Category: Blog

Since 2015, over one-hundred organizations have endorsed the Principles for Digital Development—a set of nine “living” guidelines that can help practitioners integrate a suite of best practices into digital development projects.

In the spirit of putting the Digital Principles into practice, TechChange is partnering with the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) to build an introductory training and workshop curriculum on the Digital Principles. This will enable digital development professionals to train their teams and equip their organizations with reference materials, tools, analysis, and relevant case studies to increase awareness of the Principles and enhance their application across programs.

 

As an example for gauging awareness, workshop participants join in on an activity where they can state how much they may agree or disagree with a prompted statement or question.

These prompts encourage participants to think critically about how the Digital Principles may be aiding or hindering digital development efforts on their teams. Examples of such statements include:

  • Colleagues across my organization have a strong understanding of the Digital Principles and are integrating them into projects and decision-making or;
  • I am confident that I know enough about the Digital Principles and have sufficient resources to advocate for endorsing them at my organization.

Through this activity, participants can see how their colleagues and partners view the effectiveness of the Principles and candidly discuss challenges that they may have faced in referencing or using the Digital Principles.

 

Outside of building workshop sessions, TechChange and DIAL are designing a set of training materials and tools that can be used by practitioners to talk about the Principles and see where they may fit in, or not fit in, with their own work. These tools could be used by anyone who may need more insight on how digital development relates to ongoing programs at their organization. They are meant to be accessible and shared with practitioners who may not have a strong technical background.

For example, a program officer could use a set of quick reference materials detailing how the Principles can be applied to uphold responsible data management during the deployment phase of a project or perhaps see how a potential program could address critical gender inclusion challenges.

 

 

Alongside these quick reference materials and workshop activities, TechChange and DIAL are building a self-assessment tool that can be used by practitioners to see how proposed programs or ongoing projects meet different aspects of each Digital Principle across different phases of a project phase. The tool can provide analysis of key gaps across different Digital Principles and offer initial steps to address any identified gaps for programs.

The Digital Principles are not stagnant nor are they compulsory; they are meant to invite critical discussions and perspectives on how organizations can adopt more effective digital-led practices across their operations for development programs. In addition to providing best-practice guidance, the Digital Principles serve as common ground for the digital development community to engage in these constructive conversations.

Does your organization endorse the Digital Principles? Do you want to engage with TechChange and DIAL as we build and publish these training materials and assessment tools? Email info@techchange.org to talk with us about this project!

 

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.

Most of us know what it’s like to sit and stare at basic multiple choice assessments, attempting and re-attempting the same tasteless questions. It is boring, uncreative, and disengaging to say the least, no different from poorly-made exam. A creative assessment mangowebdesign.com is refreshing, whether it utilizes the competitive mechanics of gamification, the captivating features of scenario-based learning, or the simpler set-up of a drag-and-drop activity. This is also why many TechChange clients and students appreciate the interactive and creative assessments that they come across when involved in a TechChange course or project. Today, we will be exploring some of those assessments for ourselves!

First things first, what makes an effective creative assessment? How does one craft an assessment that reaches optimal engagement, information reinforcement, and satisfaction? Does the assessment have to be a level 4 interaction, equipped with real-time simulations and facilitators? Does it have to be designed by a top-notch graphic designer or animator? Or does it have to be long and complex, utilizing unconventional methods of assessment? The answer to these questions is no, no, and no. Most successful assessments are simple at their core, whether they follow the mechanics of a level 2 multiple choice question or a level 3 click and reveal. The trick isn’t to invent new methods of assessing the learner, but instead to find new, creative ideas to make familiar assessments seem innovative, and therefore, more engaging for the learner.

Imagine you have been handed the responsibility of detecting and reporting human trafficking. The situation is uncomfortable and the conversation is intense and confrontational. TechChange was able to replicate this scenario in an online course in order to immerse the users in this difficult, yet important reality. Read on to explore and analyze some of TechChange’s most effective assessments, starting with a scenario-based assessment in an online anti-trafficking course created for Jhpiego.

