“Talent wins games… but Intelligence wins championships”
The Game Fusion Club is an after school activity which happens once a week between 3-4 pm on Tuesdays. Students from across the five Ekya & CMR campuses joined this virtual session. The objective of this club is to engage students in online gaming and boost memory and focus.
The benefits of virtual gaming include developing creativity, nurturing relationships, and enhancing strategic thinking. It also helps build perseverance, resilience, and improves communication. The experience also builds skills that help students in the future as they focus on various career options. The more complex multi-player games teach strategy, analytics and help assess the risks and rewards, and calls for players to react quickly to changes in the game. The skills acquired become handy in the jobs they take up which rely on problem-solving and strategic thinking. As games allow children to immerse themselves in the virtual world and connect to people from around the world, it could be a great way for them to learn about different perspectives and cultures as well.
The Club showcase was organized as two sessions for Grades 7&8 and Grades 5&6 respectively and about 150 students participated and had fun gaming online. The session began with an introduction to the Club activities and the benefits of the same. This was followed by a presentation of the five games to be played by the participants. The five games were Cricket World cup, Four Pics One Words, Jigsaw Puzzle, Sudoku, and Crossword. Each game was shown and explained by the Club members and Teachers; instructions with links to the same were provided through the chatbox.
The students were then assigned to breakout rooms along with a teacher and a Club member who assisted them in a time of online gaming. Students were asked to choose one, two, or more from the options provided and play the game. It was a synergetic session as students tried their luck at the different games and shared their victories with the other members in the Breakout room.
The game time was followed by a reflection activity on the showcase; student experiences were documented on Mentimeter. Students responded on what they liked best about the session and which game they enjoyed the most; names of games that they knew of that could be played online were also shared. The showcase was a success as students enjoyed the fun, interaction, and gaming experience.
It was yet another exhilarating experience!
I strongly believe that “sharing knowledge is gaining knowledge”. Teaching was never a dream or wish for me! It all started when I volunteered to facilitate arts to students and in this process, I learned a lot and took all opportunities wholeheartedly.
Art is not about drawing or painting. In entirety, it enhances one’s perception and makes us better in our interactions, acceptance of others, collaboration with others, and of course creativity. In short, art is one of the best forms of communication as well said “A picture is worth a thousand words”. It helps us share our thoughts and ideas to others in a very detailed and creative way. As I engage in arts with children, I not only teach students but also learn these critical aspects of art.
Working with students is always fun and not just a ‘hard time’. I have always noticed one thing that whenever one makes an attempt to teach something to someone, in that process one also learns something new. To me, this is the beauty of the teaching profession. It gives immense happiness and satisfaction especially when I engage with young minds like these in the photograph given below:
Lockdown’s due to pandemic brought to us sufferings as well as opportunities. On the one hand, we all had to go through a lot of difficult times as compared to our earlier days and routines. But, on the other side, it opened up a lot to take our creativity to the next level and learn something new to make our lives better.
To me, it was all about using digital media and making the best use of time in a productive manner. I learned some new skills and new ways of teaching to accommodate more students across campuses which would have been impossible otherwise.
I find digital media more fun and also a creative space for learning. But, it cannot completely replace the Canvas which gives me a more practical feel and a fruitful experience of the process of arts while teaching and learning Art.
By
Mr. Karthik E
Visual Artist
Ekya EBTM
Every life has a starting point. Mine was at the paper factory. No actually, my life started as a tree, in a beautiful evergreen forest. I was a small spruce tree amongst my family who by the record, was more than eighty feet taller than me though our age difference was about thirty years. We all stood rooted together and had small conversations with our neighbors, the pines, the hemlocks, the balsams, and many others. We spoke about many things generally, but one dark topic was about these malicious creatures, umm, they were called byumens, no, ah HUMANS!! Legends believed that these creatures were the cruelest of all…. They cut trees down and put us in some big, sharp gigantic cave-like place where we were made into some kind of thin layers called Paper. Well, I met the same fate; I was bunched together and one of my sides was pinned together and “Diary” was written on me. Thus, my new life began, without my family, without my friends, without anybody, or so I thought.
I was placed in a big, bright place where I stayed, alone for weeks. But one fine day, a young pretty-looking human, came towards me and kept staring at me. She picked me up, smiled widely, and took me to her house, hugging me during the entire journey. I was placed in between a few other books on a shelf, and they were all amiable on my arrival and made me feel homely. There were many books, but each had different titles… One said “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, another said “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, “Divergent” and so on. That night, the girl came into the room all cheerily, shut the door, picked me up, and the smile from her face eventually faded away. She started speaking to me, which I understood surprisingly, as we weren’t of the same species, but she doesn’t fit the description of my parents about humans. Her name was Cora, and she was the nicest creature I have ever met.
She told me secrets that she never disclosed to anyone. Her parents were entrepreneurs, and their latest project failed which led to a sudden drop in their financial status. One night, Cora heard her mother wailing and asking her father what to do about Cora’s school and future. On hearing this, she was heartbroken and decided to do something to earn for her family to ease her parents. She took up a part-time job in a cafe close to her school, and the money she earned, she would put it in a small box kept in her parents’ room for a month’s expenditure. Poorcan girl had to work for three hours after school in the cafe cleaning the tables and washing dishes to earn an inadequate amount of money. She often got questioned as to why she arrived late every day, and she would come up with some excuses. She told me that I was the only one who knew about this, and I shouldn’t tell anyone, but I thought it was necessary that her parents know about this, but whenever I spoke, it seemed as if they never heard me. Cora, though looked happy on the exterior, had some deep secrets. Apparently, people bullied her in her workplace and in her school, but she told me that it doesn’t bother her much. Cora told me many secrets for a long time and I think a friendship had been formed between the both of us.
Anyways, years have passed since I have seen Cora. I was sleeping in Cora’s house and woke up in the middle of nowhere in a dusty attic a few months ago. Turns out Cora moved away. I was heartbroken on hearing the news from my friends, as she didn’t even say goodbye, and I thought we were friends. Well, months passed, and I remained idle in the same place, and one day, I saw a bright light enter the room, and in came Cora. She looked at me, picked me up, smiled widely, and hugged me in the same way she did when she first got me from the shop, but this time, I saw her shedding some tears. She took me down to her room, and the sight of it made me reminisce about the time Cora and I spent together. She told me one last thing, “You are the best friend I have ever met and I will never ever forget you. You comforted me when I needed someone, helped me reflect my thoughts, and made me the person who I am”. This made me ambivalent as my existence had positively impacted her life.
I was glad that I made such a difference in a young human’s life though I wasn’t logically alive then. She was my only companion as I never met my parents after the humans’ invasion into my home. I was first very biased and thought not to open up to any human being as they destroyed my parents and me, but Cora proved the fact that not everyone was like that, and she brought about a change of opinion in me. She depended on me and told me everything, even though she never heard me talk. I would like to end by saying that even though I am not breathing right now, I am helping you all by being your closest friend and I will always be there for you to depend on me. Yes, I am a DIARY and I am proud of it!
By
Rhea Murali,
Grade 10
Ekya JP Nagar
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