India has one of the largest education systems in the world, providing learning to more than 260 million students with around 1.5 million schools. Most of these schools depended on traditional methods of teaching and learning in the classroom, until the COVID pandemic pushed us to revise our existing techniques. 

The blended learning model, defined as ‘a style of education in which students learn via electronic and online media as well as traditional face-to-face teaching’, was seen in some classrooms across the globe, but had experienced little popularity in India. With the migration of classrooms into the digital learning space, and in the interest of further boosting the education sector, the Ministry of Education has mandated blended classrooms as a new method of teaching and learning. Apex educational bodies in India like NCERT & CBSE have already announced their intentions of implementing a hybrid system of schooling with blended learning post the lockdown.

We at Square Panda believe this move towards a blended classroom will benefit learners across India, particularly young learners.

Here are our expert suggestions for setting up successful blended learning models in classrooms across states, divided as per stages:

PLANNING STAGE

• Redefined Educators’ Roles: Educators, particularly anganwadi workers (add link to anganwadi blog post) and primary educators, are the lifeblood of the teaching learning process. In the new blended model, each educator will play a new role with enhanced skill requirements. To see successful implementation, each educator from the ground up has to be trained in 21st century skills, to understand the neuroscience behind early learning and to enable holistic development of children.
• Restructure Curriculum: The existing curriculum needs to be reworked to adopt the NEP 2020 vision of experiential learning in a blended classroom. A flexible design, with multi-platform availability to reach even the most remote of areas, is a good start towards standardisation of education, ensuring no child is left behind.
• Factor In The Digitally Deprived Learners: The NEP 2020 addresses this concern, by concluding that, “the benefits of online/digital education cannot be leveraged unless the digital divide is eliminated through concerted efforts, such as the Digital India campaign and the availability of affordable computing devices. It is important that the use of technology for online and digital education adequately addresses concerns of equity.” Not every child will have access to digital tools necessary to make blended classrooms a success, and if they do, internet connectivity can pose a problem. It would be more effective to take these challenges into account at the planning stages itself, and work with tools and aids that provide easy-to-access offline content which can reach learners even in the heartlands without any trouble.
• Private + Public Collaborations: The ed-tech sector in India is booming, as evidenced by an Omidyar Network India & RedSeer Report, which estimates that by 2022, the K-12 ed-tech market in India will be worth USD 1.7 billion. This trend can be used to the government’s advantage. Partnerships and wide scale collaborations with educationally inclined companies and foundations can bring in the necessary innovation and tools that turn the NEP 2020 vision into a reality. 

IMPLEMENTATION STAGE

• Retraining Educators: Every educator involved in ECCE needs retraining to acquire new-age skills that will help them optimise technology at the ground levels, for better teaching and learning experiences. The training must involve the currently envisioned pedagogy, keeping in mind the young learners’ educational needs. Again, NEP 2020 recognises this, adding value to content creation by teachers themselves, adding that they need to be trained and equipped with digital knowledge to be able to create online content modules with ease.
• Using Aids & Tools: Adopting blended learning models in classrooms across states would be easier with digital tools, to aid with implementation and future hand holding and support, for workers at all levels. 

REVIEW STAGE

• Pilot Studies: Administrators can test the efficacy of programs and plans to be used in their blended learning program with a scaled down group, as a precursor to a complete roll-out. These results can be used for continuous improvement, to decide on the preferred forms of e-content, areas of challenge, and more.
• Different Blended Learning Modes To Suit Requirements: Face-to-face interactive learning sessions are extremely crucial to the success of blended learning classrooms, and need to be factored into the program structure, after the planning and implementation process. As states are armed with suitable knowledge about the extent of implication blended learning has on overall outcomes, they can suitably identify different modes of blended learning to suit each subject, classroom, district, and state. 

While the recent pandemic pushed the Indian education system to adapt to a new way of learning, we saw a new beginning with more opportunities to bring in equality to learning. There is a need to seize this chance, making a concerted effort to impress the need for blended classrooms and learning across our country.

India has always been ahead of the curve, setting up schemes for early childhood development while the rest of the world was just talking about it, says Arjan de Wagt, UNICEF India’s cross-sectoral coordinator for early childhood development. The Indian government’s department of social welfare launched the National Policy for Children in 1974, which highlighted India’s commitment to “provide adequate services to children, both before and after birth and through the period of growth, to ensure their full physical, mental and social development.” A year later, in 1975, India launched its Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, with the help of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). One of the largest and most unique integrated early childhood programs in the world, the goal of ICDS was to help feed, educate, and care for vulnerable kids and their mothers. 