1. Scenario-based assessments (Jhpiego Anti-Trafficking)

Having seen a snippet of the assessment above, let’s analyze some key features together. This assessment is simple and straightforward, however, it is powerful and effective as it puts the learner on the spot, pushing them to choose their responses in uncomfortable and difficult situations. While there is no animation or narration in this assessment, the learner can still find themselves moved by the intensity and severity of the scenarios. This assessment uses the mechanics of scenario-based learning as it immerses the learner in a real-life situation and assigns them an important role. Context descriptions like “Sahil doesn’t meet your eyes,” and “he looks right and left as if looking for someone” are powerful forces that drive this narrative. Along with these effective immersion techniques, the assessment is also very clear and easy to navigate. The learner was instructed on exactly what to do before the beginning of the assessment. Additionally, there is continuous feedback after every response the learner makes. Therefore, at any point throughout the course, if the learner responded with the undesired response, the course will inform you or have you try again.

2. Drag and drop (Conflict Tree Activity)

The conflict tree is an effective tool used to map out, visualize, and analyze conflicts. This assessment tests whether the user can correctly categorize the different aspects of the conflict within the conflict tree using a drag and drop activity. The drag and drop activity ensures that the user is considering each aspect on the conflict on a case by case basis as well as helps them in building a solid understanding of how the conflict tree works through practice. Additionally, this activity helps the learner better understand the specific conflict at hand as they construct and deconstruct the many segments of the conflict using the tree.

3. Click and reveal assessments (CIPE Red Flag Activity)

This assessment is both a click and reveal and a drag and drop type of assessment. Having already discussed drag and drops above, let’s focus on analyzing how click and reveal helps enhance this assessment. In the beginning of this activity, the user may click on each of the five companies to learn more about their business practices and decide whether or not they are corrupt. The click and reveal portion of this activity is critical to the exercise, and it adds another layer of interaction for the user to take part in. This method of online interaction gives the user the freedom to explore and click around from company to company as they please. From a design perspective, this style of interaction also saves slide real estate as click and reveal interactions have the power to neatly and clearly compile information in a non-overwhelming fashion. This style of assessment also gives the learner the power to investigate and make informed decisions. Giving the learner a role of authority during an eLearning course is very important as this gives them the opportunity and the room to put their newly-retained knowledge to work. Assessments like this one are useful in evaluating whether the learner can actually utilize the information they have learned in realistic situations.

4. Multiple Choice questions (CNFA Traffic Light Activity)

The objective of the exercise above is to inform the learner about the clear boundaries that exist in the workplace regarding coworker interaction. In this traffic light activity, behaviors appear as vehicles on the road and the user has the option to click on red, yellow, or green lights depending on whether they think the behavior constitutes harassment in the workplace or not. Once more, TechChange has turned what would otherwise be a routine multiple choice assessment into an engaging activity. It is also important that the learner is tuning in since this is such a serious and necessary topic. Yes, this assessment is essentially a multiple choice test at its core, but most users wouldn’t even notice since it is well-hidden within the traffic light analogy.

Now, this represents a very small fraction of TechChange’s many creative assessments. I urge you to check more of them out or even think about ways to improve some of your current assessments to increase engagement level and creativity. I hope this has given you some inspiration and ideas! It is important to emphasize that assessments aren’t all about testing your elearners and obtaining metrics, it is also about making eLearning more engaging since learner engagement is key to retention. So, let’s save everyone some trouble (bored learners and frustrated educators alike) with better, more interactive assessments!

Amber Seira recently joined the TechChange team as an Instructional Design Fellow! She just finished a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Peru and has a very interesting background. We recently sat down with Amber to learn more about her previous experience. Welcome to the team Amber!

Q: Could you share a bit about your background before joining the TechChange team?

I’m a Fulbright Scholar in tech innovation and entrepreneurship policy. I completed my grant July 2018 in Peru. Prior to Fulbright, I was working in Washington, DC as an advisor in President Obama’s administration. I was appointed to support the president’s economic policy at the U.S. Small Business Administration.

My academic research includes government adoption of blockchain technology, postcolonial computing, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. My policy practices are both domestic and international implementation of small business and innovation programs.

My civic tech endeavors address gender and racial inclusion in the technology industry. Most recently I co-hosted three, full-day conferences at various sites in Peru encouraging young women to explore education and career opportunities in the STEAM  (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) field.

Q: What originally interested you to join TechChange?

I’m excited for their work in filling the void between people who want to do good in the world and the technologies that can make that happen.

Q: What exactly are you going to be working on at TechChange over the next few months?

My largest role will be helping to facilitate the TechChange course, Blockchain for International Development.

