myME Box: Digital Learning Platform for OOSCYs (“Redefining Innovation: Learning Box for IDPs in Myanmar — Pilot Conclusion”)
Our second sprint began with full of excitement and unexpected developments as we prepared to implement “myME Box” in IDP camps here in Myanmar. Covid-19 second wave hit Myanmar in early August, 2020 that most major cities were locked down that traveling between them are still prohibited. Then, recent clashes between the Myanmar’s military and Arakan Army in Rakhine State, where most of the IDP camps are located, intensified that new unofficial and makeshift IDP camps popping up around some populated regions and cities. Although lamentable news, this made the focus of our pilot project all the more relevant, as we hoped to test an offline educational model with them. Be able to access some IDP camps at conflict-affected states along with some unofficial and makeshift IDP camps around the country.
Sadly, a Covid-19 second wave pretty much took away all our hopes and expectations, particularly our plans to travel to IDP camps to conduct in-person pilot testing with out-of-school children and youth. Everything was shut down here in Myanmar since and we’re still pretty much locked up in our own homes and unable to travel anywhere in the country. After trying and failing to get permission to travel to the camps, we realized that our initial plan to offline pilot testing, which was reported in our last medium post — “Redefining Innovation: Learning box for IDPs in Myanmar”, needed a new direction and strategy to cope with these revelations. We decided to pivot an offline educational model, which was to bring access (myME Box) to the camps, toward virtually bringing out OOSCYs from the camps onto online learning platform.
Along with an online learning platform development, we’ve also decided to conduct online meetings and orientations with OOSCYs and facilitators from Rakhine IDP camps and two other myME’s NFC centers in Yangon and Myingyan townships. Excitedly, we managed to register 57 out-of-school children and youth from Rakhine IDP Camp, Yangon and Myingyan Township to participate in the online pilot testing, and also virtually trained 12 local facilitators on how to use the learning platform and facilitate online learning sessions.
Online learning platform, “myME Box” (www.myMEBox.org), was born and fully decorated with fun and user-friendly design and loaded with all kinds of engaging teaching and learning materials (inspiring stories, e-Books, educational games, and self-learning video lessons). The design and images for the box were inspired by our own out-of-school and working students and sketched by a local cartoonist, which we believed reflect OOSCY experience, aspiration and taste.
We’ve also managed to convert nine face-to-face lessons into online video-based formats and tested them during the pilot. We pretty much did everything we could to make sure OOSCYs will have fun and inspiring experience learning through “myME Box”. We also knew that this could be the only option that most OOSCY learners will ever get while trying to survive through a challenging and uncertain life in the camp. We’ve created many different versions of user-interfaces and icon images, and also tested them with OOSCYs and working children around the city where myME office is located. Mainly to make sure the learning platform that we’re developing will provide fun experience and meaningful learning for OOSCYs at the camps. The following screenshots show “myME Box” main page, student login and registration page, and available levels and courses for the learners to choose according to their learning level and interest.
Online pilot testing revealed that we’ve achieved Level Completion rate of 82% (47 out of 57 students completed at least one Level), which was quite encouraging and inspiring for all of us involved in the project. At the same time, following pre- and post-assessment percentages showed the different picture of student’s achievement and meeting learning outcomes. Overall student learning improvement is 20% (from 62% to 82%) according to below average pre- and post-assessment results from all three levels. We were initially expected to see overall learning improvement around 50%, so 20% was a bit puzzling for us to understand what went wrong during the pilot testing. But, nothing was wrong during the testing. It was the average student age, 17 years across three testing sites, which significantly contributed toward narrowing the learning improvement. We’ve designed learning materials and video-based lesson plans for OOSCYs between 12–18 years old, but most of the materials are suitable for younger students between 12–15 years old. This made it a bit simpler and easier for older OOSCYs to understand that their pre-assessment score turned out to be higher (62%) and caused the learning improvement to be less than we’ve expected.
On the other hand, we were delighted to see OOSCYs from the IDP camps in Rakhine state received higher Learning Improve score (33%) compares to the overall average score of 20% as mentioned above. Their pre-assessment score was 36% and post-assessment score was 69%, which is much higher than the pre- and post-assessment scores received by OOSCYs from non-IDP camps. Their level completion rate was also much higher (80.95%) than OOSCYs from two other pilot sites. Also, it was inspiring to learn that OOSCYs from the IDP camps in Rakhine state made it through the pilot phase with very limited numbers of mobile devices and significant language barrier since most of them speak very little Burmese language.
At the same time, we also noticed an unintended bias of including current myME’s NFE (Non-Formal Education) students from various community learning centers in the pilot. Some of these NFE students already learned online courses that we’ve included for the pilot testing during their face-to-face sessions, which was the reason that their pre-assessment scores were much higher than we expected. This was a significant learning experience and reminder for us to conduct a thorough placement test to ensure OOSCYs will be placed under relevant learning levels and pathways in any future pilot projects.
The other learning for us was the language issue, which most participated OOSCYs from the IDP camps experienced during the pilot. Their ability to read and write Burmese language was very low that most of them had to heavily rely on local facilitators and volunteers to translate course descriptions and instructions into their local languages. The issue was also expected — so we intentionally included pre-recorded course descriptions and instructions for them to listen and navigate through the platform. Unfortunately, they were not sufficient enough for them to fully utilize the platform.
The learning process throughout this pilot project was quite challenging and yet inspiring at the same time for all of us here at myME Project. Meaningful learning requires holistic approach and thoughtful implementation, especially when it comes to providing education for OOSCYs. Designing a cool and innovative learning platform or device is just an initial step towards the meaningful learning. We as an education sector must include the learners since at the beginning and bring them along the way if our true intention is for them to learn and achieve their best.
Most of all, seeing faces of OOSCYs light up when they first connected with “myME Box” on their outdated mobile phones and used tablets was the most memorable learning experience for all of us! Innovation could sometimes come in many different forms, shapes, and places, even with limited resources and capacity to create new things. This simple and significant “myME Box” pilot project made with a low-cost Raspberry Pi single-board computer was a testament to redefine what innovation really means to all of us working in the development sector around the world…