ICDS services were offered through a network of anganwadis spread out across every region in India. According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, every urban or rural community of 400 to 800 people has at least one anganwadi center. In each anganwadi centre, an anganwadi worker takes care of women and children, educates the community, and collects health and nutrition data on women and children. Data from 2017 states that anganwadis delivered preschool services to close to 33 million children.

Presently, official government data shows there are 13.77 lakh anganwadi centres operational in India, with a strength of 12.8 lakh workers and 11.6 lakh helpers. Each anganwadi worker is assigned to approximately 250 homes; this worker knows everything about her community-which family requires prenatal help, which household requires a supply of vitamins, how many homes have young learners, and how old each of them is. These are the people taking care of early education, nutrition, and health in rural areas. Anganwadi workers are connected to the community, to the parents, the children, in a way no other educator is.

Anganwadi centres face a host of challenges-multiple responsibilities of which early childhood education is only one, overpopulation leading to an unfavourable teacher-pupil ratio, crumbling infrastructure, among other problems-and still, anganwadi workers find ways to beat the odds and support their charges at all costs. *Read examples of how anganwadi workers (and other educators) are helping prevent a learning loss during the pandemic, here.

Anganwadi centres are the lifeblood of the rural educational landscape in India and can sometimes be the only foundation for learning these children will ever get.

Acknowledging the worth these centres bring to early education, food, and nutrition, The Women and Child Development Ministry, under whose jurisprudence the anganwadis fall under, plans to upgrade services and facilities at 2.5 lakh anganwadi centres over five years under the Saksham Anganwadi Scheme, according to an Economic Times report dated December 2019. 

The NEP 2020 too, recognised the anganwadi’s contribution, mentioning, “To prepare an initial cadre of high-quality ECCE teachers in Anganwadis, current Anganwadi workers/teachers will be trained through a systematic effort in accordance with the curricular/pedagogical framework developed by NCERT.“

What Can We Do To Support Anganwadis To Improve The Quality Of Education?

• Support from multiple levels/stakeholders: The anganwadi centres don’t exist in silos; they are an intrinsic part of the community and must be treated as such. Strong guidance and backing are required across all levels, starting from the homes and moving up to the policymakers. There is a need to understand each problem these centres face, address each one, and work on plans and schemes to improve the quality in each anganwadi.
• Develop their skills through training programs: To ensure better outcomes across anganwadi centres, it is imperative that these catalysts of change are exposed to holistic development programs. Take Square Panda‘s Anganwadi Workers Upskilling Program, for instance, which empowers them with knowledge of ECCE and methods to create a conducive learning environment, to make children school ready and transform the anganwadi centre to their fullest potential. Our trainers can even teach in multiple vernacular languages for optimal understanding.
• Create a more comprehensive support system using AI and ML: Technology can be wielded to develop tools and aids to reduce anganwadi workers’ burden. Problems and queries can be dealt with quickly and expertly, using multilingual applications that connect anganwadi workers with early learning experts.
• Develop the centres themselves: A positive experience in these centres could translate into a journey into formal schooling, thereby improving their futures. At present, many anganwadis suffer from a lack of essential architecture and resources, making them less inviting to impressionable young minds. Recognising the worth of developing these centres, the NEP 2020 has mentioned in its policy a plan to strengthen anganwadis with “high-quality infrastructure, play equipment, and well-trained Anganwadi workers/teachers.“

Anganwadis nourish our children in the most crucial period of their lives, a period when their brain develops the most; to ensure universal access to ECCE, these centres need all-round support and training in pedagogy, digital literacy, and foundational literacy and numeracy.

See how Square Panda works to upskill anganwadi workers, here.

Yesterday, December 3rd, was International Disability Day. Promoted by the United Nations since 1992, the significance of this day is observed around the world. At Square Panda, we believe inclusive classrooms providing access to quality teaching learning opportunities for all young learners and educators is a step towards a nation without discrimination. The Indian education system is addressing the learning crisis via the NEP 2020, and is working to provide equitable access to education, particularly early education, for all types of learners so children from varying socio-economic backgrounds and educational needs don’t suffer a learning loss.

