New Platform Content & the Community Internet Sustainability Initiative

As the end of the year approaches, students and teachers were preparing for the important national exams, while continuing to access the learning platform to help with their teaching and studies.

There is now even more content on the learning platform, as we have added new Life Skills content in the form of the ‘Good Schools Toolkit’ by Raising Voices, which educates the teachers and students on how to introduce a happy and productive environment in the school. There was also the addition of various new eBooks for standards 3, 4 and 5. These eBooks are in addition to the African Storybook stories that are already available on the platform.

Many teachers informed us of an increase in pupil attendance due to the growing anticipation of new content being launched on the learning platform. It’s clear to see that iMlango has certainly become an integral and important part of these students’ daily lives.

Another interesting observation is that digital attendance monitoring, popularly known amongst the students as “sQuidding”, is now so ingrained in the schools and has become routine for the students in the morning and afternoon. As there are many schools who experience power outages and rationing, we sourced and distributed solar chargers for the attendance monitoring tablets to address this issue - so attendance can always be taken, even if there’s no power.

We have also initiated the first phase of our Community Internet Sustainability Initiative, which will provide iMlango communities near the schools with the ability to access the internet via their own mobile phones, or via the school’s PCs, using iMlango’s satellite broadband connectivity.

We were honoured to have been part of the 5th Annual mEducation Alliance symposium late last month which was held in Washington D.C. The 3 day event brought together over 200 participants from +100 organisations from around the world. The symposium is designed to facilitate knowledge exchange and networking with the main focus being the use of technology in education to support the Post-2015 SDG (Sustainable Development Goals).

As a presenter and exhibitor at this year’s symposium, we had the opportunity to showcase our programme to delegates and a team of experts. It was another great event and we look forward to being a part of next year’s symposium as well.

Lastly, we received a message from Daniel K. Sadikiel, a teacher at one of our schools and a member of our community, which illustrates the impact the programme is having here in Kenya.

“A.I.C. Na manga primary school is really proud of iMlango. The programme has really been of help to learners and the school at large. Most of the learners who've never used a computer are now very proud of themselves. Maths-whizz has made most of our learners interested in learning due to the practicality of the lessons. This has improved the school attendance.”

Until next time,
The iMlango team

A Child’s Natural Thirst for Knowledge

Schools have reopened after the teachers’ strike, students are back in the classroom, and the iMlango team have delivered a raft of new educational content on the learning platform. It’s certainly been a busy month for all involved. We know from the community messages that we had received during the strike how important iMlango is to the students and teachers, and how excited they were to get back in the classroom.

Early feedback on Q-Files, the online encyclopaedia delivered through the learning platform, has shown the power of ICT in delivering engaging, dynamic content and encouraging enquiry based learning - feeding a child’s natural thirst for knowledge. Collectively, in its launch phase, students have spent over 125 hours accessing Q-Files content. You can learn more about iMlango’s partnership with Q-Files here.

During one of our regular school visits, we were approached by a group of students who informed us that they had finished reading all of the African Story eBooks available on the platform, and that they demanded more! We listened to their request and responded by delivering an additional 43 African focussed eBooks available for the students to read in English, and an additional 30 available in Swahili.

We also launched the programme’s first literacy quiz on the learning platform this month. The quiz has been written by education specialists and enables students to interact with the quiz, capturing their responses and providing near real-time data for the programme. The quiz has been designed to encourage participation and engagement from all students, from multiple standards (year groups).

There are two quizzes, one aimed at standards 1-3 and one aimed at 4-7. The quiz aimed at standards 1-3 utilises audio questions as many of the students accessing the quiz are not able to read. For standards 4-7, the quiz has been developed without audio assistance, and the questions get progressively harder, lasting for a total of 40 minutes. For more information on the iMlango learning platform and digital learning content, please contact us.

Until next time,
The iMlango team

The Importance of Teamwork

There have been delays in getting children back into school because of the continuing teachers’ strike. Even so, we are delighted that many schools were able to provide some access during this time to iMlango learning tools, with school clubs having access to the PCs and Internet.

The iMlango consortium members came together in Mombasa for a training session and to build further on our team effort. Following the two days, the field teams came away with better understanding of the various technologies being deployed and how to troubleshoot if there are problems.

We have now reached the important transition in iMlango, from installation to intervention management as the teacher training is largely complete, and the sQuid Kenya field team are focusing on ensuring all aspects of the programme are making good progress, supported by Whizz field officers providing the specialist support for Maths tutoring. There are some exciting new developments in the learning content with more stories from African Storybook and we expect some further releases in October and November.

In September we have also been investigating how we can twin the iMlango schools UK Primary Schools, and we are grateful to some of Kajiado county Schools for working with us and giving helpful inputs. More of this later in the year.

Lastly, we were delighted to be able to introduce our Girls’ Education Challenge colleagues from Discovery to one of the iMlango schools in Kajiado. On our visit it was inspiring to see the Maths Whizz whole class tutoring being taught to the class, and the enthusiastic way this school, like so many others, is embracing all the technology - including the attendance system - which is helping to encourage better attendance at school with the help of the community and the teachers. The motto of the school is ‘Strive to excel’.

 Until next time,
The iMlango team