MOLEAP

As the world steadily moves education online we are leaving a large number of people behind. The divide is getting narrower, but deeper for the 4 billion poorest offline (ITU 2016) and the 59 million school age children without access to education (UN 2016). Those left out in the cold will get further and further behind the racing digital economy of the 21st century. As the connected citizens of the developed world power onwards creating ever more sophisticated products and services those left without a comprehensive, modern, digitally literate education will be increasing left in their wake. We can't afford such an outcome in a just world aiming to eliminate poverty and to reverse the growing wealth gap.

The extent of the challenge should not be underestimated. Problems on the road to delivering modern, quality education to all are many and varied - creating a 'wicked systems problem' of factors. In the remote areas of developed countries schools face poor or non-existent access to Internet connectivity, limited budgets, limited IT support resources, limited access to professional development for teachers and a variety of legacy computer hardware get in the way of progress (Lyons, Cooksey, Panizzon, Parnell & Pegg, 2006, Tytler, Symington, Malcolm & Kirkwood, 2009). In developing regions access to infrastructure, electrical power, computers, limited financial resources, suitably trained teachers, local capacity building, culturally and socially appropriate learning materials and methods are all issues to be addressed in delivering a modern, quality learning on the ground (Castillo, 2015, Trucano, 2013). Even in developed countries like Australia, students in rural and remote areas still frequently need to deal with poor connectivity, small data quotas and high data costs (Bell 2010, Owen 2016).

MOLEAP diagrams

The idea of MOLEAP (Modular Offline Learning Education Assessment Platform) is to provide a digital bridge to 21st century education for those currently without connectivity. Built to work with the realities of poor or non existent connectivity and power outages experienced in rural areas and in the developing world - it is designed for the world we live in, not the one we wish we had.

MOLEAP is capable of serving a range of educational settings and purposes, from self-paced formative learning to classroom based education, to the running of authentic high stakes digital assessments. The platform provides a framework to deliver courses for a range of needs and circumstances. From remote villages and homesteads to community classes, schools, vocational education providers and universities servicing remote students. As an integrated part of an institution's e-learning infrastructure or stand-alone (See workflow diagram).

MOLEAP features the Moodle learning management system and adds supporting tools such as an office suite, graphics editor, multimedia players and can accept a wide range of education and discipline specific software as plugins - all running without an internet connection. When a network is present, two-way synchronisation enables a flexible approach to education provision, communication and educational data analytics of remote learners.

MOLEAP uses a multi-hardware compatible Linux operating system to provide a consistent, modern graphical user experience regardless of the type of computer upon which it is run (see components diagram). Further, because the system itself runs 'live' from commodity USB sticks it can be preloaded with an entire semester of learning material and cheaply distribute via 'snail mail' to remote users. This removes the need for a student to download 98% of the data of a typical modern e-learning course. Hardware requirements are minimal with MOLEAP happily running on dated computers, recycled laptops and PCs from corporate or government donors, or whatever students and schools have on had at the time. The system can even use computers where the hard disk drive may have been damaged or removed.

MOLEAP components adhere to common standards and programming languages meaning the skills needed for maintenance are common place in the IT sector. All software components are available on open source licence terms, reducing cost barriers to adoption. All hardware components are readily available 'off the shelf' making the development and longer term maintenance of the package more sustainable than would be the case for a proprietary or completely custom built solution.