EDU-TOONS & EDU-GAMES

I am the author of the educational solutions called "Edu-Toons & Edu-Games". Edu-Toons & Edu-Games animates school lessons and uses simple computer games to assess actual learning. I am a teacher, an animation script writer, song writer and a story teller. I develop content for both Edu-Toons & Edu-Games. I have past experiences in teaching, researching and report writing. I run a Non Governmental Organisation in Nigeria named Shield of Innocence Initiative, which focuses on providing educational solutions for "Out of School" and displaced children.

There are global problems of inadequate provision of qualitative primary school education for "Out of School" and displaced children. Primary school education is considered the foundation of education and is pivotal to the success of formal & informal education. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of primary school children don't attend school & a huge majority of them no longer learn. This is due to poverty which makes online learning an expensive luxury that cannot be afforded. This therefore opens the opportunity to explore channels of mass media for education. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games adequately explore channels of mass media (televisions and phones) to teach and assess pupils with animated lessons and computer games and can reach high numbers of learners. They elevate humanity by making qualitative educational content for learning and assessment available and affordable for all learners while  providing income and collaborative opportunities for educational stakeholders such as teachers.

There are global problems of inadequate provision of qualitative primary school education for "Out of School" and displaced children because of poor planning and the lack of prioritization of these children's learning needs. These have been further compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic which have increased the number of out of school children, astronomically because schools have been mandated to shut down. According to UNHCR, UNICEF and UNESCO, over 13 million children have been displaced by conflict (https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2020/4/5e9d4c044/covid-19-pandemic-continues-forcibly-displaced-children-need-support.html); over 46 million children are not attending school in Nigeria (https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/nigeria_education_sector_covid-19_response_strategy_north_east_.pdf) and over 800 million children are not attending school, globally, due to Covid-19 (https://en.unesco.org/news/half-worlds-student-population-not-attending-school-unesco-launches-global-coalition-accelerate). As a result, millions of children are no longer learning and this situation have been worsened by factors such as poverty which makes online learning expensive for many children. There is also the problem of the under-utilization of channels of mass media (television and phones, for instance), as an avenue for education provision, considering its wide reach irrespective of economic status. Under-utilizing channels of mass media for education provision greatly marginalizes learners and reduces collective learning opportunities, especially for "Out of School" and displaced children .

Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are educational solutions which complement each other and can be used individually. Edu-Toons provide primary school animated class lessons to children on television. Edu-Toons can also be watched online or can be downloaded on phones or computer. After completing the lesson, children or their parents can download Edu-Games on phones or computers which can now be played to assess actual learning outcomes of the previous lessons. For every Edu-Toon animated lesson, there will be an Edu-Game assessment. Edu-Games will come in no more than 10 problem solving stages with recommendations on the expected time to solve each problem. Cumulatively, children should complete Edu-Toons' problem-solving in about 20 - 30 minutes. The scores of Edu-Games can be recorded and reported to the Edu-Toons & Edu-Games team or to school teachers, if learners are offline. For online users of Edu-Toons & Edu-Games, scores and the period of time spent on solving each Edu-Game problem will be automatically recorded and monitored to identify learning gaps and address them. For children from very poor households who may not be able to afford downloading Edu-Games, their parents with or without their children's teachers' assistance, can assess or test their children at home.

Edu-Toons & Edu-Games serve "Out of School" and displaced children with curriculum-based education by animations and computer games. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the numbers of "Out of School" and displaced children have increased astronomically due to the mandatory closure of schools. According to UNICEF and UNESCO, over 46 million children are no longer attending school in Nigeria while over 800 million children are not attending school globally. The report speculates that these numbers might increase further. In Nigeria, majority of the primary schools do not have internet facilities. My interaction with some of the teachers from these schools showed that teachers-pupil communication only comprised of giving school assignments. No actual teaching has been done. I have been exploring the use of animations and games as learning tools considering children's love for them. I interview children on their cartoons and games choices and discovered that children relate better with animated characters in their cartoons and games since these characters look and think a lot like them. They also have an increased tendency to learn from their cartoons and games, especially new words or concepts. This information has helped me immensely in developing Edu-Toons & Edu-Games, particularly from the concept stage. 

