A Brief Introduction

To celebrate Women's History Month, I will be doing something with 3 schools and 1 orphanage (tentatively or 4 schools). Let's call it the Oppia X Yigakpoa project!

(The first part of this blog post will hold for all four blog posts as it outlines my experiences purchasing additional items that I believe helped the children in the course of learning with Oppia and I don’t think it is necessary to repeat it in all four parts of this series. Oppia is the cake I was giving to these beautiful children & these gifts from me were the icing on that cake! If you want to dive right into "Project 1", please check the table of contents & click on “Partnerships”!)

As someone who has over 7 years of volunteer experience across various organizations that transitioned into tech, it is only natural that finding an open-source Ed-tech community like Oppia meant that I found a way to do what God has called us to do (love people) and also have my tech career.

Wondering what Oppia does? Oppia as a Free and Open Source / Ed-Tech platform provides a novel and engaging approach to online learning that is specially designed to meet the unique needs of under-resourced learners around the world.

In all 4 parts of the Oppia X Yigakpoa project, I will be narrating my unique experience with each organization while spreading love through Oppia for Women’s History Month.

February 2023

It's the month of love - Yayyy (🙄) but, as a single pringle Yiga was looking forward to March. Next month was going to be Women's History Month and I wanted to do a little more with Oppia for the less privileged children in my community. So in the first week of February, I kept thinking about it and finally went “Holy Spirit what do I do and how?” Just like Abba gave me the idea to pitch translating Oppia lessons to Nigerian Pidgin, He said you can give them something! I started to probe the how, the what, and the perfect time to start all He had put in me. So on the 9th of February, I messaged 3 amazing friends with Abba's' idea, gave them the exact amount I needed, and the option of sending it to the vendor or me! Testimony 1 = nobody said no!

Fast forward to month end, I reminded all of them and the funds were on the way with the last one coming in when I was in the market, thanks to Nigeria’s banking/ election / cashless policy wahala & the near impossibility of sending money from outside Nigeria with a particular bank app I refuse to name!

Pre-Shopping

The monies were in (70% at this time) and I needed to finalize which vendors I would use & what my final gift options would be because on the 9th of March, exactly one month after (messaging my friends) I was going to be in the market. The previous week, I went online to get the estimated prices and give myself a proper breakdown of the items I was going to purchase.

For one of the items I wanted to purchase, I had two options: print customized exercise books with Oppia’s logo in front & write a bit about us behind for approximately 50 - 80 students, or use regular exercise books without branding! After a little research, there were two questions in my spirit “do you want to impact the lives of these children?” or “does the branding matter more?”

I instantly knew that impact was more important than branding to me. That moved me to ask for the price of regular books and they were way cheaper! I was super excited! This meant that this little project I was planning, moved from just 50 students to a whooping 200 children! Hence, I would have to share Oppia with more organizations because the idea was to give each child I share Oppia with, something for March.

9th March: First Meeting Day With Two Schools, 1 Visit To The Local Government & Shopping

(Picture 1: Maiyegun Community Primary School is one of the schools I met with on this day & it is right on this premises. Picture 2: Me having to buy naira in Nigeria with “abeg” is something I don’t want to forget in a hurry so, I'm sharing this picture. ₦6,500 for ₦5,000! Picture 3: Items packed together = 36 dozen exercise books, 1 carton of math set (10 dozen), 5 packs of biro (50 in each), 4 packs of Eraser (60 in each), 18 dozen rulers & 1.5 packs (18 dozen) of pencils) Picture 4: All of this was packaged nicely and “Alabaru” carried it. Picture “Uncle model” strutting the streets of Lagos, of course, I was going to use this picture.)

If busy was a person, it would be Yiga on the 9th of March.

After a few phone calls and emails, I met with the heads of two schools on this day between the hours of 8:00 AM - 11:00 AM to pitch Oppia to them, show them how the app works, and find out the possibilities of using Oppia to augment the amazing work done by the math teachers. They were excited about the possibility and guided me on the next steps to take before carrying out the pilot. Sometime around 11:00 AM I was done with meeting the second school in Victoria Island and headed back towards Eti-Osa local government for another meeting at noon in this Lagos!

The thing is after finding Mrs. Amara online (the stationery shop link) on the 7th who calmly gave me the prices per dozen of the items I asked for, I mentally decided to meet with the two schools first and then go to the market after the meeting, since Thursdays are usually sanitation in Lagos state (little did I know it would be 3 meetings before the market).

