swag is the codename for skills that help people earn a higher income and achieve greater personal freedom through self-expression. This is the software that helps people achieve more swag.
Teenager in Kibera, Nairobi, walks into a Tunapanda computer lab after school wearing his school uniform. The fat part of his tie is short, the skinny part goes down to his knees.
Me: Nice tie, Marc.
Marc: Thanks, teacher. It's my swag.
A key mechanism for spreading learning to low-income parts of the world, including here in East Africa, is video learning content which can simultaneously decrease cost while increasing quality of education. Software and videos will never replace good teachers, but they are certainly the best option when no other affordable option exists.
However, both guidance and motivation are currently huge problems for video learning. This swag software is designed to help solve those problems by:
- Creating clear, automated pathways through material so students can learn at their own pace with minimal guidance.
- Providing a lightly-gamified environment to help with motivation.
- Allowing localized customization of the scoring system.
- Helping minimally-trained teaching facilitators guide others to mastery and see what's working and what isn't.
Every student interacting with our learning platform should be treated as much like a game player as possible. In other words: it's our job to keep them engaged and provide manageable challenges while minimizing boredom and confusion - we don't order them to engage or hit them with sticks when they fail to comply.
A player starts off in the game environment with very little knowledge of the world of technology, design and storytelling. Many have never handled a computer before, nor seen anyone touch-type properly. There is very likely no internet access and unreliable electricity. Thus the environment needs to be self-contained... and time is of the essence.
By moving around the open source software and freely-licensed content on Tunapanda Edubuntu, a player collects swag points. Some of this swag is automatically recorded - for example when a student achieves a certain level of touch-typing. Other swag must be verified by other players who have achieved higher levels of swag. For example, editing a short community journalism video following certain rules of film, or building a website using Drupal or Wordpress following certain specification.
swag can be viewed as a proxy word for skill. There are various types of swag but we can ignore that for now.
To achieve a certain level of swag in a given skill area, players might engage in any combination of the following:
- Watch video content (can often be substituted by a human lesson).
- Complete a quiz, group activity or project. Note: quizzes are more often used to help players check their understanding rather than as achievement indicators.
- Achieve a certain level within a swag area based on experience.
Note: Achieving (or even attempting) certain swag elements might require prerequisites. Those prerequisites might be swag or level.
A player/student first sitting in front of a computer should learn to touch type. The first thing the player does is watch a short video showing finger placement and explaining that the color coding of the keyboard on the screen tells them which fingers to use. They are briefly instructed on proper posture and given some tips for quick learning. Typing level 0 achieved.
Next, the player is guided to typing software and begins touch typing with just the letters f and j. After a certain accuracy and speed is achieved their level increases and they are guided to add more fingers. After earning a few levels and accomplishing feats of finger magic, Beginner Touch Typing swag Achieved. Points/levels can be accumulated for time spent and attempts made, but swag requires hitting certain learning targets.
There are various formulae for teaching people how to teach. While there is a clear art, there are also processes that can be taught using video content and digital automation of well-used processes. Basic curriculum currently in testing phase with a former Teach For America teacher and current Edtech PhD candidate
Get that self-expression swag
Get that design swag
Get that coding swag
Get that additive manufacturing swag