Storytelling and STEM education Timbiquí

Inequitable access to digital technologies in educational processes is a global problem. This problem becomes more complex when trying to align and incorporate alternative pedagogies in the classroom. These initiatives require a more complex collaborative process, although more interesting and motivating for children in remote territories and with low levels of Internet access. It is for this reason that we propose to develop an educational program in a hybrid setting focused on 36 didactic sequences that use storytelling as a complementary strategy in STEM Education for students between 5 and 10 years old in Timbiquí, Cauca - Colombia. As a main goal of our solution is to enhance scientific thinking skills in these students by using this complementary strategy. This program is based on several technological solutions, including an Intranet/Internet community network and a digital platform enabled for low connectivity conditions. This platform will provide the functionalities for creating and consolidating communities of practice and communities of learning facilitating the circulation of knowledge in the territory.

The main problem we are trying to solve is the low levels of quality and access of contextualized STEM education in academic institutions in Timbiquí. This situation in many cases presents greater complexities when analyzed from an ethnic and gender perspective in this territory. One of the identified barriers is the isolation of teachers from broader and more dynamic academic communities, which in turn is reflected in the quality of academic support for their students. Timbiquí is a vast municipality in the department of Cauca, accessible only by air and maritime transport and with a large percentage of rural population. Timbiquí presents a set of concrete barriers for land transportation enhanced by certain structural problems of the Colombian Pacific. These conditions in many cases hinder the access of children to schools and the teachers’ learning throughout life activities. In this context of geographical isolation, the Internet coverage is another serious problem. By 2018 this coverage was about of 0.9%. Then, connectivity becomes an imperative for improving STEM education. 

The solution is to implement an Intranet/Internet Community Network in Timbiquí (Cauca) allowing the development of an educational program in a hybrid setting focused on the use of storytelling for developing scientific thinking skills in children between the ages of 5 and 10. The solution also intent to develop a digital platform with low Internet requirements for the creation and consolidation of communities of practice among teachers and learning communities among students. Two phases are considered. 1) Training the community and advising on the self-managed community process for the implementation of the Intranet/Internet community network. To achieve a sustainable implementation and operation process, it seeks to empower the community for the organizational, technological, financial, and service provision management of the community network. 2) The design and implementation of three training programs from an ethno-education perspective, where traditional ways of learning and new digital technologies are in harmony. The first program would be a diploma course aimed at students’ families on the appropriation of digital technologies and self-care in digital environments. The second program would be a diploma in creating ICT-mediated learning experiences for teachers. These two programs are the basis for the main educational program. 

The participating population will be the extended educational community of Timbiquí (students, teachers, relatives, and leaders of the region) of the Santa Rosa Agricultural Technical School, located in the rural area. The school has 180 students and 15 teachers. The impact at the community level comprises the higher levels of access and quality of STEM Education for children and higher levels of connectedness between teachers and students, and local teachers in in a broader academic community. These skills could allow children to better understand their environment and be future agents of transformation in the face of environmental problems in their territory. It is here where alternative strategies such as storytelling for STEM education may achieve higher levels of motivation and commitment in their training process among children should be considered a priority.

The solution that is proposed in this proposal is mainly focused on improving the conditions of digital connectivity, academic interaction, and psycho-pedagogical support between the different actors in the community. Allowing to improve on the one hand, the conditions of access of students to educational content, and on the other, it is expected to support teachers to redesign their courses and implement them properly in remote or personalized and flexible hybrid settings.

The proposal is aligned with the challenge by providing teachers with a methodology for adapting and personalizing a program for the development of scientific thinking in children through storytelling as a pedagogical strategy. The program format will be implemented in a hybrid format for low connectivity conditions, ensuring, during the training sessions with teachers a co-design processes and adjustments to the specific context of the territory. The training program is focused on 36 didactic sequences that use storytelling as a complementary strategy in STEM Education for students between 5 and 10 years old in Timbiquí, Cauca - Colombia.

We identified our solution’s stage of development as Growth. This proposal integrates and articulates the institutional capabilities of the Alliance between the Icesi University and Colnodo from previous initiatives in rural areas the department of Cauca an in the Colombian pacific including Timbiquí. Some of the evidence presented comprise previous projects carried out in multiple communities throughout the Colombian Pacific by the Center for Afrodiasporic Studies (CEAF). In particular, the pedagogical and psychosocial accompaniment project in Timbiquí via cell phone is presented during the COVID-19 pandemic named Tejiendo-Aprendizajes. Also, we have more than 25 years of the experience in training schools’ teachers in different programs of the Faculty of Education and Eduteka. Finally, Colnodo has proven experience implementing Intranet/Internet Community Networks. Some cases comprise “The Wind Network of Silvia (Jxa’h Wejxia Casil)” in the municipalities of Silvia y Caldono (Cauca) and the community network in Maní (Casanare).

