Lucia Mourelle's Page

Hello,

I'm sending out messages to everyone I know right now, and this virtual Ning network is no exception. My name is Andy Pethan. I am a 21 year old student from Olin College of Engineering. I am a part of a group of 6 Olin students (near Boston) who is taking a year off to pursue our interests in education, entrepreneurship, design and technology, bringing us to the logical project of a business that designs collaborative software for schools! I found you in a search for "middle school", and since our project is specific to middle schools, I thought you might be interested. Our project is called AlightLearning, and this is our "short" project description:

We are working under the assumption that within ten years, the landscape of modern education will have fully integrated what we now define as new classroom media and tools: video, online collaboration, open source curriculum, and internet-based software. We hope to pioneer a web software tool that acts as a platform for this new media, bringing the power of the web and its tools to students, teachers and parents in a secure, comfortable and innovative environment. More importantly, and unlike many of our competitors, our software will empower teachers to better integrate higher level thinking skills, individualized learning, goal setting, reflection, and effective feedback and evaluation. Our goal is to have our free software at a pilot middle school by April 15th, 2008, continuing to develop and coordinate with our users to create a product that other schools and individual teachers will want to use to improve their students' learning in and out of the classroom.

Our team is currently trying to win an idea competition on Ideablob.com You can find us at http://ideablob.com/3975. We would love your support in the form of a vote within the next couple days, but more importantly we'd love your feedback and comments. Our description on Ideablob is short, and even the one above hardly gets at many of the issues we would like to take a stab at solving, but at least it's a start. Note that winning this contest will raise $10,000, a large and useful sum of money for a web-based company running on “sweat equity” and minimal costs.

Feel free to email me back, post on my profile, check out alightlearning.com, or do anything you like!

Thanks,
Andy Pethan
rockychat3@gmail.com

Hi Lucia,

In your implementation of web technologies for your private school I recommend you take a look at Wiziq's virtual classroom and authorstream's web based power point presentation platform. Both may help you in you school's technology needs.

Acabo de ver su sitio. Me parece fenomenal lo que estan haciendo. Me gustaria seguir con planes con este proyecto en el futuro. Seguiremos hablando.

I'm in Virginia now, and am bringing a group down to BA and el Chaco in June. We're headed up to El Impenetrable to do a project there. One of the elements of the project will be a documentary video in Spanish and English, and another part will be the repair and improvement of a comedor infantil. Should be about ten of us.
The project I was telling you about was a ning project called El Mundo Conectado. Right now we have only loaded elements of the project from our classes, but by the end of the year we will be working on collaborations with some of the classes at Escuela del Sol as well as a public school in Uruguay. If I can get some of the Chaco schools involved I'd love to do that too. Our most current project is a digital historical narrative relating to Cuba or Spain in support of our study of Diario de Motocicletas. When we have the material loaded I'll invite you to the ning.
What is your school like? Where is it?
Gracias
c

Hi, Lucia,
Our school has an exchange with the Escuela del Sol in BA, and we go down there regularly. We also work with the Fundación Mempo Giardinelli in El Chaco on service projects. I am working on developing some on-line collaborations between classes in Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico and our school. I'd love to hear from you about these.

Hi Lucia,

Thank you for your message and sorry if i'm late to reply... Of course we'll be glad to work with you. We need people from South America inside our School Beyond the Walls. So you can join us and you'll meet many teachers and our students from Europe...
Have a nice day,
Vincent

SHANTIDEEP ADARSH VIDHYASADAN
Sav (School)
Estd. 1998
savschool2000@yahoo.com
Introduction
Shantideep Adarsh Vidhyasadan is one of the English Medium Schools established in 1998 with 13 students in a backwarded countryside of Bhaktapur district of Nepal. The name of the village is Bageshwori (altitude approx. 1500 metre). It lies in the eastern part of Bhaktapur district. It was established when the parents were not so aware of their children's education. We (school Management) had to struggle a lot to achieve the sympathy of the parents / villagers. They weren't convinced in the very beginning and didn't send their children to this school thinking that we can't run the school continuously for the long run. As a founder director, I tried my best to build up and uplift the situation of the school. By the end of that year, we were able to impress them showing the out put of our teaching techniques and methodologies. As a result the number of students reached 78 in the beginning of the second year. The number of students has been increasing gradually. Now we have 137 students. But we can't enroll all the new comers due to the infrastructural and financial problems. We hope we can fulfill the need and desire of our parents/ villagers (target groups) if your contribution on the infrastructural or/and academic sectors can be entertained.
Motto of the School:
The school stamp includes three words "Wisdom, Education and Creativity". We, the whole school team, are dedicated to fulfill and make the school motto effective so that we can reach our goals.
Aims and Objectives of institution:
The institution has following objectives:
In order to develop education as an integral part of a community the school run by this school will exert efforts to avail itself of necessary advice and support from local community for the benefit of the School.
To establish education as a foundation stone of the social and economic change.
To prepare disciplined, patriotic and dutiful citizens by providing students with affordable education and to maintain the gradual process of imparting practical and life skill-based education for their self-dependence.
To make efforts to children efficient and good citizen in the future by making good use of the curriculum prescribed.
To impart quality education by appointing efficient teachers for the development of originality and creativity of students as per well- recognized scale of education.
To develop children’s physical and mental potential.
To make children aware of the importance and utility of local bio-diversity, social and natural heritage, and educate them to preserve them.
To develop physical and environmental infra-structures as they play a great role in the process of getting education.
To identify poor and intelligent student for the provision of necessary scholarships considering the economic source and situation of school and educate them.
To involve students in the process of national development by creating a condusive educational environment and by making them competitive by dint of education, and to identify and use necessary educational materials for leading the school to modern scientific technology and for quality education.
To work continuously for the overall development of education by carrying out other necessary works as prescribed by government and other sectors.
To make children aware of their rights by abolishing the discrimination in caste, race, religion, sex, etc.
To encourage and offer opportunities to children who are financially handicapped and are unable to come to school to get an access to education by making education affordable and open.
To develop the institution as the leading educational institution committed to serve the community.

