WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS 2016-17

The beginning of the New Year was wonderful for the students of classes VI, VII and VIII as they got a chance to interact with Ms.Scharada Dubey during the workshop conducted in the school on 04-01-17. Ms. Scharada Dubey is a renowned author and her journey of writing began 22 years ago. Till now she has penned down 16 books in her name and her 17^th is awaited to be published in 2017.
Most of her books are for the children like - "Best Days of My Life", "Growing Up", "I Have Got It Into Me", etc which motivate children to believe in themselves, boost up their confidence and make them feel that they can also become great. Her book "Monkey's in My Backyard" shows her love towards animals. The book "Hanuman's Heart" describes how the little naughty Hanuman grew up into a wise and helpful Hanuman.
Ms. Scharada showed all these books to our students and described about each book in short, through multi-media preentation. She also read few pages from the books and children found it very interesting. The workshop ended with a 'Question-Answer Round' in which the students asked her few questions like - "At what age she started writing?", "Was she nervous when her first book was going to be published?","Why did she write mostly for children?", "Did she have any other dream to become, before she received first prize in Internation Writing Competition organized by Common Wealth?, etc. She answered all the questions patiently and satisfied the students. The students are eager to read her inspiring books and perhaps some of them may also become great authors in future.

It was very prestigious thing for Hillwoods School to be selected among over 30000 schools in India to compete in ATL (Atal Tinkering Labs: Innovation Challenge) and an even more prestigious thing to be selected from over a 100 schools in Gujarat. Atal Tinkering Laboratories are being established to nourish and foster innovative ideas of young minds, especially school children. With afore said vision Atal Innovation Mission is establishing Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across India. Each school had to present 2 challenges found in its vicinity and had to come up with a innovative way to combat this problem. After thorough discussions Hillwoods finalized the challenges as 'Water logging' and 'Waste created due to Styrofoam'. A team was selected for this competition which was to be held art Pune. Vaibhav Vijay, Hansit Patel and Abhishek Joshi for this purpose and the teacher accompanying them was Mrs.Sushma Jha. After reaching Pune on a very cold night our contestants prepared throughout the night for the competition which lay ahead of them in the morning. In the morning Hillwoods School was given its time slot during which it had to present its challenges. Hillwoods presented the topic in pace with the time slot and the judges applauded the creative solutions that the students had come up with. But the exposure and the experience Hillwoodians got while on this trip was incomparable to any other competition. And finally it was time to go home as the competition ended. We were told that the results were to be declared within a fortnight. And Hillwoods awaits this result eagerly while maintaining an attitude of indifference to whether it won or not.

As we participate in the digital revolution, there is a need to teach our children to be socially responsible, digital citizens and train them to be creators and inventors of technology. It is therefore imperative to teach computing which promotes problem solving, computational thinking and critical reasoning skills at par with Mathematics and Sciences. CSpathshala is an initiative to bring a modern computing curriculum to Indian schools. Google has provided seed funding to start this initiative. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) India as a part of its CSpathshala education initiative, organized a workshop on October 22 from 9:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at School Of Computer Studies, Ahmedabad University, AG Campus, Ahmedabad. The workshop was aimed at to promote teaching computing as a science to develop problem solving and computation thinking skills. Two teachers of Computer Department, Ms. Ekta Shroff and Ms. Priya Ganjoo attended the workshop.
The workshop started with the lighting of E-Diya by all the eminent personalities. Professor Madhavan Mukund of CMI, a Research and Education Institute in Chennai delivered the keynote address. He mentioned that there is a widespread lack of knowledge of what constitutes the core of computing. He very lucidly explained what should be the objective of teaching computing in schools and how the current computing curriculum in schools is extremely dry, redundant and not challenging at all. He illustrated through simple examples like "Problem of scheduling classes", how can we show young people how computer science can be used to solve a variety of problems, from basic problems in mathematics to answering questions in biology. He stressed on the fact that we should focus on teaching computing techniques which promotes problem solving, algorithmic aspects, computational thinking and critical reasoning skills, the tools to implement those could be any. He emphasized on activity based learning and how computer science concepts can be taught without any programming tool.
Mr. Vipul Shah, TCS, co-lead CSpathshala, highlighted that problem solving capability is very different from just being able to use the computer and data entry tools and CSPathshala is looking at developing thinking capabilities in students. He reinforced that the quality of CS education depends on quality curriculum and they are participating an shaping CS curriculum and teaching aids that will be freely available to all the schools under creative common license. He mentioned that CSpathshala is carrying out a pilot project for 20 schools in Pune for grades 1-5 for academic year 2016-17. He also mentioned that CSpathshala initiative will be rolling out a teachers training program so as to teach computing as a science in all schools from 2017-18. The workshop ended with a demonstration on "How to create a website through google sites" and "How to create a simple animated application using Scratch tool" even without actually knowing programming language.
Technology is changing at a rapid pace hence continuous training of teachers is imperative. It is therefore important to conduct training programs and create and nurture a community of teachers. The workshop was extremely fruitful and relevant in this context.

A workshop on "Art & Craft was conducted by Ms. Hemali Mewada on June 22, 2016. In this workshop different techniques related to art and craft were demonstrated by "Learning by doing" methodology. Teachers were taught different styles of decorations to make the class boards more decorative and attractive. Teachers were also given knoweldge on proper use of color combination. Teachers also learnt how to make different type of borders. Teacher enjoyed the workshop.

