Developing a community platform for creative learning

Abstract

The Syrian refugee crisis has created serious challenges to higher education in regional host countries. While digital educational technologies from the West have the potential of mending some of these challenges, there is a lack of locally appropriate solutions. We see this as a reflection of the modest number of innovators who have the technical and pedagogical training for developing such technologies, with combined understanding of the refugee and regional context. We attempt to bridge this gap by developing LIME (Learning Innovators - Middle East), an online platform for a capacity building program in Jordan and Lebanon. LIME is a Progressive Web Application that was developed with a React/Redux/Node/PostgreSQL stack. Through LIME, learners can take online classes, gain valuable development skills and engage in a community of innovators, all the while working on projects to deal with the refugee crisis. We believe that our project-based, community-focused approach to digital learning can help learners in host countries gain the necessary skills to develop local solutions to refugee education. We hope that such an approach will also alleviate the stress on regional institutions of higher education. We embrace the challenge of refugee education as an opportunity to spur innovation in the Middle East.