This Googler has helped 50,000 teachers train students in digital skills

A school district in Virginia has implemented a two-prong solution to provide internet access to rural students during the pandemic. The indoor solution allows students to make appointments to be inside the school to access the internet. The outside solution, equipping three schools in the district with equipment to boost their Wi-Fi signals, allowing students who can’t make indoor appointments a way to access the Wi-Fi. “We just took advantage of something that was already happening in the district."

Students in the Mineola school district had a head start when schools around the country switched to online classes as a result of the coronavirus? Since 2017, students as young as kindergarteners have been learning to code, while older students have learned to take advantage of opportunities like a fabrication lab to design, produce and sell what they develop, among other offerings. But the challenges educators and administrators face are balancing how much tech to implement in the classroom, and how much is too much.

Three school districts in northwestern Alaska are using a high-speed fiber-optic cable connection to increase connectivity and offer students new opportunities to use educational technology that their peers in other parts of the country take for granted.

Since starting up in Nigeria in 2018, the Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative, has reached about 6400 rural teenagers through their Skill2Rural bootcamp project. The multi-day bootcamp rotates between a selected school, internally displaced persons camp, or a community center. Participants have co-created about 70 prototypes to minimize issues related to poverty and unemployment within their communities.

For one school district in Texas, using personal relationships established before the pandemic, proved the best way to reach bilingual students in rural parts of the district who weren't showing up to remote classes. One librarian and a parent “went door-to-door there to track down students and find out how they could help families transition to virtual learning. They also had parents fill out note cards showing how many children lived in the home to make sure no child was left behind.” Other Texas districts are similarly relying on home visits to check on students. Data shows those methods work.

Low budget schools across the U.S. are having students use their smartphones as learning tools inside and outside the classroom. At no extra cost they can incorporate technology into the curriculum through a myriad of applications, from homework reminder apps to free cloud document platforms like Google Docs.

While not without challenges, Starlink, a satellite technology company, played a pivotal role in bringing internet service to rural communities around the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Community members, the Cuba Independent School District, tribal councils, and Starlink worked together to install widespread internet connectivity, which has improved academic performance for their rural students.

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to shift to virtual learning, the Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative launched the Learning Without Limits project, which provided needed technology such as tablets, power banks, and earpieces for girls in Kaduna. The tech has allowed students to build new skills in areas such as graphic design, climate action, and digital marketing.

A digital literacy training program in Nigeria, the Gina Mata, Gina Al'umma, is bridging the country’s technology gender gap by teaching women and girls about the gig economy, STEM, graphic design, storytelling, and how to sell products online.

BitLab Innovation Hub offers a STEM program geared at out-of-school children, which provides hands-on training to prepare them for careers in technology. The school has trained 105 children so far.