WISE Awards blog

BETT is the most important event dedicated to promoting the use of technology in education in the UK. At this year’s show, I had the opportunity to present the main strategies developed by Educarchile and the WISE Award winning project PSU Educarchile in the use of technology in difficult and vulnerable situations.

One of the first lessons we learned while developing Educarchile is illustrated by Javiera, a teenager from a very distant city who, as a result of an earthquake in her region, was unable to achieve good results in the PSU university entrance exam. It became clear to us that Javiera needed a lot more than a good website with information. She also needed special support, new opportunities to communicate with her peers and, most important of all, to understand that school was not the only place where she could learn. That is why we developed a virtual platform combining high-quality content, a study plan to help her track her results, and a permanent means of communication through social media.

The second lesson we learned was that since technology is constantly evolving, education should do so too. We started the Educarchile project 12 years ago when the first computers were being installed in schools. At that time our relationship with our users was more unilateral or transactional (they came to our portal to search for and download specific content). Then broadband became popular and we faced new demands like the need for more feedback, participation and faster solutions to transform content. Today we are guided by the idea of sharing knowledge, using an ecosystem of learning and not only a platform with good resources. Though technology continues to develop rapidly, our central concern is the educational challenge we need to face.

The third lesson we learned was that we need a 360-degree view of educational problems. This means that when you are facing an earthquake, a problem of geographical dispersion, or even socio-economic barriers, you need to address the challenge with simple and practical solutions, while bearing the complexity of the situation in mind. For example, after the earthquake there was not only a problem of connectivity (poor access to the Internet) but also teachers were finding it difficult to plan their year because they were starting late, students faced psychological problems and parents feared sending their children to school. That is why we decided to develop what we called Educarchile Essential (the essence of Educarchile), providing material that is easy to download, practical curricular information, as well as psychological support for teachers and students. It was a multi-faceted solution, though very simple, that responded to a very difficult situation.

Lastly, we learned that in order to deliver education in difficult circumstances using technology, there was no single technological solution. We needed to put Javiera in the center again and that meant that we needed to provide content via virtual platforms, but also in a blended format that allows us to be where technology cannot. Also, we needed to find different solutions for different technological channels – for example, using social media in order to distribute key practical information. Somehow we needed to go where Javiera was, and that required understanding that today her learning process is different and includes different situations and platforms.

PSU Educarchile has played an important role in helping students in difficult situations, and this is what we tried to explain to the audience of teachers and school principals who came to BETT in London. My final thought has to do with our main ethos which concerns the process of learning and not the technology itself. As Paulo Freire, one of the most important educators from Brazil, said, “To teach is not to transfer knowledge, but to create the possibilities for the production or construction of knowledge”. For me this should be our guiding principle when we think about using technology in our educational solutions.