#FindFrench: Lessons from finding French educational digital resources to share with the world

Vahid Masrour
Learning Equality
Published in
7 min readNov 19, 2020

Learning Equality and EdTech Hub have been collaborating to make digital educational resources in French more accessible to the wide audience of Francophone learners disconnected from the internet. In this post, Learning Equality’s Curriculum Operations Specialist Vahid Masrour, shares his observations from our efforts scoping French language resources since October 2020. Check out a summary on the EdTech Hub’s blogsite.

Our crowdsourced drive to solicit recommendations last month about the availability of digital French language learning resources yielded some promising results. The Learning Equality team received and reviewed more than 50 sources, assessing them for potential alignment with classroom needs, technical feasibility to share without the Internet, and the potential to contribute to a well-rounded library of French digital materials.

Student in Cameroon learning on a tablet (Credit: SIL Cameroon)

What we were looking for:

There are many ways to evaluate digital resources. Since our organization aim to curate resources which are useful to learners who do not have consistent access to the Internet, and may be located in low-resource or time-strapped contexts, our criteria included the following:

  • Potential for easy adaptation in classrooms: A core component of Learning Equality’s work is supporting the specific needs of educators underserved by many educational technology initiatives. This perspective inspires both the Kolibri product ecosystem of tools we develop, as well as the materials we make available in the Kolibri Content Library. In this scoping, we are looking for materials which could correspond to what teachers need to teach, which would be easy for them to imagine in a variety of different flexible pedagogies, and which would be conducive to unique needs like those for students to download them onto phones and continue on their own time. Materials that rely heavily on Internet connectivity, like courses with discussion rooms, or which are under paywalls or require subscriptions and logins, unfortunately do not meet these needs.
  • Potential for at-home, self-guided learning: Given the current pandemic, millions of children and youth are barred from accessing the educational resources they would normally be able to in a school setting. We aimed to find materials that would empower students to approach new topics and, as much as possible, continue to develop their skills and curiosity even when deprived of feedback or guidance from their teachers.
  • Equitable perspectives: We were looking for materials that would go beyond historic bias and would promote representations and awareness of equity, including on a gender and country basis. The materials “Citoyennes” and “Citoyennes du monde,” for instance, provide a rich variety of examples of women who have led social change.
  • Open or permissive licensing: In traditional online learning, digital distribution is typically exempt from copyright for classroom use, but the same is not true when materials need to be downloaded and accessed locally. All materials used in the Kolibri Learning Platform require appropriate licensure to be included in the metadata and visible in the platform. Our public library is composed of Creative Commons licenses, which makes the offline distribution of the materials possible while respecting authorship. In some circumstances, “Special Permissions” licenses are used instead, allowing the copyright owner to grant explicit permission to use the contents they have created on Kolibri.

Observations on the landscape of French digital learning resources

The Francophonie (French-speaking countries and territories) represents about 300 million people worldwide, making French the fifth most-spoken language in the world. Within the Francophonie, a solid industry of printed materials has shaped teachers and learners’ expectations of how learning content is best organized and presented. We embarked on this scoping initiative in part because we had an understanding of the role of printed learning materials in informing expectations about learning, but were less familiar with the options available in digital content across the French-speaking world. We also aimed to learn more about where dynamic conversations and creation efforts are taking place, and what possible opportunities there are for future engagement. We are excited to share five key observations.

1) Making content accessible: many resources have copyright restrictions

As our own research showed — and as confirmed by the suggestions received — French publications, educational materials, and even resources available for free, are usually bound by limiting copyrights. We saw this throughout multiple web and government sources aimed at serving public interests. It’s possible that the creators are not aware of the degree to which this creates an immediate barrier for wide dissemination and re-use of those materials, no matter how much they could contribute to learning. The good news is that we also saw the adoption of open licenses by some public service websites (such as Edubase), and by non-profit organizations (La Main à la pâte), which might indicate a slow change in the mindset of ‘copyright by default’.

This shows that creators are interested in reaching disconnected audiences that could benefit from their materials, and provides further opportunities for conversations and possible collaborations with content creators.

2) Barriers to using digital resources about the arts in settings without Internet

Copyright concerns also come into play when considering the importance of materials created as art (not for educational purposes), and how these are incorporated into so many aspects of learning in the Francophone world.

