With iScuela, our Social Entrepreneurial Initiative, we focus on raising the learning levels of school going children, specially in the semi urban and rural areas, using technology. It is highly localised, interactive and has a unique “click only” approach to ensure adoption and reduce learning curve.
The ultimate aim of this product is to make these children, ready for, what now is being referred to as the 4th Industrial revolution. A revolution which will reward intellect more than labour due to ever increasing automation.
The objective behind creating iScuela was to create a platform that :
- is prepared with the school system in mind
- is localised for the children to relate with.
- aims to engage the child with the content matter
- promotes self learning
- is free for the end user which are primarily the students and teachers in the rural communities
- revenue generation happens from corporates (advertising) and governments
- can be used on the tablet PCs and other smart devices or on a basic projector (in school).
- can simultaneously aid the teachers in teaching better without being overawed by technology
Our Solution, iScuela is a unique,“click only”,interactive and localised content delivery platform. At the heart of the platform lies our innovative iScuela engine which has the following features :
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Click & Tap Only :We have designed the entire platform in a way that all its features can be used by pointing and clicking with a mouse on a PC or laptop or simply tapping on your smart devices. This ensures easy and fast adoption and little or no technical training.
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Online/Offline approach: The engine employs Online/Offline to address the lack of internet connectivity in rural and semi urban areas. The students and teachers can choose a topic they want to study and the selected topic is downloaded whenever the platform detects connectivity and is available for the user with full experience in an offline mode thereafter.
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High Level of Interactivity: Simple content such as text and images can be converted into interactive content using the engine. For example, we can take set of images and make a 3d experience which the student can touch and rotate and interact with, example human heart. Another example is that images and text can be laid to create a match the following exercise for the students for instance, have animal fur images on one side and jumbled answers on the other, the student can be asked to drag and drop them correctly.
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Multi Lingual :The engine supports multiple languages for the same content. Although people argue that there is a lot of content available on the internet, but we can claim that in India almost all the products developed in the category are in English and cater to only the private school students in the upper end of the economic spectrum. We have to deliver learning in the localised languages while also encouraging english language learning.
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User Analysis :We have developed an inbuilt user analysis capability which will give all the stake holders in-depth know how of the adoption and the impact of the platform and content.
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Content Pipeline: We did not want this platform to be used only for curriculum, hence we created functionality which allows stakeholders to send content which has social impact and can cause behavioural changes in the students. For example the platform is now going to be used to send messages for the Swachch Bharat Campaign (India’s Cleanliness Drive)
Current Status of the Product
Currently we are working in collaboration with Punjab Government and Rotary India’s organisation Rotary India Literacy Mission (RILM) to digitise and digitalise all19,272, government schoolsacross the state. This project is covering100,000 + teachers and 4 million + children.
The implementation is already underway. The first phase covering 25,000 classrooms is expected to be complete byMarch 2019. All stakeholders are working together at this stage, with the government providing their workforce for installation of the platform. We have already developed and customised the platform and handed over to the government. Additionally we are providing no stop training to people on the ground installing the platform. RILM is conducting the baseline study of the current situation of the students and we will along with RILM and one other third party organisation ( appointed by the government) will measure the impact 1 year after the implementation and present our findings to the government.
Impact & Scalability
Our Product address the problem of low levels of learning in school children in Indian public schools. This problem is addressed by working on delivery of quality education, addressing the lack of teachers and improving the current teachers. While addressing these factors drop out rates are bound to reduce. The long term aim of the product is to prepare these students for the 4th Industrial Revolution which will reward intellect more than labour due to ever increasing automation.
After implementing this product in one state we would have prepared a template which can be executed in various parts of India and also developing countries facing similar problems in their Education system. After one year of the project’s execution we will have very useful data of usage patterns and behaviours which will form an integral part of the impact assessment.
We believe iSceula is scalable specially in India and other developing countries as we are on the verge of a digital revolution, as a connected world is upon us. India alone is seeing immense growth in adoption of smart phone devices. Today more than 30% mobile users in India have smartphones.
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