Patterns & Pathways

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Purpose

Index

Read case studies of tech integration, analyze patterns across these data points, and reflect on how to create impact in your own educational environments

Reflect

Read

Analyze

Why does Patterns and Pathways exist?

This collection of stories and data is meant to guide aspirational educators, entrepreneurs and innovators in their journey to creating impact using technology. By showcasing examples of successful innovations, this project aims to spark critical thinking around the use of technologies in education, including the strategies that lead to real change for learners, and the ecosystem that supports a technology. Version 1 of this project presents 10 such stories and 2 analyses on their components. Stories were chosen after studying publicly available evidence of impact, including evidence generated by randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and reviews by coalitions like HundrED. This version also includes a set of questions to prompt reflection about how to generate impact and recommendations on further reading.In the long run, this project hopes to evolve into a crowd-sourced repository of success stories with richer insights and flexibility in analysis tools to allow viewers to learn what they need to in order to create their own personalized pathway to impact.

Avantika kolluru

Global Stories

Examples of technology integration in low-resources learning environments across the world. Click on a pin to learn more.

Pattern Analysis

Trends across global stories of technology integration in learning environments. Click on bullet point to learn more.

Looking at the 10 global stories presented...

...which projects prioritized these strategies?

(in %)

...how many learners were reached through these softwares?

(in thousands)

Reflections & Further Reading

Ask yourself...

How might you be able to leverage community networks to better integrate a technology? What hardware and software makes the most sense given the location and community's characteristics? What challenges do you forsee in learners being able to easily use this technology? What do the teaching team and staff already know about this technology? What will this technology be able to do for the learning goals that existing provisions in the learning environment are unable to meet?

Pathways to creating impact in your learning environment

Additional Resources:

• Focus on open-source or low-cost solutions. (Vatanartiran & Karadeniz, 2015; Pruett, 2019)
• Emphasize teacher training and support. (Hew & Brush, 2007; Tondeur et al., 2017)
• Start small and build slowly. (Ertmer, 2005; Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010)
• Leverage existing infrastructure. (Pruett, 2019; Tondeur et al., 2017)

See relevant projects:

• Cung Hoc

• Teach 2030

Global Oneness Project

United States

Global Oneness Project is a free multimedia platform for educators and students. It hosts a repository of films, photo essays, and essays to learn about social, cultural and environmental issues around the world.

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• Hardware: Personal/shared computer or smartphone
• Software: Website (Web browser)

Last Mile Learning

Bangladesh

• Hardware: Solar-powered MP3 Players
• Software: Audio recordings
• Reach: 2K learners

Last Mile Learning focuses on building foundational literacy and numeracy skills in children aged 6-11 from the Rohingya refugee community in Bangladesh through MP3 players and other materials. It uses the 'Teaching at the Right Level' (TaRL) methodology implemented by community volunteers to support learning where caregivers may be absent.

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Community involvement

Personalizing tech-driven solutions to local communities makes the experience more relevant for learners. Projects that involve community members, local education experts, and allow learns to form networks are often more successful.

See relevant projects:

• Bloom

• Connected North

• Cung Hoc

• Global Oneness Project

• Last Mile Learning

See relevant projects:

• Connected North

Imagine Worldwide

Malawi

Through Imagine Worldwide, students learn foundational literacy and numeracy skills through tablets containing a curriculum that works offline and offgrid (solar-powered).

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• Hardware: Shared tablets
• Software: Learning software/curriculum
• Reach: 15K learners

Cung Hoc

Vietnam

Cung Hoc is a free platform that provides online courses aimed at enhancing teachers' skills. It includes communities to enhance teachers’ learning activities, like Facebook groups, and local learning communities, with the support of teacher ambassadors across Vietnam, and volunteers across the globe.

• Hardware: Personal/shared computer or smartphone
• Software: Website (Web browser)
• Reach: 23K learners

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Teach2030

Nigeria

Teach2030 provides digital professional development courses for teachers working in challenging terrains. Online courses can be accessed individually or can be adopted as a whole school effort.

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• Hardware: Personal/shared computer or smartphone
• Software: Online courses (Web browser)
• Reach: 10K learners

See relevant projects:

• Imagine Worldwide

• Last Mile Learning

• MGCubed

Integrating grade levels

In low-income and underfunded areas where students have been out of school and learning environments for a while, technical solutions that allow for acceleration of learning by combining grade levels can be useful. The technology here supports seamless interaction across grade levels by housing content approporiate for multiple ages and facilitates peer learning through the communication channels it offers.

See relevant projects:

• Global Oneness Project

• Imagine Worldwide

• Last Mile Learning

Connected North

Canada

Connected North fosters student engagement and enhanced education outcomes in remote Indigenous communities in Canada. Through live, two-way video conference technology, students are provided with video sessions with experts and mentorship hours.

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• Hardware: Personal/shared computers
• Software: Video conferencing
• Reach: 20K learners

Connectivity solutions

In underfunded areas, internet connectivity can be a major roadblock to integrating technology to enhance learning. Solutions must account for poor connectivity by designing for offline environments through innovations like solar-powered tech.

See relevant projects:

• Imagine Worldwide

• Last Mile Learning

• MGCubed

Rocket Learning

India

Rocket Learning’s solution nudges parent communities to engage with children and teachers in order to improve literacy and numeracy. Parents are sent videos demonstrating at-home learning activities and practice worksheets through Whatsapp groups. Data analytics allows for personalization of instructional responses to parents.

• Hardware: Personal/shared smartphone
• Software: Website (Web browser) and apps
• Reach: 100K learners

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O-Lab

• Hardware: Personal/shared tablet
• Software: Offline learning management system
• Reach: 5K learners

Colombia

O-Lab is an offline, customizable app that provides children in rural Colombia with STEAM, vocational, artistic, empowerment, and practical courses. O-Lab has a virtual assistant that translates all the contents created to native languages. Additionally, teachers and organizations can upload their own content into the app and track students' progress.

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MGCubed

• Hardware: Shared computer and projector
• Software: Offline classes and content
• Reach: 36K learners

Ghana

MGCubed is an interactive distance-learning project that delivers lessons in Math, English and gender empowerment to out of school students in Ghana. It uses solar-powered and satellite-enabled technology to deliver offline content to rural school communities.

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Tech training and adoption

Training teachers, students and other community members to make the best use of a technical solution can go a long way. Taking this one step further, solutions that are designed to be easily incorporated into learning with minimal training are even better. Integrating technology that is easy to use and operate independently can increase the uptake of the technology in communities.

See relevant projects:

• Bloom

• Imagine Worldwide

• Last Mile Learning

• MGCubed

• Rocket Learning

See relevant projects:

• Rocket Learning

Open Source Solutions

Open source solutions or learning materials can affectively address issues of cost and affordability. Educators and students can also use the freely available materials to customize content to their own contexts.

See relevant projects:

• Bloom

• Cung Hoc

• Global Oneness Project

• O-Lab

Bloom

Papua New Guinea

Bloom is a free, open-source software that enables people to create books in their own languages to promote culturally relevant literacy pedagogy. Books can be printed, read online, or downloaded for offline use and translated into new languages.

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• Hardware: Personal/shared computer
• Software: Desktop software (for Windows or Linux)
• Reach: 1.3 million reads