FRUITS OF MY TREE

FRUITS OF MY TREE

“Man is like unto a tree. If he be adorned with fruit, he hath been and will ever be worthy of praise

and commendation. Otherwise a fruitless tree is but fit for fire. The fruits of the human tree are

exquisite, highly desired, and dearly cherished. Among them are upright character, virtuous

deeds and a goodly utterance.”

(Taken from http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/TB/tb-35.html )

THE FRUITS OF MY TREE are:

• Tolerance
• Determination
• Positive attitude
• Timeliness
• Equilibrium
• Clarity
• Assertiveness
• Sensitivity
• Cooperation

THE BASICS OF MY LIFE are:  

• Live and let live others in happiness.
• Be the man of Character/ Rectitude of Conduct
• Be always industrious, happy and positive as to work is to worship the God.

Keeping with the fruits and the basics of the life we must we must learn to motivate people for the rectitude of conduct. So we must treat people with kindness,  we must give them responsibility and ask them to actively participate, we must be a good listener to them, and in all we must get to KNOW the people so as to strengthen their sense of belonging.

Cooperative Juggling

Cooperative Juggling

We played the ‘Cooperative Juggling’ game. The game was very easy to perform but the very game demanded absolute coordination and concentration from each member.

However, we do understand that through the unity of action and coordination it becomes easier to perform the so called difficult tasks. 

In our group we had 10 members and we played the game for 30 minutes while standing in a big circle. We considered the tennis balls as golden ones so that each member valued these balls and concentrated on them. This helped the members to improve their catching skills. But a good level of coordination with 100% of concentration was a must to play and appreciate the game.

Further, we observed that when the individuals worked together then they could achieve great challenges together. I played “builder of unity” being the mentor for this activity. As we have to had 100% of coordination I appealed each member to adjust with the situation and leave the ‘arrogance’ (ego, dominance) and ‘self-righteousness’ in us.

The qualities and attitudes such as ability to mix, accommodating nature is essential for the Unity.  Further, adjustment with others is a must for the unity.

Guard the Treasure

Guard the Treasure

It was novel experience for us to play the ‘Guard the Treasure’ game. The game underlines the principle of trust and being trustworthy.

We do agree that the “Trustworthiness is the supreme condition for the achievement of the prosperity of mankind”. It is prerequisite for the rectitude of the conduct.

As instructed, we get divided into two groups (A and B) having 6 members in each group. We used small piece of cloth as ‘treasure’. Members of group A stand in a circle and one member stands at the centre of the circle so as to guard his treasure. The members on the circle tried hard to snatch away this treasure. In this way, each group has given 10 minutes to play the game. The following is the score of the two groups:

Group A	Group B
02	03

Members from group B were the winners as they snatched the treasure 3 times in just 10 minutes.  In all 05 (2 +3) members had the chance to snatch the treasure. But remaining 7 (4 +3) members could not snatch the treasure. The members felt that they are trustworthy while guarding the treasure. But, when the treasure was snatched from them, they did not feel confidence and felt that they did breakage of faith of their team members.

In all, each member agrees that they need to watch their words and actions and thus remain trustworthy in the family, society. They need to be trustworthy while performing responsibilities and affairs. Further, these members agreed that they will not misuse/ abuse their power they understood the life is impossible without ‘trustworthiness’. And hence, “Trustworthiness is the supreme condition for the achievement of the prosperity of mankind”.

Adjective Game

It was real fun to play the ‘Adjective Game’ with the students. Through this game we all have tried to acknowledge the “Unity in Diversity” principle. Further, we tried to enhance unity among the group members by associating and remembering a good quality in each member as each member explained the good qualities in her/him by saying the adjective.

All the members (students) stand in a circle. I, personally initiated the game by telling good quality of me as ‘T’ for ‘Tenacious’ as an adjective to my  own name i.e. ‘Tejesh’. Then I explained that I need to have ‘T’ for ‘Talented’ i.e. a quality I wish to acquire. Then all the group members together repeated my name and the adjective.

Then the game moves to the other members standing next to me in a clockwise manner. Thus, each member repeated the same procedure and we could enhance unity among the group members by associating and remembering a good quality in each member.

All the members liked the game as it was based on active participation. It was not easy for all the members to find an adjective for their names, so I asked them to tell the adjectives in Marathi language and accordingly translated it in English.

All the members liked the association of good qualities to themselves and thus the game helped to create an environment of unity among my group members.

Sharing about 'Sharing the Paper' Game

It was nice ice breaker and a game to play with the team members.

What we have learnt is to appreciate the joy of sharing.

We have experienced that ‘larger the sharing the greater will be the happiness’.

We learnt to communicate, coordinate and cooperate with each other.

This has enabled us to maximizing the limited resources.

We do acknowledge that the same can be practiced in the family in order to make the life more exciting. This can bring harmony in the team.

The game played by: 
Asst. Prof. Tejesh Beldar
Dr. Minal Barve
Asst. Prof. Sarika Nikale

Envisioning the ‘Vision Game’

It was a nice experience to conduct the ‘Vision Game’ in two parts (with open and closed eyes) among the team members.  We, as a team do realize the power of mental visualization or mind’s eye in achieving things those appear to be away from our abilities.

Part 1 (with open eyes): We stood firmly and moved/stretched our hands as much as we could. Here, we were wide awake about our appearances only. We have not used all our capabilities to stretch the hands. We felt that we were conscious of our limitations only.

