Category: Uncategorized

For me, as perhaps for many, 2020 tested my relationships. 

With some, we’re too close, too often; we’ve been tested by proximity, by the game to find space in homes and apartments and rooms that feel increasingly, impossibly tight. 

And then, with others, we’re too far; we’ve been tested by distance, by space we’re not allowed to close, that must for our own safety and the safety of all others remain gaping and yawning between and before us. 

But 2020 also tested my notion of relationships, of the ways we not only keep, but also make, connections with peers and strangers.

At TechChange, relationships––our communities of learners––are one of the bedrocks of our practice; even in asynchronous course offerings, community remains a core component, with various activities and opportunities intended to develop connections across time and space. 

So at TechChange, we’re not new to building community and forging relationships in an online environment. But this past year—with the new projects that organizations have brought to us—has still required that we reimagine what it means to, not just learn, but also gather and connect in entirely virtual environments. 

During my time at TechChange this past year, I have worked with diverse international partners to deliver synchronous online courses, events, and workshops. Many were courses or events that had previously been hosted in-person, and were now moved online due to the restrictions posed by COVID-19. These in-person experiences had focused both on learning and on relationship-building, as participants either met each other for the first time, or strengthened existing working relationships. Organizations consequently came to us with high expectations, remembering the in-person version of the event or workshop and recognizing those community-building elements as key to the event’s success. Community-building was not a secondary objective; it was, in many cases, the objective, and we were now being asked to recreate that in a world with COVID-19. 

While working with these partners, we were consequently challenged to reimagine the possibilities of virtual gatherings, to explore new softwares, and to rethink how we use existing technologies. A self-professed introvert, I am yet passionate about relationship-building, about meetings between strangers, about deep (rather than surface-level) conversations. And I can’t pretend I was not initially one of the skeptics who doubted that these sorts of interactions could transfer online. But I also don’t think I was the only one to find myself surprised by what was possible, given the right tools and some time to plan. 

These are a few of the strategies I’ve learned over the past year to generate meaningful interactions within completely virtual spaces. 

  • Go in with an organized plan for facilitation. Arguably even more so than with in-person events, Zoom meetings and workshops require detailed facilitation plans in order to most effectively generate new connections. As participants are unable to just “wander” within a Zoom call as they may within a conference room or office, you can’t expect to have the kinds of spontaneous conversations or get-togethers that you could have in-person. The up-side to this is the ease with which you, as the facilitator, can move people where you want them, directing them to those groups and spaces that, when properly organized, will result in exciting, (seemingly) “spontaneous” interactions. 
  • Put people in small groups. It’s a simple dictum, but one we have found consistently critical if we want to push people to build relationships online. Large Zoom calls with any more than 5 to 6 people can quickly feel overwhelming—especially when, as shared above, there isn’t a clear plan for how to manage the time. Using breakout features—especially when coupled with a planned activity or recommended questions—is one of the easiest ways to guarantee more meaningful conversations where participants may actually get to know one another. 
  • Embrace the challenges of technology—many of which may present unexpected opportunities. During a workshop with TechChange staff, our facilitators left briefly to convene over the phone regarding a decision; before they left, they used screen-share to play “intermission” music from Youtube. When someone tried to talk over the music, we discovered that, by talking, we could dim the sound of the music, as Zoom audio focuses on who’s actively speaking and quiets other noise. To avoid the irritating music, we realized we had to speak to one another; we were pressured to keep the conversation going, if only to prevent Zoom from featuring the music. It was an important reminder that the same features that drive us crazy could also drive innovative new ways to encourage connection. 

Online interactions are not in-person interactions—but that is a blessing, allowing us even further means of meeting and knowing each other.

I joined the TechChange team fresh out of finishing my master’s degree of public health and working on the COVID-19 response at Johns Hopkins. For two months, I practically lived at the hospital. I saw hundreds of students showing up to volunteer their time. I saw local restaurants delivering food even though they themselves were struggling. I saw communities fighting to protect their healthcare workers by donating supplies and sewing masks. I saw words of encouragement displayed in front of the hospital, written on the sidewalk, posted in the windows of homes. We would get through this together. 

