About
Asha Kanini
Asha Kanini is an application developed by
Asha Chennai, the Chennai chapter of Asha for Education.
The purpose of the application is to use technology to improve the quality of education at government schools serving underprivileged children. Asha Kanini is focused on helping teachers identify appropriate content for the particular lesson they are teaching and effectively use it to improve student learning. Asha Kanini is currently available on Windows and Android. It has been designed with the needs of remote rural schools in mind. Asha Kanini is currently available for Tamilnadu and Uttar Pradesh state board curriculum.
Asha Kanini
In Practice
Asha Chennai supports 175+ schools in Tamilnadu and 15+ schools in UP. Asha Kanini is being used in all these schools.
70+ Packages have been mapped for Tamilnadu and 20+ packages for Uttar Pradesh. Asha has also created lesson plans in Maths, English, Science and Computer Science. More contents are being added.
Computer Teachers visit schools one or two days a week to teach computer science as well as other subjects using Asha Kanini content. Further regular teachers we have appointed also use Asha Kanini in their regular instruction.
We use our teachers to train government teachers on how to effectively use these computers in the classroom and teach students using Asha Kanini contents.
Asha Chennai also maintains the computers in these schools and where possible we have augmented it with donations from corporates.
In 2021 we had undertaken a project along with IITM Pravartak to take Asha Kanini to all the schools in Thiruvallur District of Tamilnadu. We trained over 900 teachers in 500 schools to use Asha Kanini.
How to Use?
Download
Download our Windows application from the Download page or our Android application from Google Playstore.
Installation
Run the installer and follow the steps to install the Asha Kanini software, third party software required, and the contents.
Run it
Launch the Asha Kanini app on Windows or Android. When you run it the first time, run it when you have network access.
Registration
Register yourself with your email ID or phone number. You will have to validate the application with your password.
Use it
You are ready to go. You can run the software with our without network anytime you want. Note you need network when you access a content for the first time
Software Features
- Network Independent:
- Platform Independent:
- Language & Curriculum Independent:
- Supports variety of contents:
You can use the application and all local contents without the need for internet. It is required only when you access a content for the first time.
We currently support Windows and Android platforms. The software can run under any Linux variant or Mac. Contact us if you are interested in any other platforms.
The software is Unicode-based. The contents can be mapped to any curriculum in any language. We presently support the Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh curriculum.
It can support any content that can be viewed on your machine. We support audio, video, presentations, documents, executable games, weblinks, web content available locally, Java applets, etc.
Content Categories
Asha Kanini comes packaged with over 60 packages. The contents can be broadly classified into the following types based on how the content can be used by the teacher.
Active Learning
This includes interactive material where the student will be encouraged to participate. The interactive material includes games that are primarily used to master a concept that has already been taught. It also includes simulations that could explain a concept and provide for virtual lab experiments and so on. These are found to be most effective in teaching and practicing concepts.
Passive Learning
Primarily audio and video content that the students can hear or watch without much interaction during the classroom presentation. Teachers can use these to teach concepts by making these interactive. Further it can be effectively use for recall or revision.
Teacher Content
This includes content that can be used by teachers to prepare for the lesson, which might show them the best way to teach a particular concept. This includes instructional videos and material that the teacher can explore before going to the classroom that prepares them to teach the concepts effectively. This also includes additional offline material that could be used by printing and distributing like Schoolhouse Bingo. We also provide all resources and tutorial videos for conducting classroom activities.
Visit our Packages page to have a look at all the content available with Asha Kanini.
Types Of Content
Asha has carefully selected high quality content from a variety of vendors to make teaching and learning effective, first for conceptual understanding and then for mastering the subject through games and exercises. The packages primarily address the lessons in a class, but also include additional content that improves general analytical ability and skills of the students.
| Classroom Presentation | 26 Packages |
|---|---|
| Offline/Classroom Activity | 5 Packages |
| Teacher Material | 6 Packages |
| Worksheet | 17 Packages |
| Games/Simulation | 48 Packages |
Ease of Use
Asha Kanini makes it very easy to find the appropriate content that a teacher needs while teaching a lesson and view it. Here are the many ways in which you can use the contents.
QR Code
Scan the QR code in your textbook to directly go to the contents you need. You can also configure the app to directly launch the lesson plan or Diksha content associated with the QR code.
Browse / Search Contents
Browse contents for a lesson by specifying class-term-subject-lesson no. You cal also search for contents using key words like "Solar System" or "fraction addition". Restrict the results to only those pertaining to specific class-term-subject-lesson.
Directory View
If you would like to just browse the lesson in a Class-subject in a sequential manner and access the contents, that is also available. This will be specifically useful to browse the lessons of courses we have created like for the CS curriculum.
Lesson Plans and Activities
Lesson Plans offer curated contents best suited for teaching the lesson. If the teacher is not regularly teaching using Asha Kanini but wants to enhance the understanding of the students the Activities are ideally suited. Details are given below.
Asha Kanini Lesson Plans and Activities
Asha Kanini lesson plans are intended for teachers who structure the teaching of the whole lesson including Asha Kanini. The lesson plans bring together the best resources for teaching a specific lesson.
- Provides curated best contents for each area of a lesson.
- Distinguishes contents that can used for teaching from contents that can be used for practicing after the lesson is taught.
- Provides all resources for conducting classroom activities to best build conceptual clarity.
- Provides graded worksheets that can be given to students at all levels.
- Provides pre and post tests for the teacher to understand the students’ levels.
Available for Maths, English, Science and Computer Science (Asha's own curriculum).
Asha Kanini Activites on the other hand are intended for teachers who have been teaching lesson using traditional or other methods without using Asha Kanini. The activities can be conducted in isolation without consideration of sequencing or continuity. For eg, a science activity may show how to conduct an experiment alligned to the contents of a lesson.
- Spans classroom activities, pen and paper activities as well as computer based ones.
- Calls out all the materials that would be required to conduct an activity.
- Teacher only needs to ensure that the activity is conducted for children who are at the level required for the activity. The activities themselves need not be conducted in any sequence.
- Each activity is expected to take one-hour period.
Available for Maths, English, Science, Computer Science and Logical Reasoning.
Usage Data
Asha Kanini collects usage data from the application. This provides information about how people searched for and used the content which gives us useful information to improve the application and the contents that are packaged with it. In the long run, analytics with the usage data can yield answers to questions like,
- Who are using Asha Kanini? Which schools in which geographies?
- Which contents are preferred by the teachers? How are they using the application?
- Are the contents being accessed changing based on the time of the year as expected? i.e. Are the contents for Term I, Lesson 1 being accessed in the first days of the academic year?
- Later we can also correlate this with assessment data and see if there are patterns of Asha Kanini usage which correlates with the performance of the schools. This may help drive content in the future as well as help us understand the problems in schools better.