Open Ed Resources & Badges to extend Tanzania Curriculum

A mobile friendly Learning Management System in English&Kiswahili to collect and share free online resources matched to the Tanzanian National Exams. Additional content will teach skills that will drive entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and adaptability. To be used by young people who set up afterhour tuition centres for siblings and neighbours.

Student-led informal homework centres run by volunteers need access to good education materials and practice exams. Text books and resources are expensive and students want access to digital content. Over half of secondary students in Tanzania are failed by the government education system and are left unemployed or in menial labour, especially females. Consistently failing undermines confidence that extends into adulthood and affects all life choices.The use of Swahili in Primary and then a switch to English in Secondary, has been identified as a major problem. Teachers are often absent or unqualified in English or their assigned topic areas.  

Tanzanian students are very keen to learn and break the poverty cycle. As smart phones and Internet access have recently saturated the market, the abundance of Open Education Resources (OER) and free online courses are not widely known. Students, who are already familiar with the Tanzanian Curriculum,  can collect links and resources to free online content to share. Students are already supporting each other through Facebook groups and Whats App, so this is an extension of what is already happening. As well as that, additional content above curriculum requirements will teach skills that will drive entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and adaptability. 

Secondary students of Tanzania 13 - 20 years old are the immediate beneficiaries.   They can access this program through small informal tuition centres held in homes after school. The end result is more of them will pass the National Exams. Practice quizzes and essays will be developed and badges issued as an informal micro-credentialing system that can be downloaded to work offline on tablets and smartphones in student-led homework centres.

Audit of courses available on the Moodle LMS and Competency Mapping of National Standards against activities - A Moodle LMS Site and Mobile App with content applicable to Form 1 - 6 of the Tanzanian Curriculum

Audit of activities courses and activities that address 21c skills.

Creation of 100 badges mapped to he standard curriculum plus extension activities. - Extension activities beyond the basic pass requirements that encourage critical thinking and adaptability , with Badges to encourage extension work of deeper learning

Track user enrolments in the LMS and collect activity reports as evidence of interaction. Google analytics will also be used to track usage. - Steady growth in the number of people who self-register for the website, with an aim of 100,000, and that there is ongoing collaboration between participants - a connectivist approach to learning

This solution is innovative because rather than a teacher-led LMS it is student -led. It takes what is happening in small study groups and allows them to capture the ideas and resources and collaborate with other study groups doing similar things around Tanzania.  The concept could be replicated in other languages and countries. It is unique to other Learning Management Systems in the use of the the Moodle Mobile App with mobile friendly features like offline quizzes, downloadable resources, badges& asynchronous forum postings. 80% of the web product no works offline on smart phones or tablets.

The lead developer (pictured below front left) is now living in Kibigija, Zanzibar and is taking a grassroots approach to identify community projects that can be supported. There are networks of students in Tanzania who support each other academically in  informal ways. This innovate project takes this local initiative and scales it up across Tanzania, and eventually to other Swahili speaking countries. The approach of using a mother-tongue to discuss an English curriculum is unique, yet it mimics what is happening on the ground in informal study groups.    

The free online space will be available as both a website and an Android app that connects to that website. The after hours groups are run by volunteers willing to share their knowledge. Students who own smartphones or tablets, which cost about $100 US, will be able to interact with the content. We will also look for corporate sponsorship and donations to purchase android tablets. Study groups in Tanzania will often pool their resources to buy food and internet credit, so people could use a small tablet device between a few people to reduce downloading costs. 

The vision requires two full-time workers long term as it relies on crowd-sourcing the majority of content. Interns who want to learn the Moodle Learning Management System will be invited  for three months. Some income to cover hosting costs and maintain the small staff in the long term will be generated from ads placed within the website. Kibigija Community is supporting the lead developer, Natalie Denmeade, by appointing her as caretaker of Kuza Cave and using income generated from this tourism attraction to support local education projects.  We will also continue to raise funds through donations. Visitors to Zanzibar are keen to assist in local projects so we have many opportunities to explain our vision and request support. Tours to Kuza Cave include a village culture tour to show the community projects and after-hours tuition centres that have been established. 

Projecting the amount of smartphone and tablet usage, and the finances to afford credit for Internet access is risky. We know there is good infrastructure and the main issue of intermittent electricity is being addressed by solar chargers and power banks becoming standard. The culture in Tanzania is to share what you have so we will design the LMS with the assumption that people will be sharing the devices and possibly have three to one using a device.

The second risk is creating  value around 21st C skills as well as rote learning skills required to pass exams.

http://www.kuzacave.com/zanzibar/cultural-infusion/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw0otQYdRrs

https://au.linkedin.com/in/nataliedenmeade

The concept we are presenting can be crowdsourced to global volunteers, not just Tanzanian students. The Tanzanian curriculum will be published on our site and volunteers requested to build quizzes and other practice assessments. Volunteers will also be invited to assist with extension activities and courses on 21C Skills. Deeper learning and skills like empathy and human centred design will be very foreign to students who have been trained for knowledge acquisition, so we will ask assistance to step them up slowly. We will need mentorship and support to grow and scale this across Tanzania and other Swahili speaking countries.

Said Mohammed & Alphayo – Co-ordinators of after-school tuition centres 

Enock Ephraim– Graduate of St Judes school and peer-mentor 

Kibigija Villlage

NG0 -South East Coast Educational Development

Moodle HQ and mobile team and global community

Plus academic researchers and interested partners as below

Kitabu App ( see https://www.tigo.co.tz/kitabu-app)

Rumie (see https://www.rumie.org/)