What exactly I was seeing did not become clear to me until I started working at TechChange: Even in isolation, 2020 became a year when we were more connected than ever, leveraging the resources we had to create new ways of reaching out.

I had the privilege of being part of two incredible projects from day one. The first, the COVID-19 Digital Classroom involved an entire consortium of leaders coming together to meet the needs of community health workers battling COVID-19 in lower- and middle-income countries. Through the COVID-19 library and self-paced courses, community health workers were able to equip themselves with relevant training and skills to protect their communities from outbreaks. Working collaboratively with individuals of different backgrounds and expertise from all across the world was no small feat, but we were able to deliver eight courses in six different languages that, as of December, have reached 95 countries. Working remotely from the comfort (and in some cases, chaos) of our own homes, we came together to create something that not only impacts the lives of those taking the course, but also the workers they will pass on this knowledge to or the individuals to whom they will provide care. The impact chain is endless, connecting us all along the way.

My second project was Digital Health: Planning National Systems – a previously in-person workshop that quickly pivoted to a virtual format when the pandemic hit. All the training content and activities had to be completely reconstructed for virtual delivery – powerpoints were revamped, animations were created, a board game was brought to life through video. Ultimately, this all led to two workshop deliveries in 2020 with WHO. The once in-person workshop was brought fully online, so we could deliver it from the US to Africa and Geneva. We laughed together, ran around our homes doing virtual scavenger hunts, and taught each other about digital health strategy. While we could not meet them in person, we formed connections with participants half a world away. Learning how to deliver virtual training well, especially in the public health space, has become crucial when so much has gone online due to the pandemic.

These experiences taught me that human connection does not end when the world goes into lockdown. People do not stop trying to help each other, to teach each other, just because we can’t leave our homes. Instead, we get creative and think up new ways to reach out. This year was heavy, and it left the whole world grieving together, but never before have we been so intentional about staying connected. That is what I hope we all carry with us into 2021. 

TechChange partnered with Tanzania’s Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children and PATH to create an animation that explains the holistic Data Use Partnership (DUP) model and how it is making it easier for health workers at the local, regional and national level to use data for decision making.

PATH’s mission to advance health equity through innovation and partnerships is seen in ) DUP, which is  improving the national healthcare system through better use of health information. 

The animation highlights the Tanzania government-led initiative that is digitally transforming the health system. The government, in partnership with PATH, is building strong, connected digital health systems that are improving healthcare management and delivery, leading to better health outcomes.

DUP is achieving sustainable digital transformation through:

  • Strengthening digital health and data policy: The Tanzanian Government identified a vision and priorities for digital health and created a national strategy to guide digital health implementation and management of health data.
  • Advancing digital health capacity: Tanzania’s health workforce is gaining new knowledge and skills for the management and use of digital health tools through new trainings, job aides and an e-learning platform.
  • Co-creating connected digital health systems: Health system stakeholders are working with software developers to design a suite of digital systems, tools, and standards that will improve healthcare quality and delivery, including a human resources for health system for managing the health workforce.
  • Coordinating digital health actors locally and globally: New platforms for collaboration, such as the Tanzania Health Digital Library and Technical Working Group Platform, are ensuring that everyone—from donors, to policymakers, to health workers—are aligned on the same goals and activities, helping to achieve more with fewer resources.

You can learn more about DUP here: http://www.path.org/dup

You can watch the animation here:  https://bit.ly/39spy4i

Alyssa recently joined the TechChange team as an Account Manager, where she supports public health education programs.

Q: So, tell us more about yourself. How did you end up working in education?
I never intended on working in education, but education has always had a way of finding me. While in college, I worked as a peer mentor for first-year students. In this role, I assisted the professor in teaching the course and leading class activities. After working for several years in health care once I graduated, I decided to move to South America for about a year. During that time, I taught English and culture for a semester in Argentina. During both of these experiences, I realized that I had a skill for meeting learners where they are in their process.