Q: What interests you the most about this kind of work?

The online learning platform removes the time and place-bound barriers to learning. I like the idea of guiding individuals in their desires for continuous learning.

Q: Anything you look forward to working on or learning at TechChange in the next few months?

The opportunity to engage with so many curious and enthusiastic students from around the world.

Q: Lastly, what’s something that not a lot of people know about you?

When I was a senior in high school, my friends and I had this food eating competition phase. I defended my title by eating an 8×8 at In-N-Out. That’s eight beef patties by eight cheese melts between sandwich buns. They actually don’t let you order anything more than a 4×4 these days.

TechChange recently worked with Making Cents International and The Rockefeller Foundation to produce a Demand-Driven Training (DDT) Toolkit to introduce, explain, and illustrate the best practices in jobs skills trainings for youth and to engage employers in targeted hiring, training, job coaching, and mentoring practices. The project represents a major accomplishment for the creative team, led by Creative Director Yohan Perera, and the instructional design team, led by Director of Instructional Design Shannon Fineran, and is the third installment in a series of interactive, toolkit-style PDFs engineered by the creative team for diverse TechChange clientele, including, previously, NetHope.

 

 

 

Demand-Driven Training (DDT) in youth workforce development refers to the development of customized skill sets to respond directly to specific requirements of a job role for or to the needs of employers which leads to direct employment placement or self-employment. The objective of the Toolkit is to provide information, tools,resources, examples, and current programs to businesses, educational providers, and other training programs so that those offering skills development and employment for young people can alter training and recruitment practices to become more aligned with market driven employment demand. Working with various global training service providers, Making Cents developed a source document for the Toolkit, a PDF spanning 40 pages, which was an ideal candidate for the intuitive interactivity and ease of use that a well-designed ePDF could offer.

 

 

The creative and instructional design teams partnered with content expert and lead researcher Branka Minic (Making Cents International) and project director Christy Olenik (Making Cents International) to design an interactive toolkit spanning around 60 pages at its completion. The creative team worked to ensure the seamless union of two separate style guides, while instructional designers offered guidance on content organization and layout and took on a copy editing role as the project neared its final stages.

The toolkit is available online at this link.

Breaking news! The most engaged online participant in TC116: Blockchain for International Development will receive 1000 Stellar Lumens (currently worth around $220 according to CoinMarketCap or possibly useless according to The Economist).

…but why?

With an online model of flipped classroom model for social learning, the value comes not only from the course content, but engagement with experts and other learners to co-create the course experience. When it works best, learners are creating positive experiences online, as well as offline such as when students in the former course had their own blockchain party in South Africa. But much as college athletes are not compensated for their contributions of value to the educational experience (Go Hoyas!), students are often left out of the consideration when it comes to assessing the online course experience.

And one of the first exercises in TC116 is an exercise to practice transferring Stellar Lumens to digital wallets to get the hang of what it means to exchange cryptocurrency and view on a shared ledger. One of the reasons we chose Stellar Lumens can be found from its roots in international development, as demonstrated by Joyce Kim during her PopTech presentation.


Of course, TC116 has typically been among the highest engagement courses, with the last session leader having 336 TechPoints on course close (with a mean around 94.3). And not all engagement is valuable, as moderators have to guard against high-activity but low value posts which are all too common in webinars and forums. In fact, paying students to learn is not a new idea and could even be counterproductive through creating extrinsic motivations — an outcome that’s entirely possible in this course environment. And given that we’re also partnering with Learning Machine Technologies to explore providing the course certificate on the blockchain, it’s probably not even the most interesting application of the blockchain in the course.

Our hope is that this will be a fun follow-on to our educational exercise, a chance to incentivize high-quality participation, and to return value to the students. But it could also be a disaster….which we’ll share in a follow-on blog post.

Techchange Alumnus Zach Tilton reflects on why he enrolled in our M&E Diploma program and what he gained from the experience.

Q: Tell us about yourself.

A: I am a 13th-generation Floridian, a Returned Mormon Missionary (Las Vegas, 07-09) a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Morocco, 13-15), a Rotary Peace Fellow (Class XV, Bradford, UK, 16-17), a surfer, a skateboarder, a husband, and a father. My educational background and professional experience lie at the intersection of peacebuilding, evaluation, and technology. I am currently a Monitoring and Evaluation Fellow with the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) at the United Nations Foundation, where I support the generation of evidence for what works in ICT4D initiatives by implementing organizational M&E systems, facilitating internal learning exercises, and conducting landscape research on the impact technology has in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.

