Technology hoped to improve academic excellence
A school that has been in existence since the late 20th century, its nearly 20 years old in the 21st century. Surprisingly, even at this age there seems to be not much that is happening at this school. Its located the base of such a beautiful hill surrounded by many trees and leafy fleshy green vegetation in a remote place in Kakamega County. It was even more surprising that they had consistently had mean grade of D and D- over the years hence evident why there was no huge enrollment at the school.
We arrived on such a clear sky morning which was preceded by a rainy night and believe me, the roads were not as smooth as you would want them. However the fresh air and the motivation to deliver our learning tools we had for the school could not let us give up. Arriving there, we were welcomed by such a warm welcome form the Principal, area sub chief, member of county assembly appeared at some point. It was big….
So what was the mission here?
You would expect that such a journey is not for the sake. It was a journey of purpose! The Education In a Suitcase team from Iceland and The United Kingdom, and the African Maths Initiative team from Kenya, we were delivering a new learning technology based on tablet technology called Education in a suitcase. This system consist of a set of tablets that connect to a server loaded with learning materials. These materials include mathematics content, offline wikipedia, Khan academy and a library with about 45 thousand books. These tablets use the Tutorweb platform through the browser to access the materials from the server which broadcasts content via a wireless connection. The students log on to the system using their username and password to access this content.
The students are able to download the maths content and drills(exercises) to their tablets and even in absence of the wireless connection, they are able to do the drills. As soon as the tablets reconnect to the wireless connection, the data from the tablets which is majorly on how the students are getting on with the exercises, is automatically synced to the server. Teachers can then be able to track the students progress.
This system also allows the teachers to add content of their own for each of the classes. This could include other subjects too.
It was very exciting to see how the students could quickly get to use the tablets. I noted the lower we went through the forms, form four to three to two, then the easier the students found navigating around and interacting with the tablets.
Our two day work here will be put to test over time to see how the students get on. We hope this will be a good intervention for the school and hopefully improve in their academic performance.