We’re interested in exploring how decentralized learning networks might be used to connect educators, administrators, and eventually policymakers and supporters (investors, funders, etc.) in order to spread creative learning practices and to help scale up creative learning approaches. We propose grounding this exploration in a pilot research project focused at first on Nairobi and Johannesburg.

Nairobi and Johannesburg are nascent hubs for innovations in learning. However, educators in both cities (across the two cities and within them) operate in loosely connected circles, with weak tie-ins to each-other for peer-learning, movement building, and shifting norms around learning. Moreover, donors, foundations, and international institutions often invest resources in non-African initiatives (e.g. Bridge International Academies) that are neither progressive nor connected to innovations already happening in these cities.

Building on the work of Aprendizagem Criativa no Brasil (Creative Learning in Brazil – a decentralized network of educators, designers, systems leaders, foundations, companies all involved in or hoping to support creative learning) and other initiatives, we hope to first gather stories of educators across a range of contexts, connect them with one another (including at next year’s Africa Scratch conference), support co-development of resources, and hopefully engage in movement building. 

Our aspiration is to start building a movement with distributed ownership and thick and thin forms of engagement. We’re starting this process by identifying and interviewing a range of stakeholders who might become a part of this network. This ecosystem map (and the one produced by Marian) are initial steps in this process.