SOLE: the future of learning

Children and youth in Colombia are clearly the most affected by the pandemic and violence. Public schools and libraries, which were safe places for many of them, have been closed for more than two years and, although they have already reopened, there is reluctance and fear of returning to the classroom, the gaps are even more pronounced and those who were far from the educational system are even more so today. The conflict is "over", but there is still no consolidated peace: social leaders die every day, the situation of economic and social inequality has only increased and the government elections only multiply the feeling of instability, fear and polarization in the country.

Most families lack internet connection and devices at home, which is highlighting precarious or non-existent remote learning. It is said that 42% of the country has no connection to the internet. This becomes even more drastic in rural communities where over 97% have no internet or very poor connection. Added to that, the public debate about opening schools and higher education does not include the voices of children and youth.  

Conventional schooling based on content-delivery has become obsolete in the face of the need for human connection which the pandemic has made evident, and so do the current gaps: social, educational, economic and tech. 

Educators need new pedagogies which are child-driven and supported by technology, easy, simple, and cheap, with no high requirements, naturally able to be set in the classroom/public space environment without special preparation, extensive training or complex equipment. People are ready to rediscover their strength to become creative-curious-autonomous problem solvers with the confidence and skills to take advantage of the global network of tools available to them, as well as the knowledge of their peers and educators.

SOLE (Self-Organized Learning Environments) is a disruptive learning methodology that empowers communities to develop autonomy, collaboration, deep learning, and most important of all, to solve real-life problems! A SOLE session is simple. You need a space (in-person, virtual or hybrid) with learners, a few computers with internet access and Big Questions. In a SOLE people self-organize to find answers to questions without the need for a teacher. In this intellectual adventure, learning emerges from the participants’ interest, developing life-skills like collaboration, expression and communication, creativity and innovation, critical thinking, self-direction, technological fluency.

How does it work?:

• Participants get organized in groups of 4 or 5 people at each computer, so that everyone can see the screen.
• The whole group chooses the Big Question that will direct the SOLE Session or a teacher can suggest it. It can be set in advance, it can be a question result from a previous SOLE Session, participants can invent it on the spot... anything goes in a SOLE. 
• The SOLE question is researched using share devices (computers) connected to the interne, for about 25 to 45 minutes.
• Participants can move freely around the space, change teams, copy answers from other groups, discuss the information they find... anything goes in a SOLE.
• There is only one rule: at the end of the session ALL teams must present their answers. In that process discussion follows and new questions arise and the process is iterated, deepening the knowledge and skills.

Together with SOLE is the Granny concept. Research has shown that having limited intervention provided by an encouraging, un-trained, remote facilitator can promote thriving learning processes. A Granny's role includes provoking curiosity, asking questions, listening carefully, and providing a warm environment. The Granny Cloud is a network of volunteers from all walks of life who connect remotely to SOLEs to co-facilitate and provide participants with the opportunity to experience worlds far removed from their own.

In SOLE Colombia we also nurture a large community of SOLE Ambassadors: librarians, teachers, community leaders, fathers and mothers, and, in general, those responsible for public spaces with internet connection, who transform their places into SOLEs. Through various platforms we maintain communication, and it is they themselves who provide advice, share what works for them and what does not, support each other, solve their doubts and support each other. SOLE Colombia is the promoter of this community experience and includes all the people who in one way or another want to participate.

Our work is inspired by the work of 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra who’s work in India leverages internet technologies to enable self-managed learning.

We will be working this year specially with 15 communities, from the areas hardest hit by violence in Colombia: Montes de María, Cauca y Valle, and Antioquia:

• Conflict survivors 
• Conflict victims
• Communities historically affected by violence
• Women
• Youth and children
• People with disabilities
• LGBTI
• Ethnic communities
• Peasant communities

The objective of our current work with them is focused in accompany in the development and strengthening of skills to close the digital gap, in communities surviving the conflict, to advance in the inclusion of psychosocial support mechanisms in community interventions, improve access to mental health and psychosocial services; mitigate risks associated with psychosocial trauma; and enable conflict survivors to live peaceful and productive lives.