Part 2 (with closed eyes): We repeated the same steps of Part 1, stood firmly and moved/stretched our hands as much as we could. But, this time we have closed our eyes and were unaware about our appearances. And, hence we were free from shy / coyness in us. We could use all our capabilities and to our surprise we could go far away than the marking (spot) of part 1 while stretching our hands. This had happened owing to our power of visualization/ imagination.

We all abide by Helen Keller’s quote that “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision”

Such realization is really necessary in the present day ICT society. We, being the Nurturers of E-culture,  have to develop new aptitude, ability, skills etc. in order to preserve the value system based on the universal human values.

Part 1

Part 2

Online Discussion Groups: Advantages and Disadvantages

1 

Online Discussion Groups: Advantages and Disadvantages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_group discusses ‘discussion group’ as “a group of individuals with similar interest who gather either formally or informally to bring up ideas, solve problems or give comments. The major approaches are in person, via conference call or website or online messaging. People respond comments and post forum in established mailing list, news group or IRC. Other group members could choose to respond by posting text or image.” Google, Whatsapp Facebook group etc are the examples of ‘discussion groups’ https://busyteacher.org/22680-virtual-debate-online-discussions-7-advantages.html discusses the advantages of online discussions. These are:

·         Convenience: Online discussions generally can be set for a time convenient for everyone

·   More Focused: Because of the convenience, student, again, are less distracted, tired, and stressed. 

·       More in Depth:  More focus leads naturally to more depth. 

·    More Introverted Students Participate More:  The research shows that introverted students may actually perform better in online discussions because they are allowed more time needed to reflect on comments than is allowed in face-to-face communications.

·    More Diverse Perspectives: The online chats with students from different socio-economic and cultural background provide more diversified perspectives.

 

In all, the online discussion (service) brings enjoyment as we can share ideas, save records, and find an answer to our questions. The use of online discussion for academic purposes can develop participants' cognitive, critical thinking, and analytical skills. However, the online discussions require planning if they are to be successful.

 

Online discussions advantages and disadvantages are discussed by

Ali Press, available from

http://teachingandlearning.westminster.ac.uk/2014/10/online-discussions-advantages-disadvantages/

Advantages	Disadvantages
Students can participate at a time and place that suits them.	Those with poor writing skills are disadvantaged.
The act of typing forces students to take time and contribute more developed ideas.	Lack of facial cues can lead to misunderstanding.
Can reduce the amount of time the teacher has to give to telephone and face-to-face meetings and time in the office.	Discussions can go off topic.
Shy students get more of a chance to have a say.	Some students tend to too readily agree with others or paraphrase others’ contributions.
Encourages reflection and deeper thinking.	Students can tend to respond to topics in an overall fashion rather than in detailed specifics.
Foreign students have more time to compose their thoughts.	Students lose motivation to participate unless they perceive ‘value’ in the discussion.
Peer-peer learning encouraged.	Requires consistent input from teacher.
Answers are seen by all.	Lag between posts can make following a discussion difficult.
Forms a basis for creating FAQs.	Technical problems (server crashes, network down time, etc).
Expert thinking about a topic can be modeled and learnt.	Lack of access to computer or network handicaps some students.
Encourages big picture thinking.	Reading and thinking overload.
Effective and efficient means to make whole class communication. Builds a learning community.	Needs to be moderated and monitored for inappropriate postings.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_group

https://busyteacher.org/22680-virtual-debate-online-discussions-7-advantages.html

http://teachingandlearning.westminster.ac.uk/2014/10/online-discussions-advantages-disadvantages/

Life...... , a poem by Tejesh Dnyaneshwar Beldar, India

Life...... , a poem by Tejesh Dnyaneshwar Beldar

‘Taking Care for Professional and Personal Image in Social Media.’

Friends, we are all aware that the use of social media is omnipresent. It continues to grown-up and hence we must be aware of our professional and personal image which we want to present online/ on social media. Social media enables to engage with family, friends, relatives etc anytime, anywhere. It helps us connected with people. However, while creating the IMAGE, we must understand that the Internet has a long memory that preserves the professional and personal social media interactions. And in the long run, this may prove negative to our social image.

Hence, we must be familiar with the benefits and risks, pros and cons of the use of the Internet and social media. First of all, we must be able to distinguish between what has to be personal, professional and public and accordingly maintain the PRIVACY. Further, the apt care must be taken so that the issues regarding security risk, identity theft, cyber bullying, disclosure of information, data misuse, etc. should not happen.

Furthermore, we must understand the risk of following misleading (spread rumors or controversial) information and forwarding it blindly. We must learn to identify the worthy resources.  We do not know in what way our friends and relatives will take (react or response) something that we just stated innocently on the social media.

We must be aware of our professional and personal social media image. Please go through the chart, this will help us to create or retain our professional and personal social media image.

Particulars	Professional	Personal
Account name	Your name added with the  name of the workplace	Your name may be added with the  nick name
Images	Professional photos and videos	Personal photos and videos
Bio details	Professional Information	Personal information regarding interests and hobbies
Connections	Professional connections	Choose the people with whom you want to connect
Content/Information	Share information that connects with our professional interest and sustain our business	Share information that present your private life with the loved ones

Let’s understand that the social media too has positive and negative aspects. We can share our current locations along with their photographs on social media but the social media criminals can misuse the information. The risks such as identity theft (the deliberate use of someone else's identity) or data leakage (unauthorized transfer of data), fake requests from spam profiles, profile hacking (the process of obtaining the unauthorized access to other’s profile), malicious link (it disrupt computer operation and gain access to your account/PC) etc. can trouble the Personal as well as the Professional IMAGE.  So, it is better to stop something bad from happening than it is to deal with it after it has happened. Let’s remind ourselves ‘prevention is better than cure.’