eLearning Resources: Educational Content for Digital School Devices

SUBJECTS & TOPICS

Pre-Primary Topics

• Numeracy: counting, shapes, number sense
• Early literacy: alphabet and letters in Kiswahili
• Pre-literacy: read-aloud stories in Kiswahili
• English Language: english vocabulary and simple sentences
• Motor Development: drawing

Primary School Topics

• Math: place value, positive and negative numbers, operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, time, order of operations, math in everyday life
• Life Skills: collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, protecting yourself from malaria
• Reading: primary school level story books

INSTALLATION

Tablets: all videos, apps and eBooks were installed on the 28 Android tablets, as well as a custom launcher so that users could more easily navigate to content

Student Laptops: eBooks were installed on student tablets, so they they would be able to read together as a class

Teacher Laptop: all videos and eBooks were installed on the teacher laptop, connected to the main screen, for group viewing and reading.

IMPACT

From this trip we observed that there was a clear desire among the community, and especially students to more actively use the technologies available at the Digital Village. We also found that the eLearning content provided in Kiswahili and English from Akili and Me and Ubongo Kids was highly relevant for both children and parents in the Ololosokwan community, but that more on-site support is needed to ensure that they have regular access.

Representatives of the District Education Office were highly engaged and motivated to collaborate with the project. Working together with them may help to increase communication and integrated projects between the schools and the digital village, and may also help to broaden the impact of the project through teacher training and/or wider use of the tablets and content from the digital village in schools across the district. The program can have a deeper impact with strong collaboration between the community and the school system.

We strongly believe that this project can have a measurable impact on the learning and lives of the children and parents in the Ololosokwan community and remain available and willing for support and advice to ensure that the resources can reach and benefit those who need them most.