Distance learning? In front learning? Combining both to ensure continuity in learning.

The health emergency has made visible some cracks in our society. One above all passes through a fundamental sector: education.

During the lockdown, schools of any grade and any type of institution have had to react to the impossibility of continuing their lessons in person.

In just a few days, teachers and students found themselves catapulted into a new didactic approach based on connections, personal computers and videocalls.

Only 14% of teachers say they had the opportunity to use the Distance Learning before the Coronavirus emergency.

If from the outside it can seem like a real godsend, both on the teacher side, which does not require to move to the workplace, both on the student side, who comfortably in pijamas attends his lessons, from the inside the serious damage has begun immediately to become evident.

Lack of appropriates IT devices and poor connections, high rate of abandonment of lessons, difficulties in managing the relevant platforms, completely absent human relationships and consequent difficulties in evaluating the students work.

These and many other factors have tarnished a bit the usefulness of distance learning which, if used properly and supported by the right means, can instead lead to great results.

Distance Learning: some data

At the end of these about four months of experimenting with the Distance Learning, you can pull some sums to try to understand the current state of remote teaching.

92% of schools have activated distance learning, mostly with live lessons on various platforms (85%) and an average duration per lesson between 40 and 60 minutes (69%). But a high percentage of students excluded due to the lack of adequate devices and connections is confirmed, also due to difficult family conditions.

The Censis report “Italy under stress. 2020 transition diary. The school and its excluded“reports that 82% of shool’s headmasters reported differences in terms of technological equipment, connectivity and familiarity of use and only 1% of institutions did not have to provide equipment to families.

For 75% the Distance Learning has therefore widened the learning gap between students based on the availability of IT tools and the technological skills of family members.

And for the little ones? 

If the situation turns out difficult for everyone, it is even more difficult for the age group of the youngest, children aged 3 to 7.

Preschools and primary schools have had to face the emergency period with more difficulty than others due to the unavailability of suitable platforms to ensure continuity in the learning process for the little ones.

We at Sautech Group know this well too. Being parents of small children, we were able to touch the difficulties encountered by our children and by ourselves during the lockdown period.

From the constant need of our presence during the lessons, given that the tools available (Zoom, Skype, Google Classroom, etc.) were designed for a more mature audience, to the boredom resulting from the lack of involvement of the little ones who often could not do anything else than being mere spectators of the lesson.

Not to mention the inability to actively collaborate with their classmates, of whom they could often hear only the voice.

For these reasons, the For Children’s Commission intervened quickly to establish important guidelines to support new, flexible and positive teaching.

Work in progress: our virtual classroom 

In light of what we have experimented with and in the wake of the new didactic orientations, we have decided to get to work to create a new digital platform to support children.

From a problem lived firsthand, an idea is born, an important research project that has the purpose of providing preschools and primaries an intuitive, easy to use and versatile tool.

A tool that can be used during in front learning to integrate and enrich the educational offer of our now “mobile born” children, and which, if necessary, can be transformed into a “virtual classroom”, a platform for LEAD capable of carry the lesson to the children’s home.

Everything with one and only goal: to innovate learning and make it usable at all times, despite whatever.

Our solution’s benefits

The goal of our solution is to focus on interactivity and collaboration between children and teachers, so as to make teaching more stimulating and innovative and, in the case of remote lessons, to enhance that important relational exchange that is so lacking in long-distance relationships.

Our platform therefore takes on a double role: on the one hand it has the purpose of enriching in front learning, on the other hand, it facilitates distance learning in circumstances difficult like the current pandemic or, simply, in those where, for others reasons, it is impossible to attend by the student or by the teacher.

It is a real virtual classroom designed with colors and shapes that convey harmony and fun, able to stimulate the interaction of children by increasing their digital skills!

A tool that allows to promote the development of STEM skills, computational thinking, critical thinking, creativity, communication and digital skills, through an innovative teaching method.

A method that promotes learning through the association of positive emotions with the consequent reduction of the difficulties of concentration and reception that, today, the “mobile born” manifest more and more often.

The child’s central role

Active participation of teachers and parents makes the exchange of ideas and the comparison on teaching fruitful and positive.

From the beginning, we have activated a special collaboration with experts working for almost thirty years in the field of education for the youngest.

The continuous comparison has made possible to develop the platform in such a way as to make it adherent to the needs of teachers, but always respecting the central role of the child.

Not only as technicians but above all as parents, we were able to confront and dissect the problems encountered during the lockdown, so as to find the right solution to obtain an efficient and, above all, highly educational platform.

And then we listened to the children …

Already during a preliminary testing phase, our little protagonists welcomed the new tool positively and suggested important corrections to make our platform more harmonious and fun.

We have observed and listened to them and tried to produce an instrument that was as congenial as possible to their needs.

But we are only at the beginning

Appetite grows with eating. Our virtual classroom is the first step of a real educational project, which involves schools and teachers at 360 °: Sautech Group Academy.

Stay tuned to find out more!

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