Q: How did you first hear about TechChange?
 Graduating into a pandemic was less than ideal, since I had studied humanitarian health with the hopes of working internationally. When I realized that would not be an option, I set my sights on the DC area, which is when I found TechChange. They had recently released COVID-19 courses, and that caught my attention because I had just finished working on the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 incident command response. The courses were well-designed and interactive, and I knew I wanted to be part of making them even better.

Q: What are some of your favorite parts of working at TechChange so far?
 The team I work with every day has been incredible. With limited experience in education and no experience in tech, I was worried about taking a position with TechChange. But I hit the ground running on big projects with crazy timelines, and I always felt fully supported by my team members. I love being part of a company that, to its very core, works to create social change and bring more equity to professional development.

Q: What excites you about this role?
 I have been given the space to be innovative and use my past experiences to help shape our work, which keeps me motivated to produce engaging courses for our learners. For me, the most exciting part of this role is knowing that our final product will end up in the hands of someone who is trying to gain more knowledge, grow themselves professionally, and bring those skills to their community. I like the idea that all of the hard work is worth it if it makes even one person’s life better.

Q: Anything you look forward to working on or learning at TechChange in the next year?
 I am looking forward to collaborating on more projects that involve the crossroads of public health and online learning. We are living in such a pivotal time in the field of public health when everything is evolving rapidly. People are realizing that the way program implementation or professional training was done in the past may not be sustainable in the future. This gives us an opportunity to be creative and find new ways to reach people across the globe. It will be a learning process for everyone, but TechChange has been doing just that for many years now, and I am excited to be part of it.

Q: Lastly, what’s something that not a lot of people know about you?
 I hate bicycles because one time I got stranded in the Atacama desert at night while on a biking trip to Valle de la Luna to watch the sunset (so worth it). I am very thankful for the kind Brazilian family who picked me up on the side of the road, but the experience ruined any dreams of being one of those cool people who bikes around DC.

4 Online Education Strategies for the COVID Classroom

Author: Marion Comi-Morog


No one was truly prepared for COVID-19 when it hit. As with many crises, however, this pandemic provided an opportunity to recognize pre-existing and fundamental flaws in our national institutions, flaws which ultimately left us even less prepared to adjust and reorganize in the wake of the disease. In the case of our higher education, the tools to address these flaws lay staring us directly in the face.


Before spring break, COVID-19 was a threat. In the week following, it was an all-conquering reality. My return to college from a blissfully-ignorant break of beaches and crowds was marked by a sudden spike in the disease and in the rumors that other universities had shut their doors.

What would happen if our college sends us home? What would happen if it doesn’t?

The questions that buzzed through our campus were ultimately short-lived. Three days after our return, my college sent the same email to its students that had been sent to half the country’s collegiate learners: online instruction would replace the only form of education that we’d known. Chaos erupts as the students from my tiny college spread across the globe and the professors scramble to transition their lectures and lesson plans to an online format. A drastically short period of time was all that was allotted to completely flip in-person courses to online learning and for the teachers themselves to learn the online tools that would help accomplish this. For many professors, learning a foreign language in the same timeframe would have been an easier task.

In no time at all, colleges began to launch their first fully-transitioned classes. Professors struggled to access their own virtual classrooms, while students struggled to comprehend the new workflow. Connections failed; classes were cancelled. On my first day of online college, two lessons were abandoned and one was entirely spent on learning how to use the Zoom chat feature.

In the confusion, my courses were stripped down to their barest form: a means to channel information from teacher to learner, placing the onus on the student to actually learn it. In the wake of a pandemic, with a greater number of distractions and anxieties than ever before, students were provided with less engaging lesson plans while being forced to take up greater responsibility for their own education. This is what I thought online learning was. As my college made plans to continue online in the fall, I struggled to see how I would continue to learn in this environment. I began to question whether I should return at all.

Systems of higher education like my own made the fundamental error of changing their learning format while maintaining the same learning tools and techniques. It is not an online format that fails to educate. Rather, it is the failure to incorporate the advantages and tools of online education that caused the online transition to miss its mark. 

