Open a book and hitch a ride to an extraordinary world!

Hello, hello!

It's been terribly long since I wrote my last post. A lot has happened between then and now, the most significant developments being giving birth to my son (BaSha- pseudonym and short for baby Shah) and getting really close to finishing my PhD.

This post is the first one that I am writing sort of on-demand. Recently, I shared with my friends and family over Facebook about signing up BaSha, PaSha and myself for a program at our library that involves reading 1000 books before sonny boy reaches Kindergarten. This generated interest among them, a lot of whom asked me to share a list of books we have in our personal library* for BaSha. I couldn't think of a better way of doing this other than through my very own blog.

Here you go-

1. Beginner Books series

• The big red book of beginner books
• Fox in socks
• The cat in the hat
• The cat in the hat comes back
• The Lorax
• The A book
• The B book
• C is for clown
• Oh the thinks you can think
• Oh say can you say
• There's a wocket in my pocket
• Please try to remember the first of octember
• Wings of things
• Dr. Seuss's ABC
• Hooper Humperdink..not him!
• A fish out of water
• In a people's house
• The eye book
• The foot book
• The nose book
• The tooth book
• The hair book
• The ear book 
• Old hat new hat
• And to think that I saw it on Mulberry street 
• Green eggs and ham 
• Monster munchies
• I can read with my eyes shut
• Hop on pop
• The shape of me and other stuff
• Mr. Brown can moo. Can you?
• The missing dinosaur bone
• Hand hand fingers thumb
• Would you rather be a bullfrog?

2. Books by Eric Carle

• The very hungry caterpillar
• Polar bear, polar bear, what do you hear
• Brown bear, brown bear what do you see
• Aesop's Fables
• The grouchy lady bug
• The tiny seed
• Does a kangaroo have a mother, too?

3. Books from Indian publishers

• Thakitta tharakitta bouncing ball 
• I can climb
• To market! To market!
• Rooster Raga
• Where's that cat?
• Let's go!
• Carry me mama
• My house
• Pchak! Pchak!

4. Books by Sandra Boynton

• Opposites
• Are you a cow?
• Dinos to go
• Consider love
• Yay, you!
• Blue hat, green hat

5. Miscellaneous 

• How do I love you
• I love you through and through 
• Froggy gets dressed
• Incredible Inchworm
• The zoo
• One yellow lion
• Jungle colors 
• Rabbit's nap
• Where is baby's pumpkin?
• Noisy farm
• That's not my piglet
• Dinner time
• See and spy shapes
• Rupert and the blackberries
• Clifford, the big red dog boardbook
• Good night moon
• Mickey Mouse clubhouse
• Puppy goes searching
• So many places
• Jungle king
• Baby woof woof!
• Show me the honey
• Boy's potty time
• I can go potty
• Farm- touch, feel, and listen
• Words-Lift the tab
• Dear Zoo
• Thomas the tank engine's big blue treasury 
• My first abacus book
• Blue ribbon dad
• What the ladybird heard
• Peek-a-boo little roar!
• Bedtime peek-a-boo
• Maisy's pirate treasure hunt
• My big world book
• My big truck book
• Yes- It's bedtime for Bobo
• Look inside truck
• Silly 1 2 3
• My first words
• Bambi
• Wake up
• Five little monkeys

*Thrifty ideas for expanding your book collection- become a member at a library, exchange books with your friends, requesting friends/family with older children to share books they have outgrown, shop for used books for less than $1 at thrift stores and goodwill stores, buy books at book exhibitions and annual sales at libraries.

The post doesn't end here....

This list is by no means representative or exhaustive of the wealth of children's literature that is out there. Additionally, the books mentioned in the list like any other technology will not automatically get your child to read/like reading. At this point, PaSha thinks that my educator-self has taken over me, which is true and unavoidable. So, I'd like to share some big ideas we hold important as a family to foster BaSha's interest in reading-

1. Reading, like any interest matures over time. At 14-months, BaSha still reads books we read to him as a 3-month old. We keep going back to some books. We outgrew some books.

2. Be genuinely interested in reading a book yourself. Your child will pick up on your interest. PaSha and I both not only enjoy reading with BaSha, but are also quite fascinated ourselves with the profound ideas that good children's literature offers for adults as well.