Bringing About Inclusivity And Equality In Education

Education that reaches even the most disadvantaged and vulnerable so that they learn in the same way and classrooms as more advantaged children, requires a joint effort by all sections and levels of society.
– At the community level: After eradicating stigma and discrimination from the society, each stakeholder (parents, policymakers, students, etc.), need to be educated about the benefits of inclusivity in the classroom, for them and for the future of India.
– At the school level: Educators need to be trained to handle developmentally varied needs in multi-age classrooms, along with equal access to quality teaching-learning tools that personalise as per individual learning needs.
– At the national level: While the NEP 2020 gave a great impetus to equality in the Indian education sector, this proposal must be followed by complete support during implementation of plans by each state across India. Before, during, and after implementation of NEP-aligned programs, regular and continuous evaluations and assessments must be conducted, to ensure all children across India are reached by the proposed services.

Square Panda’s vision follows this principle of equal education for all, right from our inception.

Square Panda’s Origin Story

Square Panda was born out of our CEO and co-founder Andy Butler’s struggle to find appropriate learning resources for his dyslexic daughter.

Andy’s daughter was in Grade 1 when she was diagnosed with dyslexia. Her parents had noticed her turning from a happy child into a moody and frustrated one, who also often struggled with reading. Their search for appropriate learning resources to help her led them to consultants, special educators, and due to his wife’s contacts at Stanford University, some of the top researchers in the field. At this point, Andy began wondering how parents who lacked access to the contacts he did helped their children. Andy realised he needed to democratise the learning, making it accessible to all parents and children globally. Today, the work we do at Square Panda is a personal mission of Andy to impact early literacy and early learning, whether the learners are dyslexic or not.

Square Panda’s Work To Promote Inclusive Education

Square Panda is at the forefront of the changing educational landscape, supporting the Indian government in its efforts to provide equal access to early childhood education.
In Our Early Learning Programs: Square Panda focuses on multisensory and inclusive foundational learning programs to meet students’ diverse learning needs. Our adaptive platform uses AI software to personalise learning to individual children, helping tailor curriculum as per the requirements of each child.
In Our Educator Empowerment Programs: Our unique training programs empower educators with new-age skills and technical know-how, along with an in-depth understanding of how a child’s brain develops as they learn, adding in an important element of neuroscience understanding. Each program also equips educators with a working knowledge of the English language, furthering their Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking skills for better professional development.

Read more about our programs, here.

An inclusive system of education values unique contributions by students of all backgrounds, allowing diverse groups to grow side-by-side. Square Panda is collaboratively working with states across the country to bring inclusivity into ECCE in India, with its robust teaching and learning programs.

India is a land of multiple religions, cultures, ethnic groups, and languages, which come together to give our nation its status as a diverse country. We also boast of the largest education system in the world, catering to more than 260 million children. Social mobility makes the crowd in the classroom more and more diverse by each year; with such a diverse population, a crucial need for inclusive learning arises, which can successfully cater to the diverse learning needs of each student.

The need for inclusive classrooms emerges right from early childhood, which is the critical period of brain development. 

The ASER 2019 report shows 90% of children in the age group of 4-8 years as enrolled in some type of educational institution. Of these, a large proportion of 5-year-olds was unable to perform expected tasks with ease, with children from less advantaged homes affected disproportionately. At this stage of development, early learning experts recommend students should be developing cognitive, social, and emotional skills as well as the conceptual foundations needed for formal schooling. While the recent policy released by the Department of Education (the NEP 2020) does mention a need to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030”, to create a force of literate future-ready youth, we need to translate the power of words into robust initiatives that can create a truly inclusive learning environment.

WHAT DOES INCLUSIVE EDUCATION LOOK LIKE?

The basic premise of inclusive education is that all children receive equal access to education rather than be segregated based on their individual, educational, social, emotional, financial, linguistic, or physical impairments.

Inclusive classrooms aim to bring all students together regardless of their strengths or weaknesses in any area and seek to maximize each child’s potential.

TODAY, WHAT ARE THE NEEDS AND CHALLENGES FOR ACHIEVING THE GOAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION?

While the government of India has made strides in adopting inclusive policies to provide an equitable education for all, we still have a way to go before we can cater to multiculturalism and diverse learning needs successfully. The current education system in India faces some challenges for achieving inclusive education:

• A lack of trained educators.
• Large class sizes with multi-age classrooms.
• Linguistic diversity posing a challenge for educators.
• Marginalisation based on socio-economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.