Both collegiate students and its faculty have felt this difference. In an interview, one such college faculty member affirms that the differences between online and in-person teaching were both fundamental and fundamentally overlooked.

He states, “because the pedagogy for remote instruction is so different from the in-person classroom, many colleges and universities like ours were completely unprepared for the initial transition to online learning. As a consequence, the quality of education that we had been able to provide in the first half of the semester took a large hit.” 

My work with TechChange, however, is proof that online education can be just as meaningful as the classroom setting we’d grown used to. Using instructional design principles and knowledge of our users, we are able to convey material to our audience in a way that consistently engages users with the material and with each other. Colleges and universities must look towards pre-existing and well-founded online education platforms as a model for their online methodologies. I firmly believe that a college experience is valuable in more ways than a graduation ceremony and a degree. For it to continue to be so, higher education must incorporate the four online education strategies that I have learned through my time with TechChange.

1. Ask your students.


Even as academic programs struggled to transition and to teach their students, an opportunity for student feedback and problem-solving was never developed. Within my first month at TechChange, I have seen the value of student/user feedback appear multiple times. While it may seem un-intuitive that students could hold the answers, users are often able to catch bugs or oversights that an instructor won’t, merely because they engage with the material in very different ways.

While developing a pilot course with TechChange, we asked two simple questions about each module: to rate how useful and instructive it was to the user’s work, and to provide general comments about their experience. From this feedback, we were able to discover where the students lost engagement or just felt lost, and could make the appropriate changes. It is incredibly important to listen to your target audience’s feedback because, well, this is who the material is meant for.


Fig 1. TechChange user feedback form for the first module of a pilot course. Click the image to enlarge.

2. Utilize a variety of tools.


Much like in-person learning, we should be striving to teach online in various formats. It is not enough to teach solely over Zoom lecture or recorded video.

TechChange, as an online platform, is able to offer a blended model of live events like expert interviews, application-based activities, and Zoom calls, with self-paced tools such as discussion threads and quizzing features.

All of these facilitate direct engagement with the course material and are unique to online learning. With TechChange, I have found that demonstrating information in multiple formats and with multiple tools can facilitate learning, especially with complex concepts.


Fig 2. Image to demonstrate the importance of inclusive energy design for the Mercy Corps course “Inclusive Energy Access 101”.

3. Embrace the advantages of online learning.


When one instructional design door closes, another opens. The online sphere has a multitude of  opportunities that in-person learning can’t or hasn’t yet incorporated. One invaluable advantage of online learning is its global possibility.

People from different countries or continents are able to gather within a virtual classroom and learn together, a feat that would be impossible within a single in-person class. The global possibilities allow for a diversity of experience that adds tremendously to group discussions. TechChange welcomes an international participant-base, and regularly invites guest speakers from around the world. Rather than placing the focus on a single professor’s knowledge base, online education has immediate access to a plethora of experts.

Fig 3. Map of participant locations for the Mercy Corps course “Inclusive Energy Access 101”. Click the image to enlarge.

4. Interaction is fundamental to engagement. Engagement is fundamental to learning.


This grounding principle is one which many professors are familiar with, and which underscores each of the points above. However, in the midst of all the chaos that began with an online transition and which will continue into a wholly new fall semester, this grounding principle of education has been missed. Zoom lectures and pre-recorded videos express information but do not encourage students to think critically, engage metacognitively, or to even remember what they heard.

As TechChange claims directly on its homepage, “the current solutions for online training are broken, as they often leave users feeling bored and isolated.” Instead, TechChange and other successful online education platforms offer the ability to connect over course material. Through discussion, live events, networking, and partner activities, we will increase engagement and, consequently, our quality of education.


Fig 4. Online interactive activity and discussion for the Mercy Corps course “Inclusive Energy Access 101”. Click the image to enlarge.

The question that I am left with: Why had we not incorporated online tools in our higher education already?

We have come to overvalue a traditional education format to such an extent that we have limited the ways we can learn. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, this meant that we were wholly unprepared for a forced online transition. However, we should be constantly looking to incorporate new tools that will progress the quality of higher education in the everyday as well.  We should be constantly teaching our university and college professors how to use and incorporate these new tools.

