TE year2sourcebook/year2 unit1 Topics of Study in the Unit

The topics of study in Unit 1 are

Creating resources using educational tools - Vocabulary tools and digital stories (Languages)

Kanagram is a very simple FOSS application for strengthening language skills (vocabulary). The tool allows you to configure word lists for any given category. You can provide a hint for each word also. For instance you could define a category - 'Rivers of Karnataka' and give Tunga, Bhadra, Netravati, Krishna, Kaveri, Bhima as the words for this category. For each word you can give a hint or clue, for e.g. 'Source in Kodagu district' for Kaveri. When you 'play' Kanagram, you will select a category. If you select 'Rivers of Karnataka', you will get jumbled words, one at a time, and you need to guess the word. This word thus builds the vocabulary of students in an enjoyable manner. 'Unjumbling' the word is a creative exercise, making students familiar with anagrams. Later making anagrams of any word can itself be a useful linguistic activity.

Apart from testing students vocabulary, you can also support student language skills by encouraging them to build word lists for different categories and provide meaningful hints/clues. (The clues need not only be literal clues, it can be cryptic also, like in crosswords). For instance, you could set the clue as 'Pandava' for Bhima River. This activity can be a base for students to explore crosswords (with cryptic clues), play the 'Scrabble' game, which involves students identifying words from the letters they have chosen. Solving crosswords is a good language learning activity.

Kanagram allows word lists to be setup in other languages also. So you can set simple word lists in Kannada as well. (Currently Kanagram allows only simple Telugu words, complex/compound letters are not supported).

Anagram maker, is a website resource which generates anagrams for any word you type in.

Reference: Learn_Kanagram

Creating resources using educational tools - Digital Maps and atlases (Geography)

KGeography

Atlas is an essential resource for a Geography teacher. An atlas is required to learn political geography as well as physical geography. KGeography is a Free and open source digital atlas that provides maps of continents, countries and states (political geography). Simple quizzes are available in KGeography to test understanding / memory of different regions.

You can create image files of the maps you are working on, by using the Screenshot application. You can create a text document for that country, by inserting the image and entering some interesting information about the country and its people, their culture, history, vegetation which you may have got from the internet, or your teachers or your friends or family. Try to write about the and any connections you can make among these aspects.

A second resource creation method is to use the quiz’s in KGeography for testing.

Reference: Learn KGeography

Marble

Marble is a virtual desktop globe and world atlas which can be used to create resources on physical geography. It has many digital maps of the Earth. These maps provide information about physical geography of the Earth, including topography, rainfall, climate etc. It also has ‘historical’ maps which give the information about the Earth at various points in time in the past, relating to political regimes at that time.

You can create a text document resource, and use images of the maps you are working on, by using the Screenshot application, for any of the physical geography features like temperature, rainfall etc. You can see the 'Precipitation (July)' and Precipitation (December) maps. You can create a set of questions based on the observations of these maps, for instance - Is there any pattern in the rain heavy zones? Does it depend on the Latitudes? Why is the rain heavy in the south west coastal part of India and less in the Deccan? Why is there a vertical strip adjacent to to the South West coastal area (interior Karnataka) where there is very less rain? These questions can serve as a basis for discussions in the class.

Reference: Learn Marble

Conducting a research study - using spreadsheets to capture, process, analyse data - present analysed information in text and graphical formats

While conducting the action research, you will collect data from your observations, interviews, group discussions etc. You may even conduct a survey. Quantitative data collected from the action research can be tabulated and analysed using the spreadsheet software, such as LibreOffice Calc.

Supposing you have conducted a survey and gathered responses from your classmates or teachers or community members on a topic. You may have closed ended questions, requiring respondents to select one of multiple choices. You can record this information in a spreadsheet, using one column for one data element. For instance, the name of the respondent can be one column, demographic information (age, sex, religion etc) can be entered, one element per column. Responses chosen in closed ended questions can be entered, one question/response per column.

This can be analysed using the 'Pivot Table' feature of the spreadsheet, to derive multi-variate tables.

Reference: LibreOffice Calc