HOW QUALITY EDUCATION CAN BE EFFECTIVELY AND EFFICIENTLY DELIVERED FOR DIVERSE GROUPS OF CHILDREN? 

The need of the hour is to have equal access to high-quality education right from the foundational ages, across geographical and socio-economic boundaries. For this vision to materialise, the Indian education system needs to adopt certain practices:

Educator Training, Empowerment, & Education: An educational system is only as good as its educators. If learning has to be streamlined, yet personalised and adapted to individual learning needs, educators, anganwadi workers, and balwadi workers across India need to be empowered to recognise and instruct as per the diverse learning needs. The NEP 2020 recognises the importance of training educators, by adding this clause to its document: “The awareness and knowledge of how to teach children with specific disabilities including learning disabilities will be an integral part of all teacher education programmes, along with gender sensitization and sensitization towards all underrepresented groups in order to reverse their underrepresentation.”

Adoption Of Adaptive Software: From the ground up, educational institutions need to equip themselves with adaptive software and technology, to help teachers create a holistic blended classroom that allows them to personalise learning as per each student’s learning level.

Changing The Mindset: While educators work on imparting education from the early stages itself, a collaborative effort needs to be undertaken to involve parents in the teaching-learning process. All stakeholders in the learning process-the parents, the educators, the policymakers-need to work in tandem to see successful learning outcomes in inclusive classrooms.

Need For Flexible, Adaptive Curriculum And Learning Tools: Every child learns differently, and a one-size-fits-all approach is detrimental to the acquisition of learning. Something that the NEP 2020 mentions too, an adaptive blended curriculum that works with each learner’s learning level, can serve to assimilate students of all kinds and ages into inclusive classrooms.

“Education is the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and equality. Inclusive and equitable education – while indeed an essential goal in its own right – is also critical to achieving an inclusive and equitable society in which every citizen has the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation. The education system must aim to benefit India’s children so that no child loses any opportunity to learn and excel because of circumstances of birth or background. This Policy reaffirms that bridging the social category gaps in access, participation, and learning outcomes in school education will continue to be one of the major goals of all education sector development programmes.” – NEP 2020

Policies provide a good model to promote inclusive education. Presently, we need to transfer learnings from the policy to the education sphere. In a diverse nation like ours, a multicultural perspective in the education sector starting from the foundational stages is what will help us create a truly unified country that boasts equality across the Indian educational landscape.

Multiple articles and research show just how important acquisition of reading skills is, particularly for very young learners. Development of these skills turns emerging readers into independent and fluent readers for life, adding to their global competency, future job prospects, and overall quality of life. Every parent/teacher chooses to introduce the reading habit to the child/student in their life. What happens, though, if an otherwise enthusiastic child suddenly shows a definite reluctance to read? How do you entice young children to make an effort to pick up a book?

Take help from the below tried-and-tested steps, to help you inculcate a reading habit in your little learners:

#1: Create The Perfect Reading Spot.

Finding the perfect book for emerging readers will take experimentation and time, but as adults, you can ensure they are prepared for this experience by setting aside a dedicated reading space to call their own, inside homes and classrooms. Add comfortable pillows, blankets, and bright lighting. Fit in a desk full of books at a height they can easily reach, and voilà, you have a junior reader’s paradise!

#2: Teach By Example.

Your kids look to the closest adults to teach them things, which, more often than not, is you. So pick up a book, and show your kids how much fun reading can be. When they see you reading, it will automatically encourage them to try it themselves.

#3: Take Reading To The Next Level.

Forcing your kids to read can make them view the reading habit, which is already hard enough to acquire, as a major chore. Use various tricks and activities to show them that the reading habit is more than just reading, it is exploring new worlds, meeting new characters, and learning new things.
Introduce a new story using life-like images and sound effects (you can get these on the internet; just check the terms of usage).
Encourage more interaction by reading through live-action ‘stage shows’ with your kids acting out their favourite part of a book.
Change up their reading routine slightly; make them read the story aloud to you. Their pronunciation gets a huge boost, along with their confidence level.
Host storytelling competitions amongst the children; the winner gets an extra half hour of playtime with Square Panda, or gets a snack of their choice.

#4: Get A Daily Dose Of Reading In With Square Panda.

