One of the organizations we met at the Education Summit in Colombia is Antioquia Digital, the organization that is working to provide digital tools to teachers and students throughout the large region of Colombia known as Antioquia.

The organization has three main projects:

• Social use of information technology and communications
• Development of digital educational content
• Providing hardware and connectivity to schools

While these sound fairly standard, we found in talking with some of the staff that many schools in the rural parts of Colombia don’t have internet access. To meet the mission in this area, Antioquia Digital provides a set of digital education resources on a thumb drive, then goes out to the schools in order to properly train the teachers in their use.

Antioquia Digital also provides a “metaportal” that is an all-in-one online resource for teachers. The portal links to collaborative networks through which teachers can share best practices in their topic areas.