Early Internet access enables great learning results
Frank, at age 15 has three commercial websites that he built using Joomla (a content management system). He has a hunger to learn “everything” about the Internet because he believes there’s a lot of untapped potential. Frank is one of many participants at an Innovation event I attended as a judge that brought together 5 high schools from Kampala to compete in a mobile application challenge.
I asked Frank why he signed up for the challenge and he spoke about his love for computers. When I was in Primary Seven, I made friends with the computer lab technician, he said. I spent a lot of time in the lab accessing the Internet and learning a lot. Frank was 12 years when he started teaching himself how to code. He used the Internet to learn basic HTML and later advanced into learning more programming languages. His first Interest was website development and that’s how he ventured into building websites for clients.
Up until now, everything he knew was self taught. All he needed was a computer and access to the Internet and his curiosity got him where he is. Frank wants to pursue software engineering when he goes to University so engaging in activities that better his coding skills is essential to him.
Frank’s group was building a mobile application that seeks to give people relevant information about how to conduct first aid in situations of accidents before seeking medical help.
“A lot of people die in transit to hospitals after accidents because they do not get the relevant attention and first aid to keep them alive — Frank, A student of Watoto Hope Senior”
Frank and his team hope to change this situation with their application that stores relevant basic first aid information for most common accidents faced in their community. They incorporated a lot more features to their application to make it relevant and different.
How important was access to Internet leading up to Frank’s ability to code at a tender age? Frank spoke of how pivotal access to Internet was for him in the journey of self discovery. He discovered resources that taught him how to code and he immediately used his primary seven vacation as a time to learn building websites. Today at age 15 he is building mobile applications that are relevant to his community. He’s already plugged into the culture of innovation.
Frank’s story got me thinking about early adoption and access of Internet for all — A topic that is highly relevant in today’s discussions across workshops and conferences. In most less developed countries, students don’t have access to technology or Internet until they’re in upper high school or University. This means that a lot of young children lose the potential of discovering and learning new concepts at an early age. Concepts that would make them problem solvers and Innovators. Imagine how many Franks are lost along the way due to lack of access.
As I listened to all these young students in their early teenage years articulate their mobile application relevance, I could not help but be really proud of the future they’ll create. They are able to think critically and challenge situations in their community by building timely solutions. This is what majority of youth in rural areas who have no access to the Internet miss out on.
Many people ask if access alone is enough to enable learning. The answer is simple, once people have access to the Internet, they discover a lot of tools and resources that help facilitate learning.
Professor Sugata Mitra is famous for his “Hole in the Wall” experiment. In each case he went to different communities in rural India and planted a computer in a wall, connected high speed Internet and left the computer in place. Moments later he tells of amazing discoveries of how children were able to teach themselves how to browse and use the Internet without ever learning to speak or write English for that matter. He concludes “Children will learn, whatever they want to learn”. You can watch his interesting TedTalk following this link.
The earlier children get exposed to technology and Internet access, the better their chances of learning and the more they learn, they more curious they get.
It should be the collective effort of both government and private sector to continue to fight for access for all and early adoption of Internet access to enable better learning results among our children.
Special credit to R.A.I.S.E who organized the mobile application challenge as part of their annual challenge event.