Q: How did you hear about TechChange?

A:Taking cues from what I learned in the Tech for M&E Diploma, I decided to turn to my personal data to answer this question through some crude process tracing using my emails and journals. The first instance of TechChange appearing in my inbox was 2013, and since that time there have been 10 emails, 4 years, 1 happy hour, and Skype 1 consultation that contributed to me ‘hearing’ about and ultimately enrolling with TechChange for the Tech for M&E Diploma in early 2017.

Q: Why did you decide to enroll in the Tech for M&E Diploma?

A: Throughout all the nudges mentioned in the previous answer, I was doing evaluative work in the development and peacebuilding sectors and participating in PeaceTech community, but found myself struggling to keep up with all the developments in the ICT4D/PeaceTech spaces. I knew I needed to get serious about investing time in coming up to speed with the role technology was playing this these spaces, so when I returned to school for my graduate work I made the decision to supplement my master’s with the Tech for M&E Diploma.

“The diploma grounded my graduate studies, enlarged my body of knowledge and technical proficiency, and not only exposed me to the work of my current employer, but gave me the confidence to submit my job application with an assurance that I was a competitive candidate. “

Q: How has the diploma impacted your work?

A: The Tech for M&E Diploma provided me a vantage point to develop a working proficiency with the concepts, tools, and resources practitioners use to enhance efforts for accountability and learning in the development and peacebuilding sectors. I was provided the space to explore, experiment, and in some cases, fail with new and emerging tools for data collection, analysis, and reporting. I had access to thought leaders and made connections with other professionals who brought their real-world M&E challenges to the diploma track for all of us to benefit from as developing case studies. The diploma grounded my graduate studies, enlarged my body of knowledge and technical proficiency, and not only exposed me to the work of my current employer, but gave me the confidence to submit my job application with an assurance that I was a competitive candidate.

Q: What would be an advice to other participants taking a TechChange Diploma program? How can they get the most out of it?

A: Enrolling in the TechChange Diploma program is just the first step. Make sure to set aside time each week to spend with the material, the webcasts, and doing the exercises. Take advantage of the great opportunity to network with other professionals among your fellow students. Finally, regardless of your status, student, employee, contractor, hobbyist, full-time or part-time, make the material applicable to a current project you are working on, or one you have wanted to work on. It made all the difference for me.

——

TechChange’s M&E Diploma Track is back this July. Find out more here. Register now to reserve your seat in our fall cohort and be one step closer to taking your M&E knowledge and project to the next level.

Min joined the TechChange team as an Instructional Design fellow! She is a recent graduate from Swarthmore College, where she studied Economics, Sociology/Anthropology, & Educational Studies.

We sat down with Min to learn more about her background and experience. Welcome to the team!

Q: So… how’s your first week at TechChange going?

It’s been fantastic so far! I’ve gotten a crash course in Articulate Storyline 360, worked on a course about open source startups for UNICEF, had the honor of choosing the office’s ice cream flavors, and learned how to make french press coffee from the many caffeine aficionados that populate this office.

Q: Could you share a bit about your background before joining the TechChange team?

As a student, I focused primarily on public education policy and higher ed/admissions. I wrote my senior thesis on the institutional constraints that prevent politically progressive AP Economics teachers in public high schools from making their classrooms into sites of resistance against neoliberal policies and curricula. I was also occasionally a teacher myself, in a variety of settings — from the overcrowded, bilingual classrooms in North Philadelphia to the one-on-one conversations in my weekly Introduction to Economics clinics. I learned a lot about how people learn differently based on context, environment, and presentation, among other factors too often neglected by progressive education scholars.

Q: What originally interested you in joining TechChange?

