In Focus
Some of Our Favorite COVID-19 EdTech Ideas
The selected projects featured below were identified through the COVID-19 EdTech Idea Call launched in April 2020 by the mEducation Alliance, EdTech Hub and the Global Innovation Exchange. These projects represent a mixture of initiatives including those already established and others developed out of the need of continuity of learning. Several of the projects featured below were selected to participate in COVID-19 EdTech Idea Call Pitch Days, but all deserve recognition for the great work taking place.
Our Learning Time
Mango Tree Literacy Lab (Northern Uganda)
Radio programming has been a component of Mango Tree Literacy Lab’s (MTLL) education initiatives for 10 years. In response to COVID-19, MTLL’s literacy tools, methods and classroom materials were modified to provide educational content and support parents and children to learn at home. From 2011-2013, as Mango Tree Literacy Lab partnered with the Lango Language Association to revise the orthography, they sponsored a weekly one-hour show about the local language that became one of the most popular programs in the region. During that time, MTLL used SMS/USSD technology to get real-time community feedback during the shows, applying data to test orthography revisions and seek consensus on important lexical improvements needed for literacy instruction. The response was positive and led to changes in literacy instruction and language knowledge that were approved by the Government and integrated into the national literacy model. MTLL uses radio to raise awareness on literacy, and is already delivering content. Since the beginning of May, MTLL has been experimenting with how to effectively translate their literacy model to the radio. MTLL has been providing a one-hour Saturday morning show on a local radio station. “Our Learning Time” provides children in early primary and their parents with basic literacy skills in the local language and English. It is based on the national curriculum for reading, writing, listening and speaking. MTLL will continue to offer regular radio shows on language and literacy using call-in talk shows, live-streamed events and on-air reports.
Mosaik Open ELT Toolkit
Mosaik Education (UK-based, Jordan Operations)
Mosaik Education developed and tested a refugee-led and mobile-based English language teaching (ELT) approach that can operate during social distancing. English language proficiency is a key challenge facing refugees, as it provides a key link to education and employment opportunities. Yet, English resources are often designed for western language schools and didactic models of classroom-based instruction. Mosaik Education is building a toolkit to support community organizations, teachers, and refugee youth to sustain remote ELT during social distancing. The approach was based on ‘dogme’: a materials light, conversation-driven approach to ELT that emphasises emergent language and learner interests over standardized materials. The toolkit includes training on ‘dogme’ strategies, facilitation guides for mobile-based teaching, and a community of practice. This approach offers a way to maintain the interactive and human side of ELT via connected learning during social distancing and can support marginalized learners including girls, those with disabilities, and those in internally-displaced and refugee communities.
Chasing Two Rabbits
Two Rabbits (Cameroon)
Indigenous, marginalized, and rural children were already deeply underserved by the Cameroonian education system prior to the current pandemic. COVID-19 exacerbated existing structural inequalities in access, and providers worldwide turned to interactive radio instruction for distance learning. However, this approach risked excluding minority-group children who often do not speak dominant languages or have limited access to radio. Two Rabbits specifically targets these learners through community-led preschool programming, engaging indigenous musicians, storytellers, and leaders to create interactive audio lessons in the local language. Two Rabbits uploads these recordings onto SD cards that can be replayed on crank-powered MP3 devices, and trains community-nominated youth leaders to facilitate learning using these recordings. What began as a two-village feasibility test has now scaled from two to 20 villages over four years. When schools closed nationwide in March due to COVID-19, Two Rabbits mobilized these youth to facilitate learning sessions with caregivers and children in small socially distanced groups. Two Rabbits engages its youth teachers as key partners in innovation, and is using lessons learned from this experience to strengthen school-community connections by empowering caregivers to support learning at home and building resilience to future school interruptions. In the coming months, Two Rabbits will consolidate best practices and lessons learned into an open-sourced toolkit to be used by other organizations to replicate in other locations.
ReBootKamp
ReBootKamp (Amman, Jordan)
ReBootKamp (RBK) is a coding bootcamp, structured around the Hack Reactor curriculum, which is one of the top coding camps in the U.S. The bedrocks of this training are to build and scale the capacity of students to meet market demand and guarantee employment in the most innovative sectors. RBK was created in Jordan in 2016 and is now also operating in Tunisia and Palestine. These bootcamps have trained 350 engineers, significantly enhancing their employment opportunities. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, they have shifted all of their courses online. All of their exercises, courses and material are provided via their personalized platforms, which they share with both “Hack Reactor” and “Galvanize”. In addition, they have replaced all the mindfulness and social support activities with similar online ones.
