The African Digital Schools Initiative
(ADSI) is one of the best programs that aims to transform secondary schools
in Kenya into digital schools of distinction. The program is designed
specifically to build secondary-level student 21st century skills and teachers’
innovative practice in a way that is responsive to the needs of the market
place and to the emerging knowledge economies and societies. The 21st
century skills emphasized the program include: communication skills,
collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. Since the inception of the
program there has been a noticeable improvement in the Science, Technology,
English and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. There has also been an increase in the
sourcing and regular usage of open education resources (OER) in the classroom.
In helping to define an effective, sustainable and replicable model to
transform secondary education, the ADSI will improve the quality of teaching
through ICT – based teacher professional development it will also support integration
of ICT in secondary level to improve learning across the curriculum. Moreover,
it will improve teaching and learning in STEM subjects to correct the low
student take-up and mediocre The program is supported and funded by The MasterCard Foundation.
The ADSI program consolidates and develops a holistic expansion of a successful previous project in relation to its innovation practice, whole school approach, horizontal (geographic) and vertical (institutional) outreach and impact, and shared ownership. The ADSI model presents a portfolio of system-wide ICT innovation elements that can address policy coherence needs for ICT integration in teaching and learning. This includes a blended learning teacher development approach, whole school involvement, school leadership capacity building, converging technologies of e-and m-learning, use and development of open education resources and an online repository of materials. A digital school award and recognition structure for schools will be accompanied by an accreditation and certification framework for teachers to incentivize ICT integration and progression. To raise awareness and to influence new policy formulation, structured policy dialogues will take place.
ADSI courtesy of GESCI is doing great things in our schools. The old ways of teaching and learning are dying.ICT is revolutionalizing teaching and learning.The subjects that were believed to be hard are now easily understood. Use of technology in the classroom is the way to go.No turning back.
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