Google India celebrates Teachers' Day

Around the world, teachers and students have found that they can support their teaching and learning with technology in the classroom. Whether it’s collaborating on stories or projects with Google Docs, or going one-to-one with students using Chromebooks.

Here in India, teachers have also been using technology to enrich student learning. From giving rural students access to new online tools, to developing online resources for other teachers to use, or finding new ways to help gifted students accelerate. This Teachers’ Day we wanted to celebrate some of these teachers from across India who are championing technology in the classroom and helping their students thrive.

Bringing web-based education to rural areas

Dipak Tatpuje is a senior lecturer at Satara Polytechnic with over 30 years teaching experience. He has pioneered technology in rural classrooms and trained over 150 rural teachers on how to use free online tools. He believes technology can be a great equalizer and says that empowering rural students through technology “allows them not to spread their wings and walk further in life.”

Balaji Jadhav is another rural teacher who supports teachers. A few years back Balaji taught himself HTML on YouTube, then developed a series of interactive, HTML-based online tests which are now used by over 500 teachers everyday. He launched a blog for fellow educators in Maharashtra, and is now an advisor for five state government departments and trains teachers in 36 school districts about how to use blogs for teaching.

Nurturing student’s abilities

As director of the Gifted Education and Research (GEAR) Foundation in Bangalore, Sarvesh Srinivasan champions technology adoption for personalized learning.  He ran a 10-month pilot program with Google Apps for Education for middle schools students to help teachers identify students’ strengths and tailor their teaching for them

Bringing digital tools to urban schools

Sangeeta Gulati is the Head of the mathematics department at the Sanskriti School in New Delhi, and has championed the use of technology in the classroom for over a decade. Recipient of the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching in 2011, Sangeeta encourages her students to be creative with technology. She is currently focused on building her students collaborative learning skills, and says she finds herself “a stronger, more effective teacher who is connected with her students” using Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks.

A huge thanks to these teachers, and all the teachers across India that use technology to enrich their teaching and their students learning.