On 31st March 2021, join us for the launch event of Edupreneurs: Networking and Empowering Education Enterpreneurs towards a resilient edtech ecosystem in Southern Africa. The project is funded by the Southern Africa Innovation Support (SAIS) 2.
In 2019, I was responsible to design a self-study course and its materials about Flipped Classroom targeted to the international staff of the University of Eastern Finland. That was one of the most important professional learning experiences I’ve had over here. I didn’t know much about this pedagogical approach. I have attended a course whose teacher used the Flipped Classroom methodology. The course was about Quantitative Methods in research and it was, indeed, a very productive learning experience. However, beyond that punctual experience, I did not know much.
When I got the task to design a course and its materials about Flipped Classroom to the international staff of the University, I got excited about how much I had to learn and apply it. And it was just an amazing experience of learning not only about a pedagogical method, but also about institutional curriculum reform, mindset transformation, and pedagogical change.
Continue reading “Helping to implement Flipped Classroom at a Finnish University”
For Eduix, this year has already seen some interesting software development with limitless potential. One of such is our current project regarding sustainable development in higher education institutions (HEIs), created in co-operation with our AI-partner company HeadAI, and the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Continue reading “En route to a sustainable future: Agenda2030-tool by Eduix, HeadAI and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences”Glowdom has started the campaign “Social Innovations for Youth Development and Transformation” within the Youth Development and Social Innovations in Southern Africa programs designed by the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC).
In the campaign, Glowdom highlights the role of Formjack and Collecte to support education needs in Namibia.
Read all about it in the Glowdom blog.
By Altti Lagstedt
There have been situations in history, where individuals or a society has had an opportunity, but there has not been the right momentum. So, the opportunity has been wasted, and the next chance has come much later to someone else. For example, in ancient Alexandra in Roman Egypt, mathematician and engineer Hero developed Aeolipile, a wildly rotating steam ball, which can be considered as the first known radial steam turbine. However, he, or no one else at the time, did not find any practical use for it; it was taken only as a gimmick or a trick for temples. It took over 1700 years for the next opportunity and momentum to come into Great Britannia and James Watt. They seized an opportunity, there was the momentum, and the rest is history. But think if they didn’t, if the momentum has tailed off, what would our world look like today?
Continue reading “Eduditra, exciting times”Despite all challenges and tragedies, some dare to say that the future came earlier during 2020. This “future” is complex, it scares us when we realize that education inequality has increased even more when it was already unacceptable, and school closure set back successes achieved through hard years of effort and investment. However, this same future brings hope when we have witnessed how education stakeholders have moved innovation from the margins to the center of many education systems to overcome the challenges imposed by the lockdown and social isolation.
In the report “Beyond reopening schools: how education can emerge stronger than before Covid-19”, Emiliana Vegas and Rebecca Winthrop propose five actions to guide transformation of education systems:
No dia 17 de dezembro de 2020, a Eduix participou da São Paulo Tech Week 2020, a maior semana de tecnologia da América Latina.
On the 17th of December 2020, Eduix participated in the São Paulo Tech Week, the biggest tech week in Latin America.
Continue reading “Eduix participa da São Paulo Tech Week 2020”
In August 2020, the Southern Africa Innovation Support Programme (SAIS) opened a call for “projects to pilot and validate solutions to make Southern African startup ecosystems more resilient and better able to face an uncertain future”. The context of the call was the fact that Covid-19 has revealed flaws in the worldwide innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. They challenged applicants to find these flaws and offer solutions to the innovation business ecosystem in the region, so it would become stronger and more resilient against adversities.
Promptly, Glowdom and Eduix, supported by the EDUDITRA project in cooperation with Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences started the discussion to create a consortium. Over the year, the group had already organized a webinar series to discuss about digitizing education ecosystem in Namibia. The webinar “Education in the world 4.0: bridging the gap between education and the market” counted with the participation of Hasekiel Johannes, the Innovation Officer of Namibia Business Innovation Institute (NBII). The moment we remembered how well aligned the webinar discussions and participation were, that was the start of our project consortium.
Continue reading “The Southern Africa Innovation Support needed visionaries to rethink the business ecosystem in the region. We attended their call.”When I came to Finland for my Master studies, I wanted to research about a topic that already intrigued me in Brazil when I was working as school psychologist in a rural school of Ceará.
I was interested in understanding how some teachers managed to have such a good relationship with their students, which impacted positively on the students’ learning; while other teachers struggled with it. By good relationship I mean when teachers and students are focused on teaching and learning the content while they are also relaxed. Spontaneous actions such as jokes, laughs, personal reflections, and life stories’ sharing color the interactions and are important parts of the education process. I could observe that the students were more focused on the content when they had such a good relationship with the teachers, than when they did not. I could also see how this impacted on the teachers’ satisfaction regarding their work from the way they talked about it.
Institutions that store and protect cultural heritage, such as museums and archives, are vital resources for mental health, well-being, social cohesion, and cultural learning. Today, more than ever, the importance of culture and creativity for society is clear. During the Covid-19, those with access to the Internet have constantly resorted to online cultural production provided by institutions and private initiatives. Who, during the past months, has not watched a live session with their favourite singers, read an e-book temporarily available during the months of lockdown, or visited a museum “walking” through its digital corridors in a 360-degree view?
Unfortunately, the lockdown measures over this year and the impossibility of physical visiting have caused massive loss of revenue for cultural institutions such as museums and archives. In addition, the digital gap due to lack of Internet accessibility in many regions around the world have increased largely and strongly affected those institutions that cannot resort to such resources, especially the smaller and private initiatives in small cities or rural areas.
Continue reading “Developing museums’ resilience by digitizing archives and operations”