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Participatory E-Learning for Student Outcomes (PESO)
Currently, in Uganda, 31% of Ugandans have access to regular internet. Furthermore, 28% of youth between 18 and 28 years have smartphones. These statistics reveal the possibility of successfully running online services. But despite that, no school in Lira city & Lango subregion has an online eLearning platform. Yet, e-Learning is part of learning, and schools should be at the forefront of adopting education technologies in order to improve learning outcomes, improve efficiency in learning, and give students digital skills of the future.
Participatory E-Learning for Student Outcomes (PESO) is a flagship project that will provide a learning platform (using moodle) for students in different schools in Lira district, Uganda the opportunity to learn together. Considering the cost of access to the internet, for both schools and students, students will be provided with free internet access during the weekly e-learning sessions in the school computer labs. The project will be implemented in 10 secondary schools (both rural and urban) in Lira city, Uganda.
Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.
- To use eLearning for enhancing digital skills, especially amongst girls.
- To use eLearning to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers.
- To roll out Development Education in order to widen the scope & perspective of learning.
- To popularize Moodle as an eLearning platform for secondary schools in northern Uganda.
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
- Failure by schools to adopt and embrace digital strategies to improve efficiency and learning outcomes in schools.
- Learning during the lockdown through television and newspapers has not been effective, yet radio lacks the individual & interactive approach.
- By encouraging and adopting e-learning, we also encourage students to embrace technologies & pursue STEM careers, especially girls.
- Through this e-learning project, many students will gain confidence in the use of digital technologies, and also enhance their knowledge of internet and online safety.
- Many young people are already using social media to connect with their friends. By allowing them to use e-learning to connect with friends while learning together, PESO will help keep them away from disruptive social media and enable them to focus on learning while connecting with friends inside the learning platform.
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
The Covid-19 lockdown has exposed schools and enabled educational leaders to fully appreciate the importance of educational technologies. Less than 10% of schools in Uganda have an online presence (websites), yet over 90% have computers and electricity or solar power. This project will serve as an example to education leaders and teachers that it is possible to use learning technologies, and that it should be a school initiative. Technology should be part of the learning, just like it is part of healthcare.
The project will be a win-win for both students and selected teachers. The teachers will get the opportunity to have different students from different schools & backgrounds on the same virtual learning room, while students get to learn from their friends & experience how elearning works.
The Ministry of Education prepared & distributed learning materials (http://www.education.go.ug/covid-19-sector-response/), but no particular interest was put on the assessment of learners. PESO allows for both access to lesson notes & online assessment. And the students do not need to be online all the time. Learning is self-paced, as long as the students meet certain weekly or monthly targets.
The project is broken into 2 distinct phases as outlined below.
Phase 1:
Share your story (your narrative)
I am an IT specialist and education professional. I am the founder of Centre for Skills and Innovation. From 2012 to 2019, I was a teacher and head of ICT in one of the biggest schools in northern Uganda. I am a STEM and eLearning activist, and I have moved all over Uganda advocating for the adoption of eLearning to improve learning outcomes & efficiency in schools. I helped deploy and popularize the Kolibri eLearning platform, and I also created Walktrack Edu Platform.
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
https://elearning.centreforskills.org/
Your Final Proposal for challenge
no
Dear Emmanuel,
Thank you for sharing the overview of your idea. It's a meaningful initiative!
However, I am a little confused about the "free internet" proposal. Which service provider is going to offer this? Is this even feasible? Perhaps, you may want to elaborate on this.
For an overview, your story is okay. But you should add more details to it when you submit your final submission form. The story ideally requires a conflict, opportunity, common interest and call-to-action- backed with solid scientific evidence and facts. The information for most of these factors are already in your answers to the questions above. You will have to refine them and fine-tune the overall tone to establish an emotional connection with the audience.
Remember, your story is your pitch. Therefore, it is important for you to get your audience "hooked" to it. Download our "Storytelling factsheet" and if not clear watch our video on how to use the factsheet. All these are available on this cocreate.itu.int site. Hence, please browse all its wepages! :)
Users tagged:
I love you idea. It’s evasively and I can see the need in your community.
A demonstration of the project can be found here: https://elearning.centreforskills.org/
You've got a decent track record, however I was a bit confused with the free internet. Which ISP will be providing that?
Hi Emmanuel,
I trust you are well.
Let me congratulate you on your idea. PESO is clearly a project which comes from your heart. I trust you will make sure it is realized for the benefit of the children in Uganda and the rest of Africa.
I wish to share a few considerations.
1. Consider mention which curriculum you will be offering and who will be offering the training. If it’s the teachers then perhaps you should consider inserting training for teachers as one of your key objectives as well as developing a curriculum?
2. Consider mentioning how your solution can help overcome the first problem that you listed, which I believe is a critical problem – ‘Failure by schools to adopt and embrace digital strategies to improve efficiency and learning outcomes in schools’.
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
Status label added: Community feedback received
Hello Emmanuel,
I hope you are fine, your idea is very prompt and according to the circumstances. Your idea is explained quite nicely but I still have some questions;
1) Is internet availability a problem, If it is how does it affect PESO in a bigger picture?
2) I would like to know more about the e-learning experience, as in can you please explain the course work and approach.
3) You are involving schools in this venture, how willing are they to join you. In my experience schools seek some advantage for themselves.
4) Lastly I would recommend you to help us understand the difficulties in e-learning in your story.
Hope to hear back from you soon, Let me know if any of my questions need further explanation, Thank you.
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
Hello Emmanuel, Undoubtedly your initiative will benefit both the school and the students in this Covid-19 situation. You mentioned that you want to implement this project in 10 schools in Lira city, Uganda. But how many schools have you already implemented? And how many students have benefited from this solution of yours?
Dear Emmanuel,
Congratulations on your idea. I specially like that you want to encourage students, specifically girls, to pursue STEM careers. My only comment would be regarding your project's sustainability. I would recommend to you to give more detail on how you are planning to finance the project. Are there any public funds from the local or national government? Private companies could also help funding the program. In Mexico, telecommunication and ICT companies have helped develop similar projects.
Best regards,
Alberto
I don't think you have reflected any of the feedback in your refined idea. It's weak. You shouldn't just dump something to get the expert feedback.
Refer back to my comment 3 months ago. You submission needs some serious work.
Also, clearly describe the mechanisms and processes behind your phase 1 & 2. There isn't any description on how it will benefit your target audience.
Go watch the video of the final webinar. You can however, start working on your final documents now.
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Status label added: Expert feedback received