How edtech companies and related sectors are helping students with distance learning

When President Duterte announced class suspensions in the capital until April 14 as a way to contain the spread of Covid-19, it presented a challenge for educators who still had activities lined up for students until the end of the school year on April 3. How can Filipino students cope with this disruption in the school calendar, and how can edtech companies help students in distance learning?

Here are some edtech companies that are stepping up to the plate:

Code.org

Code.org, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented youth, is hosting free, live weekly webcasts to engage students of all abilities – even beginners or those without computers. Code Break is a way to help the millions of students who are home from school learn by exploring rather than memorizing.

“While most students may not love homework, they do love the chance to be creative and have fun on Code.org. Students can develop life-changing skills at home by making their own app or game and sharing it with family and friends,” Hadi Partovi, Code.org’s founder, says of this learning opportunity. Parents can sign up for the challenge at their website and follow their Facebook page for updates.

IOL

IOL, a Baguio-based startup that maintains an advanced eLearning platform and creates online courses on accounting, business, and finance, is offering most of their courses for free during this pandemic. CEO Kevin Philip Gayao adds that they plan to upload their free Online Teaching course next week to help teachers learn how to teach online quickly using available online tools.

Zoom

Zoom, a modern enterprise video communications company with a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars, is giving K-12 schools their video conferencing tools for free. They’ve specifically removed the time limit from video chats using Zoom’s free service for any K-12 schools affected in Japan, Italy, and the United States. (They’ve previously removed the time limit from video chats using Zoom’s free service for affected regions in China and elsewhere.) Students or teachers who fill out an online form using their school email addresses and are then verified by Zoom will have any accounts associated with that school’s domain also gain unlimited temporary meeting minutes. The free Basic accounts are also available upon request in Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, Poland, Romania, and South Korea.

“Given that many K-12 schools are starting closing, we decided to offer Zoom access to all K-12 schools in the country starting tomorrow,” CEO Eric Yuan wrote in an email. “I told the team that with any crisis like this, let’s not leverage the opportunity for marketing or sales. Let’s focus on our customers. If you leverage this opportunity for money, I think that’s a horrible culture,” he adds.

CloudSwyft

CloudSwyft, a company with a cloud-based, technology learning platform for both enterprise and education sectors, is working closely with Microsoft Philippines to help its education customers and partners in on-boarding and setting up Microsoft Teams and CloudSwyft technology learning products for online collaborations and digital learning. Its founder and CEO, Dann Angelo De Guzman, says he has personally “experienced how digital upskilling can improve one’s life. “I’m excited to offer more of these opportunities to millions of people across ASEAN, who can now learn the skills in most demand by the best employers across the globe, right from the comfort and safety of their own home,” he shares.

Cloudswyft also plans to donate a portion of its revenues from their recent platform subscriptions from April and for the rest of year from customers in the Philippines to the Philippine General Hospital, Lung Center of the Philippines, and the Ayala Foundation.

Atlassian

Atlassian is giving educators free, one-year subscriptions to Trello Business Class, to help them stay organized and connected as they transition to remote learning. They believe this will help schools affected by closures stay organised and connected as they transition to remote learning.

In a blog post, Atlassian co-founder and CEO Scott Farquhar shared his thoughts on collaborating remotely in this time of social distancing: “While working remotely is the right thing to do during this time of social distancing, making the transition with little or no warning is unavoidably disruptive. Virtually every familiar feature of office life – from the bulletin board where your team tracks work in progress to the whiteboard you use for brainstorming – has to undergo its own version of digital transformation.”

Frontlearners

Frontlearners, an eLearning provider for schools, colleges, and universities, is helping their school clients to mitigate the impact of the class disruptions through their eLearning Content and Learning Management System.

“These are busy times for us and our school clients,” says co-founder Elaine De Velez. One client with six campuses was able to complete all their final exams using the system’s online exams feature. Another was able to deliver instructional materials and conduct classes, all virtually, enabling them to continue and complete all the requirements for the remaining weeks of the school year.

In light of the community quarantine, Frontlearners is offering free access to their materials for teachers, students, and parents upon registration. Schools can also avail of their own school-wide e-learning platform 24 hours after uploading their school’s class list.

“What I foresee is that eLearning will no longer be a temporary stop-gap measure, but rather an integral part of a day to day teaching and learning process inside and outside our classroom.  There are just so many other features of our eLearning not yet used, which means so many more benefits that are yet to be maximized,” adds De Velez.

Career 180

Career 180, a centralized and comprehensive career advising platform that aims to qualify youth to the job market, has been regularly offering career advising videos as well as career forums and events. It is currently launching its free virtual Egypt Career Summit to students and professionals who wish to participate in the panel discussions and 80+ workshops.

PCI Hub

PCI Innovations Tech Center,Inc. is a company that aims to bring quality, interactive, and immersive learning with technologies such as a website & mobile learning management system, as well as serious gaming simulations, digital & blockchain certification, augmented reality, and virtual reality.

Their e-learning platform is free for elementary students. Interested learners need only to create a free account in their PCI Hub. “PCI believes that our learners should continue learning at home. We bring to you free online courses for Grades 4-6 in Science, English and Math until the end of March. After all, education is also a way to fight the spread of this disease,” they assert in one of their Facebook posts.

Coursera

Educators would also do well to check out the free resources of massive open online course providers like Coursera. Its website reiterates its mission to transform lives through learning: “To help minimize the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on students, the Coursera community is launching a global effort to assist universities and colleges to deliver courseware online.” They’re joining their partners to take student learning online by making Coursera for Campus available globally at no cost to any university impacted by COVID-19.

There are pressing concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic and how it will impact students and their teachers in new and challenging ways. It is inspiring to note how the world is coming together as one community and innovating solutions to answer the challenges of this ever-changing situation.