Carmen Strigel

Over the past 18 months, governments have made in rapidly designing and implementing distance, blended, and remote learning opportunities for students and teachers. Countries deployed a diversity of remote learning opportunities, ranging from radio-based instruction, to TV lessons, to mobile or online learning programs. In parallel, researchers have designed and are implementing studies to monitor and evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of these efforts.

Blogs, commentaries, and reports on education technology (EdTech) topics so often highlight the “rapidly changing” nature of technology. More often than not, this is framed as a challenge or obstacle. There are technologies and EdTech efforts, however, that stand the test of time and continue to be relevant for many years.

The 2015-2017 Project Reconnect is one such effort.

October 5, 2020 marks World Teachers’ Day and this year, particularly, we want to recognize the immense contributions teachers make in our lives and to our futures. Teachers are among the many unsung heroes of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, as parents got a glimpse into teachers’ day to day realities when suddenly faced with closed schools and their children at home.

Whether schools are reopening or continue to be closed with some form of virtual instruction, it is clear that school systems are facing tremendous changes. For this new reality, aside from family and student well-being and student academic growth, we also need need to place emphasis and consideration on our teachers. This includes their well-being, their support, and their training. 

As we all adjust to working from home, we face many challenges, both personal and professional. Yet, we still deliver the work we were contracted to do for our clients and with our partner governments around the world. Therefore, we need to find ways to adapt, shift priorities, and collaborate in new ways in order to effectively implement project activities. A team from RTI International has been working on a series of recommendations, decision-support tools, and step-by-step guides based on their expertise from decades of working with education technologies in low-resource settings.

Editor's Note: The following essay comes from "Meaningful education in times of uncertainty," a collection of essays from the Center for Universal Education and top thought leaders in the fields of learning, innovation, and technology.

Authors: Luis Crouch, Chief Technical Officer, International Development Group - RTI International; Carmen Strigel, Director, Technology for Education and Training - RTI International