In 2024, EduSpots launched the trial version of its app, a digital tool designed to enable EduSpots’ 300 local voluntary educators, ‘Catalysts’, to effectively devise and manage their locally rooted education spaces (‘Spots’), accessing EduSpots’ programmes and learning resources which reach over 10,000 learners annually.
Conceived from the outset as a ‘Facebook for community educators’, EduSpots intends that the app will strengthen the EduSpots community, enabling local Catalysts to build individual and Spot profiles, update activities and achievements, and engage with staff and other Catalysts across the network.
The app has been fully funded by the Gower Street Trust, who have been transformative supporters of EduSpots’ work since 2022. EduSpots also gives thanks to Engagedu, who they have worked closely with across the last six months to develop the initial trial version of the app.
Functionality
The key initial function of the app is to provide Catalysts with a tool that enables them to coordinate and track local Spot activities. This includes registration of new Spot learners and volunteers, gaining permissions and completing checks, and monitoring their engagement with the Spot’s activities and resources.
The app will in turn enable EduSpots’ staff team to track Spot opening hours, resource borrowing, club activities, learner and Catalyst participation and local fundraising at a glance, allowing the team to provide strong mentorship to our Catalysts based on the data received, also enabling EduSpots to better understand and monitor their impact.
In time, the app will also be a vital tool for management of our programmes for both Catalysts and learners, with Catalysts accessing a wide range of training programmes, monthly challenges and resources, also gaining feedback, recognition and support.
Catalysts and Spots will be able to build personalized profiles, receive programme certification and recognition, and interact with others across the EduSpots network, thus strengthening the relationships with and between their growing volunteer base across 15 regions of Ghana.
EduSpots’ in-house story books such as our Kwame’s Adventures Series, set in Spot communities and featuring Catalysts and learners, will also be placed on the app to enable wide access to these popular locally developed stories.
Wider digitalisation process
The app is being trialed alongside a wider digitalisation process, through which EduSpots is equipping the Spots with over 150 tablets and accompanying wifi kits, that will allow them to access the app, alongside a wide range of other educational apps, enabling them to access learning tools and online books with a focus on frequently requested stories by local authors and curriculum specific textbooks.
EduSpots expressed their thanks to the remarkable support of the Gower Street Trust, Wanderlust Ghana, the Fonthill Foundation, and the EA Foundation in this process, alongside all ongoing funders and supporters, particularly the mc2h foundation and the British and Foreign School Society.