This proposal is aimed at the creation and future consolidation of an extended academic community (students, teachers, families, and leaders of the region) enhancing the interaction and collaboration in communities of practices and communities of learning for providing quality STEM education for children (5 to 10 years old) through storytelling as a didactic sequence. To achieve this goal some other training programs are required for creating adequate learning settings for children. We present a training program for parents and community leaders about the use of Internet as a means for improving access to quality education in isolated places. The second training program will focus on members of the community preparing them to co-design and implement the community network and provide the administrative organization for the sustainability of the initiative. However, all these three training programs require the deployment of the project will be carried out in a collaborative and self-managed way by the community of Timbiquí with the advice of the members of the alliance to the sustainability of the technological operation process. This Intranet/Internet community network will support the education program for teachers that intent to provide them pedagogical tools for developing scientific thinking skills in children of the municipality of Timbiquí. This type of initiative has been proved as solutions to the problem of access to different services such as internet access in regions where the state does not have a strong presence, the government does not have clear policies and plans for investment and the private telecommunications sector has no interest in offering services due to high costs and possible low profitability. 

An Intranet/Internet community network self-managed by the community with traditional technology configured as follows a) A trunk connection or main link to connect to the Internet through the provider that offers services in the urban area of Timbiquí. This connection is made up of the radio links or technology required to have the Internet access point connected to the main node of the network. This connection would be in the Mayor's Office of Timbiquí. b) A main node where a server and routing equipment are located for hosting and managing local educational services and content. This node will be at the school facilities in the rural area of Santa-Rosa-Timbiquí. c) A local transport network made up of radio links between the main node and some points with the highest concentration of people, connecting the different communities with each other and allowing access to local services and content. d) A local or mesh network that communicates to each of the beneficiaries in the different communities made up of access point equipment and stations or by nodes of a mesh network. On this infrastructure, they will explore VoIP solutions with free software tools and on Linux platforms, and a virtual radio station that supports the ento-educational strategies proposed in the proposal and the server with digital content to support the extended academic community.

A digital platform designed for low connectivity environments that allows the consolidation of an extended-academic community that articulates and strengthens the work of communities of practice and learning communities.

This platform will serve also as the content manager for the 36 didactic sequences, the stories in audio and text formats and the podcast of students and professors available online and off-line.

The proposed solution is an Intranet/Internet Community Network owned and managed collectively by communities as a nonprofit service and for community activities. These networks seek to contribute to educational, economic, health, and political processes in accordance with a strategy proposed by the community” (Colnodo, [1]). The alliance member Colnodo has the experience of the accompaniment in the implementations in the two cases of this type of networks. The first one is the Jxa'h Wejxia Casil (Wind Network) in Silvia and Caldono (Cauca) [2], and the second one is the Maní Community Network in Maní (Casanare) [3]. In these implementations technical models of Intranet/Internet community networks were implemented through radio links and local data networks. The success of these community networks come from the implementation of proven technologies and the active participation of the community, the knowledge transfers processes of the organizations that accompany the implementation, the permanent learning process of the people supporting the project, and above all from a collaborative work and community engagement for their own social development through an empowered community.

[1]:https://redescomunitarias.co/e...

[2]:https://redescomunitarias.co/e...

[3]:https://redescomunitarias.co/e...

Regarding the App for the creation and consolidation of communities, the aim is to integrate the contents of the didactic sequences of stories and narrative together with other materials, the functionality of asynchronous interaction by text, audio or video with low resource consumption and the creation of communities. Our experience is through Eduteka which is an educational portal and an area of Faculty of Education dedicated to improving the quality of basic and secondary education through the intentional, focused, and effective use of ICT in the processes of teaching-learning. It has a long history in the training of teachers at the national level through diplomas and annual conferences that have allowed the consolidation of teacher networks. 

One of the main risks is that geographical conditions do not allow adequate technical feasibility for deployment throughout the territory. On the other hand, the municipality has a problem of constant power supply drops. The only possible way of personnel and equipment from Cali to Timbiquí is Air transportation. Additional economic resources are required, and the crowdfunding strategy presented later in this proposal would be useful for this topic. A decentralized alternative solar panels solution is also required to ensure the operation hub available most of the time.

On the other hand, access to the Internet and use of social networks can generate some risks and enhance others (*). To mitigate these risks, the training program for the extended community will prioritize reflection on risk issues for children on the net. The work will be consolidated in workshops carried out on a digital security approach and a gender approach so that students, teachers, and parents can have tools and develop good practices to mitigate these risks.