The Elevate Prize focuses on elevating opportunities for people. "Out of School" and displaced children usually don't have ample opportunities for accessing education or to learn due to poverty and conflicts. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games provide opportunities to learn for these children using child friendly methods (animations and games) and also explores channels of mass media to make qualitative and affordable educational content widely available for learners especially those from poor households.  Edu-Toons & Edu-Games also promote opportunities for income expansion for different educational stakeholders (textbook reviewers, animators, game creators, teachers) while promoting more collaborative opportunities among teachers.

Edu-Toons & Edu-Games was birthed initially as teachers' support projects. They were both conceived in 2016 as a result of the World Bank Youth Summit titled “Innovation and Technology in Education”.  Edu-Toons & Edu-Games were educational interventions which I developed in response to the learning situation my son was facing at school. I usually do a lot of re-teaching during his school assignments due to rote learning which is quite common in Nigerian schools. This led me to interact and sometimes, correct his teachers on numerous occasions. In the course of my interactions with these teachers, it became evident that there were gaps in their recruitment and training. It also became evident that teachers needed guidance sometimes on how teach and assess properly to detect actual learning outcomes. In addition, My NGO work availed me disturbing and escalating  figures of children who may never attend schools due to poverty and displacement and I knew Edu-Toons & Edu-Games could meet their needs by bringing education and assessment tools to them in their locations; even before school enrollment. I thereafter updated Edu-Toons & Edu-Games to accommodate the learning needs of out of school children, displaced children and children already enrolled at school.

I am passionate about Edu-Toons & Edu-Games because they both make dreams come true. As a teacher, I know that without an education, peoples' dreams slowly but surely terminate as essential opportunities will get lost. Without a sound primary education, illiteracy and innumeracy among children and their parents will continue to rise making people unemployable with respect to future jobs, now in the horizon. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games gives children the needed foundation to learn and it reduces the cost of education drastically to the extent that no cost will actually be incurred to educate a child. I am passionate about Edu-Toons & Edu-Games because it ensures that every child has access to qualitative education irrespective of their economic background. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games also supports children to learn by themselves with the implication that learning and assessments can be done with or without a teacher and within or without a school. Likewise, I am passionate about Edu-Toons & Edu-Games because they are two Covid-19 educational interventions that allows children to continue to learn and be assessed in the safety of their homes. I am equally passionate about Edu-Toons & Edu-Games because of the opportunities that they birth (volunteering, entrepreneurship and networking).

I am a teacher. My teaching experiences dates back 2005 and I have taught professional courses in Statistics and Management while I have taught primary school pupils several topics with my favorite subjects being Mathematics and English during volunteering classes. I have a first and second degree in Business Administration and Management, respectively. I also work with a team of educators and educational stakeholders such as researchers, animators and text book authors/book reviewers, among others. Beyond this, I am a book author and I have skills in animation script writing, song composition and story telling. In fact, I am about to publish my first book of night-time stories for children.

The production of the pilot of Edu-Toons & Edu-Games in English and Hausa languages was challenging. However, getting the Hausa version of the pilot was particularly tasking. Hausa language is the predominant language spoken in Northern Nigeria and majority of the "Out of School" and displaced children in Nigeria are found in Northern Nigeria with most of them being unable to communicate in any other language that is different from the Hausa language. I have very little knowledge of the language while the freelance animator employed to do the Edu-Toons & Edu-Games pilot has no knowledge of the Hausa language. We needed people to do the Hausa voice-over for us and at that point, I knew I had to improvise. This I did by asking my office assistant if he knew people who understood the language fluently. Thankfully he got 2 of his friends who could speak the language but my animator was in another Nigerian State and as such, these people could not be physically present to do the voice-over at his studio. So I improvised further by getting them to do the voice-over with my phone as the recorder. It was these audio files my animator used.

