TechChange and UNICEF are proud to announce the release of 2 landmark eLearning courses: one on the intersection between frontier technology, venture capital, and the work of UNICEF, designed for UN staff and country office personnel, and the other on leveraging open source business models in technology for good, designed for emerging startups in the frontier technology field. The courses are set for their pilot run in January 2019.

In UNICEF’s Frontier Technology course, course participants will explore the intersection of business, technology, and social good to prototype open source, scalable innovations that address the most pressing challenges in the lives of vulnerable children. Through a comprehensive review of our global challenges and issues, the opportunities that exist in data and technology, and the most exciting scalable solutions, the course will support Country Offices and staff in connecting with partners, preparing prototypes and pitching their ideas to stakeholders and funders.

In UNICEF’s Open Source Business Models course, course participants will learn about open source as a business model, including how open source can solve common problems that businesses typically face, why open source can actually generate revenue more sustainably than a proprietary business can, and how to build an open source business — culminating in an interactive version of the Business Model Canvas with sticky notes for general information, information with an open source focus, a case study, and a method for filling in their own canvas (as depicted in the GIF below). The course aims to educate startup founders in developing and emerging economies about the merits of open source, dispelling common myths and misconceptions, and assisting participants in improving their own business model along the way.

The project team at UNICEF’s Office of Innovation, led by Sunita Grote (Innovation Fund Manager) and Milja Laakso (Innovation Fund Portfolio Collaborations Consultant), worked closely with TechChange’s instructional designers to create this engaging, comprehensive course series that utilized engaging interactions, filmed interviews, targeted knowledge exercises, and curated resources in each section of the courses.

Throughout course development, which spanned nearly a year (January through November 2018), TechChange designers consulted more than 40 subject matter experts from the UN and UNICEF and from the private sector, both in recorded interviews, for the benefit of learners, and off the record as background research.

Creative Director Yohan Perera joined the instructional design team in May at UNICEF Headquarters in New York City for filmed interviews with UNICEF Innovation Co-Founder Chris Fabian and other members of the Innovation team.

 

TechChange opted for a streamlined course interface design, implementing a static menu at the top of course slides and recurrent course navigation buttons at the bottom of course slides. The team designed inventively when it came to displaying user progress, piloting the course map for the Frontier Technology course and the planner feature for the Open Source Business Models course.

The TechChange Creative team had the pleasure of creating two flagship animations for the courses. Please click the hyperlinks below to enjoy the animations.

About UNICEF’s Innovation Fund

The Fund has been specifically designed to finance early stage, open-source technology that has the potential to impact children on a global scale. The core motivation of the Innovation Fund is to invest in “clusters” or portfolios of initiatives around emerging technology, like UAVs, Blockchain, Data Science and AI or virtual reality – so that UNICEF can both shape markets and also learn about and guide these technologies to benefit children.

More info: www.unicefinnovationfund.org

Join our conversations and share the courses online. Follow the UNICEF Innovation Fund on Facebook here or on Twitter at @unicefinnovate.

Animations Credits

Script supervision & script writing by Austin Spivey & Isabel Knight

Storyboarding by the TechChange creative team in collaboration with the TechChange instructional design team.

Illustrations by John Taesoo Kim.


Animation by Jeremy Garcia and John Taesoo Kim

Nearly two decades of data-driven schooling demonstrate that better learning outcomes won’t come from more learner data, but rather from better trainer strategies. And nowhere is this more vital than in teaching soft skills that are more valuable to construction company employers and in less danger of automation.

However, the primary means of online education still focus on cheap credentials and low costs to acquire technical skills, instead of providing high soft-skill value to the learner. But as more learners tire of the MOOC bait-and-switch, online educators run the risk of re-learning the same lessons online, as have been uncovered in person.

There’s no substitute for practice. But here are some research-based principles of instruction established through cognitive science, classroom practices of master teachers, and cognitive supports to help students learn complex tasks.

1. Begin sessions with a short review of previous learning, as well as context for the session for the students.

Our webinars are geared towards adult learners, who are globally distributed, but united in being extremely busy. Deloitte estimates that the average employee can only devote an average of 24 minutes per week to professional development, which means that every minute counts. Even in the most engaging of classes, participants are unlikely to recall all relevant concepts and vocabulary from working memory, making it difficult to learn new material required for subsequent learning. This also provides facilitators with the opportunity to directly connect the coming session with learning outcomes, which is critical for purpose-driven adult learning.

2. Present new material in small steps with opportunities for students to practice at each step. Make sure they all start at the same time.

