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Endless and Techbridge Girls have partnered to bring offline solutions to more students.
Partnership is the "key" ingredient for the Endless Key program's success.
The Endless OS Foundation has partnered with many like-minded organizations that are sharing their learning and educational resources for inclusion on the Endless Key – a 128GB USB drive loaded with learning and discovery resources for offline students. Some of our partners are also distributing Endless Keys to their educator / student communities. One of those partners is Techbridge Girls, who after sharing their engaging content, distributed Keys to students in five US states.
Techbridge Girls is re-engineering how STEM education is taught so girls* are inspired and prepared to persist toward their STEM aspirations and empowered to achieve economic mobility and better life chances. TBG has a bold goal to reach one million girls by 2030 through educators, and advocating to eliminate the barriers girls face to persist in STEM.
Techbridge Girls has a bold goal to reach one million girls by 2030 through educators, and advocating to eliminate the barriers girls face to persist in STEM.
STEM lessons in the Key's offline environment.
The learning materials in the Techbridge Girls Endless Key channel are engaging and easy-to-understand gender responsive and culturally-relevant STEM curricula in the form of videos and accompanying worksheets that allow girls to see their unique STEM lineage, culture, community and interests. Students with a Key can be completely offline, without an internet connection, and still access a deep resource of materials and lesson presentations from a variety of STEM ambassadors acting as encouraging video guides for each fun and interesting lesson. This is ideal content for the autonomous and discovery-based learning students can do with the Endless Key.
Feedback coming in from initial distributions.
With Keys distributed to 3rd through 8th grade students in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri and Florida via schools, YMCA, and Boys & Girls Club, some initial feedback is coming in:
“I like that I can always access the sites I need.”
“I’m drawn to using the Endless Key for the cooking, arts, and crafts activities.”
“I love music and math so I loved that there were centers for those to explore!”
“I was excited to play the games and look into the music section.”
“I liked how easy it was to switch topics and to play games!”
“(I liked) the reading because there are a lot of interesting stories.”
Students also had valuable feedback for improvements that could be made to the Key:
“I would like to see more history because I’m interested in medieval things.”
“I would like to have audiobooks and books I can read.”
“I think there should be an international section or travel.”
“I would love to have sections on plants/gardening, DIY stuff, homesteading, and herbal medicine."
Meeta Sharma-Holt, VP, Growth and Strategic Programs at Techbridge Girls shared her POV about contributing TBG content to the Endless Key program: “It is so exciting to be able to bring so many exciting lessons to our girls. Their world can truly open up with access to the Endless Key. Techbridge Girls is gratified to partner with the Endless OS Foundation team in delivering our mission of re-engineering how STEM education is taught in order for many more girls to be inspired to pursue STEM aspirations and careers.”
Meeta Sharma-Holt: "It is so exciting to be able to bring so many exciting lessons to our girls. Their world can truly open up with access to the Endless Key."
According to Bunmi Esho, Program Director at Endless OS Foundation, the Endless Key initiative is really driven by smart and strong partnerships like this around content, curation, and delivery: “Techbridge Girls immediately identified the value of the Endless Key, and how their lessons could be a valuable contribution. We are so grateful for their partnership on this project and thrilled that their STEM lessons and voice will reach even more girls. In addition, TBG’s actual distribution of Keys into girls’ communities in 5 states so far is a great example of a partner providing, not only great content, but also the final link needed in getting offline solutions to the students who need them.”
This distribution of Keys via Techbridge Girls is helping us to gain valuable partner, educator, and student-user feedback to develop and scale the Endless Key program to offline students throughout the USA. The initiative is designed to work alongside the planned broadband-for-all rollout that could take over a decade to fully implement. Up to 15 million students in the USA are still struggling to stay connected in 2022 without the stable internet access enjoyed by so many. The Endless / TBG partnership model, in concert with educator and school communities that can identify students in need of offline solutions, is critically important to drive the program’s success over the next few years.
Stay tuned for further updates about Techbridge Girls student users and the Endless Key program as we roll deeper into 2022.
About Techbridge Girls:
* Techbridge Girls (TBG) serves Black, Indigenous, and all girls of color, which includes cis girls, trans youth, gender non-conforming, and/or non-binary youth who experience(d) girlhood and economic insecurity as a part of their journey.