My NGO “Shield of Innocence Initiative” is focused mitigating child abuse and one of the ways we engage with the community is by fostering and managing an online WhatsApp Group which comprises of various professionals who are involved in providing service to children directly (school administrators, teachers, doctors) or indirectly (lawyers, religious leaders and police officers). Recently, a group member sent a disturbing video of the abuse of a child by her teacher which caused an uproar on the Group's platform and I had to intervene. In Nigeria, people usually share such videos to inform parents of the reality of child abuse in our societies albeit, the content of these videos are very unsettling. While I pacified Group members who were appalled by the video and even more, because a Group member sent it (the Group member justified his action based on the the video's audio content, which advised that the video be shared widely to enlighten parents); I however cautioned that such videos should not be shared in order not to promote crimes such as child pornography. Instead, I advised that sharing verbal and audio descriptions of the abuse is still capable of informing parents while deleting the video.

Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are unique educational solutions because they come in a teaching and assessment package put together in one and are based on school curriculum. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are not providing animations and assessment games to learners but also creates virtual networks with real life teachers who also support learning especially outside the four walls of school. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are also very unique because they help learners identify problem areas in their lessons especially during the games session. This is not common with traditional class lessons because the teacher alone cannot identify the learning gaps of all her students within a class lesson (the time and resources to do that are just not enough and children will always learn at different paces). The inability of teachers to identify learning gaps is the reason why actual learning is sometimes not achieved simultaneously in a traditional class and learning gaps cannot just be addressed efficiently. With Edu-Toons & Edu-Games, this problem will be mitigated to a very great extent as students will be assisted to quickly identify problem areas in lessons and get help. Finally, Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are unique because they can be used singly to learn. They will be carefully presented to learners to aid learning irrespective of whether they are used together or singly.

Edu-Toons' pilot has been used to teach over 10,000 learners online. We have made Edu-Toons available on several social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, among others. We have also sent soft copies of the Edu-Toons pilot to a NGO that is focused on providing care for "Out of School" and displaced children in Northern Nigeria. We are projecting that Edu-Toons & Edu-Games will serve 1,000,000 primary school learners in one year. This projection was made based on the high number of learners who depend on television content for education due to the high cost of data needed for online learning in Nigeria. The projection is also based on the increased number of children who now engage in using computer games for recreation. In five years, we will be serving at least 10 million primary school learners. This projection is based on the projection that the number of "Out of School" and displaced learners needing Edu-Toons & Edu-Games may  increase due to economic constrictions caused by Covid-19.

The impact goals for Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are first, providing education for "Out of School" and displaced children outside of school walls. Since "Out of School" and displaced children have astronomically increased due to Covid-19 and the threat of many of them never getting formal education increases as their educational needs may remain not as prioritized as expected, there is need to ensure that curriculum-based education is brought to these children in their locations while their school enrollment issues are resolved, alongside. That is the essence of using television and phones as channels of making Edu-Toons & Edu-Games available to learners. Beyond that, the Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' team will be visiting communities with high numbers of "Out of School" and displaced children routinely, to deliver Edu-Toons & Edu-Games content to learners while promoting face-to-face interactions with teachers. This can increase school enrollment as parents will actively be involved in the process of accessing learners. Second, Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' impact goals are to support teaching within schools, by serving as learning aids for pupils. Many schools in Sub-Saharan Africa still practice rote learning due to few numbers of learning aids and the preponderance of under-trained teachers. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games are non-static teaching aids that can be used repeatedly to meet learning needs. They can also help teachers by influencing their teaching styles by incorporating fun themes to get more class engagements and boost actual learning outcomes. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games will be made available to schools via online and offline channels (DVDs).

Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' impact are mitigated by some barriers. First, there is the financial constraint as Edu-Toons & Edu-Games make use of animations and games for teaching and assessment tools, predominantly. Making animations and games on a large scale require a considerable amount of funds. However, the cost of making them is eventually nullified by the increase in the number of learners using them. There is also the technical aspect involved in using animations and games to teach. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games require lots of technical collaboration in terms of blending effective teaching styles and content with educational animators and games makers. While the animators and game makers' market are saturated, many of these animators and games makers are more of entertainment specialists than educational specialists. However, with appropriate networking activities and on-the-job training among others, more technical expertise in educational delivery can be achieved.

