We are a non-profit working in a small community in Tanzania. The project in a US 501c and Tanzanian NGO called Precious project. You can find info at www.preciousproject.org
My wife and I are both in the technology area, so we have focused our efforts on educating children thru technology. Last year we started phase 1 of a ICT project with iPads and the India based Zaya LMS platform. We wanted to make sure that digital learning would be accepted by the community and teachers, and thankfully they have all been very enthusiastic.
We find the RACHEL platform very interesting and by now, my wife have probably already order one, but I have a few questions… and maybe this is better handled through a quick conversation, in which case Jeremy can reach out to me on linked with contact info.
Currently the school in Nshupu has ~150 students and it will eventually grow to about 230 kids.
How does the platform scale? I.e. can we get multiple devices and they can each be accessed by 40-50 kids, can they be clustered or can we easily put it on another platform which will scale more easily?
Love the current content, but how frequently is it being updated?
Are you planning on creating a actual LMS,which student management, log-in, gamification, curriculum assignments, reporting etc.
Are there other Tanzanian projects where specific content (we have seen the PDF already)?
We are using iPads, any known restrictions?
Awesome initiative, thanks… and we might have a few more questions…
The RACHEL-Plus device supports 40 simultaneous users. If you’re going to have more simultaneous users we recommend purchasing more devices. If you then chose to network them together, that’s not a problem and you can use some simple linux scripts to keep their content in sync (with some minor exceptions)
The content is updated sporadically. Most of our content is math and science with very little current events included. We focus more on new content than updating current content.
We will adopt Kolibri when it is ready. For now we only have an LMS around KA-Lite.
There are many active Tanzania projects ongoing with curriculum alignment in the works. We actually created these forums largely because of the many groups in Tanzania working to collaborate, we just haven’t gotten them on board with the forums yet.
My name is Mthokozisi Moyo, the Education and Training Coordinator for Zimbabwe local NGO, ORAP. I have just coordinated workshop for launch of RACHEL Plus in Zimbabwe in Bubi District of Matabeleland North Province in partnership with department of Primary and Secondary Education courtesy of Bob Rollins of USACF. RACHEL Plus initiative resonate with new Zimbabwean curriculum which was introduced in the beginning of this year. We are targeting rural disadvantaged schools and RACHEL plus is the right match as bridge for digital divide. One of the outcomes of the workshop was setting up of RACHEL plus resource centre at Inyathi High School where all schools in the district come and interact with RACHEL plus contents. I will be receiving weekly feedback.We have already formed local content research group.
The reception for RACHEL plus is overwhelming. A number of workshop participants and ministry of education have shown interest in purchasing RACHEL plus. To that end I was tasked to liaise with you on modalities of bringing RACHEL Plus to Zimbabwe.
Please advise on best possible way of making this a reality for disadvantaged rural children of Zimbabwe. I am based in Bulawayo, the second largest city of Zimbabwe.
Great to hear about your successes! If people are interested in more units, they can purchase them directly through our website at http://racheloffline.org – orders of 7 or more units ship free to Zimbabwe.
If you are looking for an LMS that has already been done then Moodlebox is one to check out. I’ve trialled it and my colleagues are just about to take it out to Kenya.
https://moodlebox.net/en/ is what I used and have successfully installed some plugins to improve the LMS. So far it looks pretty good and with a large SD card could work. I’m looking into using that and h5p to create Geography and EAL courses that would be available for free to download and use.
Please I want to request copy of Rachel-Pi on USB stick. I got a Raspberry Pi 3 and I wish to use if for this purpose for my community. Sorry for barging into but I can not find an email address to contact you. Please use this email address to reply to me mwengaraoinanikaai@gmail.com. I share the same visions for helping my community and appreciate a reply. My country is Kiribati in the Central Pacific and I plan to join your non profit effort as chapter leader here.