I do not know about you, but these days even more than ever I am so refreshed to get an email message of inspiration for openness. That was just this morning, with an update from Learning Equality the not for profit organization that for 13 years has been working to provide access to learning materials to the larger than you might guess number of people (2.6 billion) on this globe that lack access to the resources we who are connected almost take for granted.
Thirteen years ago, we asked a simple question: what if lack of connectivity didn’t limit access to quality education?
The communities answered it. Watch.
From refugee camps to rural classrooms, educators and learners have been building something — with limited resources, unreliable infrastructure, and no shortage of ingenuity. This video is their story, told in their words.
Please take a moment to listen to the stories:
If you are not familiar with Learning Equality click on in.
At Learning Equality, we’re flipping the edtech narrative by putting learners and educators without access to the Internet front and center.
mostly through their amazing offllne-first learning platform Kolibri (I have familiarity from a project using Kolibri, ask me if interested). But also see their design approach based on a Theory of Change.
It’s Time to Think About Recognition
If you know of projects, people, initiatives in open education that spark your interest, we hope always you share them in this community space.
But it is also the time of year when we at OEGlobal will be asking the larger open education community to consider nominations for the 2026 Open Education Awards for Excellence (opening May 11, 2026). Quite easily, Learning Equality and/or Kolibri is absolutely worth nominating (hint hint HINT).
Awards though are seen as “big” things, and filling out a nomination takes time/effort. We are aiming (and building a system) for year round issuing of “micro-recognition” / thanks / gratitude to efforts maybe not seen as awards scale. Stay tuned.
If you work with someone who has been a helpful assistance to your open education work or appreciate the effort of those who publish open source tools or open content, this is the kind of thing you can do easily.
Until this new “thing” is built we do have one of the (award winning) acts you can do with a Remixer Machine Hat Tip as Gratitude & Micro-recognition. To make a new hat tip, you just pick a style, change some colors, edit the text, publish, and share.
It took me 6 minutes to remix a hat tip to Learning Equality
Hat tip by @visualthinkery is licensed under CC-BY-SA. Remix by Alan Levine.
Please think about who/what you might want to recognized in 2026 with an Open Education Award for Excellence or maybe someone/ something you just want to send an expression of thanks, even a hat tip/