Changing the world by sharing knowledge

One of the ways for us to have a better world is by sharing knowledge. We need more people to take advantage of what is available in their communities so that they improve their quality of life. Giving away material things will never have an end, but by giving away knowledge we enable individuals, and therefore our society, to be self-sufficient.

This is what we wanted for our teachers from the bilingual school (BLS)  in Camasca when we asked them to visit the school in Las Marias, Santa Lucia.  Our goal was for there to be an exchange of ideas about time management and effective ways to use the Kolibri platform.  One of the challenges that teachers in our program have faced is in planning lessons for the school year, it requires time and teamwork. However, the teachers at Las Marias have overcome this challenge. Now, they just have to click the bottom “activate lesson” and the students’ work for the rest of the academic year appears on their tablets. It is a big achievement!

While time management is a great contributor to creating these lessons, the teachers from las Marias explained their different strategies used to complete all their lessons. None of them had prior knowledge of computers. It was a challenge they faced, and they did it with love and passion.  “To learn how to use Kolibri, we took our students to the soccer field to play, and while the students were playing, we were organizing the lessons in the platform,” teacher Edy said. Obstacles cannot stop people from reaching success when the desire is in their hearts and there was a clear impact on our BLS teachers after hearing this testimony.

Likewise, these teachers made an emphasis that the secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team because it allows people to divide the tasks and double the success.

In this case, these two teachers are a great team because they don’t just focus on finding content for the three grades they teach individually. Instead, they both work together on organizing lessons for all six grades. The teachers from our BLS were left motivated by everything they were hearing and seeing.  Here are some of their reflections:

“…significant [to see] that the teachers there are quite organized being that they established moments in which they could plan the lessons together and set a schedule for its use… [it was] neither lack of knowledge of how the application works nor laziness, the cause is lack of organization” -Miss Lidis Diaz

“They are great teachers and plan[ned] their Kolibri lessons for the whole year, which is an exhaustive job because to do that, we need to check topics, videos, exercises, one by one… We were surprised that even though they did not know about technology, they say yes to that great challenge and have achieved a lot, helping their students, at the same time they learn more and more day by day – Jessy Molina

“They use this tool to reinforce the topics they already explained in the classroom… students know how to work independently and helping others … to solve the exercises presented in the lessons. Thank you for giving us this experience as a way to think differently about this amazing tool” -Miss Brenda Godoy

It is wonderful when people decide to share ideas like the Las Marias teachers did, and motivate themselves and others to achieve a shared goal: to provide an excellent education for our youth. This willingness to share their knowledge, their challenges, their triumphs to others is what pushes us to try and be better every day!