The areas to influence are leadership, income generation, conflict resolution and communication, to develop local capacities, promote resilience and promote social transformations and peaceful coexistence. Using SOLE, we will intervene in different strategic areas, which aim to improve psychosocial support and mental health conditions, promote resilience, develop sustainable economic growth, foster a culture of peace and coexistence, as well as a positive and sustainable public impact sustainable over time.

We have been engaging with communities like these for over 7 years co-designing how SOLEs can be used in their public spaces with scarce connectivity. For example, we have setup SOLE as a nationwide program in public libraries where communities can gather to learn how to learn in groups using the internet as well as the library materials. Most of these communities face challenges which involve learning from their context, their needs and their interests to be able to promote self-management and self-organization. We allow them to ask the questions that previously were not heard, and motivate their curiosity.

Learning to ask questions and working in groups to answer them allows not only for the development of 21st century skills, but to actually explore emergent possibilities which formal planned curricula usually evades.We have accompanied farmers and FARC ex-combatants who ask: how can we make our crops more healthy and productive? Children in schools have found passion for topics like science, math and history connecting it to their local knowledge through SOLEs asking: How do living things affect our planet? Is it possible to rid the world of bullying? Do warring nations advance their technology quicker than peaceful ones?

We have also used SOLE to create nation-wide conversations with questions like: What kind of future do we want to create? Are we on track? What action is needed to bridge the gap?

SOLE Colombia is a small and powerful team of enthusiasts in education, design and technology who are constantly testing new ways of learning and relating using the Internet in ways never done before. Colombia was the first country in the world to do SOLE with a national government back in 2014. Our drive is to test how interdisciplinarity, education and creativity can change narratives of inequality and disconnectedness amongst humans as well as with the non-human world, inspite of how the current education system and capitalism perpetuate them.

SOLE Colombia’s founder is an economist, interaction designer, educator, electronic musician and dad. Working as an educator both at postgraduate and community level, and then as digital and innovation advisor and consultant in the public sector and the social sector, he builds solutions directly with the communities to nudge this system. 

Our project manager joined first as a granny back in 2017 when we piloted a Spanish-speaking Granny cloud. Recently, she has joined as staff adding her experience in the corporate sector to give a solid social business approach. Our communications lead has been giving SOLE Colombia the colourful brand which has allowed it to reach hundreds of thousands of participants nation/worldwide. Our finance head has a feel for connecting finance with purpose, so now she develops data analytics to understand the transformations, improve our outcomes and share the impact of our work with our SOLE Community and general audience worldwide.

Through SOLE we've bridged self-organization and self-management with practical ways of fostering it for those who need it the most through our SOLE Colombia Community which includes educators, librarians, community leaders, volunteers and partners from all walks of life.

As a non-profit entity, our work is always subject to the funds and solidarity of those who finance our work and the development of projects with allies whom we can accompany in their own projects. Obtaining financing to make our operation sustainable is essential to keep our team running and our community served, to be able to continue expanding the projects underway and find other ways to do SOLE to continue reaching the people which can’t be reached by the current system.

Many times, the path we want to take is full of loneliness and insecurities. Nobody in the world does what SOLE Colombia does. We constantly need to nurture our ideas and our ways of doing things, with ideas and ways of doing things from other people and organizations. We need creative contexts to think outside the box and invent new solutions, new ways to reach more people in a more effective way. We need to surround ourselves with good people and organizations that accompany and support us.

We need mentors and coaches to help us find ways and paths that others have already traveled successfully. Having people around us who witness our efforts, help us find more efficient ways of operating, places to find information, procedures and technical possibilities, and inherit the wisdom of experience... will allow us to face challenges with another look, full of enthusiasm and knowing ourselves well accompanied.

