myABCKit, hello world
What would you do if you knew you had the opportunity to redesign the educational system?
What would you do if you had one chance to actually make some kind of impact in the way kids could learn?
I believe every child should have access to an exceptional and unique learning experience. A personalized education that allows them to reach their full potential, to embrace success on their own terms and to be happy about it.
That requires a lot of changes, a huge amount of people involved and time. I didn’t like what I was seeing in the educational system (It hasn’t changed though…), and since I don’t like to complain, I decided to put my hands on and do something about it. One step at a time.
Four years ago I started what I call my little tiny revolution, a pet project called ABCKit. That project has evolved into my biggest and latest bet so far: myABCKit.
myABCKit is a play-based educational tool for kids with engaging literacy exercises to learn what they like best in a simple and easy way.
It is designed for schools and parents who want to reimagine education, who want to sharpen their focus on the way kids are obtaining knowledge.
We are using technology to create new ways of learning and thereby enhance the work of teachers and schools. We rely on methodologies such as Montessori or Waldorf, that respect each child as unique individuals who must learn at their own pace.
What’s myABCKit about
1. Individual learning
The educational focus during the last century has mostly been about transmitting knowledge. A standardized acquisition of information no longer fits in a society where most of the jobs our kids are going to be getting are not yet invented or defined.
myABCKit is a place where kids can learn through literacy exercises what they’re most interested in. We have created a simple, beautiful and playful tool to empower kids to feel that learning is a natural thing. Just like they do when they play.
Children will shape letters and write their first words, construct phrases and then critically analyse a text to find the deeper meaning in it.
myABCKit creates personalized learning experiences for each individual child, automatically adjusting the levels of the exercises and its content. We will be anticipating, adapting and suggesting the kind of content and exercises each kid (and class) needs based on their unique interests, needs and performance.
2. Personalized teaching
myABCKit allows the teacher to individualize the educational experience of each student by creating and personalizing the content to the student’s interests. We will provide basic content for the kids but one important characteristic of myABCKit will be the personalized content, allowing the teachers and parents to integrate their own packs: all the images, sounds, words & phrases can be personalized for each individual child or class.
In that way, children will work with content that is interesting or familiar to them, with voices they recognize (their own voice, or the teacher’s) while practicing exercises in a more engaging experience. Kids can be the creators of their own digital media.
With our tool, teachers can engage students active learning by using topics based on students’ interests. Kids are no longer seen as passive recipients of standard knowledge generated by someone who does not know them.
We learn best from the ones we love.
- Maria Montessori
3. Learning analytics
myABCKit collects data from each student every time use the exercises; allowing professors and schools to keep track of their skills, what kind of content they are engaging with, what they are prepared for and how they develop over time.
Our learning analytics provides detailed information about student progress and performance that can empower teachers and schools to guide children through interest-based learning.
Teachers can set up alerts to identify patterns that can give them meaningful insights about the kid’s behavior in order to detect possible learning difficulties. With data, over time, professors and schools will have the opportunity to anticipate children’s learning deficiencies at an early stage and act accordingly.
Why are we doing it?
The seed of myABCKit started four years ago when my team and I launched our 1st educational app, ABCKit, which later developed into the second app for older children, ABCKit for 5, both heavily influenced by Maria Montessori’s method.
Because the apps were so simple that they were embraced by the parents community.
Today, schools and parents have innumerable education options for teaching children letters, words and apps to introduce them to their own language.
We’re still in the beginning, We have only scratched the surface on how digital educational tools can be used to reshape the way kids will be learning.
And we feel passionate about being part of this.
- We want to lead to the best learning outcomes.
- We want to generate evidence that playing is learning.
- And most of all, we want to give sense to the knowledge kids are getting. We want to teach them how to think, not what to think.
Obviously this will take time and we know it sounds ambitious. But it is also clear that we’re living in an amazing time.
Our bet, our aim to redefine education, still has to move the focus from knowledge to thinking, from imposition to liberty. We will define what learning truly means for life.
Join the change
myABCKit is for schools and parents. Give it a try and sign up for our beta, to be released soon.
We’re also searching for schools to be part of the pilot we’re launching in the following weeks, for partners in educational research, and investors to join us for international launches.
And yes, we’re also hiring! Come and join our team! We promise a lot of fun :)
Thank you!