As a Lagosian, the idea of going to 3 different places in one day was very bold of me how much more 4, because is Lagos “hold up” a joke to you? But, something I saw on this day was favour, speed, and very little traffic. I was done with three meetings before noon & headed for “Lagos” (“Lagos” is the same thing as “Balogun”, “Lagos Island”, “Idumota”, “Mandilas”, and for our posh friends it’s also known as the “Central Business District (CBD)” etc). I got home tired, exhausted, and excited on this day knowing that the next few weeks will be super fulfilling and worth it.

(Picture 1 - Unwrapping the carton of math set, Pack of Pens, Pencils, Erasers & Rulers. Picture 2 - The 4 dozen books at the upper right formed the base for our packs of Biro, ruler, eraser, etc in Picture 1. Picture 3 - While my cousin was packing the stationeries, I started stamping each of the 432 books on this same day!!! But I realized the stamps applied outside the book got smeared, probably because it was glossy. Picture 4 - I found a better way of stamping the books.)

Partnerships

As you already know, Oppia.org is constantly looking to partner with organizations and schools as part of its efforts to reach more children and this blog is about my experience sharing Oppia with the Children at Nigerian Red Cross Nursery & Primary School. Before I dive right into the partnership, I’ll love to give a brief background about the school because as a volunteer at the Nigerian Red Cross who not only participated as a first responder in the 2011 Uniben Nuga games but also did my Community Development Service during my NYSC with the Nigerian Red Cross, they are always close to my heart!

Yes, I’ve always loved volunteering. So sharing Oppia with NRC-NPS for women’s history month was fulfilling, to say the least.

Let’s dive in!

Nigerian Red Cross Nursery & Primary School

Nigerian Red Cross Nursery & Primary School is located at 2, Makoko Road, Adekunle, Lagos Mainland, Lagos. It was founded by the lions club international (Nigeria). On the 16th of September 1988, a total of 64 pupils were admitted into the school 19 pupils were admitted into daycare, and 50 pupils were in the nursery section. The primary school was established in the year 2010/2011 after the progress of the nursery school. The school has a playground, library, sickbay, and computer lab. Their school fees are at a subsidized rate of ₦22,000 - ₦25,000 per term except for new intakes who pay between ₦30,000 to ₦35,000 because of uniforms. How amazing is it that the Nigerian Red Cross also has an orphanage within this premises and the children attend the school?

I think that's SUPERB!

Thanks to Uncle Femi who made the introduction, I had gotten the necessary approvals in one meeting on the 15th of March and was scheduled to share Oppia with the kids on 21/03/2023 & 23/03/2022 as we expected all consent forms will be available by that time.

Stories of each project will be mainly picture stories because I believe a picture speaks a thousand words.

Day 1- 21/03/2023 - 30 Students

When I arrived on Tuesday, the school administrator graciously ensured that the computer lab was properly set up and ready for use. I started by introducing myself and Oppia to the students and told them we will be taking very simple tests to determine what they will be learning. Before the test, they needed a pen or pencil and paper as Oppia suggests on the website so I went ahead to share the exercise books with them. I was also advised to give the younger class the books without the math set & reserve the ones with the math set for day 2 with primary 4 & 5. I went with this as I was convinced it was a good idea, the younger pupils will not be needing it anytime soon.

Happy students after receiving two exercise books, a biro, pencil, eraser and ruler each.

After taking the pre-tests, we went with percentages as the children knew very little about them. I conducted two sessions on Tuesday as it was still 11:00 am. The lessons were conducted during school hours for one hour per session.

We were about to start and I needed to make sure everyone was going at the same pace. So here we are at the first card in the lesson “What is a percentage?”

Image of Jewelry from the Oppia website.

An excited pupil after getting the correct answer.

Students pointing at the correct answer on Oppia.org

Picture 1: Students pointing at the correct answer. Picture 2: Correct answer confirmation.

The question here was: “Now for which of these drawings is the shaded part exactly 50% of a square?”

A cross-section of students taking individual notes & studying with the Oppia website.

Challenges / Learnings:

• Percentages were a bit hard for the children at this stage (Primary 1-3). It took them a longer time to grasp it than I anticipated it would.

• Most of them didn't know how to operate a computer very well, so I was initially going from table to table to click "continue" until they understood how to click & scroll with the mouse.

• There was no voice-over for “What is a percentage?” So each table/group had to read silently to themselves, but how silent can children really be?

Conclusion:

The conclusion of today is that I went to eat this sumptuous bowl of Amala before heading home because we live to share Oppia another day (if you’re Nigerian please say “make pesin no go faint” in English and write it here for me! 😂).