We are fans of meeting people and participating in events. We never get tired of telling the world what we are doing, nor of finding companions with whom to walk the path. We are passionate about collaborating with other organizations, with other people, testing, prototyping and thinking together of new ways to solve challenges. We participate throughout the year in numerous events where we learn and get incredible impressions and future plans that translate into new projects and collaborations.

Measuring the impact of our actions as an organization has been always a challenge for SOLE Colombia. Having help in developing the tools to measure our impact will make us aware of the ways in which we affect the changes we want to see in society, but it will also show others the power of our work... That is one of the most important challenges that we have faced since SOLE Colombia was founded and that we believe it is essential to build in the short term.

SOLE is the future of learning: It is not about teaching but about letting learning happen. SOLE is where children, families and communities come together to discover and explore self-organized learning. Frankly, we are disrupting the model of school where learners are passive recipients of content curated by others. SOLE validates that the right design and supports, such as technology, the internet and grannies, unleash people’s inherent curiosity and creativity. People are motivated to pursue answers to their own Big Questions. New questions invite deeper learning and skills. The joy of learning turns SOLE into a lifelong habit.    

We engage the people who need it the most to help them claim their voice, their agency and community spirit to solve their own problems, leveraging new technologies. We view root cause as claiming power to make your life and community better in the context of your emerging realities. SOLE is part of a global movement to use technology to empower groups to learn, collaborate and act without being hampered by the bureaucracy and politics of institutions.  We imagine SOLE groups as ubiquitous with people of all ages and backgrounds pursuing answers to the Big Questions they deem most important.  As a global movement, we envision networks of networks learning across boundaries and differences to bridge people and ideas. The tipping point in Colombia and globally is about better solutions created from the ground up and it is also about the power of networks to accelerate progress.

In SOLE Colombia, our main goal for 2022 is growth. That growing will be focused in 3 strategic priorities which set our impact goals for the next year:

1. Scaling up SOLE and influencing community systems. This includes bringing SOLE to communities of survivors of the armed conflict as a strategy of learning, dialogue and self-organized action for peacebuilding in conjunction with IOM.
2. Prototype and test new SOLE Colombia initiatives to complement outreach strategies to the most needy communities. This includes the development of a SOLE Lab for the Community of Boca de Camarones in La Guajira and a guide of connectivity solutions to make SOLE with the support of the Internet Society Foundation and the pilot of a module of the SOLE Colombia curriculum called SOLE ++ with the support of SAP.
3. Develop and implement a strategy to grow and nurture the SOLE Colombia Community in a systematic and systemic way to influence the large-scale transformation of the country on various fronts, mainly education, community empowerment and peacebuilding. This includes design and implementation of the digital strategy of SOLE Colombia.

In 5 years, the goal is to reach 2 million people in the areas most affected by the internal conflict in Colombia as well as communities worldwide with similar conditions, and having a self-governed active community of 1000 Educators.

We are already achieving this year's objectives based on partnering and challenging our SOLE Colombia Community locally and worldwide. To achieve the 5-year goal we need to grow as an organization and network of networks to create exponential transformation supported by tech.

We measure:

1. Number of individuals and communities who receive skills and knowledge to improve Internet use and new pedagogies using SOLE [though trainings, workshops, etc] 

2. Number of SOLE participants reported by SOLE educators (including characteristics of the population)

3. Percentage of trainees who indicated an interest in further training/next steps 

4. Rubrics on 21st century skill development and behaviour changes reported by educators (I.E. Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication, Self-direction, Global connection, Tech Fluency)

5. Number of SOLE sessions and Big Questions related to their contexts, topics, results and new questions

6. Testimonial qualitative feedback from SOLE experiences regarding skill development, community empowerment and leadership and general learning transformations.

7. Number and type of emerging actions from SOLE groups.

Self-driven learning and dialogue are the seeds to tackle the drivers of inequality. The actions that emerge from that dialogue are the systemic solutions to a more equal and connected world.

