Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

About the Company

  • Q. What is the meaning of BodhaGuru?
    A. Bodha means knowledge, wisdom or enlightenment. Guru means teacher, mentor or guide. In a nutshell, a teacher who imparts his/her knowledge enlightening the students.
  • Q. What is our dream?
    A. Our dream is to make learning interesting, relevant and affordable for every child on this planet - with the help of technology.
  • Q. What is the structure of the organization - NGO or a company?
    A. We are a private limited company - located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
  • Q. What is social enterprise?
    A. We are working as a company (enterprise) focusing on a social cause - so we aim to meet two bottom lines - the net impact and the net profit.
  • Q. Who are our main customers? Where are they located?
    A. We have been partnering with schools that are serving children at the bottom of the pyramid - like government schools, affordable private schools and NGO run schools. Additionally, we have released a large part of our solutions online - so that we can serve children and teachers across all spectrum of society and across geographies.
  • Q. How do we foresee the future?
    We foresee a bright future for learning where every teacher and child will be able to learn - anywhere, anytime. Everyone will have access to best self-learning material, in the language they understand, in the form they can use on the device they have access to and at the price they can afford.

    We strongly believe this learning material won't be created by a single company or single person- however it will be created, contributed and consumed by the community at large - including children, parents, teachers and other passionate people from educational fraternity - very similar to Internet which is not owned or used by single company. With this passionate community empowered with simple to use tools, everyone will contribute and make the community better. As more people start contributing to this community, the network effect will kick-in and the learning tree will be filled with interesting, relevant and affordable learning material - for everyone.
  • Q. What are we doing to achieve this future?
    We started by designing interesting learning material (apps, books, videos, questions) for kindergarten to class 5 Math/Science/English subjects, Class 6-10 Maths/Science subjects and validated it with children and saw positive impact on the learning outcome. We all know it is very costly to generate this learning material. And to do it for all classes, subjects, languages, boards - it makes it further challenging. Hence, we have started building technology based tools and platforms that enables other stakeholders (teachers, SCERT, NCERT) to generate the best learning material. By incorporating the assets and technology we built after years of research and development, this cloud based children book authoring, publishing and reading platform provides educational community with a rich set of assets (images, sound, videos), quiz, animation and effects to start with - without requiring passionate educators to spend huge amount of cost on illustration, background music, sound effects, animation and coding - all you need is sheer passion and a strong will to make a difference.

    Come lets change the world - lets make learning interesting, relevant and affordable to every child on this planet!

Learning philosophy

  • Q. What is your learning methodology?
    A. We strongly believe SHORT STORIES and PRACTICAL EXAMPLES are the best way to learn anything. We all remember stories (and the associated lesson) for a very long time. Don't you remember the Panchatantra stories or Amar Chitra Katha? Hence, for almost every topic of the curriculum, we have designed rich animated story that generates the interest in the given topic and gets the due attention of the child. Our stories have characters, emotions, fun, action, drama, music (just like a short feature film). Each story imparts a life-learning lesson to your child (e.g. be brave, work hard, help others, love your parents, care for your friends etc.) in addition to the "indirect" subject learning. Once your child goes through the immersive story, we try to go deeper into the topic of curriculum in the subsequent detailed videos that take the examples from the story and walk through the entire topic in an easy to understand and practical way. After watching the videos, the child can enjoy, practice and explore critical parts of the topic by playing simple fun based mobile games.

    Our goal is that your child understands the concept and its applicability compared to memorizing the definitions and terms.

  • Q. What do you mean by making learning relevant?
    A. In our stories, examples, games and problems - we have focused on applicability of the concept as applicable to today's environment. Let us take few examples:

    • The child has learned by heart types of pollution, but still throws the plastic bag on the street after using it- we try to address the impact of pollution in one of our story.
    • Every parents work hard a lot to get their child quality education - but does the child ever realize the value of money and this sacrifice - we try to address this in one of our story.
    • The child knows parts of the plants but still plucks the flowers for fun - we try to address this in one of our mobile games.
    • The child understand the formula of simple and compound interest - but can the child help the parent to avoid taking new loans to pay the interest of previous loan - we try to address this in examples taken in compound interest topic.


    We believe that if the children are able to apply a part of their learning to their day-to-day environment, we have achieved a big success compared to making the child a post-graduate.
  • Q. What do you mean by making learning interesting?
    A. Our goal is to ensure a child enjoys learning and doesn't get bored thinking about school or get phobia looking at a Math equation. Hence we are building rich stories animated walk-through of concepts, picture books and mobile games to add fun element to the learning.

