Grade One and Two teachers at Uhuru Gardens Primary school going through training on how to integrate iLearn into their lesson plans
Atlancis Technologies has partnered with Kenyan teachers to develop a digital learning application specially suited for Kenyan primary schools.
This learning application christened iLearn, is essentially a digitalization of the new Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), which highlights digital literacy as one of the most important components that schools must incorporate in curriculum delivery.
iLearn is an interactive digital learning application designed with the Kenyan student and teacher in mind. The learning application maximizes on student engagement by incorporating voiced animations, quizzes, games, and loads of interactive lessons that bring out students’ interest in learning. On the teacher’s end, the application provides for real-time monitoring and assessment of students’ progress from a user friendly dashboard, allowing a teacher to always have a picture of their class’ progress at any given time.
Speaking during the launch of iLearn, Bancy Njuguna the iLearn Project Champion noted that, it was important for schools to understand that digital literacy did not just mean IT proficiency, it was actually separate from computer literacy. “Any good digital literacy program must enable children to build important skills such as Collaboration, Creativity, Critical thinking, Citizenship, Character and Communication,” she said, adding that these were key benchmarks that Atlancis had been able to achieve through its innovative learning application which covered all the 9 Learning Areas of the CBC, namely Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, Creative Arts, Music, Hygiene and Nutrition, Literacy, CRE and, Environmental studies.
Whereas the 8-4-4 curriculum which the government began phasing out in 2017 in favor of the CBC, was concerned with learning objectives, the CBC is concerned with learning outcomes and skills development. This therefore calls for a digital learning application that is in line with the learner centered pedagogy, a box that the iLearn application checks. This demonstrates iLearn’s ability to meet the government’s aspirations of adopting a curriculum delivery mechanism that leads to developing skills and competencies in learners, skills which they will be able to apply in real life situations.
It is noteworthy that the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has fully approved Grade One and Two digital learning content on iLearn and has already began rolling it out into more than 20,000 public primary schools. “It is a great honor that KICD is using the digital learning content on iLearn as a component of its rollout of digital literacy in public primary schools in Kenya,” said Atlancis CEO, Daniel Njuguna. “This is a morale booster for us as a company and it serves as a good motivator for our team to continue providing innovative solutions for our country’s education sector,” he added.
To accelerate the uptake of iLearn in Kenyan schools, Atlancis is providing Grade One learning content free of charge to schools. “Atlancis is taking a next step with the launch of a learning management system, offering some of the iLearn content for free and providing schools with digital libraries,” revealed Mr. Njuguna.
With the introduction of iLearn, Atlancis is demonstrating why it was recently recognized as a Top 100 Midsized Company in Kenya and 1st Runner up in the category of Most Innovative Company in 2019.
Story featured in CIO East Africa: https://www.cio.co.ke/atlancis-digitalising-kenyan-schools-from-vision-to-device/
The Star Newspaper: https://www.the-star.co.ke/business/2019-12-19-local-tech-firm-launches-free-ilearn-content-for–grade-one-pupils/
Metropol TV: https://metropoltv.co.ke/2019/12/18/local-tech-firm-atlancis-rolls-out-i-learn-to-private-schools/