This gap between semesters is more than a respite from the chaos. It has provided us an opportunity to strive towards these goals, one which several colleges have seized. One college faculty member reflects that, “Our college is doing a lot to better prepare professors for the fall. Now it is a question of how and to what extent these tools for online learning will be implemented within each classroom.” 

In March, the world turned on its head, and so we must turn with it. We cannot just rely on the expertise of the standalone professor or on traditional methods of instruction. However, the tools for a new way of learning are available. Institutions of higher education just need to catch up to the world that has progressed beyond them. 

Teachers, it’s time to learn.

Illustration by Kylie Cropper/@kylieprintmaking

I am writing to implore friends, family, and my broader network to adopt an intersectional way of thinking.  Now – not later, not tomorrow, but RIGHT NOW. If this feels urgent — even aggressive, that’s because it is. This is your call to action. 

Defining and educating others on intersectionality has been the life’s work of Black women like Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and many more. I am by no means an expert, yet I implore you to explore the work of these pioneers (please view resources at the end). I am simply a human, demanding that you take concrete steps to build an equitable world, both in-person and online. This can only be done collectively and with an understanding of intersectionality. Coined by Professor Crenshaw, the term intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations — race, class, and gender, creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. 

Before quarantine, I was out almost every day and night, in and around Washington, DC. As a young twenty-something, I spent my free time not-so-critically reviewing the local brunch spots and coffee shops. When I felt particularly motivated, I’d examine a new exhibit at the Renwick Gallery or hike a different variation of a trail at Great Falls Park. Suddenly, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in mid-March, I found myself, like much of the world, inside my apartment, sometimes for 48/72/96 hours consecutively, only leaving for groceries. Meanwhile, I continued my work as an educator in the online space and attempted to adapt to the new world order.

As time went on, some of my friends lost their jobs, and others got severely sick. I don’t know if it is fair to say that I was spending more time online than pre-Coronavirus, but I was engaging with the online world in a specifically different way. I reconnected with people whose thoughts and feelings I had previously either ignored or simply did not prioritize. This realization led me to my first lesson on intersectionality.

1. Accessibility is a requirement, not a favor

I began to pay more attention to Katarina, my childhood friend that I had not talked to in years. As I spent more time inside and online, my attention to her posts increased. Among other illnesses, Katarina has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, also called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). She went from being an active honors student at her university to being completely bedridden and sick full-time (You can check out her blog here). Ironically, my temporary “immobility,” caused by COVID-19, opened my eyes to my privilege as a healthy and able-bodied individual. 

Lack of visibility is often our excuse as to why inequalities still exist: you cannot solve a problem that you cannot see. However, this no longer can be an excuse. I have too many resources for this to be an excuse. It is now my responsibility to seek out and distribute information on other people’s experiences. Whether done passively or out of ignorance, we are complicit in perpetuating inequalities. For a long time, I did not see Katarina, but my visibility of her life has nothing to do with her inherent existence. She is here. She always was here. Through my inaction and my unknowing, I made an inherent assumption that I was the norm unto which all things are measured and that my needs are most important. By continuing to view the world solely through my own eyes and not attempting to understand it beyond that, I value myself, and people like me, more than others. This assumption leads to the devaluing of people with disabilities. This was a hard pill for me to swallow. Is it really fair to say that I devalue people with disabilities simply by not being aware of the struggles they face? 

Yes. Simply, inaction itself is an action. So, by assuming you are the norm, you allow for a world where people with disabilities do not deserve the same quality of life that you do. You perpetuate inequalities, whether you are aware that you do or not. By assuming you are the norm, you allow for a world where people different from you (race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, gender, class, etc.) do not deserve the same quality of life. Therefore, it is the bare minimum to attempt to incorporate intersectionality into your way of thinking.

