By Deepa Thapa, Senior Officer: Curriculum and Training at OLE Nepal | Aug 2018

Dharma Raj Joshi is a tall man with an amazing personality. He is kind-hearted and quite expressive. He loves sharing his ideas along with some personal stuff without any hesitation, even with a new group of people. He has great esteem for what he is doing for his livelihood. He can easily open up with concerned persons and speaks very naturally. His tone of Doteli language adds a sweet flavor to his expressions. In the beginning of his career, Mr. Joshi worked in India, but he later returned to Doti and started working in the community school near his home. He is now teaching primary school students in Shree Kaladhunga Basic school in Doti, which is one of the 15 schools in Doti where the laptop program was launched in 2017.

During the initial training in August 2017, we got a chance to discover his skills. He is a really interesting person whom we had the pleasure of getting to know. Before basic training, he was not familiar with computers. In the beginning, he was worried just because he didn’t know how to use a computer. He wondered how he would be able to get through the training without having basic computer skills. Despite having teaching experience of several years, he had very low confidence in the technical aspect. However, his positive learning attitude was his driving force and he finally learned to use XO laptops successfully while navigating digital learning materials developed by OLE Nepal.

Before getting acquainted with the machine, he was afraid of one more assumption in his mind. Mr. Joshi thought that if he clicked on any wrong buttons on the keyboard, then the laptop would immediately stop working, but thankfully his expressive nature helped him get rid of doubts and confusions. He shared and asked questions about anything he was unsure of. Although he had confused eyes and shaky hands in the first two days of initial training, he has finally made huge progress thereafter. At in-school training in December 2017, OLE’s team got a chance to observe his ICT integrated class. It was just awesome.

During the refresher training in June 2018, Mr. Joshi gave us another opportunity to observe ICT integrated teaching practice. He proved himself to be a skilled and child-friendly teacher when he taught a story “जुनकिरीको जन्मदिन” (Firefly’s birthday) from OLE Nepal’s E-Pustakalaya in front of the trainees. Despite the presence of the principal, highly experienced and skilled teachers, resource persons, and visitors, he handled his practice class very well. He was able to make his learners follow him properly. He made his class interactive by engaging learners in participatory activities. Mr. Joshi sometimes threw questions about the events of the chapter. He always asked his learners to speak up or express their thoughts/views regarding the lesson to improve learning ability.

It seemed like Mr. Joshi was very proficient with laptops and digital materials. No disturbances in the momentum flow were observed during his ICT integrated class. Actually, his art of teaching was just amazing. The regard that he showed towards learners was admirable and the clarity in his voice made things more interesting. He read text as if he was reciting a poem, which was another good part of his teaching. All the trainee teachers supported him well. After seeing them comfortable with ICT, it left us – the trainers, very satisfied. The progress they have made so far has energized OLE Nepal to move forward with more excitement. We're very much thankful to all the teachers who are turning our dreams of shaping the future come true.