Edupoints

Developing countries are facing one of the deepest social crises in their history.

The current and possible future pandemics and massive social problems have been increasing the social gap, especially for those kids who do not have access to an Internet connection for their school classes.

We must prevent this type of situation in the future. In the state schools of low-income countries in the world, we have identified three groups of students.

• Students with Internet access (they are able to attend the classes using Google Meet).
• Students with access only through WhatsApp (they are able to get educative materials including videos, but lose interactivity with teachers and classmates).
• Students with no access (they only get printed materials that must be studied in an autodidactic way).

Edupuntos (edupoints) is a platform developed to publish high-quality educative materials and activities, with several differences:

• Activities are designed not only for online users but for offline users, keeping the interactivity, thanks to the use of propositive technology that includes a website, a mobile app, and optional agreements with community radio stations.
• Edupuntos is built in a collaborative environment.
• The points earned by students after carrying out the engaging educational activities can be used as transactional money to get benefits as positive points for the different school subjects or to get discounts in local allied markets affected by the pandemic that need to reactivate. This has a permanent motivation effect on students and represents a great opportunity for economic reactivation.

I am a teacher with 12 years of experience, working in state schools in Colombia. Low-income families are the rule in our schools. The lack of resources in this kind of school is noticeable when compared to private schools. 

Teachers have access to different tech tools but, sometimes, the resources don't guarantee high-quality educational content, especially when the teachers use free versions of the tech tools.  Education is many times still teacher-centered instead of being student-centered. Sometimes the lessons are not well designed or are not standard based. The lessons finish at school and are not connected to students' real life.

At home, students don't have an Internet connection or even they don't have a computer. They just count on a smartphone.

Edupoints seeks to generate a solution counting on high-quality standard-based educational, interactive resources with online or offline access and becoming a permanent motivation center that connects knowledge with real-life benefits in a Blended Learning environment that ends the lesson not at school, but in the students' real lives.

I am a happy Colombian teacher who loves Education and children. I always try to understand them and their social and family backgrounds. I have received several acknowledgments for my permanent commitment. For example, this year I had the opportunity to participate in the Fulbright Teacher Excellence and Achievement Program from January 25th to March 11th and received an acknowledgment for my leadership.

My beloved sister, Angela Pardo is a Special Educator with almost 20 years of experience working with the deaf population and with children with Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and other conditions.

My niece, Paula Muñoz has a wide experience working with NGOs.

We have access to state schools to put into practice our proposal and to test its benefits.

• We need to design at least 960 high-quality educational content with:
• Standard-oriented materials.
• Explanatory video.
• Assessment activities that could include: Interactive video, fill the gap activities, false or true activities, charts, collages, quizzes, dictations, drag and drop, find hotspots, flashcards, image pairings, etc.
• Score parameterization
• Production of audios to deliver content through community radio stations.
• We also need to contract a dedicated hosting service to serve the schools interested in our project.
• Developing a mobile app with online and offline delivery of academic content.
• Is important to explain that the pedagogical contents will be designed by teachers with a Master's Degree and the videos will be designed by contracted animators.

Edupoints connects education with real life. That's the big difference. Many solutions give points, badges that are used just for academic reasons.Edupoints connects education with financial education by converting the Edupoints into transactional money not only to get academic benefits but to get real discounts. This is a permanent motivation engine to always learn more.

In five years: adoption of Edupoints as the default educational platform at state schools in Villavicencio.

In ten years: adoption of Edupoints as the default educational platform at state schools in Colombia and Latin America.

The number of active users.

The number of schools that adopt Edupoints as the custom educational platform.

Quantity of educational activities executed.

Quantity of Edupoints released.

The already run tests and the satisfaction surveys run by students show very positive feedback. The language used in the platform is the language of our kids, the agreements with teachers to let the students use the Edupoints to get academic benefits, and agreements with local stores that are interesting for young people, are the guarantee to be in the right way to transform the reality that we want to transform

We use WordPress connected to several plugins like LearnDash, Gamipress, H5P, and custom development, for example, to create cooperative learning activities. In the future, we want to use Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

The educational content is designed based on standards and on the Universal Design for Learning to assure the inclusion of everyone.

We also try to include the power of women in STEM activities.

We create high-quality, engaging, standard-based educational content to encourage students, especially in state schools, to learn and to get academic benefits and discounts from local businesses, using the obtained Edupoints (executing academic tasks), as transactional money.

Sell access to our platforms to private schools.

Earn a percentage of the sale of discounted products from allied stores.

So far, everything has been handled with own resources.