Fast Company Profiles OLE in Cover Story: “’A’ is for App”

The Open Learning Exchange figures prominently in Fast Company’s April cover story: “‘A’ is for App.” Comparing the advent of educational applications on handheld devices to the 1969 debut of Sesame Street and educational television, the article proclaims that “today, handheld and networked devices are at the same turning point, with an important difference: They are tools for expression and connection, not just passive absorption.”

iPhones, PlayStations, and “the ever-shrinking computer” are all part of what Fast Company calls the “iTeach future,” but its report singles out partners OLE and TeacherMate, in particular, with their “total package of appropriate design, quality software, and an ability to connect kids with teachers and technologists.” OLE has begun introducing TeacherMate in its global OLE network of innovators dedicated to improving education in their countries.

Fast Company describes Rowe as someone who “has spent a lifetime at the intersection of technology and education. … Taking a leaf from the burgeoning open-education movement – like MIT’s Open CourseWare site, which provides all of the university’s courses online for free – Rowe started the Open Learning Exchange with the redoubtable aim of providing quality basic education to 1 billion children in 100 countries by 2015.”

“OLE is structured as a global network of centers led by local social entrepreneurs who share materials, best practices, and new technologies,” the article says. It is developing the Billion Kids Library of open-source educational software for primary schools, while also rating new hardware options that are rapidly coming up.

Rowe describes his business plan to prove both the cost-effectiveness and teaching-effectiveness of these tools and strategies through research, so that governments around the world will be moved to take them up on a grand scale.

“The history of educational technology, which goes way, way back, is just full of graveyards,” Rowe is quoted as saying. “Now can be different – maybe. Technology is getting smarter and cheaper. Software is getting more powerful and effective. The open-source movement is making content more widely available at much lower cost. But we need to recognize that the technology itself is only a very small part of the solution for ensuring highly effective education.”

Read the Fast Company cover story here.



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