How does all this relate to the tech community and my work as an online educator? I realized that accessibility is inherent in my work and in my life. For example, I cannot claim to be a teacher who believes in equity for all my students and not have my work comply with the American with Disabilities Act Standards. My content needs to be screen-reader friendly, my videos need subtitles and translations, and so on. My mindset needed to shift from viewing accessibility as an “extra step” in my project development to in-grained in the building process. In tech terms, if it’s not accessible then it isn’t an MVP (Minimal Viable Product). Period.

Speaking of MVP, it is important to understand my next point. When building your projects…

2. Intersectionality is not a checklist, it’s a necessary mindset

There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to incorporating intersectionality into your life and work. The concept of intersectionality has often been critiqued for being unfocused and nebulous. That’s the point. The focus is that every factor, every cross-section, is as important as another. However, the critique does validly highlight the true challenge of taking concrete actions. How do you truly integrate intersectionality? 

I recently had an opportunity to facilitate and create TechChange’s Gender Data 101. As a biracial, bisexual, Asian-American non-neurotypical cis-gendered woman, I thought I knew what intersectionality was. My identity cross-cuts many aspects of our world’s complicated inter-woven fabric. However, that is not enough. My understanding of intersectionality was superficial. When synthesizing content for the course, I thought about the importance of adding BIPOC voices, sources, and examples. I applauded myself for “accommodating” for different time zones and actively engaging with international students. I treated them as if they were checkboxes in a list. This is highly problematic. Intersectionality is not an afterthought or an “additional layer.” Intersectionality is a mindset that begins at the project inception. 

First of all, I made an assumption that because I was incorporating prominent voices in the gender space, that I had to look for gender experts. While of course, this is undeniably true, given the course is about gender, this is still an extremely limited approach. Gender does not live in a vacuum. Being a gender expert cannot be the only criterion to speak about gender. I needed to understand the complex interactions gender has with race, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, and class.

 Also, what does “international students” even mean? Why am I assuming that by living in the United States that my timezone was the norm? It is those assumptions I need to unlearn. This is why I’ve committed myself to rebuild Gender Data 101 from the ground up with an intersectional lens with the desire to relaunch in Fall 2020. This course will be free and accessible to the public.

We are living in a critical time, but when haven’t we? What an utter privilege it is for me to get to realize these points while this is the reality, day after day, of those without my privilege. I have been having conversations with my dear friends that are unsure of their next steps. My friend J, a non-binary artist, recently expressed uncertainty with promoting their own art on social media in fear it would detract from the rightful focus on BIPOC artists. This brings me to my last point.

3. You DO NOT need to silence your voice. You DO need to amplify other voices.

The point of intersectionality is not to play a game of “oppression Olympics.” Audre Lorde famously stated that there is no hierarchy of oppression. There is no ranking system of what is most important in intersectionality. Intersectionality is about justice. We need to amplify voices that have been marginalized by society. We need to build up and protect the space that has been systemically disrespected and denied over and over again. This involves re-educating myself on what my space is. Building up and protecting the spaces of the most marginalized primarily requires an understanding of their space’s existence, inherent need to exist, and its need to be continually nurtured. This is why we say BLACK LIVES MATTER. It is a collective commitment to the awareness of perspectives that are not our own. Therefore, there is no need to silence yourself: instead, you need to ensure others are heard. Therefore, rethink how you communicate! Reinvent how to use your platform to share ideas! These are imperative steps to incorporating intersectionality in your daily life. 

Simply, this is not about me. This is not about you. This is not even about us. 

This is about everyone.

Resources and Citations

About the Artist
Kylie Cropper/@kylieprintmaking
Kylie uses her artwork to provoke the minds of the viewer in the challenging topics of race. From the viewpoint of a Black woman, she chooses to express my frustrations and grief while exposing the beauty in blackness. Steadily, with her artwork, she hopes to erupt a conversation as well as raise the cognizance of the reality of the African American experience. 

This piece in particular was formative for her idealisms concerning the urgency of being intersectional, especially right now. 

