BOKI is a Uruguayan application of educational innovation that is already being used by more than 45 thousand students in public and private education in Uruguay and that years ago was recognized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and recently awarded by the University of California, San Diego campus.
Its users are distributed among public schools through Plan Ceibal -an alliance created eight years ago- and 17 schools in Montevideo, one in Durazno and one in Punta del Este. But this is not the end of the action of Edu Editorial, responsible for this application: BOKI is also used in a school in Peru and is coming to Mexico and the Dominican Republic. This week, one of the partners returned from the Aztec country where they plan to take the tool to 150 public schools and a private school as a pilot plan.
"Some schools no longer ask for the printed book (of the subject) because they substitute it for BOKI; others use it as a complement," Edu Editorial's director, Mercedes Fonseca, told Cromo.
There are two ways to access BOKI. Some schools assume the total cost of its installation to project the tool on their screens or digital whiteboards, computers, mobile devices and even for their students' individual computers. This is possible because the institution purchases annual licenses. Another way - which has been adopted by several schools - is to pass on the cost to parents by including the app in the materials list. "We offer them interactivity. (These institutions) lacked the content to take advantage of the technology," he said.
BOKI has curricular content approved by official bodies and developed by a team of educators, teachers, trainers and specialists. All of the natural science content for 4th, 5th and 6th grades has been adapted and a selection of the same for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades. Edu Editorial has begun to add social science content. "The methodology is focused on working by projects," said Fonseca.
Overall, it has over 80 units of content, over 80 experiments, over 800 interactive activities, and over 80 challenges for the house.
"The kids are really into it. They are used to using educational apps and devices at home. BOKI brings this reality to their school. The interactivity motivates them," said Mercedes Fonseca.
Parents also participate in collaborative learning games with their children and teachers can follow the performance of their students in the different units. The platform does not require any previous training on their part. Children also collect virtual cards with each achievement (the levels have progressive difficulty) in order to unlock an album.
The international experiences carried out since 2018 were made with Uruguayan contents, so the team is now adapting them to the educational curriculum of each country.
BOKI was recently awarded by the University of California, San Diego campus. The Uruguayan venture won the first prize in the Venture Vetting Pitch Competition 2019 in the category for Latin Americans. In addition to the award, BOKI's leaders will receive mentoring from the university and the possibility of generating contacts that they hope will facilitate the growth of the project in the region.
Source: The Observer
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