Solution

What specific education challenge is this solution trying to resolve?

We want to promote teachers' pedagogical skills and provide impressive learning experiences for the youngest children. The teacher plays a key role in this. We want the teacher to have methods and tools at his disposal so he can focus on content.

There are elements in Finnish early childhood education that are also valid globally. Child-centeredness is especially good in Finland. We have digitized four areas in teachers' pedagogical work: group planning, the child's personal plan, documentation, and cooperation with parents. Suppose you want to implement a child-oriented upbringing. In that case, you should start with the child's needs and interests, taking into account the theory of motivation.

Where does this solution fit into a global or local (digital) educational landscape?

The TinyApp solution is essential because it is made particularly for an early childhood education teacher. It is a professional tool for pedagogical work. The idea is that when the educator uses the service, they implement processes that support the child's learning and well-being. The more the educator documents, the more they can reflect on their own work—the methods TinyApp supports are based on the values ​​of Finnish teaching. The service has not been made to measure or value children's academic skills.

We often need to pay more attention to the importance of quality teaching and competent teachers, especially in early childhood education. When pedagogical professionalism is nonexistent, children are offered low-quality instruction. We can support the teacher's work to be more visible to increase its appreciation. Globally, the turnover among early education teachers is high, and we want to help keep teachers in the profession. Early childhood education is the least digitized in all education sectors, which is a big challenge. There is also a need for data on pedagogical practices. The use of digital services increases transparency and enables the development of methods. 

Our objective has always been to enable the easy planning and tracking of competence-based curriculums. We were the first to apply the transversal competencies when they were introduced in Finland. 

How does your solution work, especially for new users?

Educators will get a validated model to provide child-initiated education and cooperate with parents. An educator's professional skills and professional pride are strengthened. They can develop their pedagogical skills on-the-job while using the tools offered in TinyApp. The final result should be that the child receives better teaching and upbringing.

How well-known, popular, or used is the solution in Finland? (To what do you attribute this success?)

It is in use in the public and private sectors. Now about 800+ teachers, over 100 kindergartens with about 4,000 children, use the application.

We have long-term users, 4-5 years, who integrate the service extensively for their activities.

How safe is it to use this solution?

TinyApp is GDPR compliant. It is important to us when teachers collect information about children.

Scalability, Impact and sustainability

Scale is a result of multiple successful implementations in a variety of contexts. How can the solution be scaled up to reach a larger number of learners and schools?

TinyApp is a digital application available within 24 hours of the organization's decision. So technically, it is fast to scale. The question is how organizations are reached. We use different media and partners as channels.

In practice, we need the organization's name, email address, and admin user's name for the setup, and the solution is in use. The administrator invites colleagues and parents as users. Depending on the organization, adding children can be made by an administrator or teachers. User information can be imported as an Excel file or typed one by one. We always include onboarding training at the beginning of use.

Share an implementation success story/quote to describe your scalability.

Our customer is a well-known local actor, so the story is significant to us. I have provided a link to a blog post about us in Colombia!

Explain your Operational model / Business model

We have a B2B and SaaS model.

Is it possible for parents, teachers, schools, municipalities, governments, CSR/NGOs/Funds to become users/customers of your solution?

Our customers are kindergartens, municipalities and states that provide the solution to early childhood education professionals.

What are your pricing plans / funding models like?

We sell to organisations by monthly or annual billing. The price is determined per child per month, and pricing can be found on the website. You can always ask for a quote.

How do you measure the impact, or effectiveness, of your solution?

With some customers, we conduct a kick-off survey, for example, when they start using TinyApp. In 6-12 months, we will complete an impact survey. The survey includes key questions we follow to validate the impact. It is interesting to see how their current pedagogical work, planning practices, and parental cooperation have changed over time. The questions include, for example:

“At the moment, I am familiar with the following pedagogical methodologies/tools: Pedagogical documentation, 
Planning of learning activities, Child initiated early childhood education.” 

“The frequency of my use of the following pedagogical activities: I document the development of the children and activities in my group, I use documentation to personalise learning activities with small groups of children or individual children.”

Does the user receive feedback on the impact of the solution after using it? If so, how?

Users have access to all information they have recorded in the solution. The solution combines information with reports that show how much and what has been done and how the competencies are reflected in action. The Dashboard is available for each child, group, unit, and organization. So each teacher and leader can track their own performance.

The solution has a built-in feedback system through which you can contact us.

Ecosystem

Who are the necessary people and roles needed to ensure a successful implementation of your solution?

As we enter the new market, we diligently visit the local bodies. Creating our network and relationships is very important. We were accepted to the Edtech Colombia network, and we work with local universities. We have regular discussions with Business Finland Team Finland people. All these provide us with connections to other critical stakeholders in the market. The approach is different from that in Finland. We must be active in building relationships and also on a personal level. 

The role of parents can be quite different from Finland, especially in private kindergartens, and this is something that we need to take into account as well in our implementation and communication practices.

How can local innovators, startups or organisations collaborate with you or the solution?

Whenever we visit somewhere, we ask for feedback on which direction our service should be developed. Even though we already have a product, we listen to and consider partners' views for the product's future development.

But I also want to point out that when we go abroad, we do not speak only about our solution, but we discuss the Finnish edtech ecosystem and Finnish education. Sometimes when we see that our solution is not the answer to the customer's needs, we might promote or make an offer for other Finnish edtech solutions. Through our network, we can help. 

How can local stakeholders, including educators, policymakers, and parents, be engaged in the implementation of the solution?

Educators, parents, and other stakeholders are welcome to share their feedback through our channels (by hello [at] tinyapp.biz, chat on our website www.tinyapp.biz). In all our meetings with different stakeholders, we carefully listen to them, take notes of their needs, and think about how we could answer them. 

How do you collaborate with the ministry?

When the countries are bigger, the structure is different. We strive to be involved in discussions at many different levels. We have regular meetings with the public representatives, not only in the education field, and keep them up to date on our projects and news. 

How can the middleman help you?

I have a local advisor with whom I spar about the cultural differences in business. His advice has also been to be strict on my own and our business practices, to set limits. Time is valuable.

I have had experiences on my first trips to Colombia that have been excellent learning experiences for a new business culture. For example, we could have a meeting set for 14.30, but it is postponed to 16.30 or next week due to a traffic jam, an auditor's unexpected visit to the kindergarten, or something similar. Or we have prepared an agenda for my trip, and it has already changed when I land. Or we have had a great meeting with a potential customer, but in the end, nothing happens afterward. Having someone I can trust to talk to about these cases and explain local business culture helps me understand which things I should spend time on, how I want to run the business, and what is important to us and our company.