Tiny Totos
Tiny Totos (Kenya)
Informal daycare operators in Nairobi, mostly women, are addressing the massive childcare demands of working mothers, but lack training, access to capital, and peers to support business growth. Tiny Totos, a Kenyan social enterprise, helps these ad hoc babysitters upgrade their services and become stable, profitable small businesses by creating a network of self-sustaining daycares that prove elevated standards in the informal market are possible when catalytic training, technology, network and discrete capital investments are provided. In light of COVID-19, with half of their daycares closed due to social distancing and parents being out of work, Tiny Totos modified their high impact, low cost preschool child ed program, normally disseminated through the daycare network. In its place, they developed a tech-enabled monthly distance learning program, consisting of a physical take-home learning pack, complemented and reinforced by visual and audio training clips, daily text tips, a bi-weekly radio show, and monthly support calls by their expert team. Their integrated program provides a blend of child-led and parent-enabled activities, consisting of self-reinforcing building blocks of learning spanning language, socio-emotional, physical and cognitive content. After 7 months of experience in supporting distance-enabled learning of preschoolers in deprived urban areas, development trackers were conducted across the different age groups. What the organization learned from this tracking is the underlining effectiveness of the program’s impact in helping children reach their milestones, as well as in promoting greater parental engagement in their children’s development journey.
DreamLab Education
DreamLab Education (Najaf, Iraq)
DreamLab Education’s vision is to develop teachers’ capacity to innovate and design learning for an uncertain, technology-driven future to prepare learners for the skills they need to live, work, and relate to each other. Their initiative is a teacher professional development (PD) app with a conversational smartphone-based AI Chatbot. This app provides needs-based, just-in-time, contextualized in-service PD, and gathers real-time data on teacher behavior and long-term needs. The app enables teachers to find innovative ways to teach their learners and empower them to use emerging technologies in support of teaching and learning. The app provides personalized learning paths and learning resources in bite-sized units. The COVID-19 pivot provided opportunities to build digital capacity and use of technologically enhanced pedagogy, DreamLab supported the digital capacity growth of teachers from in-class teaching to remote instruction. By using the app, lower secondary school STEM teachers will develop a framework to shift their mindsets from lecture-based to discussion- and activity-based instruction.
World of English
Scholastic (Multiple Locations)
Scholastic believes that independent reading is a critical part of children’s learning and growth, no matter their circumstances. With their new initiative, World of English, Scholastic has developed a server-based digital program, not reliant on internet connectivity. It is a complete English language learning (ELL) program for children between the ages of three to eight. World of English is a systematic, scaffolded approach to language acquisition through vocabulary, writing, phonics, reading and speaking and listening exercises, with teacher support built into the program. It is prescriptive, with prompts on screen for ease of use for novice teachers and parents. In China, teacher notes have been translated to help support second language teaching staff deliver effective lessons. The animations, characters, activities and songs make learning fun, while the app has lessons with built-in parental/school reporting. Once restrictions from COVID-19 have been lifted, the accompanying workbooks will further extend learning. In Ghana, the government has used the program as the basis for televised class lessons, as internet coverage and device ownership is limited.
Rising Academy Network
Rising Academy Network (Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana)
Learning from experiences during the Ebola Crisis, Rising Academy Network adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic by creating a distance learning solution called Rising On Air; a 20-week program of free, ready-to-air, radio scripts and SMS content. The program leverages Rising’s proven, high-quality structured curriculum content, re-designed for delivery via existing, widely available technologies. The content covers literacy/language arts and numeracy/maths for five different levels across K-12. In addition, Rising has created complementary content aimed at teachers to support their professional development during the crisis, as well as health and safeguarding content to help keep children safe while out of school. The initiative is available via an open-access web portal and a podcast platform and has a growing community of partner organizations and governments around the world, currently spanning more than 25 countries. The program has reached upwards of 10m children and has been translated into French, Arabic and 10 other languages.
If you would like to join the community of providers working on the initiative, please contact the Rising Team at information@risingacademies.com.
Maslow Before Blooms 2.0
TeacherFOCUS (Mae Sot, Thailand)
For one of Thailand’s most vulnerable populations, migrant children, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has left them feeling afraid, confused and uncertain about when their education will continue. For the educators working in Migrant Learning Centers (MLCs) on the Thai-Myanmar border, teaching was already a demanding profession. Now, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, education as we know it is being redefined. There is widespread concern that many migrant children will not return once MLCs are allowed to open. The devastating economic impact on migrant families has meant many can’t afford sufficient food. Older children are at risk to enter the workforce and never return to MLCs. In response, TeacherFOCUS initiated a campaign called Maslow before Blooms with a focus on supporting essential needs, like food, social-emotional support and COVID-19 health awareness and safeguarding training in place of regular in-service teacher training. TeacherFOCUS partnered with the Migrant Education Coordination Center (MECC), Help Without Frontiers Thailand Foundation, the Burmese Migrant Teachers’ Association, and the Burmese Migrant Workers’ Education Committee. Together, a comprehensive needs assessment was conducted at all migrant learning centers in Tak Province in order to create an action plan for emergency response. The plan focused on the three emergent themes from the survey: 1) Educational continuity for migrant children while schools are closed; 2) School preparedness for safe re-opening in line with Thai national policies; and 3) Social emotional support for teachers and children.
The Maslow Before Blooms campaign supported home-based learning including through use of video-supported training on topics such as ECCD and Home-Based Teaching Strategies and on Reflective Teaching practices. These and other products helped to keep migrant children safe, engaged and connected to their school, even while the centers were closed. A research report entitled Education Reimagined was launched to summarize the response and ongoing needs. The report is available for download at HERE. Maslow Before Blooms was generously supported by Child’s Dream Foundation Thailand and the Swiss Embassy in Thailand.
