Google India introduces 'YouTube Learning Destination' to learn and teach from home

India, with more than 1.5 million schools and more than 260 million enrollments, is home to one of the largest and complex school education systems in the world. Teachers and educators have had to quickly adjust to meet the reality of students being unable to physically attend classes in view of the COVID19 lockdown while families across the country find themselves at home, with parents needing to balance their work with the learning needs of their children.

To help parents, students, educators find useful and high quality learning content created by education-focused creators on YouTube, Google has launched the YouTube Learning Destination.

The YouTube Learning Destination is accessible on mobile as well as desktop from the Explore tab, read a statement from the IT giant.

The facility contains resources spanning the full breadth of learning needs, from curriculum-relevant topics in physics, math, and biology, such as Permutations and Combinations, Why does Salt make food taste better?, How does a plastic comb attract paper?, and Taxonomy to study hacks (How to make smart notes), language skills (How to change basic English into business English) and interest-based content like photography, yoga and more.

“So whether you're studying for a test, want to learn a new skill, or are just curious about the world, the YouTube Learning Destination is a handy resource to supplement curriculum learning for students or general skill building,” the statement said.

The YouTube Learning Destination currently features content in English and Hindi, with Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and other Indian languages coming soon.

To help ease the transition to remote learning during this situation, Google has also rolled out free access to the premium features of Google Meet, to extend enterprise-grade video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers, globally, until September 2020, which enables upto 250 participants in a single video conference.

In India, Google has collaborated with FICCI Arise and have so far trained 250 plus schools across 23 states in the use of these tools.

This, according to the statement, ensures the teachers, students and customers can stay connected and work remotely.

To enable teachers and educators to get the support they need to begin teaching remotely, Google has provided training and tips through the Teach from Home hub, which is also available in Hindi.

This resource consists of numerous tutorials categorized around topics like setting up and teaching with and without video, keeping students engaged with discussions and virtual whiteboards, staying in touch with other teachers by sharing teaching resources and even making the teaching sessions accessible to children with special needs by implementing voice typing and closed captions.