Even the most resistant learners will never say no to Square Panda play-learn time! With educational games and an early reading app that is perfect for kids as young as 2 till the age of 8, combined with adaptive technology that personalises according to an individual child’s learning level, you could not ask for more! Additionally, our educational screen time is backed by a curriculum that is completely research-based.

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#5: Ease Up On The Pressure.

Children shouldn’t like reading just because the adults in their life do, nor do they have to read the same books you favour. In fact, the more choice they feel they have in choosing how, when, and which books to read, the more likely they are to turn into fluent and confident readers for life.  Let them discover their own likes and dislikes. Children will be more inclined to become lifelong readers if they are not forced into it. Give them as many different reading options as you can, like, different genres of books, special reading apps, kid-friendly podcasts, and more.

#Bonus Point: Discuss What You’ve Read.

Take a minute to chat about what you just read, whether it was the label on a toy box, or a magazine cover, or even a picture book. Have an open conversation with much structure, so it doesn’t resemble a lesson in any way. Open-ended questions like ‘Why do you think Pan sat on the mat?’ can encourage children to reason with you, asking them to recall a certain page can help their memory. This task has the added benefit of helping develop vocabulary skills, further leading down the path to reading success.

Remember that each child learns to read differently. Let them set their own pace. Provide all the support you can so your child/student feels less self-conscious about coming to you for help.

Want more educational tips and articles just like this? Watch this space for more…
Until then, grab a SquareBox (our very own multisensory educational kit for kindergarten), which not only has the Square Panda phonics early literacy playset, it also boasts loads of additional fun learning materials to make schooling at home a breeze during the lockdown.



Written by Sanjana Shukla (Content Writer, Square Panda India)

The fact that becoming literate opens doors and avenues previously unexplored is known to all. It is the ultimate goal for all parents and teachers, something they spend their lives and careers striving to achieve. Learning to be literate is more than simply having knowledge of the alphabet and the language, however. Literacy also involves developing cognitive skills, preferably during the preschool and kindergarten years. That’s why so much of early education is play alongside learning. Research supports the ‘learning through play’ method, with esteemed psychologist Lev Vygotsky, in his article, Play And Its Role In The Mental Development Of The Child, examining the different components of play and the way they affect a little learner’s just-developing mental functions, and thus concluding that play might not be the primary activity, but, in a certain way, it is the main reason for a child’s development in the preschool years. *At the time Vygotsky conducted his research, in Russia, formal schooling started around the age of 7. So it is fair to include both preschoolers and kindergarteners in his findings. **Vygotsky only looked at play in terms of role-play (kids putting themselves in imaginary situations, kids taking on and acting out roles, and following a set of rules determined by that role). If you need more reasons to convince you learning through play is essential, read on… 1) Play Develops Their Senses: An educational game succeeds in stimulating a young learner’s senses the way simple learning cannot. Using props and educational toys that encourage kids to use multiple senses, including tactile ones, enhances their retention and learning. 2) Play Helps Power Their Mind: Imagine a large battery which you can plug, and voila, your kids’ brains are that much smarter. A learning game is exactly that battery, sparking more engagement and learning in a beginner learner’s mind. Not only are their cognitive skills much more developed, they also exhibit signs of critical thinking, and can understand cause and effect. 3) Learning Games Prompt Physical Play: Not every educational game has users sit passively to learn; the ones catering to a younger audience almost always incorporate an element of kinesthetic learning-whether it is dancing, or singing, or simply getting up and moving around. Boosting large and small motor skills, these games are perfect for added reinforcement of regular learning. 4) Games Boost Creativity: When kids play a learning game, their minds are almost always actively engaged. Whether it is the animated gameplay or the engaging activities in each game, young learners can explore and expand their minds to a greater extent.

Did you know the Square Panda Lagoon game encourages early learners to explore and experiment with making words?

5) Games Are A Confidence Booster: There is a tiny frown of concentration on your kid’s face, which clears away as soon as she realises the letter she was trying to identify is, in fact, the letter ‘A’. The more she gets answers and concepts right, the higher her confidence soars. The bite-sized lessons masquerading as games, and the colourful components both serve to make education simpler and a lot more fun. Finding this stimulating, kids’ success rates increase, which in turn raises their confidence in themselves and their learning ability. 6) Playing Games Helps Kids Play Well With Others: Whether in school or at home, playing these educational games have a positive effect on children’s social and emotional well-being. Playing these games (and sometimes losing) helps them with their emotional maturity; because they are pushed to interact with people—friends, peers, adults around them—these games can also develop their social skills. All this interaction has the added benefit of improving kids’ communication skills as well. Playing, Learning, And The World: Governments around the world have started to recognise and acknowledge the importance of learning through play, and are taking steps (strides, in some countries), to incorporate a ‘play’ element for their young.

