And we need your help! Learning Equality’s Curriculum Operations Specialist, Vahid Masrour, shares more.

If you’re teaching or learning during Covid-19 school closures, you’ve probably encountered many solutions proposed for virtual learning environments relying on digital resources. All over the world, people are turning to digital resources — textbooks, lesson plans, videos, tutorials, learning applications, and libraries — to keep them connected to learning. But many solutions are overwhelmingly oriented towards English, and in the most vulnerable contexts, it’s critical to be able to provide an equivalent learning experience in the languages people speak at home, in social situations, in schools, and in their daily lives. 

Written by Susan Colby (Imagine Worldwide) and Nicola Pitchford (University of Nottingham)

As COVID-19 has disrupted education worldwide, more organizations and governments are exploring using tablet-based learning models to provide children with flexible access to learning that can take place anywhere. When implemented well, tablet-based learning can empower learners to build skills and knowledge through the use of technology. Children are able to direct their own learning, using high-quality, research-based software curriculum on a tablet. 

 A swift policy response

When COVID-19 reached Rwanda, the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) was quick to shut schools and make use of technology to support and enable distance learning. This includes e-learning platforms and the use of private and public media channels. The first teaching radio programmes were introduced just two weeks after the schools closed, followed quickly by TV programmes. The content of these TV and radio programmes includes learning materials presented as written text, audio, images, animation and streamed video content for pre-primary, primary and secondary level children. Data suggests that these programmes reach 70% of primary school students and 11% of secondary school students. One of the reasons for this low number among secondary school students is that most of the secondary subjects are broadcast via TV, rather than radio, as television ownership is low (10%) in the country.

By Tom Power, Open University

An equitable educational response to the COVID school closures must recognise that, in low and middle-income countries, as shown by UNICEF data most children affected by such closures do not have access to the internet. Policymakers and educators must then find ways to provide learning opportunities offline. Learning does not happen just by giving children educational materials—children also need time, space and support. 

Written by Alice Carter

This is the second in this series about our sandboxes. If you haven’t already, read about our approach to experimentation. 

Across the Hub, we’re proponents of using our tools and approaches on our own thinking. For innovation, that meant testing the assumptions we were making about how and if the sandboxes would work.

Lea Simpson
Director of Innovation, EdTech Hub

What’s a sandbox you ask? First in the series, this blog explains what you need to know about the Hub’s approach to experimentation and innovation.

A sandbox is a real-life location used for experimentation. As you might have imagined, a sandbox creates a small and contained space to test with a proposed intervention. It allows us to safely learn and adapt in a small space before rolling out promising ideas more widely. The term itself comes from software engineering and was originally used to describe a space that allowed developers to safely test new code before using it across the board.