How India's edtech ventures are responding to COVID19 to keep the learning going

An effect of the disruptions caused due to COVID-19, the world currently accounts for 1 billion out of school students. One of the most pressing challenges is how to ensure that these students continue to learn over the weeks and months ahead amid widespread school closures. In India alone, with nation-wide school closures, over 320 million students are impacted. Globally, UNESCO reports the number has touched almost 850 million.

Prior to the crisis, all the independent surveys—including the National Achievement Survey (NAS),  indicate dismally poor learning outcomes in India: 46% of grade 8 students cannot read a paragraph of text; 86% of grade 2 students are not able to perform simple subtraction. Often, these weak foundations grow into debilitating gaps. Given the school closures, these gaps will widen and impact even more students without immediate action.

However, innovative, cost effective and easy-to-adopt remote learning solutions could help bridge this gap in the coming day. Through this article, we take you through such innovators and their EdTech products with specific focus on how they can address the issue of continual and seamless education during such periods of global disruptions, making sure that learning doesn't take a setback for the students staying at home.

ConveGenius

“We don’t want any child to be left behind. Looking at the likely situation in the year ahead of us, how we respond as leaders, educators, administrators and policy makers will shape the future of education. It will have to be conceptualized very differently from what it is now.  The faith in phygital education delivery models is increasing and I strongly believe it should lead to better learning outcomes.”Shashank Pandey,Co-founder and President, ConveGenius.

ConveGenius, a leading EdTech social enterprise that has opened up its platform for students to continue their learning. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted platform has nudged and enhanced education for more than 5 lakh students in 16 states of India. It is known to provide full-fledged, facilitator-led, digital learning giving the same warm and familiar feeling of classroom learning.

Their technology gives the much required hand-holding to a student by the continuous presence of the teacher in the whole learning journey. Students can ask doubts to the teacher by raising a hand online, just like the classroom, and also through the audio-video text chats on the app. The teachers get to address the common queries of students over live or pre-recorded sessions which can be broadcasted to thousands of students at the same time. The platform also involves the parents in their child’s learning process by notifying them of the progress made and of any important updates of the virtual classroom.  

Link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cgslate.app.b2bNew

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is an educational nonprofit with free, interactive instructional learning materials and tools for math and science for K-12. They offer free lessons in math and sciences, aligned with India standards and in multiple languages including English, Hinglish, Hindi, Kannada, and Gujarati. We offer free tools for teachers and parents to track student progress. 

Their teams continue to test and invest in systems to ensure they can handle drastically increased usage without compromising  the reliability and functionality of the app. Today, remote learning options are important  and call for a  scaled-up, pedagogically sound and teacher tools enabled model. 

They’ve created a “one-stop shop” page where all new resources for parents and teachers are gathered into one place. They have also hosted a series of webinars for both teachers and parents to help launch remote learning for their students, curated daily livestreams on Facebook and YouTube with Khan Academy founder and CEO, Salman Khan, to help students and parents feel connected, informed, and empowered. Salman has been joined by special guests who focus on topics such as mental health and best practices for remote learning.

They have also collaborated with NCERT to put Khan Academy resources on the Diksha Portal (diksha.gov.in). This platform was created by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development to facilitate their teachers’ to have access to digital tools.

Learn more: https://youtu.be/2B1EAhgAvPs

iDream Education

On 29th March, iDream Education launched the iDream Learning App, a free app that offers in-home digital learning to students for all subjects and all classes from 1st to 12th. The app serves both the English medium students of private schools as well as caters to government school students learning in native languages (hindi, marathi, gujarati, tamil, telugu, kannada and bengali)in alignment with the respective state education boards. 

On the launch, Puneet Goyal Director at iDream Education shared, “ We have been working exclusively on ICT and digital education for government schools for the past few years with a vision to empower and handhold our rural students with digital learning for skills and growth. Therefore as soon as the lockdown was enforced by the Coronavirus Pandemic, we started working on the iDream Learning App to ensure that best of digital learning content can reach every student in our rural households in these times. An easy to use, free mobile app, which the local language students and their parents can use to access digital content in their mother tongue and as per their state boards.”

Along with local languages, iDream Education has also made available digital content in English medium for CBSE students and announced that the app shall be free for English medium students during the lockdown  due to  COVID-19 pandemic. CBSE digital content for 1st to 12th classes and all subjects shall be a great value addition for students to continue learning at home. 

To know more, visit the app’s website page https://www.idreameducation.org/learningapp or write to them on share@idreameducation.org 

Here’s the link to the app:: http://bit.ly/2vTVrhd or you can visit the Google Play Store and search for “iDream Learning App”. 