For instance, we were happy to receive recommendations for comics, an important element of Francophone pop-culture. While sometimes perceived as “mere entertainment”, they also contribute to the buildup of language skills. In fact, many people refer to their treasured comics as an early window into Francophone culture. They serve as touchstones in language, literacy, history, the arts, geography, civic sense, and more.

In this case, however, more so than with educational resources, the restrictive copyrights barrier seems insurmountable. This is particularly concerning during the pandemic and social distancing, where art cannot be experienced in the same way without the Internet. Given the shift to digital learning during the pandemic, how can we ensure that these resources can still reach disconnected learners — or how can we support the creation of new ones which could?

3) Strong presence of humanities and social sciences resources

In comparison to other similar previous scoping efforts by Learning Equality, we were pleased to see a significant proportion of humanities and social sciences materials recommended as part of this effort, since they are typically neglected in many digital learning interventions. We received more recommendations in the general cultural knowledge category than in the academic subjects or any other type of skills.

Some of the ones we were especially impressed by include the aforementioned Citoyennes series — a set of short case studies of notable women in history from all over the world, focused on human rights and ethics, such as “Introduction aux droits de l’homme” and “Le Bien, le Juste, l’Utile. Introduction aux éthiques philosophiques”), as well as other topics that have a place in formal education.

4) Repositories and portals: a prevalent trend

Repositories and portals may have great materials, but may not be suitable for offline use. Case in point: TV5 Monde’s Apprendre le français, which integrates news and current affairs videos and lessons to learn French and a variety of language skills. While highly pertinent, it is impractical for contexts with no connectivity to retrieve regular updates.

Another trend is the use of websites as repositories of links to the actual resources, such as Edubase: a database that offers links to over 12,000 lesson plans, classroom activities, and other educational materials, most of which created by teachers and tested in classrooms in France. The linked materials may be of interest to Francophone teachers, but whereas the Edubase site itself uses a CC BY license, the contents link to a variety of other websites where the licensing is less explicit. There is also APRELIA, an African Open Educational Resources portal. The limitation is that while the portal’s contents may be CC-licensed, the actual resources may have a variety of licenses. Providing clarity on the copyrights of various materials, and guidance on navigating through big repositories, could help make such resources more usable.

5) Gaps in vocational training and history

Prior to this scoping, we were interested in identifying resources focused on vocational training (TVET), particularly workforce preparation which has particular relevance duringCOVID-19 pandemic. This includes digital literacy and technical skills in agriculture, public health, and civil or community services. We identified a particularly promising source out of Côte d’Ivoire, Africa: Ma formation en ligne Côte d’Ivoire.

Overall what we found is that there are not many resources focused on TVET springing out of the Global South, in French, and we’re motivated to see what else may be developed.

It is important to underscore that TVET materials offer concrete opportunities for youth and adult learners’ development and these types of resources are particularly beneficial when they are complemented by openly licensed teacher and/or student-made video contents that exemplify the practical aspects of vocational training. The idea of fostering these classroom-generated open educational resources that can be shared and distributed broadly, not only benefit users, but also the creators of those materials. This is why we continually encourage such efforts.

Although we received many humanities materials, as mentioned, we observed a dearth of openly shareable materials which focused on history as it is represented in many curricula. Given the colonial past of the Francophonie, there are likely many complex discussions to be had regarding this by relevant bodies, as different entities seek to transition to digital education. One can only hope that by supporting more diverse voices in creating such materials, digital education can have the additional benefit of moving past colonial history and providing a fuller and richer understanding of our shared human history to learners around the world.

Using these resources without Internet

This scoping led us to some fantastic materials that can support learners using Kolibri. We’re pleased to share some of the resources we are moving forward with incorporating into our library:

List of French language resources being included in the Kolibri Content Library

Next steps

Once we determine the best way to adapt these materials and integrate them into the Kolibri Content Library for use via Kolibri in contexts without the Internet, we will share them via social media. Stay tuned!

It’s also not too late to join in and suggest other resources in French, if you think may meet the considerations outlined or may fill in gaps. Reach out with any comments or new resource recommendations to the Learning Equality curriculum team: content@learningequality.org.

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Published in Learning Equality

Learning Equality is committed to enabling every person in the world to realize their right to a quality education by enabling teaching and learning with technology, without the Internet.

Written by Vahid Masrour

Curriculum Operations Specialist, Learning Equality