Built for the oldest phone: offline-first, no passwords, no frameworks

SuperEscuela, our own non-profit project, is a free school for Spanish-speaking children. Its users include children in rural areas, on hand-me-down phones, with a signal that comes and goes. The design rule is simple: if it works on the oldest phone in the most remote town, it works everywhere.

Works without the internet

A child downloads a topic once and keeps playing when the signal drops. Progress is saved on the phone and synchronised later, when there is a connection. The app installs on the phone like any other, from the browser.

No passwords

A password is one more thing a ten-year-old forgets. Students sign in with an email address and a six-digit code sent to it. Nothing to memorise, nothing to lose, and the email is the only personal detail the platform keeps.

No frameworks, on purpose

The app is plain HTML and JavaScript, with no front-end framework. That is a deliberate choice, written into the project’s rules:

• Smaller downloads. Every kilobyte costs time and data on a slow connection.
• Fewer moving parts. Less to break on an old browser, and less to update.
• Easy to pick up. Volunteers who know the basics of the web can read and improve it.

Small pieces of content

Each topic is a small, self-contained file. A child only downloads what they chose to learn, and a topic can be updated or rewritten without touching the rest.

No ads, no tracking

No adverts interrupt a lesson, and no data is sold or used to profile children. Light pages and respect for the user turn out to be the same decision.