(*): Risks such as: cyberbullying, dissemination of images without consent, grooming, sextortion, identity theft, fingerprint

Considering that the proposal will be implemented initially in the Agricultural Technical College (Santa Rosa) -Timbiquí, it is expected to offer the service to 180 students, 15 teachers and the entire community that inhabits the network's coverage territory during the first year of the project. With subsequent processes of scaling the service to other sectors of the municipality of Timbiquí, it is expected that in five (5) years the service will be offered to most of the municipality's students between 5 and 10 years of age. As of 2019, there were 4,947 total children enrolled between the ages of 5 and 10. In the urban area there were 1,091 students in that year and in the rural area 3,856 students in those age ranges. These students are distributed in 56 institutions between colleges and schools. The scaling would be carried out following the proposed model and always having as main connection nodes the colleges and schools of the region. This expansion would be carried out considering the availability of resources for future calls and the management process of the community itself.

For the following year, the impact objective is to improve connectivity conditions and increase access to quality educational resources, in order to ensure the educational inclusion of the boys and girls of the Agricultural Technical College at its headquarters in Santa Rosa -Timbiquí, to that advance in their training process in STEM areas and become agents of change that inspire other children and young people in the community, as well as early promotion of ICT skills for teachers and families. To achieve this objective, a business model is proposed that allows the integration of various actors in society, such as the academy as a generator of knowledge, the private company as a financing agent, the civil society that wants to join as a volunteer or as a donor. For the following years, the objective of impact consists of replicating in different rural areas of the Colombian Pacific, with similar conditions of connectivity and dispersion of the population, the different technological and pedagogical strategies exposed as a model of solution to the problems described. As of 2019, there were 4,947 total children enrolled between the ages of 5 and 10. In the urban area there were 1,091 students in that year and in the rural area 3,856 students in those age ranges. These students are distributed in 56 institutions between colleges and schools. So, the potential impact is improving this academic community providing to teachers in the 56 schools some didactic sequences and pedagogical strategies. It is also expected to consolidate a local support model for the flow of people and activities to be developed, an impulse that will start from basic primary training to technical education for work and higher education, converging in different activities to achieve training for employment

• Number of participants in the initial workshop / number of final implementers
• Number of households that can access the connection or materials on the intranet within a radius of # of kilometers.
• Number of voluntary (unpaid) jobs / number of paid jobs
• Number of teachers trained and advised for pedagogical adaptation, personalized instruction, and training for communication with students and their families in remote and hybrid settings.
• Number of students participating in the online sessions of the educational proposal adjusted with the STEM didactic sequences.
• Number of family members of the students participating in the family training.
• Number of teachers, students, and members of the Santa Rosa-Timbiquí community who participate in each of the three training programs (for teachers, families, and future technical and administrative administrators of the Intranet/Internet community network).

At least 10 people from the community, 4 part-time students of the Master programs of the University. 3 professionals of Colnodo 7 professors from the Icesi University working in the Interdisciplinary Center for Digital Transformation (CITRADI), the Center for Afrodiasporic Studies (CEAF), Eduteka and Colnodo.

https://www.icesi.edu.co/centros-academicos/citradi/ https://www.icesi.edu.co/centros-academicos/ceaf/ http://eduteka.icesi.edu.co https://www.colnodo.apc.org/

Icesi University through Eduteka has extensive experience in training processes for teachers from schools and universities in different areas of knowledge. These processes are led by the Faculty of Education articulating the programs with the other faculties of the University and other allies. Eduteka has been supporting training processes for elementary and middle education teachers for more than 25 years, as well as permanently generating digital content and spaces for discussion and reflection for teachers. Regarding the knowledge of the Colombian Pacific, CEAF has been working for more than 10 years in the territory with the communities, articulating various public-private initiatives from an ethnic perspective. Finally, regarding the technological competencies of the Icesi-Colnodo University Alliance, there is the experience of the ICT department that supports the Systems Engineering and Telematics Engineering programs, as well as the master programs in Engineering and Data Science. Coldono, on the other hand, has more than 20 years of experience in processes of social appropriation of technology in the country in relation to the strategic use of the Internet for development and more than 8 years in projects for the design and implementation of community networks Intranet / Internet. Finally, through the Interdisciplinary Center for Digital Transformation (CITRADI), the Icesi University has established mechanisms to articulate the various initiatives around digital transformation and industry 4.0 to have intervention processes with higher levels of social impact.

The team is made up of equitable participation between men and women who have a long history of work in the Pacific region and with afro-descendant and indigenous communities. Therefore, the solution that is created is oriented to the recognition of the context and their needs. A multidisciplinary team was formed for the development of this solution made up of Colnodo and the Icesi University through their different participating centers and observatories. The daily operation, as well as the different projects in which the Icesi University participates, must follow the guidelines of the equal treatment policy and the educational inclusion policy, which include a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

https://www.icesi.edu.co/launiversidad/images/La_universidad/estautos_reglamentos/politica-de-igualdad-de-trato.pdf

https://www.icesi.edu.co/images/La_universidad/estautos_reglamentos/No_81-POLITICA_EDUCACION_INCLUSIVA.pdf