TagHive

"There are a lot of resources available to students to study at home. However, most of these resources are videos and chapter files. There is no dedicated assessment application to assess students’ learning levels. Class Saathi seeks to fill that gap. Class Saathi is an AI-powered personalized question bank that helps students in their formative assessment on a regular basis. Students can assess their learning levels on Class Saathi on a daily basis and can watch videos of skills/chapters on which they need more help. That way, students can save time and put effort in areas that need more attention. Also, Class Saathi is completely FREE.” 

Pankaj Agarwal, Founder & CEO, TagHive Inc. 

TagHive is an AI Powered Quiz Platform to review, assess and engage class 6-10 students at school and home. Initiatives during the pandemic by TagHive include -

1.  No limitation on their Class Saathi app: They have removed the restrictions on their app, allowing students from grades 6- 10 have unlimited access to their question bank. 
2.  Certification: Students can earn an open badge certification once they reach a certain practice level.
3.  21-days challenge: Keeping with the lockdown, they are currently running a quiz challenge on the app for all grades with a cash prize for students based on the number of questions solved and an average score earned.  

To try your hands on the Class Saathi app, you can download the same here. 

Tamarind Tree

Tamarind Tree is offering free and open online courses to children in the age group of 6 to 14 years – guided by but not limited to the curriculum. With their multilingual live classes they keep their vision of a school without walls alive for millions of children, in these difficult times. They are also signing up volunteer teachers to lead classes of their choice. 

Tamarind Tree is part of the global Open Education movement that believes that learning is a right, not a privilege. 

Watch the introductory video here

Courses are conducted on a feature rich learning management system at mybigcampus.in along with live interactive video class.

WhizJunior

"We at WhizJuniors, have pledged to achieve our mission to create life-changing tech experiences that embolden students to shape the future,revolutionizing the world digitally! In this current state of pandemic, the DNA of consumers is changing. The pace at which skills are evolving, and the frequency of the evolution of skills at a higher level, means that there are imperatives that will be needed in India to fulfill the demand. The challenge is how quickly we can meet the skills gap through scaling interventions, and that’s what we at WhizJuniors are addressing. For us, users and engagement has gone up by 800% where school principals have instructed their students to complete certifications of the tech courses which will be counted in their Computer Science exams. Online education is the future of education!" shares Vidushi Daga, Founder & CEO, Clone Futura Education Pvt Ltd.

With over 10 years of experience and a track record of incredible student outcomes, WhizJuniors is another Edtech intervention to look at for your child’s learning needs. Their technology platform includes unparalleled access to 122+ quality courses, expert educators for live training, and exclusive tools for their long-term success.

They have introduced gamified learning for long-term success. The students work hard and play harder to unlock love of learning and prove mastery, ultimately earning the badge of L10.

Students are certifying from- 20 States, 156 Cities, 2451 Schools with the free WHIZJUNIORS certifications till lockdown. 

Schoolnet

“With the COVID-19 outbreak, the learning lifestyle of millions of students has been affected across the world. We understand that everyday access to quality learning is imperative for the holistic learning of the students. Under the given preventive measures to protect the health and safety of students, we have come forward to provide seamless quality learning for students. With our commitment to democratise education, we ensure learning never stops and that students continue to receive quality education.” 

Shourie Chatterji, Head, Digital Initiatives, Schoolnet India Ltd.

Schoolnet India Limited (Schoolnet), along with its subsidiaries, focuses on the global “demographic dividend” opportunity, with its 3Es agenda (Education, Employability and Employment) through 3 key offerings: 

•  Edtech solutions to K-12 schools for improved teaching-learning-assessment outcomes Technical & Vocational Education & Training (TVET) services for enhancing employability and job-linkages.
•  Providing English language education and skills to enable a global-ready workforce.

Geneo, an interactive digital platform by Schoolnet India Limited, has announced free live classes by Geneo mentors for students of class 6 to 10 on its learning platform. Under the social initiative #LearningNeverStops, Geneo is offering live classes for Maths, Science and English, based on the first term syllabus of the new academic year of CBSE schools and those schools following the NCERT textbooks.

National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT) and EnglishBolo™, a tech-enabled English speaking learning initiative by Schoolnet India Limited and English Helper, have come together and announced a free online Spoken English program.

You can explore them here: https://www.schoolnetindia.com/

Edzam

E-class education system has launched Edzam, a free app that offers digital learning to

students for all subjects and all classes from 1st to 10 th in multiple languages for Maharashtra

State Board. The app serves all the students of private schools, government schools and

covers digital animated videos for all topics as per the textbook. It is as per Balbharati

textbooks and uses less data.

App Link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.techmorphosis.sundaram.eclassonline&hl=en

Promo code: EASYSTUDY

Website : www.e-class.in

We invite the audience to share similar innovations and their stories with us. 

You may write to us at

rakhi@csrbox.org

Check this as well - CSR and Education Projects in India in FY 2019- A Full Report