Elisa Cristi: “As teachers we open opportunities”

Elisa Cristi is a kindergarten teacher and a facilitator in the public programme Ceibal, a set of projects, educational resources and teacher training that transforms the ways of teaching and learning in Uruguay. She is also a lead for LatAm in Micro:bit. She covers a great number of schools in a vulnerable neighborhood in Montevideo, Uruguay; and she joins mSchools to discuss the inclusion of educational technologies in vulnerable contexts.

Vulnerable contexts in technological education

Uruguay has a socio-educational public policy that involves a programme of Basic Computer Educational Connectivity for Online Learning (Ceibal), which allows for a wide access to devices in this country. Elisa works directly with schools from the “Aprender” category, as they are called in Uruguay, where the basic needs are often unsatisfied. Beyond the access to devices, she talks about the difficulties that arise in vulnerable contexts and the possible options to deal with them.

Robotics in vulnerable contexts

Focusing on her experiences as a teacher and facilitator, Elisa’s tips on how to suggest classroom proposals in these contexts are meant for teachers who have never worked with robotics as well as for those who have.