We have tested and scaled SOLE in Colombia, reaching more than 450,000 people of all ages, partnering with public libraries, schools, and internet kiosks (2500+ places) in collaboration with the government, private companies, the social sector and citizens. People who participate develop communication, self-direction, creativity, tech fluency, critical thinking, global and local connections and collaboration skills amongst them.

In 2020, we partnered with the UN to celebrate its 75th anniversary with community conversations to imagine the future. We convened diverse participants from across Colombia to discuss issues such as education, gender and the economy. Due to COVID-19, this is the largest experiment in remote conversation in the history of Colombia and is highly relevant for the national healing process. As groups explored issues that they care about, they gained ownership to collaborate for positive change. More than 2500 residents across the country participated in 100+ conversations making Colombia the 2nd country reporting most conversations to the UN. This nation-wide conversation created a new narrative for the future together. The diversity of participants - from peasants and victims of armed conflict to academics and impact investors - and the ‘Big Questions’ they explored all pointed towards education as the means to challenge inequality.

Our vision is a more equitable and connected world to live well together by unleashing people’s potential for learning, dialogue and self-organized action. Technology is like yeast; it unlocks the power of people to drive their own learning. SOLE and other examples of self-managed learning have the potential to reinvent how we think about and design formal education. We will know we’re successful when children and adults alike expect to drive their own learning and through these positive experiences gain confidence and power to turn knowledge into solutions. 

The Internet in public spaces and the power of groups of people's inherent curiosity is our core technology. Available devices such as computers with big screens to share and work together in small groups are ideal. However we have adapted to use tablets or smartphones as it is what people have widely available. Our technology includes:

1) SOLE Toolkit: to accompany educators to implement SOLEs on their own. ( https://cutt.ly/ZnHI9dU for English, www.solecolombia.org for Spanish).

2) The Granny Cloud: an independent team of volunteers that reaches out to children with limited educational resources around the globe and provides them with the opportunity to experience worlds far removed from their own. The role of the Granny includes provoking curiosity, asking questions, listening attentively and providing warm encouragement.

3) StartSOLE: a simple, free app for educators to facilitate Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) in their classrooms or public spaces with internet (i.e libraries, internet kiosks, community centers, etc). It allows educators to 1) self-train about SOLE, 2) plan  SOLE sessions, 3)review their SOLE session keeping track of rubrics, and 4) explore a dynamic Big Questions database. It also includes StartSOLE Virtual: a simple synchronous open source videoconferencing platform integrated directly into StartSOLE. Virtual SOLEs allow to easily invite learners to join with just a link (no extra software required); simple, detailed security permissions to ensure safety and focus of learners; easily create and push them to breakout rooms for small group collaboration and other tools for formative assessment.

SOLE Colombia is focused on inspiring large-scale and individual transformation through facilitation, conversation, inquiry and the sensible use of technology. SOLE Colombia's purpose is to allow for anyone to participate in living well together. In a diverse country as Colombia that means bridging gender, social classes, religious beliefs and ethnicities. 

We do so in the leadership team as we are a mixed group, mostly women, of very diverse backgrounds: local and foreign nationalities, multi-ethnic and openminded. 

Our founder is a Colombian-born national of Indian and Spanish parents. He is sensitized to First Nations and has worked specifically for their self-development. His sibling and her same sex-partner, have equally contributed to his growth in respect of understanding equality, gender and human rights issues. 

Our finance head self-defines herself as a feminist, afrodescendant and has a powerful observation for equality. 

Our communications lead is religious and her amazonian spouse produce visual communication and design for inclusion and diversity. 

Our project manager is a mother and coach with a special feel for children. 

Our tangible goal is that once self-organized learning is the common narrative of education world-wide we will not need to push it forward. We want to be out of a job, so to speak.

We are growing and nurturing the SOLE Community, our self-organised community of SOLE enthusiasts world-wide whom are collectively hoisting this common vision of a more equitable and connected world to live well together by unleashing people’s potential for learning, dialogue and self-organized action. Everyone's invited!

