Show, don't tell

Two years ago 15 yearold Purva Handore found it difficult to remember her history and biology answers during her Class 8 exams Little surprise that she adopted the method most students in India adhere to when it comes to heavily theoretical subjects such as History Civics Geography and Biography mdash rote learning There was one small difference in her case though Handorersquos parents unlike many others strongly discouraged rote learning They instead introduced her to Home Revise mdash an audiovisual CD learning system which digitises textbooks in an animated format Sixteen yearold SSC student Purva Handore claims that using the Home Revise CDs has helped her score better grades Pic Shadab khan Next year Handore will appear for her SSC boards and swears by the Home Revise CDs which she claims have helped her remember the oncedreaded subjects with ease and score 1015 per cent more marks in examinations ldquoTextbooks for History Geography and Civics in Class 8 get monotonous after a while Also understanding and retaining so much theory all at once is very difficultrdquo recalls Handore Help at home ldquoHome Revisersquos CDs animate every paragraph in the textbook I recall facts and dates with greater ease nowrdquo says Handore For Yogesh Kore founder and managing director of Home Revise the experience is much like watching a movie ldquoYou ask a child to narrate a scene from their favourite movie and heshe will recall it mdash even rattle off dialogues mdash so accurately that you wonder whether children study movies as part of their curriculum Such is the effect of an audiovisual medium on childrenrdquo Sixteen yearold SSC student Purva Handore claims that using the Home Revise CDs has helped her score better grades Pic Shadab khan Harshada Pande teacher with a junior college in Mulund who recommended the Home Revise series to her son who will appear for his SSC boards this year says ldquoIn case of the traditional chalk and talk and textbook method children tend to be physically present and mentally absent in classChildren grasp more through observation and hence animated CDrsquos are a very good option to lear and reviserdquo Study can be fun really Yogesh started Home Revise with his wife Leena in 2008 Home Revise has animated all textbook lessons for English SemiEnglish and Marathi medium for the SSC board from Class one to class 10 They have also animated lessons for all subjects of the CBSE board from class seven to class 10 Their range also includes animated series for Class 11 and 12 in the science streamThese however do not include the languages ldquoBack in 2002 when we both worked in London we visited several schools there and found that new technologies and innovative methods such as audiovisual CDs were common practice and students really enjoyed learningrdquo says Leena who worked as a software designer while Yogesh was a manager at a publication house ldquoTheir classrooms were in stark contrast to most Indian ones I observed that learning was not a stressful exercise for the kids it was rather funrdquo says Yogesh Soon after over the years the couple began visiting schools on all their assignments abroad and were abreast with the learning techniques adapted by the school authorities ldquoWe have visited schools in France Switzerland Singapore Thailand and Dubai and thoroughly researched techniques that they have adopted in the classroomsrdquo says Yogesh Yogesh later switched careers and started his coaching classes in Thane in 2006 Lessons from abroad ldquoI tried to adopt the techniques I had seen in schools abroad Once in 2006 for instance I recorded my lectures and gave CDs to my students so they could revise better Thatrsquos when the idea of animation struck merdquo recalls Yogesh The couple soon put together a team of experts and launched their first round of animated CDs in 2008 The turning point for Home Revise came in 2010 when chairman education committee of Raigad Zilla Parishad Balaram Patil who was happy seeing the utility of the CDs for his own son asked for 300 Zilla Parishad schools in Raigad to initiate the Home Revise learning system ldquoWe have five separate teams comprising 150 members who coordinate the task of animating textbooks They are the research team the content designers the storyboard team the animators and the quality check departmentrdquo The research team explains Yogesh analyses all the available study material in the market for a particular board after which the content designers develop content that is easy to follow The content then is recorded in an audio format The storyboard team joins in and comes up with animation that works best with the content and the animators then incorporate the images in the CD ldquoLastly the qualitycheck department reviews the animated CDs and concludes whether it will be useful for a student to understand hisher textbook lessons better If the answer is in the negative the CD is sent back to the research team and the process starts from scratch We revise our content every year so our CDs are current and relevant to the changing school curriculumrdquo says Leena Home Revisersquos animated CDs are not available in the market ldquoIf a student or school wishes to purchase our CDs they must contact us directly and we send our counsellors over They explain about the utility of the CDs and give the students schools a demo too If the student or school believes that the CDs will enhance their learning only then are they encouraged to purchase the productrdquo explains Leena Home Revise currently has 80 counsellors in Mumbai and 400 counselors across Maharashtra ldquoAs a Chinese proverb goes one picture is equal to a thousand words We live by that and that alonerdquo says Yogesh