  • Q. Will my child get better grades after going through your solution?
    A. We definitely hope so. We can definitely guarantee that your child will become a better person, friend, spouse, parent and citizen after learning with our solution.

  • Q. My child has started asking a lot of questions after going through your solution?
    A. Hurray - one of our goals has been met :-) - we believe questions provide thoughts and help the child to slowly build a structured approach to solving them. Keep prodding, Kids!

Njoy N Learn Store

  • Q. What is Njoy N Learn Store?
    A. We believe in fun-n-learn based approach for children. Njoy N Learn Store is our virtual store that encompasses following offerings to make learning an enjoyable experience for children: Mobile based learning apps - please visit apps page
    • Children eBooks (story books, learning books) - please visit books page
    • Educational videos (story videos, concept videos) - - please visit videos page
    • Learning products - for schools, teachers and children - - please visit products page
    • Platforms - for children book publishers, authors and eLearning content development companies - - please visit platforms page
  • Q. Is Njoy N Learn store only encompasses learning offerings created by BodhaGuru? How can I be a part of this learning revolution??
    A. From March 2011, we have been working on creating immersive animated educational videos, cool apps, beautiful books, thought provoking questions. We have positively impacted tens of thousands of children directly by partnering with schools that are serving children at the bottom of the pyramid - like affordable private schools, NGO run schools and government schools. Additionally we have reached lakhs of children online - who are learning by watching our videos, reading our books and practicing using our apps. However, we feel this is just a tiny drop in the ocean. We felt children need much more quality content - in their mother-tongue, catered to their country/region, etc. We believe, if everyone around the world gets involved in this dream, many more stories could be created faster and spread faster too.Keeping this in mind we have released a cool application on Android and iOS platform - ‘Read N Create Children Book'.

    With this app, we believe everyone - children, parents, teachers and authors can create children books and share their creation to the world. We strongly believe Reading is fun, Creating is more fun and Sharing is even more. So please download these apps and be part of this learning revolution.

Content

  • Q. What are the different types of content supported by BodhaGuru? What are the goals of each of them?
    A. We are providing videos, questions, books and mobile games.
    • The goal of the videos is to watch a topic and understand it. It includes rich animated stories, detailed videos explaining the entire topic broken into one or more lessons and experimentation videos.
    • The questions and quiz are meant to generate new thoughts and ideas. Hence our questions include open ended subjective questions and multiple choice questions.
    • The books are meant to improve the language skills (specifically communication skills) and ponder over open ended questions that help the child to build a view-point about the point raised in the question and communicate the same.
    • The learn and practice applications are meant to practice and explore the topic.
  • Q. Which classes and subjects are currently supported by BodhaGuru content?
    A. "The journey to thousand miles begins with the first step." And we have taken the first step by choosing pre-primary (kindergarten early learning material) first, then primary (grade 1 to 5 Maths/Science/English) and then slowly added high school (grade 6 to 10) Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Maths) because we wanted to give a solid base to the children on which they can learn further in higher classes.

  • Q. Why not high school or above grades?
    A. "A castle is built upon a strong foundation". Hence our strong belief is - children need to have strong fundamentals of the core concepts being taught from primary to high school classes before moving to higher classes, as the higher classes are completely built on top of primary and high school class fundamentals.

  • Q. Will other classes/subjects be supported soon? If yes, when?
    A. We are a start-up with BIG dreams with aim to reach every child on this planet. And yes, we will also like to support all classes/subjects. However, we don't want to compromise on content quality in search of quantity/breadth of content. Hence, we are currently focused on improving the learning outcome of pre-primary, primary and high school children (i.e. class KG to 10). We have done good progress on this, but not yet satisfied that we have nailed it completely. Hence it will take a while before we jump into other classes and subjects. But yes, they are definitely in our radar and we will keep you posted on the updates on this side. Join us on our social networks - facebook, twitter or Youtube - for regular updates from our side.

  • Q. Which board and curriculum is currently followed - CBSE, state board, ICSE etc.?
    A. We have followed NCERT curriculum and extracted the core concepts of the subject from the curriculum of multiple boards - like CBSE, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State Board, and Madhya Pradesh State Board etc. We believe the core concepts (e.g. how a plant grows from the seed) remain same across the board with minor changes across boards to add region specific knowledge (e.g. how rice grows in Andhra Pradesh). As we have focused on core concepts, we believe it will apply to most of the boards across India.

  • Q. Does the concept to class mapping change according to the board? How do I know which topic my child should watch?
    A. Yes it does changes a bit. Hence, we have grouped topics in a way that it can be broadly classified in different categories like class 1-3 and class 4-5 - based on children's age group. It may occasionally happen that some topic you find class 1-3 is present in class 4 in your board or vice versa. Additionally we have state board specific packages where all the topics are aligned to particular board.