Target group:
All the children who are of their age to go to school.
Children of the helpless, disadvantaged, under-privileged and untouchable families who have no access to education due to various reasons.
The Children who drop out due to social and economic reasons.
The local community and others who have no access to education.
Achievements:
Though we are not financially strong, we are running school up to the primary/elementary level now. We've all together 157 students. Girls' ratio is quite satisfactory. And the children from ethnic groups also have been studying. We have been able to impress our parents / guardians our style of teaching in the context of education system of Nepal. We've also sent some children to other high schools after completion of elementary level here; they've also achieved better positions in those schools and have helped to maintain our prestige in the village. Now the parents in the village want to send more children to this school. That means they have positive look towards us, but due to the lack of sufficient classrooms, furniture and other infrastructural facilities we are not able to admit all the children in the school.
Extra Curricular Activities.
Besides teaching-learning activities in the classroom, we conduct special classes in intellectual, cultural and physical sectors in our school viz. dance, music, quiz, elocution, debate, spelling contest, drama, games and sports, and much more related to education, physical health and environment. We also offer prizes for the winners to encourage them for their more participation and better result.
Shortcomings:
 Though School management has achieved so much sympathy and well-washings from the villagers, we have still been facing some problems to run the school smoothly. Parents here are not able to pay their children's school fees though it's just a nominal in comparison to so called English medium private schools. Our school children want scholarships and sponsorships. The government here seems indifference to the community based schools like ours. But the flow of students is towards the community based English medium schools.
 Our parents demand to upgrade this school to high school level as they have to send their children far off in the towns about an hour's walk. It is about 5 kilometers dusty and muddy narrow roads to reach the high schools in the town. No public vehicles are available there. Roads here are muddy in rainy and dusty in other seasons.
 More than 70 percent of students in our school come from below poverty level financial background. They often come to school without usual proper stationery (such as pens, notebooks, crayons, etc.), lunch and more than 50 percent in improper uniform.
 School lacks good building, well managed classrooms, easy desks and benches, water facility and well equipped play-ground. It is our compulsion to run the school in a simply built school, just like a shed, where students have to be adjusted anyway.
Future plan to get Achievement
We have been trying to find the way out to handle the school in a better way. We want our school flourishing and providing better education in modern ways. For that financial condition should be made strong.
We are seeking help from any NGO's and INGO's or personal support. So that the thirst of the education of the village children (remember, only the people who have low economic status live in the villages of our country) can be quenched satisfactorily. For that the present school management has put forth the following points in their mind from our planning and suggestions provided by our guardians and well-wishers.
 The financial position of the school has to be made very strong.
 The school must have its own land and modern school building.
 Modern facilities like library, science and computer labs, etc. should be established.
 Equipments for the games and sports must be sufficient.
 The school should hire full time dedicated trained teachers.


How can these things be fulfilled?
School management has put forth some ideas to fulfill the aforesaid points.
 To request the donor agencies / charities for the financial help.
 To request the volunteer groups to help the school for some time for teaching and other social activities related to school and society.
 To request educated personnel and educationists or anyone who live inside or outside our country to help whatever they can do for the children and school.
 To start charity shows and other programs from our school children and management.
 To make requests to the parents, relatives, friends, and so on.
 To accept any kind of help (financial, materials like uniform, notebooks, pens, crayons, school bags, books, etc.) from any person who are willing to help whatever.)
 To make a request to the interested personalities to visit our school so that they also can help some way they want to.
 To start income generating programs among our parents.
Why these all?
It's already mentioned that the economic status of the parents here in the village is quite low. The future target of the school is to provide quality and modern education in nominal cost, if possible, free of cost. It's already said that the village people are those who can't harmonize themselves with the town dwellers in any way. To uplift the educational standard of the village our effort might work, we hope.
For Further Details:
Contact person:
Govinda Prasad Panthy

email: savschool2000@yahoo.com /gopisu@gmail.com
Phone (Res.) +977-01-6616559./ Mob. (+977)9841206385

Hello there, i'm a school teacher/administrator from Nepal. I run an elementary school for poor family rural children. I'm Govinda by my name. if u find me like minded person plz mail me at gopisu@gmail.com