Reimagining Rural Education: Empowering Communities through Technology-Enabled Networks of Practice

This presentation explores The Godparents Project, a volunteer network of practice (NoP) in which Uruguayans from the diaspora, proficient in English, residing worldwide, support teachers in remote rural schools in Uruguay with various English-teaching tasks through telecollaborative exchanges. 
This volunteer-led project provides support to “Inglés Sin Límites” (English Without Borders), a program established in Uruguay to bridge the gap in English as a foreign language (TEFL) instruction between urban and rural schools, advancing equity.  As part of these efforts, the Godparents Project was created to provide support to rural schools and the whole community in the teaching of English. We discuss the approaches used to provide such support to teachers and offer recommendations to expand these practices to better support rural teachers and students. Innovative progress based on both technology and teacher and student agency.
The program was launched in 2018 to provide linguistic support to rural schools in Uruguay by using a global network of Uruguayans living in the diaspora. Godparents aid teachers in their role and incorporate their host country's culture into the educational relationship. This teamwork highlights how all participants in the exchange learn from one another, blurring the roles and power dynamics between teacher and students. This program is particularly important in Uruguay, where access to foreign language education in rural areas is limited, and this innovative teaching approach is essential for student engagement and language acquisition.