Okay, scratch that — We’re #womenwhocode around here & we’re serious people so here’s your day 1 conclusion….

I had just finished my first session for the month on this day! And “wowza” is the word! I'm shocked that this is what teachers have to go through daily! People of God, I concluded that my children's teachers deserve a gift every month from me.

I was really tired because I had another session with a different school the next day (You can read about it here). Although I was tired, there's always fulfilment that comes when you achieve what you set out to do, and more so when volunteering. The children's positive & negative (if any) reviews of the Oppia website, the way their eyes light up when they get the answer correctly, seeing these children that seemed confused a few moments ago suddenly have that spark, and even going about teaching other children was worth it.

Day 2 - 23/03/2023 - 30 Students

As soon as I came on the second day, the school administrator asked me how I was doing because I was almost fainting on the last day 😂. I told her I was fine and said “I hope today won’t be like Tuesday?” & she said to me “No these children are older and they will be easier to coordinate, most of them will also be able to use the computers”. My joy was palpable!

I waited a few moments because the computer lab was in use, so we started at 11:00 am.

As soon as the students were seated in class, I introduced myself & Oppia. Many of the children told me the topics they found challenging and how they loved maths until it gets hard and then they were stuck. I encouraged them and told them Oppia will quell their fears as we used a storytelling approach with beautiful imagery to teach maths!

We went ahead with our pre-tests and settled on multiplication.

Gift packs of 2 exercise books, 1 ruler, pencil, biro, eraser & Mathset.

Students show their gift packs.

Students jot down points from the Oppia website.

Students listen to Oppia voiceovers & jot down points from the Oppia website.

Students paying rapt attention to the Oppia lessons.

Some students failed this question but hey, that’s why Oppia is here. I encouraged & explained the concept to them then went ahead to tell them failure is only a learning process to help us do better.

Pic story showing students at various times studying with the Oppia website.

Challenges / Learnings:

After the lesson today with the pupils in primary 4 & 5, they were so excited as you can see in the pictures. As soon as each group finished the first lesson they moved on to the next one & continued learning and it was so beautiful to see.

They were also eager to give their positive reviews and of course, did not leave out the challenges they faced while learning on the website.

Conclusion:

If you got here, you’re the real deal ❤️! So, I'm thinking you might want to read my last words 🤷

I reached a total of 60 students at the Nigerian Red Cross Nursery & Primary School!! These 60 students had become “Oppia evangelists” if I can call them that!

Oh, they were so excited about their lessons, the ease of studying with Oppia, and their improvement that at the end of each class, I had students who didn’t participate in the session come to ask me if they could join the next class. I told them they could download the app at home. I even had to write out Oppia’s website on several sheets of paper so that they could take home.

As soon as I asked them to write what they liked about Oppia the only problem was “Aunty Yiga, you have not given this table a sheet of paper”, “Aunty Yiga my name is on table 5 sheet”, “Aunty Yiga, you haven’t taken a picture of me”.

I created sheets for learner stories and shared one with each table at the beginning of the class. On each table there were two systems hence you see “Operator” written twice by some names (this was a way to ensure I was not going from one system to the other like Day 1). Asides from the reviews, you can also see the number of questions each pupil answered by their name.

The impact was immediate and it was so beautiful to see. I also had teachers who downloaded the app for personal use at home. Everyone at the Nigerian Red Cross Nursery & Primary School from the teachers, headmistress, students, and even the cleaners was warm and welcoming to me. Amazing folk there!

If you’re around Yaba/ Makoko environs the people at NRCNPS are great folk with a heart for service! I mean on day 1, after spending ₦7,000 on a bolt ride to the school, the headmistress offered to show me where to use a POS that will give me cash (getting cash at this point in Nigeria was extremely tough), she didn’t just point it, but like a mother, she walked me there and even pointed me to the “buka” where I ate the amala you see above. That’s a servant leader & I think that’s somewhere anyone will want to send their children to.

Lastly, If you’re a maths teacher or a parent and your child is struggling with maths, download the Oppia app now. Okay, if you cannot answer “what is PEMDAS?” without checking google, please just go to Oppia.org & thank me later.

On my way back home, I just sat and kept smiling. Yes, I was tired.com, yes I spent extra money on Ubers because of Nigeria’s no cash + surge & Lagos traffic was unbelievable, to say the least, but I was also fulfilled. Fulfilment. That’s the word, and that alone was enough to keep me smiling.

It’s a 4-part series and the second part with a free community school is oh so touching! Read about it here.