  • Q. Why there are lesser number of question and answers (say 5-10 per topic) compared to other sites/CDs?
    A. We deliberated on this for a long time. Generating a large number of questions was easy for us.

    The primary goal of question and answers is to generate thoughts and come up with newer ideas compared to testing the child. However in reality it happens other way around. Hence we focused more on former - our limited questions helps child to ponder for a while and then deduce the answer. The rest of the questions and answers to pass in the class test are anyway given in school books, home-work and questions banks.

  • Q. What are the languages currently supported on verbal and written text in videos? What is the dialect supported?
    A. Currently we are supporting English, Hindi and Telugu. We have kept the spoken language to a dialect which the child can understand - like Indian English. For the non-English languages, we have kept the text in videos in English with voice over in local language explaining the terms in both English and local language. Our field trial suggests that the children from non-English medium school learn English faster with this approach.

  • Q. How is your content organized?
    A. We have organized our content following this terminology Subject, Course, Unit, Topic, Lesson For example: Science, General, Plant World, Plant Reproduction, Growth of new plant from seed

Devices

  • Q. What are the devices supported?
    A. We have built the content from scratch to ensure it works across different screens - smart phones, tablets, PC and TV/projector of different sizes and resolutions.
  • Q. What software platforms are supported?
    A. Our online video are tested for Android, Apple based mobile devices and Microsoft PC platform. Our application/games are supported for Android, Apple based mobile devices and Windows platform. Our offline solution based on NjoyTeaching and Njoylearning supports only Android platform (version 4.0 and beyond). Our DVD solution works on any DVD player or PC that supports dual layer DVDs (i.e. 8.5 GB DVDs)

NjoyTeaching

  • Q. What does NjoyTeaching stand for?
    A. NjoyTeaching stands for Enjoy Teaching :-)
  • Q. What is NjoyTeaching?
    A. NjoyTeaching represents a technology enabled self-learning solution (app + content) from BodhaGuru - which can be used by teachers to learn about various concepts and newer pedagogies anywhere, anytime. This means that the teachers can learn at their own pace, at any place (e.g. home, school), any time (day or night) using any affordable mobile computing device (smart-phone or tablet) - with or without Internet.

  • Q. Who are the users of NjoyTeaching? Whom does it cater to?
    A. NjoyTeaching caters to teachers teaching in all forms of schools - starting from government schools, low-income/budget schools and evenly middle/higher income schools.

  • Q. BodhaGuru has online video library that is hosted on YouTube. How is NjoyTeaching different from this?
    A. Our YouTube channel has been heavily successful in explaining the required concepts wrapped in the essential learning of life learning values (like moral values). Millions of online video lessons (and increasing every day by thousands) have been streamed in a short period of time and users across geographies have appreciated our effort and content. However, NjoyTeaching is an initiative to reach out the teachers yearning to get on the job trained through the above approach but do not have access to high speed internet or high end computing device (like smart-phones, tablet or PC). Hence, we have re-designed our entire set of learning videos, apps, books for entry level smart-phone phone form-factor and can be stored easily in a micro SD card (less than 16 GB space) - all you need to do is plug-it into the smart-phone and learn.

  • Q. How does NjoyTeaching help learners?
    A. This will help learners to easily understand the core concepts of the school curriculum and apply the learning in their day-to-day teaching. This improvement in their teaching style will directly improve students test/exam results also.

  • Q. What is the NjoyTeaching solution?
    A. NjoyTeaching is an app with rich-immersive content aimed towards self-learning and can run on every affordable mobile computing device - entry level Android smart-phone or tablet - with or without Internet. The overall content includes story videos, topic detailed videos, interactive quiz, practice applications and digital picture books. However, based on the mobile computing device capability, the solution and associated learning experience varies.

  • Q. What is the learning experience on different mobile devices?
    A. The entire learning experience varies based on the learner's device type. Let us take certain examples (starting from least cost solution):

