{"id":2148,"date":"2012-06-18T16:39:04","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T14:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/OEB_Newsportal\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2016-11-22T11:49:12","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T09:49:12","slug":"allversity-a-stride-towards-education-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/allversity-a-stride-towards-education-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Allversity: a stride towards education for all"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Shane McMillan, co-founder of Allversity<\/p><\/div>\n

Can the Internet solve the world\u2019s education imbalances? It\u2019s an open-ended question which has consumed those within the e-learning world. ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN attendee Shane McMillan talks us through the makings of a crowdsourced curriculum for a virtual school that will cater to the world\u2019s poor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is Allversity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s our way of fighting poverty on a global scale, with education leading the way.\u00a0 We believe that everyone is entitled to a decent education and a chance in life, and so we\u2019re collaborating with people around the world to create what one might describe as a free online academy-cum-digital textbook. An overview of the project is provided here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t people just turn to Wikipedia?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wikipedia has tremendous value, but the information is not structured according to a curriculum that a pupil could follow. Using an interactive learning management system, we are curating our own material that is easily navigable and organised into cumulative courses.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Year 1-12 curriculum covering the same material that is found in a K-12 syllabus.\u00a0 Ultimately, students will be able to use it on their own, and teachers could also incorporate some of the modules into their classroom routines.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When did you launch the project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Having spent a semester in Ghana during my undergraduate studies back in 2007, I saw the pressing need for free educational resources that are of the same high standard as people anywhere else have access to.\u00a0 So it was a stroke of luck that when I moved to Berlin in the summer of 2010, I met Christian Kroll my partner on the project.\u00a0 Independently, he had been thinking of doing something similar \u2013 creating a free online school. The work began in earnest last autumn, so we were pleased to be able to attend ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN a few months into the project.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did attending ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN help you move ahead with the project? <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I enjoyed the conference immensely and made dozens of contacts with e-learning experts who will be instrumental in the execution of the plan. There were some UNESCO representatives whose guidance has been immeasurable. Attending the conference helped us determine a few realities on the ground and opened us up to some new possibilities and new limits. I recall attending the \u201cE-Learning for Change and Scalability in Africa\u201d session and having to readjust my thinking after learning of the disastrous outcomes of a number of otherwise well-intentioned one-to-one computing projects across Africa.\u00a0 One of the speakers, Jens Schneider, runs the Africa eLearning Service Network in Namibia and was able to give me some frank advice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Such as\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The poorest of the poor don\u2019t have ready access to smartphones or the high speed Internet access that is required for one to sit through the video tutorials we are planning to incorporate into our virtual school. So as far as software goes, we have to ensure that as much content as possible is downloadable and available for offline use.\u00a0 In the past six months, we\u2019ve created a mountain of content and have designed the school so that Allversity can be used as an app or a website.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019re using the crowdsourcing model and appealing for contributors around the world.\u00a0 How do you ensure quality with such a large team where members have disparate backgrounds and, perhaps, dubious intentions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The quality of the crowd is something anyone working within this model has to factor in, but you\u2019d be surprised at how swiftly the judicious ones stand out thus making our job of eliminating unsuitable contributors easier.\u00a0 The good ones stay on, stay true and are helping us make some very exciting courses that we can\u2019t wait to present.\u00a0 So far, we have 150 people putting courses together via Google Drive. Brazil, Germany, Guatemala, Kenya, India and the US are just a few of the countries represented.\u00a0 Most of those participating by designing course material and lessons are young academics or postgraduate students, and like me, they are still in their twenties. We do a lot of reading, research and planning that informs our ideas and practices.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s voluntary \u2014 we are a not-for-profit organisation \u2014 the chancers and the undedicated soon give up when they see that they can\u2019t meet the deadlines and the targets. We of course have a number of academic advisors, most of them tenured university lecturers or professors in the US. So we have some pedagogical quality control measures in place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The theme of ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012 is \u201cReaching Beyond Tomorrow\u201d.\u00a0 What do you envisage for Allversity long-term?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The school will open its virtual doors in the autumn. We\u2019ve designed the curriculum to ensure that we aren\u2019t focused on teaching just the classic subjects \u2013 English, Maths, Geography and so forth. We have some \u201cPriority Courses\u201d – practical units to help people with day-to-day concerns, for example Maternal, Personal and Community Health courses; courses on Human Rights, Finance, Agriculture and Development – all information that people in struggling communities need.\u00a0 You have to think about sustainability. We ultimately want this to be a school that anyone without access to traditional schooling can turn to, so matters of accreditation in light of our crowdsourcing approach will have to be ironed out. But we\u2019re learning too, and perhaps we\u2019ll be able to get more sound ideas at this year\u2019s conference!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can the Internet solve the world\u2019s education imbalances? It\u2019s an open-ended question which has consumed those within the e-learning world. ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN attendee Shane McMillan talks us through the makings of a crowdsourced curriculum for a virtual school that will cater to the world\u2019s poor.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/path><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":2197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7169,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions\/7169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}