Virtual Learning.Com

More than 617 million children and adolescents, that is six out every ten are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, according to new estimates from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. This means that more than one-half – 56% – of all children and 61% of adolescents won’t be able to read or handle mathematics with proficiency by the time they are of age to complete primary and secondary education respectively. This results in the spiraling effect of high school drop outs, unskilled workforce, unemployment, crime and violence.

Virtual.Com seeks to use 2D and 3D digital animation to create interested personalized interactive lessons for four of the key subject area for early childhood and primary education, and digital  animation skills training leading into entrepreneurship or job creation.

Students from all races and socioeconomic backgrounds are at risk for school failure, especially the disabled. This failure many times spirals into their adult lives. Many efforts have been made to respond to the needs of the failing students, but has still not produced the desired results. Two sets of learners: boys and the disabled are at a great disadvantage in that the methods use in many classrooms do not appeal to their learning interest. All over the world teachers have come to a frightening conclusion that they can be an instrument of inspiration or a tool of torture. Teachers are expected to teach a multifaceted classroom of students in an inclusive classroom, attending to all needs at the same time. In 2017, 82 percent of survey respondents said they believe students who use technology in the classroom are better prepared for their future careers, yet nearly four in five — 78 percent — of teachers say they haven't received the training they need to effectively use the technology they're asked to in the classroom. 

This is where Virtual.Com comes in. Virtual.Com is a digital educational platform that provides interested personalized learning paths. The platform seeks to use animation to create interactive learning activities that are curriculum based to stimulate learning in four main subject areas starting with the early childhood and the primary level of schools. Through the use of advance artificial intelligence, students of all abilities will be able to use the voice recognition tool and algorithm performance monitoring tool to help themselves. Teachers will better be able to monitor, guide and assess each student individually as the students learn at their own pace. The learning platform will be pitched at three levels: a) below grade level; b) at grade level; and above grade level.

In addition, to salvage those who had fallen through the crack, Virtual.Com will create a learning platform for youths and women to learn skills such as garment designs leading into garment construction; organic gardening; and digital animation, all of which will gear them into entrepreneurship and/or job creation.

With an estimated 617 million children lacking minimum proficiency in reading and writing, Covid-19 pandemic is a harsh reality that this number has increased due to the absence from the physical classroom. The global school system struggled to educate the over 90 million children with disabilities. Many students who were engaged virtually lacked the individual attention and were forced to all learn at the same level. Skills training programmes were halted abruptly and work force cut drastically.  All are affected one way or another as a result of this pandemic. 

Parents, students and teachers will benefit from this platform as it will better help them in the  transition of their new format of teaching and learning. It will create jobs for the students who were already trained in animation and guide some into business creation.

Virtual.Com have already started the training of its first batch of animators. They in-turn will be employed to create learning platforms for the different programmes. This is an hybrid organization, hence, the programmes created for the early childhood and primary education will be marketed to the parents, schools and education ministries. 

Youths in the communities will be trained how to use the regular school platform to set up community virtual homework centres.

 Animators  will also create training programmes for young farmers, and digital pattern making  courses for the women of the communities along with other market alignment skills area.

The use of 2D and 3D technology to create interactive lessons in completion that can be used as a sole teaching method or a teaching complement for students in an inclusive classroom of varying disabilities working at their own pace. It will allow the teacher to have immediate feedback and be able to assess and plan individually for each child. This will allow each child to challenge self and compete with self to maximize his or her potential. Through this platform the teacher can multi-task easily. While animated videos have been used in the classroom, this is different in that it takes on the complete content of a topic and is interactive so students can talk, listen and do. 

Animation will be used for the first time in Jamaica to train youths in skills areas such as organic gardening, medicinal root gardening, apiary farming, digital pattern making and others as in alignment with market demands. 

Virtual Learning.Com(VL.Com) will use several contemporary technologies in its business model and product development. With the new reality brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic, it has become evident that major adjustments in the education sector are needed in how lessons are administered with self-learning and critical thinking taking priority. The fifth industrial revolution places great emphasis on human intelligence than ever before.

 This will uncage human resources from the major part of daily administration and will give them time to focus on their growth, productivity, and development on a personal, national, and organization level.

The VL.Com project seeks to do just that by incorporating digital animation and artificial intelligence into the learning experience starting from the kindergarten level where, from an early age the curriculum will be creatively digitized to allow for the cultivation of critical thinking, and learning at own pace while teaching cultural values.