• Early childhood development was studied as early as the 1980s, with a study being conducted on children in an underprivileged Kingston neighbourhood in Jamaica. Mothers were taught to interact and bond with their children via play, by community health workers. Focused on reducing developmental delays in at-risk kids, this program was found to have a great effect on the earnings of those kids as adults.

• A global experiment was conducted by BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, to bring play to the world’s most underprivileged communities. Derived from BRAC’s 40 years of building schools for the at-risk members of Bangladeshi society, this program’s curriculum was created by a team of global scholars. Faced with stiff opposition in many communities who feel the ‘play and learn’ model is frivolous and cannot add value to learning, they soon change their minds when they see the results of such play in their now skilled and cognitively-developed children.

Pick An Educational Toy That Delivers Why go for a simple learning tool when you can have one that develops your child’s early literacy skills AND cognitive skills (plus a host of other essential life skills) through cool educational games? Not only that, our learning games are perfect for beginner learners as young as 2 years of age! Square Panda India offers comprehensive early childhood programs that put children on a path toward academic success by setting them up with the tools they need to succeed, and creates the supporting ecosystem needed to ensure lifelong learning and success. To know more, visit ecce.squarepanda.in  Here are some useful videos to explore the topic further: Why Educators Are The Key To Successful Early Childhood Education 5 Reasons India Needs A Strong Early Childhood Education System 8 Activities To Build Social And Emotional Skills In Early Childhood Education You may also be interested in reading some of our blogs on early education: The Economic Impact Of Early Education How Adaptive Learning Can Transform The Early Education System In India Why We Need Phonics In Early Childhood Education We hope that you enjoyed our post on early education. If you have any tips or suggestions please leave a comment below. If you would like to collaborate with us, you can drop us a mail on marketing@squarepanda.in. Follow us so that you never miss out on any updates: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube

He’s got an impressive 24+ years of experience, in multiple disciplines, no less, under his belt. The shot caller at Square Panda India, he was recently promoted to Global CTO. 

He is passionate about his family, basketball, and making a social impact.

Introducing our MD and Global CTO, Ashish Jhalani, who very kindly agreed to sit down with us for a special interview, where he divulges details about his journey to Square Panda, early education, and his favourite character from our games.

Watch the interview here, or read the transcript below:

FROM ECOMMERCE TO EDUCATION. WHAT INSPIRED THAT TRANSITION?

“I spent almost all my life in the e-commerce field since I first started working. Transferring to education was a big decision, but it kind of comes down to wanting to do something more than just build businesses and have an impact on a very little number of people. Here in education, it gives me an opportunity to impact millions of kids, especially here at Square Panda, with us having a presence in the US, in China, and in India, and then obviously, in each one of these countries there are millions of kids that are in need of literacy, and it gives me an opportunity to reach to all of those kids. So yeah, it is more of a social kind of a move at this point. You want to make an impact and not just build businesses, but here, it gives me an opportunity to do both.”

WOULD YOU HAVE USED SQUARE PANDA, HAD IT BEEN AVAILABLE WHEN YOUR CHILDREN WERE YOUNGER? WHAT INFLUENCES YOUR DECISION EITHER WAY?

“At first, challenges: would I want screen time for them? NO! Or yes. But if we looked at the product, I think I would want to use it for my kids. One, because I was a second language learner, my wife was a second language learner, and we wanted our children to obviously learn better than we did. So, I think I would have chosen Square Panda as one of the products for my children to learn from. I myself used different tools initially to learn English, so I think I would use something for my kids as well.” 

AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) AND MI (MACHINE LEARNING), THESE TERMS ARE NOW BEING USED IN THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL SPHERES, EDUCATION. HOW DOES SQUARE PANDA TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS TREND?

“AI and MI are hot topics at this point, be it education or finance. But in education, specially, we are talking about how can AI and MI help. Here at Square Panda, we take ‘first steps’ (referencing the fact that our educational games create a foundation to language learning and early literacy); all of our games are adaptive games. As children are playing these games and learning, each child learns differently. So if your child is making a mistake with a certain letter, word, etc., we recognise that. Obviously, our games ensure that the child has enough practice and enough repetition to learn that particular issue that they were having. That’s just one step. As we build our products further, we are building more algorithms to understand the demographics of the child, to understand what their patterns of learning are, and have them integrated against the new products, the new games, and the new curriculums that we are building up.”

