Ryan Josekutty, a class I student, wrote in his ‘Samyuktha diary’ about the Christmas eve celebrations this December past.
The sentences, albeit short, gave a picture of what he did the day before Christmas, beginning with Sunday School in the morning, bursting of crackers at night, followed by cutting of a cake. Ryan wrote about going to church to attend the midnight mass and watching Christmas programmes. The small entry was accompanied by a colourful drawing of a church, crackers going off, and children enjoying the festivities.
Samyuktha (joint) diary entries of Ryan and other students, pages from their Sachithra (illutrated) notebook, and their creations during activities such as Rachanotsavam, Vayanotsavam, Bhashotsavam, this academic year are now finding their way into SchoolWiki, a collaborative digital platform for all schools in the State.
Kunjezhuthukal (creative writing by schoolchildren), which include joint diaries of students and parents, illustrated notebook, standalone stories and drawing, stories with pictures, and experiences of first graders, can be termed evidence of the progress in students’ language skills through various activities implemented in the year.
Preserving creativity
Launched last month on SchoolWiki by Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), Kunjezhuthukal is an attempt to preserve and document these expressions of students’ creativity.
In the first phase, one select piece of writing from each child is included in Kunjezhuthukal. It is the teachers who select the writings from the students’ notebooks or diaries and add them to SchoolWiki. In the month since the project was announced, 1,01,062 works of students have been made available in the public domain via www.schoolwiki.in
Kunjezhuthukal provides an opportunity for the public to understand the benefits of language learning through presentation of ideas and contexts and their independent expression.
“KITE started this unique initiative after noticing 146 children of class 1 in SDV UPS, Neerkunnam, Alappuzha, becoming independent writers and readers and having published 146 collections of stories. KITE will facilitate the uploading of children’s writings till March 27,” KITE chief executive officer K. Anvar Sadath said in a statement.
During COVID-19, KITE had devised a similar program titled ‘Akshara Vriksham’ (Tree of Alphabets) whereby 56,399 creative contents prepared by students of classes I to XII were uploaded on SchoolWiki to create a lasting memory of overcoming the struggles of the period.
