These learning tools are shaping the online school

“Coursera is basically a platform for online teaching, not online learning,” says Columbia University professor Paulo Blikstein, who learns new educational technologies. “I’m amazed that there are so many features that don’t exist even after many years.”

Software like Class addresses these missing features by integrating learning and teaching tools into Zoom. The software is aimed at K-12 students, although it can also be used for higher education and corporate training. At the beginning of the year, the company announced $ 30 million in Series A funding To increase marketing on multiple platforms and to communicate the software to 7,500 educational institutions that have expressed interest in purchasing it.

Michael Chasen, the CEO of the class (former CEO of Blackboard, another company that manages educational technology learning), consulted with education professionals at all levels and on all topics to develop the software. “Their needs seemed pretty universal,” he says, via an online demo. With multiple tools, the Class repeats more of the teaching methods you can find in a personal classroom.

Perhaps the first and most prominent is the Podium View. Instead of being buried in a gallery view, the class teacher is placed on a podium next to the class. For younger students like my daughter, who find themselves overwhelmed when speaking in front of a large group of people, the teacher has asymmetrical control over the view; they can silence all students, turn on the “privacy” view, other students can’t see everyone else making funny faces, and embedding external content into lessons. All of this makes it easier for parents to “leave” their youngest children on the computer.

For older students, in addition to tools such as teacher-only attendance, student literacy in the gallery view, and different ways to analyze data, the teacher can set students aside for one-on-one interactions in student organizing classrooms. small group discussions, and insert click quizzes into the lecture.

Here are some similar features Engage, another online learning platform that funded about $ 15 million last year. Founder and CEO Dan Avida’s platform is intended for college educators rather than the K-12, but it has many similar features such as asymmetric control.

Engageli says it relieves the teacher’s dozens of pain points. For example, course teachers are able to control students from multiple screens, which makes it much easier to organize a large class. Students can download notes and screenshots directly from Engageli and collaborative Google documents. And instead of using eye tracking software or other potential access to student privacy, an engagement meter can self-report to students anonymously.

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