3. Develop your own routine and style of reading. We often read a book bilingually. We read whenever we feel like it- while driving to some place, while feeding BaSha his meals, while changing diapers, or before bedtime. Nonetheless, we try to read with him for about twenty minutes daily. Of course, he also has his phases when he wants to only flip pages, toss books, or do nothing related to reading books. Around such times for instance, we'll probably just use a story BaSha is familiar with as a starting point to create our own stories by mixing characters and events from our lives and different books (for instance, Hooper Humperdink meets BaSha and friends).

4. Offer variety and give choice. We try to select books for BaSha based on a variety of genres, textures, illustrations, authors, events, themes, and concepts. Although we haven't tried different formats yet, we will eventually venture into options such as audiobooks and interactive books. We even gently push his capacity for books beyond his comfort zone to constantly gauge his readiness for newer types of books. BaSha already has his favorites. We always ask him if he would like us to read specific books from the ones he loves, but also keep adding to his repertoire by introducing newer books.

I guess the final thought I'll leave you all with is that it's never too late to start reading. And if you are looking for inspiration, my favorite go-to place is quotes from Dr. Seuss's books. Before you set out out to do a Google search for that, drop in a line to share the children's books you like that were not on this list and ideas that you practice when reading with a child.

I hope I don't take another four years to write my next post :)

BaSha, during one of our recent library visits.
Just so that you don't judge a book by its cover (pun intended),
 this photo was taken just before he brought down a sea of books on the floor only to toss them around!

A cup of tea solves everything

These days I am preparing for my exams and eagerly waiting to get done with them. No, not to start my vacation but to welcome a whole set of new reading-writing assignments. Unlike my college years in India when I always had the company of some friends to study/work with and socialise over road side food (AND TEA), today its mostly me and the home made cup of tea. 

Over the years, I have come to develop a great love for chai (tea). With the affinity have also come distinct preferences. I know now, I always like sweet and strong chai, cooked only in the Indian style with creamy milk, ginger and lemon grass. I just could not develop an appreciation for coffee. I tried.Whether or not you love chai as much as I do, you gotto see this adventure travel blog, Chai Pilgrimage. In my life time, I promise to go on a soul-searching yatra (journey) such as this one. What do you want to do?

In the picture below, PaSha is relishing on Thepla and Chai. Thepla is a regional speciality from Gujarat, India. It is a delicious indian bread, made of wheat and spices; Thepla tastes better after dunking it in chai. Sad, we ran out of our home made Thepla stock. So for now, I know a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit will help me overcome the stress of an examination. 

Soon, more will come from my side. However, when you comment this time, please do at least one of the following:

1. Share your chai recipe

2. Write about the occasions you ought to have chai

3. Mention briefly about one person who you like having a chai with and why

   

We are all participants in this social and cultural tranformation

कसाकाय?! (Howdy?!)

How pervasive is electricity in your daily life? If you ask me, I'd say electricity is embedded in our everyday social and cultural fabric, influencing just about every action of our lives. If this is too difficult to comprehend, try living just a day without using any device that uses electricity and/or has been produced using electricity. You'll have an answer. Just as electricity became so transformative to how the society functions, we are witnessing and participating in another significant change-the World Wide Web (WWW).

In this entry today, I am going to share key ideas from a talk given by John Seely Brown (JSB) in 1999 titled Learning, Working & Playing in the Digital Age. The timing of the talk may seem dated, but I think his foresight was brilliant, and is very relevant today. Of the things he touches upon, I will focus on some features of WWW and the shifts in the learning it supports. For you to be able to relate to it, I'll use illustrations that are more recent and close to your experiences.

JSB says that the WWW should be perceived as an infrastructure that has the potential to catalyze societal (e.g. friendship, business, dating) and cultural (e.g. forms of communication, language, symbolic expressions) changes in a transformative manner just as the changes electricity spurred over the years, since its inception. But, WWW as a medium is fundamentally different than any other media/technology ever used (book, typewriter, radio, newspaper). It has both reach and reciprocity, is interactive and intuitive. More so, its properties co-evolve with changing technological capacities (Desktop-Laptops-Handheld mobile devices-Smart phones) and societal needs.

