The American School of Bombay (ASB), in Mumbai, has opened up its gates to provide its academic content online for schools across India. ASB partnered with Times of India, the world’s largest English newspaper, to get the word out that ASB wishes to share its virtual school resources with all schools across India. The first among them, the Central Board of Secondary Education in India (CBSE), reached out for accessing ASB’s virtual content for its about 20,000 schools.

Craig Johnson, Head of School at ASB, said, “With kids cooped up in their houses with no access to playgrounds, open spaces, or interactions, we needed to fill the void created by this unprecedented disruption. We needed to make the new normal lovely and inviting. We needed kids to want to attend virtual school, just as much as they did school on the campuses. We committed ourselves to make the virtual school super-engaging and fun and invested a lot in developing outstanding content. Our three-campus school is now working across eight time zones of the world, via virtual mode. So, now that we have it, we want to share it with the country and the world.”

Now in its third week, ASB’s virtual school has its elementary, middle, and high school back on its feet with faculty posting lectures, teacher assistants running follow-up activities, tech teams helping families work with EdTech, and counselors holding sessions for the wellbeing of students and families. There is more: live chat sessions with class teachers, leadership-faculty meetings, and sessions between principals and parents.

Each level at ASB has its own plan and technologies they work with: the elementary school works with See-saw in which recorded lectures are posted for students to view at their convenience, they can then complete activity challenges and provide feedback. The middle school uses Google Classroom and PowerSchool that allows for recorded sessions, live interactions, discussion boards. The high school uses Google Meet and Zoom.

“We would like to offer large parts of our curriculum and resources for anyone who may want to use it – from read-aloud stories to our physical education classes, to our IB music, drama, or physics. We are working on how we can make what ASB has available to any council, association, federation, board, or school wanting to use them,” added Craig.

For more information on how to get access to ASB’s online resources, write to headofschool@asbindia.org

American School of Bombay also reached out to almost 50 Heads of Schools, from all over the world, with an idea of coming together to create a powerful message for students, teachers, and parents across the globe. Here’s how it turned out to be a wonderful lifting experience.