Our business model is based on adding value through our products and services to beneficiaries and clients: the SOLE methodology reduces inequalities, provides everyone with the possibility of accessing the information they need to learn how to learn, dialogue and act, applying the knowledge built to their own needs and develop self-managed communities. SOLE is a way to support a quality education, accessible to all people and organizations who want to use it.

Our model is hybrid. We achieve our financial efficiency by combining the following strategies:

1. We co-design products / services and implement projects, together with organizations committed to education, technology, childhood and vulnerable communities, with an emphasis on reducing social inequalities and access to quality education: eg. United Nations Colombia, International Organization for Migration and the Science, ICT and Culture Ministries.

2. We streamline our processes improving our efficiency to allow us to cover costs of SOLE sessions with vulnerable communities, through consulting services to organizations: eg. SOLE for Orgs and Community SOLE

3. We receive support from CSR teams in companies to reach communities where we are interested in generating an impact: eg. SOLE Labs / Agile SOLE Labs.

4. We do crowdfunding campaigns through global platforms (eg. Global Giving, Benevity) as well as receive private donations.

5. We apply and are awarded grants, fellowships and awards from local and foreign organizations, adjusting what we have been doing in recent years to the objectives of each call: Fundación Telefónica and Semana, Feedback Labs, Internet Society Foundation

The business model we work on is more similar to Embebed, in which the enterprise and the social program are one and the same and the business is created to serve clients (central to the mission). In any case, we are working to transform that model into something more similar to Integrated, so we can overlap business activities with the social programs and business is created as a funding mechanism and to expand/enhance the mission of the organization.

Currently, the lines we are taking to make this happen, are:

• Get buyback, designing affordable products for organizations that allow us to iterate the purchasing process, adding loyalty to customer relationships and stable financial flow to our project. This would allow us consistent income, so we can imagine (with financial peace of mind) new ways of working with communities.
• Growth in our organization, finding the right people to take us to the next level.
• Make ourselves visible to funders, venturing into platforms and events where we can find the right people.
• Be relevant and consistent with current challenges and future possibilities
• Keep the message to be conveyed simple
• Allow access and self-management
• Experimentation
• Assess the impact on the Community

Currently we are raising funds through donations and grant applications as we try to connect with government or international cooperation funding:

• Around 5k dollars were raised on Last year’s Giving Tuesday Campaign, and are planning our fundraising campaign for 2022. 

• Over 20k dollars have been donated yearly by SAP CSR program to us.

• We applied and were awarded, last year’s Internet Society Foundation BOLT Grant. We have received funds to build a "SOLE Lab: the Library of the Future", as we like to call it, and develop a “Guide of solutions for connectivity” which aims to be a self-diagnosis tool and solutions to overcome the difficulties of connectivity in extreme and remote places

We work based on projects although we continue to implement SOLE well beyond the reach of a specific project:

• In 2015, we contracted government grants with the Ministry of ICTs and the Agency for Science and Technology (Colciencias) for 250,000 USD to scale the SOLE methodology to 300 locations (100 public internet kiosks and 200 public schools) in one-time educator training.

• In 2020, we received a grant from the United Nations in Colombia for 60,000 USD to celebrate its 75th anniversary with community conversations to imagine the future. We convened various participants from all over Colombia to discuss issues such as gender, education, and the economy. Due to COVID-19, this has been the largest remote conversation experiment in the history of Colombia and is of great relevance to the national healing process: exploring issues of interest, people gain a sense of agency to collaborate for positive change. More than 2,500 residents across the country participated in more than 100 conversations, making Colombia the second country to report the most conversations to the UN. Now, the SOLE Colombia Community is building projects in a decentralized way to support children and young people in their learning processes, as they are the most affected by the pandemic.

• In 2021, we have started a project with the International Organization for Migration for 65,000 USD to accompany the development and strengthening of skills to close the digital divide in 15 communities of survivors of the conflict, providing them with skills in technology applicable to their personal, family and community life; contributing to the improvement of mental health, strengthening of the social fabric and to economic empowerment.