. Schools, colleges, institutes are closed due to lock down for the last 3 months since the spreading of Covid 19 started in March 2020.
2020-21 academic year will be a special year for all special schools in Kerala and for Adarsh it is too special. Considering the present scenario caused by Covid-19 pandemic not only in our state but around the globe, we are forced to change the learning strategies. Finding that school reopening and children attending school is a rare possibility for at least 3-6 months. Govt. of Kerala is planning to launch online platform for children in the normal stream schools from 1st June onwards. But so far no such facilities for children with special needs. In this connection, Adarsh envisages something special for its special children.
PARIGYAN, a school at home collaborative initiative between Punarjeeva Technology Solutions and Adarsh Special School, focuses on the continual learning of the differently abled children in such difficult times, as today. Through online platforms, the faculty and students of the special school will be able to proceed with their learning, as in normal classrooms. In addition to academics and to ensure that the children do not miss out on their physiotherapy sessions , the team from Punarjeeva Technology Solutions would also be involving the children in digital therapy sessions using Artificial Intelligence based algorithms and techniques.The algorithms that are based on human pose estimation techniques, will capture the body positioning and movements and these will in turn be mapped to the gamified exercises undertaken by the children. To ensure that the movement capabilities are rightly captured from all angles, various activities will be provided. Apart from Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality based solution swill be rolled out to help them move around their homes while engaging them indifferent activities and hence warranting mobility from both gross motor and fine motor aspects. Extending the initiative for hearing impaired children, a plat form that will incorporate live speech to text conversion in videoconferencing platforms in a multilingual(Malayalam and English) format will be implemented. This will help the hearing impaired children to be a part of the larger educational initiative.
Finding that children with profound level of disability, the platform may not be effective,we have selected mild, moderate and severe category of challenged children for this programme. Such 280 children will get the benefit through this programme. If everything goes well, we intend to extend this programme to children outside Adarsh where resources are limited. So with all your support a Adarsh organizes “digital Pravesanotsavam” on 3rd June 2020.