I had heard of TechChange originally as a sophomore in college when my friend Isabel Knight told me she was going to go be an Instructional Designer in D.C. I had no idea what that meant, but it piqued my interest when she described the fun, welcoming environment at the office. As a junior, I was studying at the University of Edinburgh, taking two highly relevant courses called The Internet & Society and Technology in Society. We applied various critical technology studies theories to case studies such as how a bridge was designed to keep low-income people from visiting a certain beach, the moral implications inherent in the nuclear bomb, and the sexist roots of headphones. My biggest takeaway was that in order to achieve any social change or disruption, technologies have to be designed intentionally to do so — but it is possible, and I wanted to work with the technologies that achieve this difficult but worthy goal. As I read that semester about the technologies and organizations that TechChange works with and thought about how it sits at the intersection of education, technology, and social change, I knew I had to apply for the Instructional Design Fellowship.

Q: How does Instructional Design fit into your interests?

Creating beautiful, intuitive, and engaging courses for international development-focused organizations like UNICEF and USAID allows me to pull from all of my interests. The content is usually related to topics I studied as an economics and sociology student while the curriculum design requires me to apply what I learned as an educational studies student. The design aspect appeals to me because I care a lot about making the user experience feel as natural as possible. That the courses are all multimedia (including videos, sound design, animation, and sometimes mini-games) is the whipped cream on top because I love being able to exercise my creative side.

Q: What is one thing that you’d love to learn or do this summer?

I adore that TechChange, as a small company, doesn’t require its employees to overspecialize. I can wear multiple hats — graphic designer, curriculum developer, copywriter — all within the umbrella of Instructional Designer, but I can also branch out and work with other teams. Just last week I was able to help the Creative team with a video shoot, which was very exciting because film production is something I know I want to be able to integrate into my professional life. You can check out my photography on Instagram here!

Min helping Yohan, our Creative Director, with a video shoot.

Q: Lastly, what’s something that not a lot of people know about you?

When I was 11, my children’s choir was conducted by Marin Alsop for a performance and subsequent recording of Mass by Leonard Bernstein. That year, the producer of the recording won the Grammy for Producer of the Year so, in a way, I own like 0.01% of a Grammy.

We wrapped up our first Blockchain for International Development course in February and recently had a chance to sit down with Maputi Botlhole about her experience in the course!

Maputi is from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and has over 3 years of international work experience at the intersection of global health, technology and supply chain management. She worked as a Program Officer on the USAID | DELIVER Project and is also the Co-Founder of MAISHA Innovate. When coming to this course, she was most interested in the application of blockchain technology in global health. She also wanted the course to help her think creatively about how to apply blockchain technology in the township economy space (South Africa).

Q: How did you find out about the TechChange course Blockchain for International Development and what inspired you to take it?

In December 2017, I was in Port Elizabeth, South Africa celebrating the festive season with my family. I was enjoying the beautiful weather, the refreshing conversations and great food! I remember returning from a walk with my sister and checking my phone for notifications, and there it was: an email from TechChange with the subject “Check out our 2018 course catalog!”

At the time, I thought about learning something new in the upcoming year, hence the email enticed my curiosity and I proceeded to open it. The course:  Blockchain for International development, was the first listed course offering for the year 2018. I was hesitant to immediately sign-up, however, I kept the thought of enrolment at the back of my mind. We ushered in the new year, and days later I received a notification from ICT4Drinks. The notification was for the “Block Party Edition,” which  served as a good reminder to sign up for the course on “Blockchain for International development.” We are inundated with information on the cryptocurrency applications of blockchain, and this was the first time I’d come across learning about the technology within the context of international development. The potential to use the technology for social good coupled with the $50 “BlockParty” discount peaked my interest and provided an extra nudge to enroll for the TechChange course!

Q: What did you enjoy most about the course?

The course did a great job of taking students through the fundamentals and applications of blockchain technology. The participants in the course were from different corners of the world ranging from Little Rock, Arkansas to Suva, Fiji to Lima, Peru!  The course content and the manner in which it was delivered made blockchain technology accessible to myself as a South African, and accessible to participants from other geographical locations.

The diversity of the course participants was a testament to the global footprint of TechChange and added a cross-cultural flair to our discussions on blockchain technology.

At the same time, I learned about blockchain as a technology that has applications beyond cryptocurrency – yes, digital currency is important. I even set up a wallet and exchanged stellar lumens through the course, however, the blockchain demo and other visual material from the course effectively described the underlying technology of blockchain. I now know that blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and incorruptible public ledger that records any transaction of value – whether that value is in the form of digital currency, smart contracts in land titling, votes in the electoral process, or any item that can be tokenized – with no requirement for third-party validation. This expanded my understanding of the technology. In addition, the case studies and live events; which featured guest speakers, discussed blockchain topics ranging from how applications powered by blockchain are being used to create economic identities for “unbankable” farmers in remote areas; to how blockchain technology is used to provide data integrity on supply chain operations.