WHAT IS THE SQUARE PANDA MISSION STATEMENT?

“Our mission here at Square Panda is very simple. We want to empower all kids with the power of literacy. We want every child to have education, we want every child to learn a language, and a language that is common across the globe.”

WHAT ARE THE GOALS SQUARE PANDA HAS?

“The goals Square Panda has is to make education and literacy, affordable and reachable to the masses across the world, may it be in China, may it be in India. We want to make sure that every child gets an opportunity to be literate, learn the language of English—which is a primary language across the world—and find better jobs as they grow up.”

WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE CHARACTER FROM OUR GAMES?

“My favourite character in our games is obviously Square Panda. He has got this unique thing–pandas are never square, but he is square…and I like that. So, yeah, my favourite character is Square Panda.”

WHAT SETS SQUARE PANDA APART FROM OTHER EARLY LEARNING SYSTEMS?

“What sets us apart at Square Panda is realistically, our ability to be adaptive. Like I said, every child learns differently. That’s what Square Panda is all about. Now, obviously, we have many other important aspects too, but what differentiates us; one being ‘multisensory’. Our playset is unique in what it offers. It gives the child (the ability) to still continue to develop motor skills, etc. while using the digital adaptive platform. Now, let’s not discount the amount of research that has gone into building our curriculum. Though the user is seeing the games, the children playing it interact with the game, there is a large amount of curriculum that helps them learn, and there are learning goals for everything that the child is doing in our games.

What sets Square Panda apart in most cases is the innovation we bring. We currently have our meta game out—‘SquareLand’—where we are continuously adding more interactions, more engagements to the product, where we can complete the learning goals of each early learner. In addition to that, we have products such as ‘Buddy Reader’ that is coming out that will help children read better. In the future, we have other products that will help the child complete their full cycle of learning–from reading, to writing and recognising letters, etc. So, Square Panda is an innovative company; we are going to constantly be innovating new things. Not everything can be talked about, but there are things that are continuously in the pipeline to be introduced to the markets in India, in China, and in the US.”

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– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India

You know how there is a manual inside every device and product you own/purchase? The one that is extremely important and holds the guide to using said device or product properly? We decided our Square Panda users needed one user guide of their very own, to guide them along their journey to early education and literacy.

We recommend every first-time user read our cheat sheet of instructions, before using our playset and Smart Letters.

Firstly, let us explain the terms we use while referring to the Square Panda phonics playset:

Your guide to using the Square Panda Playset:

Your guide to using the Square Panda Smart Letters:

Why Coloured Letters?

According to a study conducted in 2002, learners performed much better when they were introduced to ‘realistic’ coloured objects, rather than simple black-and-white or even random coloured objects.

Young learners use colour and shape to identify things and describe them. It offers learners a sense of security and stimulation when they are taught using one or two colours. A riot of them, however, seems to make beginner learners anxious and overstimulated.

Yellow (in small amounts) is a happy colour, and boosts growth and development. It can also help stimulate the memory and improve concentration.

The combination of blue and red, purple takes on both their qualities, soothing and calming like blue, and attracting attention, energising the mind, and increasing athletic ability like red.

Caring For Your Playset, Smart Letters:

• Like any other electronic device, taking our playset and the letters for a swim is not the best idea! We did design them to be durable, but if they get wet, dry them off with a cloth as soon as possible.
  Letters not reading correctly? They may have something stuck to their bottom side. Clean the letters with a damp cloth and then dry them thoroughly. Make sure to keep the letter slots of the tray just as clean, as small bits of food or other debris can affect the reading of the letters. If your letters are still giving you a problem, contact us, and we’ll do our best to solve your problem.
  Remember, the settings button uses a ‘long press’ function. We thought that might be enough to fool kids, and prevent them from accessing the settings page. We applied the same reasoning to the ‘adults only’ menu, asking for a code which is entirely in words. The assumption was that if your kids can read those, then they are probably ready for more advanced learning tools.

Come back next week for an in-depth look at our incredible progress monitoring tools for kids…

– Sanjana Shukla, Content Writer, Square Panda India