Report reframes how we think about internet connectivity

A new report, commissioned by the Offline Internet Consortium highlights the need for a deeper understanding of offline internet technologies and how even indirect access to the World Wide Web can help address the digital divide. Most of the orgs mentioned in the report work with open-source tools and/or OER content.
Peter Amoabil’s students are pictured on page 29 working with WiFi-only devices to connect to OER content in their first language via MoodleBox. Closing the Digital Gap – Offline Internet Peter is a SABIER partner in the Northern Region of Ghana.

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(page 30) Offline-first software ensures accessibility: By developing offline-first software, Consortium members ensure that essential applications and digital services are usable without constant internet connectivity. This approach not only maintains continuity in digital interactions but also enhances the reliability and accessibility of digital content in disconnected environments.

This :point_up: is an important point and anybody who has ever worked with a web app on a train (or an airplane) will understand why… Offline first and progressive enhancement FTW! :v:

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This a wonderful, resource Dan.

The tagline says much “Beyond the Binary of Connectivity” – full report is here (PDF), including the photo of Peter on page 29

The Offline Internet Consortium is great place to go to learn more https://www.offlineinternet.org

Just wondering, this can increase the caching requirement significantly in computing devices. Any idea on this?

It’s a photo of Peter’s students taken and openly licensed by Peter.

Depends on what you mean by “significantly” :slight_smile:

Has this ever become an issue for you? I haven’t run into problems with this yet (and if I did, clearing browser cache takes only a few seconds).

And also it asks what @kumer means by “caching”.

A number of the offline solutions, like Kolibri and the MoodleBox Dan refers to are solutions that set up a local device (often ot always a Raspberry Pi) that act as a “server” - learners connect via devices to a local wireless network.

This does not call for necessarily much copntent being stored on a local device.

But with solutions like Kiwix, these actually do store local copies on a mobile or portable device. But it is making use of (as I just learned) of a compressed file format called ZIM files see also the openZIM project that looks like it does amazing feats of compression (there is a photo of a USB thumb drive stating it has stored Wikipedia on it!!!)

Here is someone’s write up “Taking Knowledge in My Own Hands By Self Hosting Wikipedia and Arch Wiki” with the tagline Doomsday or not, knowledge should be preserved. in which they provide the steps to store/archive a full copy of Wikipedia and as well something called ARCHWiki on a Raspberry Pi 5

We have a test instance that looks very promising. Kiwix, MoodleBox, and Kolibri are all on the same Raspberry Pi. Teachers can choose what content they want from Kiwix or Kolibri to reside on the Raspberry Pi which teachers can then link to from learning activities with assessments on MoodleBox. It’s like when I used to take a book cart down to the media center (library) in my school and load up a collection of books for my 3rd and 4th-grade students to read in my class. At other times, I would take the whole class to the media center and they could pick out whatever they wanted. Then students would write up their book reports in class.

A similar action can be set up with the Kiwix-Kolibri-MoodleBox combination. Nothing needs to reside on the student devices which in many cases would stay in the classroom anyway. Optionally, students can use Moodle Mobile to take content and activities out of the classroom, complete the activity offsite and offline, and then bring them back to the classroom to sync with MoodleBox.

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Ahhh, this is very interesting. I’m doing a Kolibri workshop at OEGlobal next month and just ordered a Pi to be the host. Maybe I will get ambitious and throw Kiwix and Moodlebox on too!