Meet Francisca, she is a secondary school teacher for biology and the Principal of Maweli Secondary school. Our team met her on our visit to Machakos and she is such an extraordinary woman. Francisca has so many dreams for her students and looks forward to seeing how technology can improve their futures. She is also helping to provide input and feedback to help shape the development of Intel’s new online learning platform that is called “Intel® She Will Connect – My Digital Journey”. Francisca sees the value in digital literacy and would love to implement a program for the girls at her school.

This learning platform is a break-through way to teach digital literacy. It involves a game-like setting and includes quests, missions and challenges. These are all set up with a dialog with characters who guide them through learning concepts of digital citizenship and online safety. With the game-like aspect, the students are engaged in the stories of the program characters and developing their own character to the highest level. This platform will become a place for girls and women to learn how to engage safely online and know how to access any information they need to achieve their dreams.

The students in Francisca’s school do not currently have access to computers while in school nor at home; some of her students do have smart phones which allow them to access the internet. If given the opportunity to learn more digital literacy skills, her female students will especially be able to thrive and feel empowered; thus building their self-confidence and helping them become entrepreneurs and business owners. She also stated that they will be very eager to complete the My Digital Journey training and that they will see the value in the program. Francisca definitely cares about her students and wants to see their self-confidence increase and to be included in this digital world.

Francisca mentioned that during classroom sessions at her school, students who learn slower will often get left behind because the teachers need to continue on with the lessons and can’t keep the rest of the class back waiting for them. Computers and the internet would allow these students to learn at their own pace and get extra help if needed.

In Kenya, applications for college and university are all online. Without computer and internet skills, students will pay others who have this knowledge to apply for them. This is a costly expense that could be avoided with proper internet training.

In addition to Francisca, our group this day featured many women (and even a few men) who enjoyed learning in the platform and gave the team useful information to help identify opportunities to continue to improve the platform. Many of them worked in small groups and would discuss the questions within the group. It was great watching them interact with each other and the platform.

The women seem to really enjoy the My Digital Journey platform. They were able to see the need for digital literacy and how it can improve their lives. For more information about the Intel® She Will Connect program, make sure to watch this video. Also learn more about our trip by checking out this post.