We are currently looking for funds to produce 60 lessons of Edu-Toons & Edu-Games (20 respectively for Mathematics, English and Science subjects). We are considering options of venture capital and angel financing to raise some of the funds needed. The funds raised will be used to employ teachers, script writers, voice-over artists, animators and game makers, among others. 

The technical constraint can be managed by using our position as a Non-Governmental Organisation to promote different collaborations among educational stakeholders. This can be done by sensitization initiatives, training programs and workshops, among others.

The Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' team currently partners with Alltimepost which is a online newspaper company. They have helped in sharing information about the pilot of Edu-Toons on all their social media handles. 

We also partnered with Bridge Builders' foundation (a foundation that provides care for "out of school" children in Northern Nigeria, known as Almanjiri Children). We sent them the pilot of Edu-Toons & Edu-Games to test-teach the children in their care.

Edu-Toons & Edu-Games will be financially sustainable by exploring many avenues. First, the sales of the products. They will be available on DVDs and also on online platforms for downloading. Edu-Toons & Edu-Games will be made available on DVDs because of learners who cannot afford online learning or schools who would want to use them as teaching aids, offline.

Advertisements on the Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' website will also create income. We will work to promote Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' usage across every learners irrespective of economic status by using television and online presence. Upon achieving this, we will actively seek the advertisement of child-friendly products on all our educational platforms.

Routinely held trainings for teachers and other educational stakeholders will raise income for the Edu-Toons & Edu-Games' team and staff. Several training exercises will be held on incorporating animation and games into teaching for effective teaching and actual learning. Since this is a relatively new concept in the Sub-Saharan African system of education, there will definitely be training needs for teachers and other educational stakeholders.

Funds to produce 60 animated lessons in Mathematics, English and Science (20 lessons per subject, respectively). Producing an animated lesson cost Four Thousand US Dollars ($4000). This brings the estimation for production of the animations for 60 different lessons to be Two Hundred and Forty Thousand Dollars ($240,000).

Funds for developing 60 simple computer games (Edu-Games) for each Edu-Toon lesson at $5,000 per game with a cumulative cost of $300,000.

Finance Constraints: The Elevate Prize can help us with needed funds to produce funds to produce 60 animated lessons in Mathematics, English and Science (20 lessons per subject, respectively), which is going to be Two Hundred and Forty Thousand Dollars ($240,000). it will also avail me funds for developing 60 computer games (Edu-Games) to assess learners in primary schools.

Technical Barriers: The Elevate Prize and its commitment to education can also help us build networks with global educational stakeholders which can improve our access to technical expertise needed for improved educational delivery in terms of animations and games. This is possible via the educational training, capacity building and connection with educational industry leaders, influencers and experts.

• Funding and revenue model: We need partnership that can support Edu-Toons & Edu-Games with financially and advisory capacities in terms of the most suitable form of financing. We also need to further expand our revenue generation capacity and we will need more financial expertise to guide us in this direction.
• Mentoring and coaching: We need partners to help us with our mentoring and coaching needs since we have so much to learn and offer in using animations and games to teach children. Since animations and games are seldom used synergistically to teach and assess, we know we need to develop our potentials as leaders in this field while improving our performance as non-traditional classroom teachers.
• Monitoring and Evaluation: We need partnership that can help us closely monitor our learners' actual learning outcomes and evaluate how Edu-Toons & Edu-Games have improved educational exposure and general life quality of learners

• Center for Education Research and Innovation (CERI): It is a research-driven and innovative-oriented organisation that focuses on the future of teaching and learning. CERI can help Edu-Toons & Edu-Games with their research expertise especially in terms of measuring impact and innovation strategy for content development. In addition, CERI has access to a diversified group of learners and teachers and as such, Edu-Toons & Edu-Games can be evaluated across a large sample of both learners and teachers
• Gear Learning: It is an educational research center that is focused on providing access to game development resources. Gear Learning is affiliated with the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research (WCER) and Edu-Toons & Edu-Games will benefit immensely from this educational affiliation and its research work.