BRIDGEit in Tanzania

Bridgeit is an ICT initiative (specifically mEducation), which aims to, increase the quality of education specifically mathematics, science, and life skills in primary school though the use of mobile phones and television. Teachers are provided with access to a digital catalogue of short educational videos. They are also provided with a Nokia mobile phone, which they use to download these videos (via a server). The mobile phone is connected to a television in the classroom, so that the videos can be broadcasted for the class to view. Additionally, the videos come with interactive lesson plans for the teachers to follow, which address key concepts/ideas that the video introduces (erumi). Some of the schools were focused on just mathematics and science, while others were focused on mathematics, science, and life skills.

What is interesting to note about this project is that the education aspect of it does not focus on the mobile phone like those in the past; the mobile phone is just the medium in which the educational video is downloaded through. The main aspect of technology here is the television where the students watch the educational video.

Another interesting part of this program is that its implementers worked in collaboration with the Tanzanian government, as well as community organizations. By involving respected community members in the research process of the initiative, this project adhered to the human centered design toolkit’s phase “hear.” Additionally, because of government involvement this is a more dynamic approach to the legitimate implementation and sustainability ICT’s in Tanzania’s education sector, which was a main goal of their ICT policy.

An Evaluation was done for the first year. Overall, test scores of students in BridgeIT and BridgeIT + Life Skills in both math and science increased. Some other results that came back from the attitude questionnaires indicated that teachers received a lot of support from various outlets. Although the above results came back positive, there also were negative results: the teachers had decreased satisfaction with their jobs, and the students initially thought the video content was boring. But when students became more accustomed to the video learning, they found that the videos increased their understanding of math and science (Enge &Kjell).

Although I believe a proper evaluation was conducted, it did not mention anything about infrastructure in terms of electricity with this program (main problem in Tanzania), which was a main component of it. Additionally, it did not mention anything about what happened when the mobile phones were broken, or if there was a problem with theft.

eLearning in Tanzania

Bridgeit is an eLearning project funded by USAID which was implemented in 2007 in Tanzania. It underwent a 2-year piloting period with a 15-month extension and ended in late December of 2010. The purpose of the program was to implement ICT by means of mobile phone usage to improve the classroom teaching and learning experience. Bridgeit allowed Tanzanian teachers to download videos on various relevant subjects, such as math, science and HIV/AIDS, to cell phones. The mobile phones were connected to a television set which projected the videos for the class to see. The project was highly successful and well-supported by the community. It enabled the students taught in that manner to gain a better understanding of the material by being able to visualize it instead of simply listening to a theoretical explanation. The project’s benefits were that it was designed to be student-centered learning; it supported the teachers to enhance the learning experience; it employed a good teaching strategy for large class sizes (as those in Tanzania); and the visual aspect inspired greater interest and motivation on behalf of the students. As of April of this year, the project has helped 80,000 children and 3,000 teachers. In my opinion, Bridgeit‘s greatest strength is the infrastructure it created for itself. The project partnered with Tanzania’s Ministry of Education, the Nokia Corporation, the Nokia Institute for Technology, the Pearson Foundation, and Vodacom Tanzania. That’s an incredible setup. With so many partners, each playing a crucial role in the success or failure of the project and all working towards a common goal, Bridgeit was fully supported simply because it was able to draw on all the resources it needed from its partners.

Click here to learn more about Bridgeit in Tanzania.