One-line solution summary:
Provide an education or training model so that populations with low connectivity and ICT resources can access high quality education
Pitch your solution.
In the LA&C area, scarce resource families in rural areas have difficulties to access high-quality education and training. With common ICT technologies such as WhatsApp, education can be effectively mediated and tutored. Access to the internet, although not fully democratized, augments yearly, as well as, the access to smartphones helping full deployment of the idea locally and globally at minimum cost whilst using a BYOD strategy.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
In LA&C countries, people that live in the rural areas ave problems to access high-level education due to scarce infrastructure an human resources required to educate. In that sense, the idea is to use WhatsApp to mediate the learning process providen content following conceptualization of contents, pedagogical sequences and tutorial actioning to participating students. In Colombia (DANE 2018), 72.2% have access to cellular phones compared to 60.3% who have laptop, tablets or desktop computers. In the same state census, 52.7% have access to the internet, with 20% or less in rural states or departments. These metrics facilitate the possibilities of success of our project.
What is your solution?
Use WhatsApp to deliver educational contents following a given curricula to children organised in app groups so that autonomous learning and posterior tutorial actioning be done. Content delivery through WhatsApp will be automatised by a RPA (Robotic Process Automation) that will automatically copy-paste-send daily group by group educational contents. Other technological resources requiered to support the project are BYOD smartphones or tablets with access to the internet.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
The target population is comformed by people that live in rural areas and that require access to primary and secondary schooling for their children and for them selves, as well as, general training to improve access to new jobs. The solution will facilitate by administering current drawbacks of the education process in rural areas where infrastructure and human resources are scarce and some time below standards in order to deploy high quality education and training. The use of WhatsApp and their own devices (smartphone) collaborate with decreased cost structure of the process, and meliorate student participation percentage.
Which dimension of the TPrize Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Design, create, and implement new educational or training models for educators and students that guarantee access to quality education in low connectivity environmentsExplain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the TPrize Challenge.
Our solution directl and at very low costs impact positively by providing and promoting high quality education to families across Latin America and te Caribbean that live in rural areas and that have accessibility problems
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Bucaramanga, Santander, ColombiaWhat is your solution’s stage of development?
Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model.Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.
The ideas as been used in Spain to tutor university students, as well that for other high education institutions. Through the School graduate and postgraduate studies institute of Universidad of Cartagena, the prototype ideas can be better organised and pilot programmes be executed to additionally meliorate de process.
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Martin Cadena / Adriana Cadena
If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new application of an existing technologyWhat makes your solution innovative?
It is the best cost-effective and fast deployable solution to start improving access to education of rural populators.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
Core technology of our solution is perhaps the best ingredient of the project since smartphones are owned by participants tanks to a BYOD strategy and WhatsApp is a free application. Additionally, a computer with educational contents organised for delivery to participants.
Provide evidence that this technology works. Please cite your sources.
Bouhnik, D. y Deshen, M. (2014). WhatsApp goes to school: Mobile instant messaging between teacher and student. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 13, 217-231. https://doi.org/10.28945/2051
Calero, M.L. (2014). El discurso del WhatsApp: entre el Messenger y el SMS. Oralia, 17,85-114
García, D. (2014) M-learning. Posibilidades educativas de Whatsapp. Vídeo presentación de la asignatura Escenarios Virtuales para la Enseñanza y el Conocimiento del Máster de Investigación sobre Comunicación y Educación en la Red de la UNED.Enlace
Lasso-Rodríguez, G. & Gil-Herrera, R. (2020). TRAINING THE TEACHERS WITH ASSISTANCE OF ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION . Proceedings of INTED2020 Conference. 2nd-4th March 2020, Valencia, Spain, pp 8714-8720.
Martínez, F. y Acosta, Y. (2011). Integración de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC) en la universidad: diez propuestas de aprendizaje. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación, 2, 43-58. https://doi.org/10.14198/MEDCOM2011.2.03
Martínez, P., Pérez, J. y Martínez, M. (2014). Una (re)visión de la tutoría universitaria: la percepción de estudiantes y tutores de estudios de Grado. REDU, Revista de Docencia Universitaria, 12(1), 261-305. https://doi.org/10.4995/redu.2...
Molina, A.M. (2012). Las TIC en la educación superior como vía de formación y desarrollo competencial en la sociedad del conocimiento. Revista electrónica de investigación docencia creativa, 1, 106-114.
Rubio, J. y Perlado, M. (2015). El fenómeno WhatsApp en el contexto de la comunicación personal: una aproximación a través de los jóvenes universitarios. Icono 14, 13(2), 73-94. https://doi.org/10.7195/ri14.v...
Sanz, J.J. (2014). WhatsApp: potencialidad educativa versus dependencia y adicción. Revista didáctica, innovación y multimedia (DIM), 30, 1-8.
Yeboah, J. y Ewur, G.D. (2014). The Impact of WhatsApp Messenger Usage on Students Performance in Tertiary Institutions in Ghana. Journal of Education and Practice, 5(6), 157-164
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
Does this technology introduce any risks? How are you addressing or mitigating these risks in your solution?
One risk is that without smartphone by participants the implementation fails immediately. Conversations with mobile technology providers will be held in order to generate a donation-deductible-from-income-tax project will be evaluated.
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
In which countries do you currently operate?
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
Our project is not currently in use. It's deployment is cost-effective if compared with traditional teacher-class room-school Model.
What are your impact goals for the next year and the next five years, and -- importantly -- how will you achieve them?
An important number of infants abandon the traditional schooling system in Colombia and many LA&C countries due to teacher absence, poorly maintained school infrastructure amongst other factor. This idea resembles last century's schooling over land mail.
How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?
The KPI will number of attend participants, number of classes, ratio classes per participant, active students, total student, % development of curricula
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
How many people work on your solution team?
Project Director, Educational Content Developer, Systems Engineer, Expert in Education. All full-time.
How long have you been working on your solution?
3 months
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
The Universidad de Cartagen is a public Colombian University with undergraduate and postgraduate studies in education. It is well ranked amongst all universities the offer studies in education.
What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team?
The Universidad de Cartagena educational project and its values provide diverse, equitable, and inclusive treatment to members of its community.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)Why are you applying to the 2021 TPrize Challenge?
When "need" to provide a low-cost solution to colombians at various site where no infrastructure and / or HR required for schooling exist. The is a true-educational-project-from-the-heart idea. Non politicized and with an important probability of success. This works since it's proven to do so, so all we want is to develop this solution.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
Project idea is practically ready to develop. It is easy to develop content and to organized it in the server. RPA applications needs to be selected. Perhaps recommendation in this process can be useful.
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
Samsung as a phone and table provider. Claro as internet and phone service provider. RPA development company.
Solution Team
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PROF. MARTIN CARLOS A. CADENA LEON, MSc University Professor and Investigator in Education, Innovation and Technology, Universidad de Cartagena
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Solution Name:
WhatsApp-based-Learning (WhatsApp Edu)