Innovations for Learning has entered into a collaboration with Stanford University to bring the TeacherMate System to indigent rural communities around the globe.  In many cases, these communities have no physical school, so the TeacherMates serve as the school itself, bringing the world’s digital information to some of the most remote parts of the planet.

In our international expansion we seek to establish four-way partnerships.  In collaboration with IFL and Stanford, a local university will create relevant content, adapting Innovations for Learning content into the local language.  A local non-governmental agency will assist with training and distribution of the TeacherMates.

Dr. Paul Kim with students and teachers in Mexicali, Mexico.

MEXICO
In September of 2008, Dr. Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer at Stanford’s School of Education traveled to Baja, Mexico to bring the TeacherMate to schools and villages in the area. This marked the first IFL/Stanford collaboration.

Video of Dr. Paul Kim's first trip to Mexico with TeacherMates.

KOREA
Researchers at Seoul National University will be implementing the Teachermate program at public school classrooms in Seoul, South Korea.

The Seoul-based Teachermate research project will employ one of the most rigorous research procedures that combines a complete random assignment of participants, a tightly controlled experimental environment, cross-over time series measurement, and a highly trained teacher who will manage all classrooms involved in the study. It is hoped that the rigorous research design and procedure will lead to clear learning outcomes that help investigators determine how mobile interaction, collaboration, and visualization technology plays a role in the behavioral, cognitive, constructivist, and social dimensions of formal and informal mobile learning.

RWANDA
In December of 2008, at the invitation of the University of Rwanda, Dr. Kim traveled to Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. The purpose of the trip was to demonstrate TeacherMates to local education scholars and teachers.  Pilot programs are now being planned throughout the continent. 

Video of Dr. Paul Kim's first trip to Africa with TeacherMates.

PHILIPPINES
Stanford Learning, Design, and Technology graduate student Mela Sogono, partnered with the Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation, Inc., to launch a pilot TeacherMate project in the Philippines. The Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation is a Philippine-based foundation that is dedicated to the eradication of slum and squatter areas.  Students in the Phillipines are now using the TeacherMates to read stories in both Phillipino and English.

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT WIKI
For more information on how to develop a TeacherMate program outside of the United States, you can access the TeacherMate Developer’s Guide created by Princeton undergraduate, Noah Freedman. Click here to view the TeacherMate Developer’s Guide Wiki.