About 3 weeks ago, we privately launched our platform to a few select schools in the Baba Dogo and Korogocho slum areas of Nairobi. And so far, it’s been amazing ride. Already, our students and teachers have taught us so many lessons about what they want and need to better prepare themselves for success. To give a bit of background, MPrep currently uses:
- An SMS-based study system that is aligned to the Kenyan curriculum
- Bite-sized, 5 question quizzes that are organized by topic
- Individualized feedback for right or wrong answer choices
- Student data on performance and ranking to motivate students to perform even better
- Data for teachers so that what they know what kids need help with
- Automatic payment through prepaid airtime
So far, we’ve demo-ed the product with about 500 students, and here’s what we’ve seen and learned since the beginning of February:
- Teachers sometimes use MPrep more than kids do!
- MPrep is a social tool. Kids like to use it to study together, even if they are not the highest rank
- Students are motivated to continue using MPrep over a long period of time
- Most teachers welcome the opportunity for kids to ‘show what they know’ through MPrep
- I (Toni) am currently ranked 35 in all of Nairobi. #1-#34, you’re going down!
Thanks to Baba Dogo and Chandaria Primary Schools for the amazing partnership so far. It is our goal to register 3,000 students by the end of March and for 40% of those students to be active users (using 2 x week or more). Can’t wait.