As I look back on the nine wonderful months I have spent at TechChange, first as an Instructional Design fellow, then as a Junior Instructional Designer, and finally as a fully-fledged Instructional Designer, I am struck overwhelmingly by one word—or rather, one feeling: community. Everything that we do at TechChange is about community, whether it be building it through our monthly ICT4D-themed happy hours, supporting its presence among and between our very own staff, or helping it digitalize by migrating it onto our human-centered learning platform. There’s just something powerful about logging onto a webinar and seeing 80 other people watching it too, answering real-time polls, and asking questions that get answered live by a guest expert.

Community has been paramount in every project I’ve ever worked on at TechChange. Highlights include:

  • The Open Source Business Models course that I built for UNICEF Innovation, which aims to expand the open source community in developing markets

  • The Emerging Technology module that I built for N Square, which draws from a wide-ranging cohort of quantum computing and nanotechnology experts

  • All the video work I’ve done for courses at TechChange, which are viewed by learner communities hundreds-strong.

     

This week, I collected my materials from all my past projects, cleaned up my desk, and said my goodbyes to my coworkers and clients. In doing so, I was reminded that this all-important concept of community is why we do what we do. The sense of belonging that has been built at this company will remain with me wherever I go. I look forward to staying involved with the wider TechChange community, comprised of thousands of former students and employees, that exists in over 200 countries and territories, but that has its heart right here in Washington, D.C. As the cherry blossoms grow, and as tourists pour in from all over the world to catch a glimpse of April’s peak bloom, I think of how lucky we are to have this yearly reminder that community is both global and hyperlocal, full of strangers and full of family… about new beginnings and about holding onto cherished memories.

 

P.S. I would be remiss if I did not include, as one of my aforementioned cherished memories, this book which the Instructional Design team created and got printed as a parting gift. Thank you, and thanks to the whole team! I’ll miss you all.

On Friday, December 21, Michelle Marshall returned to TechChange for our first “Alumni Lunch” event. Michelle worked with TechChange between December 2015 and June 2016, where she contributed to projects including facilitated live courses with Ashoka Changemakers on “Future Forward: Innovations for Youth Employment in Africa” and “Social Intrapreneurship for Innovation in Health and Wellness.” Additionally, Michelle developed scenario-based modules in Articulate 360 for the SCORE Association to provide training for volunteers with advanced business experience to share their advice one-on-one with new entrepreneurs.

Screenshot from SCORE training

Q: Could you share a bit more about your current role?

For the last few years, I have worked as a knowledge management and open innovation consultant, focused on development in Latin America. The projects I’ve supported are quite diverse in terms of the particular development challenges they address, ranging from monitoring mosquito-borne diseases to climate change adaptation to institutional strengthening. The toolbox I help bring to all of these projects includes collaborative methodologies which seek to make the solution-building process more open and inclusive, widening the circle of participation and improving the flow of information. The more “open” that we can make certain knowledge and processes helps foster more agile, decentralized development possibilities from a wider range of actors.

I also edit the Inter-American Development Bank’s open-knowledge blog called Abierto al Público (or “Open to the Public” in English), where we share reflections and experiences from initiatives around the Latin American and Caribbean region applying open data, open source technology, Creative Commons, and collaborative methodologies for the public good.

Q: What were some ways that your work with TechChange prepared you for your current role?

At TechChange I learned a lot about the creative application of everyday tools to bring people together across the world to share practical experiences, learn and co-create together in a way that’s relatively accessible and not cost-prohibitive — but most importantly, value-added. Just a few years ago, some people would balk at the idea of bringing people together online for more than just a one-to-one call or a broadcast, especially when people would be expected to connect from an area considered to have limited connectivity. I was already a believer thanks to my experience with the Ashoka Changemakers “Future Forward” course with TechChange. I learned never to underestimate the commitment or creativity of your stakeholders to collaborate with you if what you are offering is valuable to them. When people see value in an opportunity, they will find the way to engage, as long as you make room for that in the process. софт казино онлайн

Q: What are some of your hobbies and passions outside of work?