    • Smartphone or Tablet: All you need is Android based smartphone or tablet. If you have NOT purchased NjoyTeaching enlightened micro SD card (for Android), you need to download the NjoyTeaching Android application using Internet. Connect your smartphone/tablet to Internet and download the BodhaGuru NjoyTeaching Android application. After the application is installed (which need to be done only once), open the application and sign-up & pay by following the steps given in the application. You will receive the micro SD card via courier.
      If you have purchased NjoyTeaching enlightened micro SD card (for Android) already, just install the BodhaGuru NjoyTeaching Android application and sign-in the application by following the steps given in the application. The best part of this application is - all the content is available offline - inside the micro SD card and you don't need to pay for Internet bandwidth charges after the application is activated. This application provides a rich user experience while accessing the BodhaGuru content (videos, quiz, books stored in local micro SD card) in a structured way (class -> subject -> topic -> content). This application helps the teachers to easily understand the core concept by watching lesson videos, interactive books and prepare questions for the class from rich interactive quiz that is a mix of text and pictures.
  • Q. I am teaching in a primary school. How can NjoyTeaching help me?
    A. There are two steps of teaching: first is to understand the subject and second is to teach it to children. NjoyTeaching will enable you on the first part - to improve your understanding of the subject (e.g. easier examples, sample stories to co-relate etc.). It also has content for the second part (i.e. teacher training module) which is be a mix of short pedagoy articles and worksheets. If you are interested, please email us at info@bodhaguru.com.

  • Q. I will like to use NjoyTeaching content to enable multimedia based learning inside my classroom. How can I enable that?
    A. Your school can buy our in-classroom solution - NjoyLearning Device that can connect to any TV/Projector. Visit our products page for more details.

  • Q. What is the difference between NjoyLearning and NjoyTeaching?
    A. NjoyLearning is BodhaGuru in-class room solution - that is available in two form-factors: a) NjoyLearning Set-top box Device that can be connected to any TV/Projector b) NjoyLearning projector. NjoyLearning is aimed for in-class room teaching by teachers, whereas NjoyTeaching is mobile based learning for teachers.

  • Q. I am already using NjoyLearning Device at my school. How do NjoyTeaching help me?
    A. You can buy NjoyTeaching content at a bundled discount rate (as you already have bought NjoyLearning) and store it on your computer. You can then load it on your school teachers' smart-phones - this will help the teachers during prep-work for the topic to be taught. Please email us at info@bodhaguru.com in case you need more information.

  • Q. I am working in field of education (e.g. helping rural children/teachers to get quality education). How can NjoyTeaching help me?
    A. We will love to partner with NGOs working in this field by providing them our NjoyTeaching content at heavy discounted rate under a simple term: you share us the periodic assessment reports of the children using NjoyTeaching content. This assessment data (which you may be collecting already) helps your organization to measure the learning outcome of this technology based intervention and showcase it to your stakeholders. This will further increase your good-will in the neighboring community. This relationship will help us in our dream of spreading the quality education to everyone and also get the content feedback in terms of learning outcome improvement, thereby improving the quality of our future learning content. Please email us at partners@bodhaguru.com and we will love to partner with you.

Cost

  • Q. What do mean by making learning affordable?
    A. A lot of our high quality animated videos are available 100% FREE on the Internet via YouTube streaming - just stream the content and learn.
  • Q. How will you make money?
    A. Yes, we need to make money :-) to make this social business sustainable and growing over a period of time. Otherwise, we will not be able to fulfill our mission to make learning interesting, relevant and affordable to every child on the planet.
    Hence, our online videos will be free for end users (ad sponsored) and applications will be mix of free, ad sponsorship and paid apps. We will be charging a very affordable price for our NjoyTeaching based self-learning solutions for teachers and Njoylearning based in-class room solution for schools.

Copyright

  • Q. Who owns the copyright of the content?
    A. All our content (video, books and games) are conceptualized, designed and developed by BodhaGuru. BodhaGuru owns the entire copyright of the content.
  • Q. Can I download the online videos, as it is freely available?
    A. No - our videos are posted on Youtube for online viewing only and any form of download, record, modify or copy is strictly prohibited. Here is our copyright policy as available at the start of each video:
    "This video is a copyright of BodhaGuru Learning Private Limited - © BodhaGuru Learning Private Limited 2012. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized download or copy of this video fully or partially is strictly prohibited. No part of this material including script, image, text, sound and video may be recorded, downloaded, reproduced, redistributed or transmitted in any form (as is or modified) or by any means, electronic, printed, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission of BodhaGuru Learning Private Limited."

  • Q. Can I make multiple copies of the books or games/apps?
    A. No - our books and games/apps are available for download per device and any form of copy and distribution is strictly prohibited.

Partner

  • Q. I will like to partner with BodhaGuru. How should I connect with you?
    A. Thank you for your interest in evaluating a partnering opportunity with us. We have a BIG MISSION, which cannot be achieved alone. We are actively working on building partnerships with the different companies where we see synergies. Please connect with us by sending email to partners@bodhaguru.com and we will definitely get back to you. Let us "Enlighten the Million Minds" - TOGETHER!!

Support

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  •  Visiting us ?