Inhouse departmentwise workshops were conducted as follows:

• Workshop on "Teaching Techniques in Science" was conducted by Ms. sindhu S. Pillai on June 20, 2016.In this workshop various teaching methods involved in sceince teaching likw learning by doing, case study method, project method, mind mapping were discussed to make the learning process more interesting and interactive.
• Workshop on topic "Mathematics Laboratory" was conducted for Maths Department by Ms. Priyanka Singh on Jun 22, 2016. In this workshop various topics like "What is Maths Lab?", Why a Maths Lab is required?", "How a Maths Lab can be properly used?" were explained and different ideas for setting up Maths Lab were discussed with the teachers.
• Workshop on Methods of Teaching Social Science" was conducted for Social Science Department on June 22, 2016. Different teaching methods like Discussion, Questioning, Lecture, Problem Solving, Co-operative Learning, Home Assignment, Dramatization, Field trips, etc were discussed with the teachers, so that learning becomes more effective and child centered.

�If you like a clean environment, Thank a Vulture!� Its truly amazing how nature without even having to do anything can easily connect people. Grab our attention, without us even realising. And this is exactly what it did. A workshop on-�save vultures� was held on the 6th of May. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Satish Pande. He is an eminent radiologist who is a guide to doctors doing their MD. By hobby he is an ornithologist who has done PhD from Pune University. He is also a fellow of the Linnean Society, one of the highest honours. The vulture population in India has suddenly declined in the past 12 years. And that too by a whopping 99%. Vultures in India are at a very precarious position, tipping dangerously towards extinction. Vultures are the natural cleaners of the environments. They feed on dead and decaying animals, thus ensuring the cleanliness of the environment. Earlier, when humans were less self-centred and thought about other life forms, the vultures thrived. The Parsi Communities believed that their bodies should be left untouched after death so that vultures can come and feast on the bodies. They believed that only after doing so will they have done something for the environment. But now, due to the ban put on such practices, the vulture population fell. Their diet is now scarce. But all hope is not lost yet. It is a delight and a relief to hear that certain foundations-like the Ela foundation- have taken an initiative for the conservation of vultures. But only through everyone�s contribution shall these vultures thrive again. Hopefully, through our joint efforts we shall now see an incline in vulture population instead of a decline. All in all it was a very interactive and educational workshop. The spontaneous claps, attentiveness and engrossment are clear indicators of such. And we hope that our students spread awareness and do their part in saving the vultures.

On April23, 2016 a seminar was held in Hillwoods�s auditorium. A representative of AAI Edutours named Rohit Dhave hosted the seminar. The first thing he did was to thank Hillwoods for giving his company a chance to represent his company�s motive and to tell about the tours which the company is planning for school students. Class VI to X were attending that seminar. The representative Mr. Rohit Dhave told us about their company that, hat their company was a National Award Winner in 2000 and was the first company to plan customized tours. He told that their company, this time, was taking school students to USA. In USA the students were going to visit three places namely Orlando, Nigra falls and New York city. Then he told us about the whole 10 days planning which included:

• On 1st day the students will board in flight to New York which will be a direct flight namely United Airlines. After reaching New York they will take a domestic flight to Orlando and then the rest of the day will enjoy at the 5 star hotel, namely International Palm Hotel.
• On 2nd day they will do the same enjoying in the hotel.
• On 3rd day they will visit NASA and will enjoy three types of adventurous activities and, working in pairs, they will construct their own rockets and the rocket will even be tested in the rocket ground, the best rocket will be awarded, and then they will be meeting a real astronaut and be having lunch with them and talking to them.
• On 4th day they will again visit NASA, but this time they will visit the Hall of Fame, Rocket garden and will watch an IMAX 3D movie about space. On the same day in the evening they�ll visit the famous Cocoa Beach and will have fun there.
• On 5th day they will visit Disney Land in Orlando and then will even watch the evening parade of Disney Land.
• On 6th day they will go to Island Adventure which is full of amazing rides and will have fun there.
• On 7th day they will visit New York again by Domestic flight and will take a Mercedes Bus to Niagra Falls.
• On 8th day they will go near to the huge Nigra Falls by a ferry and then will enjoy watching the world�s largest waterfall and then they will again go back to New York and visit Empire State Building and will go to the top floor by glass elevator and then will enjoy taking the whole view of New York City
• On 9th day they will visit United Nations Building, then will go to Museum of History Where they will see 3,00,000 different kinds of historical things and then they will go for shopping and then and then will visit World Trade Centre (also known as Ground Zero).
• On 10th and the last day they will visit Statue of Liberty, then Elise Island which is a port and then, at last, they will board to come back to India at Mumbai Airport.

The orientation on GMUN-Gujarat Model United Nations was held on April 06, 2016 for the students of classes 8 to 10 in the auditorium from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. The members of the GMUN - Mr. Neil Dattatreya, Mr. Arihant Chopra, Ms. Richa Shah, Ms. Pratiti Shah and Mr. Jaineel Shah briefed the students regarding GMUN and its objectives, way of functioning and the procedures undertaken for registration and membership. They highlighted the benefits of joining the organization. They particularly stressed on reclusive students and students with low self-esteem and stage fright to participate in the upcoming session to be held at Narayani Heights.
GMUN provides a good platform for students to get exposure on various topics regarding different current issues - not only national but also international affairs. It was an informative and fruitful workshop which gave a lot of insight to students.

Socially Useful Productive Workshop (SUPW) was conducted on 16/4/16 from 8.30 to 10.00 a.m. The theme of SUPW workshop was "Best Out of Waste". Children brought some waste material and they made beautiful and useful things like live Aquarium, Bird-Feeder, Pen-Stand, Puppet, Jewellery Box, Flower Pot, Candleholder and different types of Fruit Baskets. They showed full enthusiasm in this workshop. They learnt many new things from their teachers and classmates and also learnt the value of waste things. In this workshop they enjoyed a lot.