An interactive slide from TC116: Blockchain for International Development on various blockchain applications.

I enjoyed learning about the several application of blockchain through this course! Furthermore, the discussions on the future of blockchain helped me to think creatively about the applications of such a technology in South Africa. I even found myself seeking out events that spoke to the use of blockchain in South Africa. This was to the point where I ended up attending the 2018 Africa Energy Indaba. The “Indaba” was held in Sandton City, Johannesburg and one of the panel discussions spoke to the democratization and deployment of renewable energy through blockchain. So even though this was an online course, it coalesced in a way that encouraged me to get away from the computer screen and go out into the world to learn more about blockchain technology.

Q: What‘s one thing people should know about blockchain? 

This is a technology that is accessible to all of us! We can dedicate time and resources to learn about blockchain through platforms such as TechChange; partner with others to use the technology to creatively solve some of the pressing global challenges. I was inspired by the case studies which documented and highlighted blockchain projects for social good!

Q: Tell us about the block party you organized, sounds like a great event!

 

On the evening of April 20th, 2018, I held a “BLOCKCHAIN PARTY” in a South African town called Grahamstown. This town is located in the Eastern Cape region of the country and it is predominantly “Xhosa” speaking: the Xhosa language is internationally known as the click language and it’s also spoken in the fictional country of “Wakanda” in the Black Panther movie. I was surprised to have at least 20 female high school students show up for my party. Most of the students were from an academic excellence residence known as Maqubs Academy. The high school students ranged from 15-18 years in age and even though they could’ve been pre-occupied by other activities that evening, they all were eager to learn about blockchain technology.

I had party lanyards, name tags, party whistles, beaded necklaces, refreshments and 50 balloons to liven up the atmosphere. Each balloon had an interesting fact or questions about blockchain inside that I had written on a piece of paper. I also had some South African “GQOM” house music playing in the background. The participants walked in, wrote their names on provided tags and put on the lanyards. The blockchain party started at 18:30PM SAST and I introduced myself. I shared on the expected participation conduct/norms. For instance, one of the norms was for the attendees to blow their party whistles whenever they had a question, and each participant was required to pop a balloon every 5 minutes to read a fun fact on blockchain for the entire group. I then asked the participants to share their expectations for the blockchain party. The participants also inquired about my background with blockchain and proceeded to tell them about my learning experience on the TechChange platform.

 

The discussions at the party leaned on the roundtable format with myself as the facilitator. It was important to make the interactions conversational in order for the participants to feel comfortable, and confident enough to engage with me on this topic. I had a whiteboard where I mind mapped and highlighted the general aspects of blockchain. I also drew a table to present the advantages and unknowns of the technology. The discussions kicked off with the fundamentals of blockchain technology: what it is, how it works and its applications. I took the participants through the blockchain demo. They did have some knowledge on bitcoin as a digital currency due to the buzz bitcoin had recently created in the South African news cycle, markets and on social media. However, the participants didn’t know that blockchain technology can be applied to other areas such as healthcare, energy, remittances, land titling, etc.

Their understanding of blockchain expanded once I explained the underlying technology and shared information on the case studies that I had discovered through the TechChange course.

I will mention that the students were a bit taken aback by the thought of a technology that doesn’t require third-party validation (banks, government, legal institutions, etc) and started to ask a lot of questions (trust and corruption was a big issue). Of course, we did not forget to pop a balloon every 5 minutes to read the fun facts – these fun facts also included notes on case studies which helped to enliven the discussions and provided clarity on some of the questions. We discussed case studies ranging from BanQu to Blockcerts. We then had a Q&A session, and the party ended with the participants telling me about how they plan to share the information they had learned during the blockchain party. One of the students said she would introduce blockchain technology as a debate topic at her school, another student said she would take the time to learn more about freight forwarding applications of blockchain, and another student said she’d also host a blockchain party with her friends! Unfortunately, it got late and we couldn’t pop all 50 balloons but the participants took the remaining balloons with them! The blockchain party was a success and it got me thinking about the possibility of organizing more blockchain parties for high school students in South Africa! I even heard that a high school in Johannesburg, called the African Leadership Academy, had conducted their student government elections on the blockchain. It would be interesting to discover and document how young people in South Africa are thinking about and using this technology. More blockchain parties in the future!!

