Reimagining education for refugee children using emerging technologies
[Music]
have you ever tried to imagine
six hundred thousand people that’s more
than the population of miami
the civil unrest in south sudan has
displaced six hundred thousand people
but that’s not the total number the
civil unrest in south sudan
has displaced 600 000 children
into uganda alone 600
000 children refugees
who have fled to uganda fleeing
with whatever they can they often arrive
to refugee camps
having lost most of their belongings
their homes
and at times their families uganda does
a lot to help these children
providing them with accommodation and
support
part of this includes placement into
schools
but to go to school in uganda you need
to speak english
which many south sudanese children do
not know
the current solution to this is to place
children in school grades much lower
than their age
and as you can well imagine it’s
humiliating to be in a class with
students four years younger than you
this leads to bullying and often the
refugees drop out
56 of uganda’s south sudanese refugee
children population
do not currently attend school my team
and i found this situation unacceptable
and committed ourselves to using our
technical knowledge
combined with researched educational
practices to help these students learn
english quickly
and unlock their potential i want to get
you thinking
of other ways in which technology can be
used to reinvent education
as i share our work i urge you to ask
yourself
how can you help what expertise do you
possess
and how can we collaborate to change the
lives of these students
and others so let me tell you about our
work
we’re designing an entirely new english
learning program
that utilizes technology that we all
have in our pockets
a mobile phone picture a school in a
developing nation like uganda
you’re probably thinking of a classroom
full of tables at which
students sit watching a teacher lecture
at a blackboard
stereotypical views of education
continue to force this ancient schooling
system
upon many communities and in the 21st
century
many still think this is the best
educational model to promote
what if we could use a totally new
approach to teach these children english
advances in technology provide us with
many new tools to accelerate the english
learning process
and research institutions around the
world have collected
and analyzed data on the most effective
methods of teaching for decades
what are these techniques and why aren’t
we using them in uganda
right now why perpetuate outdated
methods of education
when we know better i want to introduce
you to helen
my friend colleague and mentor i met
helen earlier this year when i found
myself in uganda
teaching a stem workshop to school
children in soroti
a city to the north of uganda helen
works for the ngo
to the uganda which she established with
her sister betty
one afternoon sitting under a tree in
tutti’s compounds
helen showed us the schoolwork of a
student she was tutoring
the student was a south sudanese refugee
girl who had been bullied in school
due to her lack of english skills helen
was teaching the girl english
in the hopes that she will be able to
re-enter school to complete her studies
tutoring this girl in english took a lot
of time on top of running 2d
multiple studies have shown minimum
times of one year
for students to progress from zero to
conversational english skills
even on the most accelerated english
learning programs
unfortunately we don’t have three
hundred thousand helens
if we did uganda’s child refugee
population
would all be in school we began thinking
how can we bring the intimate one-on-one
teaching that helen was providing to
this child
to the entire refugee population being
mit
students we of course wondered how to
apply technology to this problem
we first thought what if we could design
and distribute low-cost computers
each containing learning courses
downloaded to the device
free to use at any time we explored this
for some time
then discovered another project that
distributed hundreds of thousands of
laptops
only to learn that establishing a repair
system for broken laptops
was not viable they assumed that
computers would be used as intended
overlooking how the role of children
and girls in the household was viewed in
many communities
this stumped us for a while but then we
realized
what device does almost every person in
the world have access to
a smartphone what do you use your phone
for
i’m guessing you spend a significant
portion of time on social media
maybe in an amount of time you’re
embarrassed to admit and you’re not
alone
often i find myself reaching for my
phone swiping to the same app
and mindlessly scrolling before
returning back to work
this is true across the world and it’s
true in uganda
i’ve taught students in classrooms
around the globe
and the mobile phone is the common
denominator of distraction
what if we could leverage this social
media habit to teach english
to south sudanese refugee children it
sounds kind of crazy
but stay with me as social media slowly
steals more and more of our attention
i think it’s time to pivot and design
technologies centered around it
we need to leverage existing social
media technologies
and tweak them to support learning of
course
social media alone is not the solution
imagine the chaos
teaching students with unlimited access
to social media at any time
that’s why social media learning is only
a part of a three-stage english learning
plan
that we are developing for south
sudanese refugee children
first through modern english learning
curriculums
that draw from educational research
students will begin the program
in the classroom but this classroom is
unlike any you’ve probably seen before
equipped with speech-to-text smartphones
interactive tools and multiple teachers
our classrooms will allow the students
to learn the basics
of the english language obtaining
proficiency
and basic conversational skills second
is the social media aspect of the course
a platform built specifically for
english learning
where students will interact with
pre-written social media posts
before advancing to talking online with
classmates
where students can practice
conversational english in an
ever-growing online world
we also need to promote safe internet
practices
so we’re teaching students how to be
safe when interacting with others
online finally in stage 3
students re-enter school at the correct
grade with the vital english skills
necessary to succeed
additional supplementary classes will be
available to students who require them
to integrate into the school community
students will be placed in schools with
fellow program participants
ensuring they don’t feel alone and
isolated using social media
is the key to our approach but think of
how many ways
technology can be applied to education
in non-traditional ways
what about augmented and virtual reality
the internet of things
quantum computing just to name a few
imagine what can be achieved in a
classroom if we were to lean into the
technological advances
of the past 30 years the classroom would
never be the same again
in uganda there is no longer a need to
provide
outdated education with the increasing
affordability of technology
we can bring world-leading education to
these students
south sudanese refugee children arriving
in uganda
will be welcomed by opportunity
providing english learning not only
allows them to enter the school system
but sets them up for success whether
they remain in uganda
or return to south sudan education
quality
should not be dependent on where you
call home
and it no longer needs to be it’s time
for change
in uganda the goal is english learning
but
elsewhere yemeni venezuelan and syrian
children
to name a few lack access to any
education at all
in the countries where they take refuge
let’s get back to the drawing board
innovating how technology is used in the
classroom
we need help scaling this approach and
if you have the capacity to do so
connect with others and start
reimagining education
that utilizes modern technologies in any
way you see possible
this is going to be an iterative process
not everything will work
don’t view education as a product that
we need to supply
view it as an opportunity one in which
we can bring education
that utilizes cutting-edge technology to
students across the world
what ideas do you have my work focuses
on south sudanese refugee children
but the problem is much larger and so is
the opportunity that comes with it
all across the world vulnerable
populations
whether in developing or developed
nations lack access
to vital educational resources even
within the us
rural and urban children face similar
issues
we must use technology to address this
urgent need
not only is this need apparent for
children but adults too
many adult immigrants and refugees could
benefit greatly from access to language
lessons
let’s start by reimagining education for
those who need it most
and go from there if we can create
change in uganda
imagine the impacts that can be had
elsewhere
thank you