Presenting too much material at once will confuse participants because their working memory will be unable to process it. Rather than an all-encompassing course module, seek to break up your content into a series of short presentations that provide opportunities for guided student practice. This will also provide you more opportunities to check understanding at each point and reteach selected modules where necessary, rather than getting to the end of the course and being surprised at poor results.

3. Ask a large number of questions and check responses of all participants. Involve the class if you can.

Always remember that you can involve all participants through having them respond to threaded forums, answering one another’s inquiries, and responding to polls during live events. Not only is active participation powerful for learning outcomes, but also it will provide you with an opportunity to assess what percentage of your students are confident and correct in their responses so that you can see where reteaching or further examples are needed. Some examples of prompts are:

4. Require and monitor independent practice, as well as cooperative learning where possible.

Participants do better when they help one another study, as cooperative learning provides an opportunity to explain the material to someone else, and then get feedback from their peers. Not only is independent / cooperative practice required to achieve learning outcomes, but also it provides good structure for when the class is over an learners will have to maintain and update their knowledge on their own.

5. Embrace mistakes and adjust when needed to prevent students learning errors. Our free chat will open for you the world of bright impressions. Connect and use a normal webcam to watch what happens in the rooms of the girls. You can also write girls private messages and conduct dialogue. On our website live porn cams watch explicit porn from Webcams online, without registration and absolutely for free. All videos can be downloaded to your phone in mp4 format. Naked Russian beauties solo and private recordings of married couples with laptops.

It’s important for learners to achieve a high success rate during instruction, where around 80% of learners are learning the material yet still being challenged. And part of that depends on adjusting if you are not achieving that target, as it’s harmful for learners to practice errors that they will eventually have to unlearn. Through an iterative approach, you’ll be able to prevent learners from falling behind (which then means they are likely to fall further as the class progresses), and achieve even better success for the other strategies presented.

There’s always more steps to take to improve an online learning approach, but starting earlier is an advantage. If you’d like to learn more about the TechChange model, take our online course, TC101: How to Teach Online.

To celebrate the end of another year at TechChange, we again partnered with Homeward Trails Animal Rescue of puppy party fame to bring seven adorable one-month-old kittens to the office.

Homeward Trails Animal Rescue is a non-profit 501(c)(3) in Fairfax that finds homes for dogs and cats rescued from high-kill animal shelters, or whose owners could no longer care for them or were found as strays. According to the “About” page, “Homeward Trails not only facilitates adoptions from local shelters, but also supports a large network of foster care providers who take homeless dogs and cats into their homes, care for them, rehabilitate them when needed, and prepare them for their permanent adoptive homes.” If you’d like to support this wonderful organization that has rescued over 21,000 animals, see what you can do to get involved today.

Not only were we able to support an amazing organization, we were also able to round off the year with some kitty cuddles and find out why they’re called catnaps!

Check out a selection of our favorite photos below, or see them all on our Facebook page.

 

Sedi and a kitten

 

Min and a kitten

 

Nick and a kitten

 

Austin, Danielle, and 2 kittens

 

Chris and a kitten

 

Shannon and a kitten

 

Honorary TechChanger

 

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When nerds and do-gooders get together, great things can happen. But what metric can adequately capture the importance of a convening partnership, a casual connection, or even a career-defining conversation?

We’ll let you know as we work on our ongoing standardization and improvements of ICT4Drinks, but in the meantime, we wanted to share and celebrate selected moments from 2018 through some of our favorite photos.

Whether you want to talk about the latest developments in ICT4D, introduce a friend to  your professional circle, or see what cool innovations other companies and organizations are up to, there’s something for everyone at ICT4Drinks. That said, we’d love to have you at our next ICT4Drinks at Takoda in January. Hope to see you there!

 

July: Ozio

In July, we kicked off our first official ICT4Drinks of the year on Ozio’s rooftop.

 

 

August: Ozio

In August, we paired up with DIAL and DAI to host another happy hour on Ozio’s beautifully sunny rooftop.

 

September: Local 16

In September we hosted a happy hour at Local 16, focusing on the next generation of digital development practitioners in partnership with DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration.

 

October: Cortez

In honor of October’s financial inclusion week, we hosted a fintech happy hour in partnership with DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration and Every1Mobile.

 

 

December: Local 16

From our CEO, Nick: “My favorite ICT4Drinks from this year was probably the December digital health one we hosted at Local 16 in partnership with DIAL, DAI, and Vital Wave. We’re looking for more partners in 2019 to co-sponsor with us so reach out if you’re interested!”

 

If you’ve attended any of our ICT4Drinks in 2018 or before, we’d love for you to take this quick poll!

 

And don’t forget, our next ICT4Drinks is Jan 16th! Hope to see you there! The most popular collection of y8 games online.

 

Photography by Chris Neu and Min Cheng.