The VL.Com project will implement a robust production pipeline consisting of animators, coders, artificial intelligence specialists, educators, writers, audio engineers, and software developers. The pilot will be developed in Jamaica.

The VL.Com project will train unattached youths and equip them with animation skills and studio engineering, after which internship will follow before transitioning as full-time workers in the production pipeline of the digitized interactive version of the learning platform. The VL.Com project is expected to generate a revenue stream from the digitized curriculums from public and private schools, education ministries, early childhood centers, and sale to individuals. 

On average, students who learned from the animation and students who learned from static pictures performed significantly different in the post-test. While there are no significant differences between groups with respect to the acquisition of factual knowledge, the group who learned with the animation significantly outperformed the group who learned with static pictures with respect to  conceptual and procedural knowledge.

Learning Material

Factual Knowledge

Conceptual Knowledge

Procedural Knowledge

Animation

   58%

44%

       28.3%

Static picture

   53.3%

22%

        11.3%

Extracted from: Beneficial Effects of Learning from Animations
Uwe Kombartzkya, Rolf Ploetzneraa
Institute of Media in Education, University of Education, Freiburg, Germany
uwe.kombartzky@ph-freiburg.de  

This technology on a lesser scale has been used effectively on ABCmouse.com. This is a site for ages 2 -8 that uses animated characters to interact with students on different subject level. This programme extends beyond what that site offers. In that, it will be built to use alone or as a teaching tool by teachers. The same content will be projected at different levels to match the needs of the children. The teachers will be able to use it to guide, assess and interact with the students.

Outcomes

Short Term

• Affecting the affective  to ignite the creative potential of  students at a young age. Contribute to increase focus and concentration in class while having fun.

Medium Term

•Interactive learning with live-action animation, simulation, video, audio, graphics, feedback, expert advice, and questions and answers keep learners interested and reinforce skills. Students apply imagination and rational thinking enabling them to invent and explore multi-solutions to a problem.\

Long Term

•  performance indicator of assessment tests showing improvement  in students performance

•Skills trainees will be able to mentor, manage and train other in this unique process towards business development.

Activities: 

• Daily interactive learning with live-action animation, simulation, video, audio, graphics, feedback, expert advice, and questions and answers.

•On going training for new users to the programme.

•Periodic school visits to see how technology is being used.

Outputs

• Students gain competence in the various spheres of learning
• Effective assessment and feedback by teachers
• Small business development for youths
• Creation of joint community ventures

Assumptions

•  availability of staff due to continuous training
• A wide coverage of platform over the Caribbean extending to Central and South America.
• Changes in larger policy document of the ministry of Education on the use of technology in the classroom.

Currently we are serving 25 students.

In one year we intend to serve 12,000 children and young adults.

In 5 years we intend to serve over 1 million children and young adults in Jamaica and the English speaking Caribbean.

The goal of the organization is to impact in the next five years, at least 90% of the early childhood and primary education students in Jamaica, the Caribbean, Central and South America. 

To partner with the Ministry of education in various countries in the launching of this platform.

To partner with skills training institution in each country responsible for trainees evaluation.

To develop animated training in skill areas suitable for the work force.

To partner with companies in the training of their employees and prospective employees.

Animated platforms require high end computer systems. It requires extensive memory and storage space; it requires special equipment for a quality presentation. This platform is a very cost effective to start, but has fruitful financial turn over.

Training requirement for new subscribees. 

Changing the culture of the older teachers in the system re the use of technology to effectively carry out their task.

Teachers adopting and adapting a total interactive student-centered classroom

• Seek funding for start-up. 
• Train the trainers incubators will have to be put in place as a continuous programme for educators.
• There is no satisfaction to change but results; so for each school start with one class in which the teacher is willing to change, train and monitor the teacher for 6 months until positive results have been seen. This we are hoping will change the perspective of the resistant teachers.

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10 full time staffs

10 contracted staffs

I have been trained in and working in the field of education for over 20 years.  I have worked as a trainer of trainers in the field of mathematics teacher delivery. I currently work as the coordinator of Mathematics in my school and has been trained as a special educational teacher. My co-founder, Mr. Leo Francis has been trained in the field of animation, he has done many animation videos and memos representing all different types of material. Together we have trained 25 youths in animation and 50 others in different skill areas with the aim of feeding them in the job market and entrepreneurial venture. 

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