Access to quality education is widely recognized as a pivotal tool for alleviating poverty, slowing the spread of disease and malnutrition, promoting the overall well-being of children, and empowering women. Not surprisingly, the UN argues that quality education is not only a basic human right, but also an important catalyst for economic growth and development.
The Endless Network, a global organization dedicated to advancing equity and access, invests strategically in companies around the world to address issues such as limited access to quality education. This article focuses on one of these organizations, Learning Equality.
Learning equity provides access to education for the 2.6 billion people around the world who do not have access to the internet. We focus on providing quality teaching and learning through technology, even without the internet. The nonprofit was founded in response to the global adoption of KA Lite, a first-generation learning platform that provides offline access to Khan Academy videos and exercises. This makes clear the need and readiness for offline-first educational technology tools that address the challenges of connectivity and access to high-quality digital learning materials in resource-poor settings.
Using what it learned from KA Lite, the organization developed an ecosystem of open products and tools called Kolibri to advance and expand its impact. Kolibri provides offline access to a curated library of educational content, supports custom curriculum creation, and promotes self-directed, differentiated, project-based learning.
EdSurge recently spoke with Lauren Lichtman, Director of Strategy and Partnerships, about Learning Equality's unique collaborative approach to realizing equity in education through technology. Lichtman applies his relationship-building experience to his passion for identifying solutions that break down barriers to quality learning.
EdSurge: What is your vision for learning equity in education?
Lichtman: Learning Equality's vision is to create an equitable world where all learners can develop their agency, create positive change, and thrive. This approach includes building adaptable and user-friendly solutions, promoting organic and scalable use of educational technology, prioritizing student-centered and equitable learning experiences, advocating for systems change, and actively building learning communities. All of this is part of the theory of change. We take a bottom-up approach to educational technology in a contextual and responsible way.
What does bottom-up approach mean?
Bottom-up means enabling organizations to take ownership of how they contextualize educational technology to local needs and experiences. Our goal is to enable sharing in a non-directive way. Our approach is designed to complement what is already happening in regular classrooms and support the flexible use of educational technologies in a variety of learning environments. With Kolibri, we provide a free, open-source learning platform designed for learners with limited digital literacy, so there aren't many barriers to adoption. Kolibri does not come preloaded with specific content, but it does have a library of content that organizations, curriculum designers, and others can choose from, and tools to organize content according to the curriculum. We provide open license documentation, guidance materials, and training materials through the Kolibri Edtech Toolkit to help organizations set up Kolibri on their own and train educators and staff on how to blend the technology into their learning environments. All of this supports a community-driven, bottom-up approach. This DIY adoption model is part of what makes learning equity so unique and so broad in scope. There are more than 10 million users across 220 countries and regions.
While this model supports large-scale adoption, note that learning equity works in partnership with organizations working across scale or context, sometimes including working with the Department for Education at a higher level to support Kolibri delivery at scale. It's important to do this. -Down method. In this case too, Kolibri provides institutions for educators and organizations to use in a way that suits their specific learning environment.
How is learning equity addressing the digital divide and the 2.6 billion people without internet access??
First, it is important to think about the different aspects of the digital divide. Terms information gap This often means not having affordable access to the internet or certain hardware. But another important aspect is thinking about digital literacy and digital rights. Learners without an internet connection do not have many opportunities to learn skills or develop the digital skills increasingly needed in the workforce. We will see this gap widen further as generative AI begins to rely on strong internet connections to be used.
We think of connectivity along a spectrum. It's not black and white. There is an internet connection, but it is often intermittent and has limited bandwidth. That's why we've focused on using connectivity in smart ways, where it exists, to improve teaching and learning. For example, Kolibri may install and update software and content in various ways. One way is to connect directly from the Internet, but another way is to install locally using a USB or hard drive, or peer-to-peer with a nearby device. Then, even when installing Kolibri, organizations only import the content they need due to bandwidth considerations. Additionally, Kolibri is designed to run on inexpensive legacy devices, so you don't need the latest and greatest hardware to run it.
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How does Learning Equality work with partners to understand and support the unique needs of different contexts, and how are these reflected in the design of educational tools?
Receiving feedback from the community and partners is a key element of product development. Everything we do on the roadmap is informed by and developed in collaboration with the community. We have four core design principles that drive our product development: equitable access, effective learning, community ownership, and consistent experiences. While we support the DIY model already mentioned, we work directly with organizations to test and iterate on Kolibri to help them build better products.
For example, the next version of Kolibri will give learners the ability to practice previous exams with a self-assessment tool. This new feature was developed based on feedback from the Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR's Instant Network Schools program, which has been using Kolibri since 2018 to support refugee learners. This version also allows organizations working with Learning Equality to use Kolibri to survey learners, teachers, and administrators to support ongoing monitoring and evaluation during their programs. This particular feature was initially driven by an evaluation by the Harvard EASEL Lab using the Amal Alliance's Colors of Kindness with Kolibri.
We have also worked with a shoulder-to-shoulder organization in Honduras that works closely with the Ministry of Education to support improved learning outcomes, and now the curriculum-aligned CREE content is publicly included in the Kolibri library for anyone to use.
Recently, a new project in Uganda sought to understand how Kolibri could be leveraged to support project-based learning to improve basic skills. We worked with both organizations to co-develop and implement this approach into a curriculum aligned to national standards for out-of-school refugee learners, particularly in Year 3. In just 12 weeks, math scores increased from 44% to 87%, literacy scores increased from 13% to 71%, and social-emotional skills improved significantly.
It is important to note that not all of our partnerships exist outside of the United States. For example, we worked with intermediary organizations in Pennsylvania to help learners with limited connectivity access the learning materials they need during COVID-19.
Another use case for Kolibri in the United States is correctional systems. We have supported the Idaho Department of Corrections to assist learners with STEM subjects and obtaining a GED. Often these learners become mentors or coaches within the system, developing skills to support the learning of others.
How to get involved in learning equity activities: There are many ways you can help ensure that everyone has access to quality educational opportunities.