However, I think the following are most significant characteristics of the WWW. Previous technologies have largely served individuals with strengths in text-based literacy (newspaper, magazines, text books). Now, with the WWW, multiple intelligences are honored. Think of sending a friend a text from your mobile phone in mid 2000's Vs. posting a video, audio, image, text on a friend's facebook wall. What is more likely to appeal to you? Lastly, because of it transformative potential, the Web is in a S-curve period of innovation, creating new opportunities for learners and for (academic, social, educational, corporate) entrepreneurs. For this, I need not give you any specific examples since I assume you have your field-relevant stories.

So, if we put together all of these capacities, what shifts in (formal and informal) learning can we observe and need to be aware of? Competence in text-only literacy moves to developing the capacity for multi-media literacy and information navigation. Authority based or lecture-based instruction switches to a discovery-based and experiential learning. This requires the willingness to explore and make sound judgments about what information is warranted and worthy, accepting that learning is affective (dependent on personal interests, motivation, emotions), cognitive (in the head) and social (with people), and giving up the traditional dichotomy of an expert-novice. It is important to realize then that intelligence is distributed locally and globally, in physical and virtual space; we have opportunities for apprenticeship in communities of interest we want to be a part of.

This has been a long post and I am going to leave you with the following implications that I think apply to all of us.

1. We ought to be responsible in the knowledge we create, share and consume on the web;
2. Our actions need to be even more purposeful since they are in public scrutiny (which is great, since we can use our voice for something powerful) and they can have far reaching consequences (think of the brilliant use of social media for the recent arab revolutions or even the Lok Pal Bill and support for the Anna Hazare fasting)
3. Empower the less privileged (not just the economically poor, but also those individuals who are not as immersed and comfortable using the WWW tools effectively as you are) by introducing them and familiarizing them to this new medium. 

Take away for today: A video featuring the  EZ cooker  developed by AID India (http://www.youtube.com/user/wilbursargunaraj#p/a/u/2/i24knZZokYI)

Its a simple, powerful, sustainable, eco-friendly (all the cool things of today) idea. You may want to gift it to someone needy (yourself, domestic help, sweeper, driver); it only costs rupees 100 and I can tell you where to buy it from. Alternatively, you may share the link with others and add to their awareness of a great product for good living.

Have a good day,

Mamta

p.s. I am trained to write for an academic audience. I invite suggestions so that I know whether I must keep/modify my style of writing.

शुभ आरम्भ (An auspicious start)

Hello,

I am excited to write my first ever blog post. First, acknowledging the people who encouraged me to start writing- PaSha*, my husband, and Saigal*, a dear friend in India. My brother,  Tumpa*, also in India,  will probably be the reason for me to continue writing and contributing to the blogosphere.  Except for the creation of the blog, today has been an unproductive day. I am preparing for my PhD qualifying/comprehensive exams which are due in less than 3 weeks. This is a 2-day examination wherein I would write essays on the three core areas my program focusses on: Research, Educational Leadership, and Learning Technologies. While thinking about what to write, I created a short topic list that I will focus on in the upcoming blog entries. This, I believe, will give you a peak into my infinite sources of meanderings:

1.  Learning Technologies (Sharing ideas from Learning, working and playing in the digital world [1999] by John Seely Brown- http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/seelybrown4.html)

2. Volunteering (Thoughts from Association of India's Development [AID]- http://www.aidindia.org/main/)

3. Our humble experiment at kitchen gardening. 

And then, I also made another decision when thinking how to personalize this blog. At the end of every blog entry, I will leave you with some thing to explore. This may be an image, a video, a quote, a website, a recipe, a comic strip, a DIY activity among others. 

For today (yes, I am hinting you that I have nothing else to write for today), its going to be CommuniTeach (http://www.communiteach.com/). This is a free to use, social network for learning and teaching.  I have registered myself and cannot wait to use this reciprocal service. While I am not confident what I can help someone with, I sure know I would like help learning to play the guitar, develop and use a blog effectively, learn vegan cooking...(the list is long).

So, go figure! Go wander!

अलविदा (good bye),

Mamta

*Note: Pseudonyms have been used.