I was really trying not to look at the screen too much outside of work, but I broke with that when I recently started editing Wikipedia articles, mostly by translating existing ones into Spanish. The long-standing language gap in online content fascinates me, because it lives right on the edge between the tangible and intangible evidence of socioeconomic inequality in the world. Last month was the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and one of the members of the drafting committee was a Chilean, Hernán Santa Cruz. He had a relatively substantial Wikipedia article in English but nothing available in Spanish. Imagine what free access to that knowledge could mean for a young person in Latin America interested in international law or diplomacy. Translating that was my first contribution on Wikipedia.

Other than that, I love to bike and hike. We have to take care of our shared planet! Just say no to petroleum and plastic!

Q: What advice would you have given yourself when you started at TechChange?

I would have encouraged myself to be more outgoing. The TechChange community is so wide-ranging and diverse, and I learned so much from those who I met. But sometimes in person I can be reluctant to approach someone new and start asking questions. Just dive in!

Finally, this is kind of anti-advice, because it’s the mindset that led me to TechChange and has always guided me to find the right opportunity to work on what I love: If you have multiple interests and passions, you don’t have to choose one over the other. Instead figure out how they connect and pursue that idea with confidence. This may feel riskier and require more effort and synthesis, but it will also keep you creative and motivated on your path to whatever you are looking for in your career or in your life, while helping you stand out in areas where your contributions will be unique.

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.

We’re often asked at TechChange why our approach to learning is unique.

New clients want to know, what’s our ethos in providing all these trainings? Why do we do it? Why should they trust us?

Over the past few years, we have developed an educational philosophy to explain just that.

At TechChange, our community learning model is based on 9 ideas that explain our beliefs on what teaching should look like and how a learning environment can best be fostered. Take a look at the 9 pillars of our educational philosophy below:

1. Good facilitation is everything: Whether it’s online or in-person. Teachers are at the heart of the TechChange model. The hallmarks of great classroom instruction include: asking questions at the appropriate depth, weaving comments together in a discussion, staging creative activities, varying techniques to reach a range of learning styles, supporting learners that need extra attention, etc. The assumption that most online learning providers make is that software plus content equals great learning, and that if the instructor knows a subject well then he or she is automatically a great teacher. Teaching online is not the same as teaching in a classroom. It requires a strong command of pedagogy (how to teach) and the digital skills to implement your lessons creatively and effectively. We help you prepare for these demands.

2. Learning is co-created: Too many platforms focus on a top-down, one-size-fits-all model for content delivery. We believe in facilitating  experiences that deepen and enrich peer-to-peer collaboration and give participants the chance to influence how a community learns and interacts in real-time. Again, it comes down to good facilitation.

3. Engagement is everything: Simply put, people learn better when they engage with each other. To support this, we’ve built a platform that accommodates a range of different learning styles, connectivity constraints, device requirements, language considerations– and it even makes learning fun!

And it shows: our courses have a over 10 times the completion rates of most MOOCS.

4. Let the data drive: Want to know what’s working and what’s not? Our real-time learning dashboards and analytics capture all kinds of details and give you the data you need to make decisions around how best to support your community. We also help produce beautiful interactive reports for funders and senior leadership.

5. More real-world application: Tired of tests and quizzes? Our platform includes a catalog of practical and creative assessments that participants actually want to take. And we help you measure impact in new ways after the course ends.

6. Emphasize D E S I G N : Lets stop making ugly and painful elearning. Courses should be beautiful and user experiences, intuitive.

7. Learning is lifelong: Learning shouldn’t stop at college or graduate school. The pressure to keep up with the pace of modern work is tremendous and courses should evolve over time to reflect this. The old “set-and-forget” model for uploading a course and “calling it a day” is dying.

8. Quality over quantity: Let’s face it, people are busy. The browser is a battlefield of diminishing attention spans. Giving your community access to 600 courses made in 2003 is probably not what they need. Let’s make shorter courses and fewer courses, but let’s make them better and more impactful.

9. Your mission matters to us: Finally, we’re not just a run-of-the-mill LMS provider. TechChange is a social enterprise. We’ve worked closely with 150 social sector organizations of all shapes and sizes for nearly a decade. Your mission matters to us. It’s not part of a CSR pledge or a nonprofit write-off, it’s the very reason we do what we do.