Thank you Maputi for your creative blockchain party and your contributions to our first Blockchain for International Development course! Interested in taking our Blockchain for International Development course? The next session starts on Monday, September 10th and you can sign up here! 

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in something called the Long Conversation at the IFC Sustainability Exchange organized by Veronica Nyhan Jones.

As a professor and an edtech CEO, I love thinking about new ways to facilitate conversations and inspire authentic moments on stage and online.

I’ve also participated in too many poorly-executed panels. You know the ones I’m talking about: where there’s little to no dialogue among panelists, too much Powerpoint, no limits on speaking times, badly moderated audience Q&A, etc.

So I was excited to try something new.

Format

The long conversation is essentially a relay of timed two-person dialogues around a central theme.

The first person interviews the second, asking a series of questions (some predetermined, some spontaneous), then the first person exits, the second person becomes the interviewer, and a third person takes the stage.

Set-up for Long Conversation

Interviewers and interviewees sit facing each other in the center of the room with audience seated around them. So it feels a bit like a closed fishbowl with predetermined speakers.   

“The Long Conversation” format was adapted in this instance from Rachel Goslins and her work with The Smithsonian, where 25 leaders from the arts and sciences participate in a relay of two-person dialogues. But the unscripted back-and-forth of experts-interviewing-experts has also been used by organizations such as The Long Now Foundation, in 2010 which combined the 6-hour 19-minute presentation with data visualization performance by Sosolimited and a live performance of composer Jem Finer’s Longplayer.

Here’s what Veronica sent us in advance to set the tone:

“We are creating an intimate space to exchange ideas, thoughts, experiences to help everyone in the room appreciate the importance of and connections between resilience and creativity at various levels – whether it’s personal, community-level, organizational, or societal. Keep your ideas simple and concrete. Be yourself. Have fun.”

Preparation and reflections:

  • Planning: The IFC team clearly worked hard to select the theme (Resilience), pick the participants, and determine the order for the conversation. They shared a number of potential questions in advance and asked us to think of three personal or professional stories related to the theme. They also put us in touch with our interviewers and interviewees beforehand to settle on specific questions.  I’m a professor so I tend to over prepare anytime I go on stage. This format lends itself better to spontaneity and storytelling but it’s still important to check in with your interviewer and interviewee before the live conversation (even it’s 30 mins before the event) to agree on questions and a rough story arc.

 

  • Timing: The IFC team set the time limit at 10 minutes per conversation with a chime at the one minute mark to prompt a final question/answer. The total time for our session was 1.5 hours with seven 10-minute conversations. 5 minutes may be too short but 10 can also feel a bit long in our current era of diminished attention spans.  
  • Audio: There are no options for powerpoint slides or AV in this format, but audio is important. Be sure to use microphones (ideally lavs) because at every moment, some audience members are not facing a speaker.
  • Stage and seating: If you go with the fishbowl setup be sure to have the central platform raised enough so that folks can see the stage. And ideally, create a stadium seating effect so that audience members in the back are higher up and can see above folks in the front.
  • Audience polling: This format doesn’t lend itself well to audience Q&A. I tried to do a hand-raising poll during mine (how many of you think that in 20 years the majority of traditional education (HS and College) will be delivered online?) and folks seemed eager to answer. I think this could be a neat technique to interject between sessions as new speakers join on stage.
  • Order of roles: In our relay the new person on the stage started out as the interviewee and then transitioned to the interviewer in the second conversation. I am someone who always takes a few minutes to settle into the spotlight and imagine others are in the same boat. Interviewing seems like an easier way to do start on stage. I think there’s room to experiment here.

At TechChange, we are going to be working on adapting this format for our next online certificate course: Agriculture, Technology and Innovation which kicks off on June 11th. COO Chris wrote about the experience watching the webcast of the long conversation here. So if you’re interested in helping to pioneering a virtual version with us then sign up or reach out.

Thanks again to the IFC and Smithsonian teams for an enjoyable session. I’m always on the hunt creative ideas to improve and innovate beyond the traditional conference model (keynote/lightning talk/panel/breakout).

What other creative session formats have seen/tried/enjoyed at a conference?