Students, their parents and educators are feeling the extraordinary ripple effect of the novel coronavirus as schools shut down and quarantine methods are ordered amidst the public health emergency. In this series, we want to share best practices from our community and how our educators and innovators are managing school shutdowns, distance learning and more.
Kahoot! a game-based learning platform that allows educators to create fun learning games in minutes has offered free access to their Kahoot! Premium platform to support teachers and students whose schools are affected by COVID-19 outbreak.
Kerstyn Comley from MeeTwo shares that there has been a lot of positive conversations and community support provided on the topic of COVID19 in the past few weeks. The MeeTwo app allows young people to post their problems, share solutions, access educational resources and receive expert help.
It is extraordinary to see how education innovators are opening multiple online opportunities for students, teachers, and parents to access learning and wellbeing in this uncertain time. Here are a few more examples in our innovator's voice:
Paul Seedhouse, Linguacuisine, UK - Children at home learning languages, cooking and eating!
In North-East England, some schools are closed, if staff or students have caught the virus, and we assume that other schools will be closed soon. Many people have bought large supplies of food to store at home. Everybody is asking for educational activities to keep children occupied during lockdown.
Strangely enough, we just realised we have developed an educational app that works even better when children are stuck at home in lockdown, missing school and with large supplies of food!
The free Linguacuisine app helps you learn a foreign language while you’re cooking a meal with a friend or relative. Choose a tasty recipe, then your own smartphone or tablet will speak to you in the foreign language in your own kitchen and talk you both through all of the stages of cooking the recipe. It will give you photos and audios of all of the ingredients and equipment you need to collect and then play you videos explaining the cooking processes. So not only can you carry on learning at home, but you can cook a meal and feed your family and friends at the same time using all those food supplies! Children can also record themselves with a tablet in their own kitchen at home making their own favourite recipe in their own language and upload it to the Linguacuisine system so others around the world can make their recipe. So that makes a project to keep them busy and develop their digital skills.
This is also a good way of keeping international communication and understanding going in difficult times when we can’t travel. So we are contacting educators and parents around the world and we are also planning a live-streaming event in which people will be cooking food from around the world!
To read more about Linguacuisine for school children, click here! You can also join their live stream on Facebook. Example: Making Tiramisu together!
Chris Williams, Chatta, UK - Creative Learning for Children aged 3 to 11
As schools close in the UK and parents are scrambling for creative learning resources for their young children, Chatta has opened a Chatta Club to support families with children aged 3 to 11. Chatta is providing their free software and daily activities to families only during the pandemic, for no costs attached.
Chatta is a simple and powerful pedagogical approach, which links experiences and subject content with language and memory and leads to rapid progress for pupils of all ages. The impact is strong, sustained and frequently staggering. Chatta's research study conducted in 2015, noted an improvement in language development, communication, and speech & language skills. Chatta is the perfect way to maximize the impact of SEND interventions as any activities carried out in the setting can be easily replicated in the home, increasing the impact and ensuring progress.
Families who register will receive:
- Creative activities for children to complete every day.
- Chatta software password access.
- Help and support to get started.
Find more information and registration form here!
HundrED Ambassadors & Innovators, Link Online Learners, Global - Virtual Meetups for Sharing & Learning
Link Online Learners is a community project run by HundrED ambassadors & innovators and we have come together to breakdown international barriers and support children in isolation worldwide. Our core team comprises of HundrED innovators Alex Bell from XtalksWorldListens (UK & Malawi), Jeff Holte from Liger Leadership Academy (Cambodia), Lene Jensby Lange from Learning Space Design Lab by Autens (Denmark), Lisa Kremar Gottfried from Global Create-a-thon at New Technology High School (USA), Ambassador Hector Grimaldo, and Youth Ambassador Marigold Ahonen, along with friends from around the world. We have just finished our first pilot run, 4 Zoom calls with 25-35 students in each call, and are now working to engage students from more communities around the world.
Responding to the global pandemic crisis and families & children isolated from their friends as well as learning opportunities, Link Online Learners is an invitation to students across the Globe to meet up regularly on Zoom to share and experience the world through each other's eyes, building a community of global citizens. Through the calls, we hope to:
- Connect students to students from around the world via video conferencing
- Fight isolation and loneliness
- Share Cultures, differences, and shared experiences
- Create a student network of globally collaborative problem solvers
Students from Vietnam, Finland, Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, Britain, Cambodia, Spain and Denmark have already joined this initiative and if you are interested in joining our core team of facilitators or attend the next pilot calls, contact us here!
We thank our innovations like Linguacuisine, Chatta Club, Link Online Learners for offering support and resources in this time of need. For more articles, innovations & resources, head to our Coronavirus Toolkit especially designed to support educators & parents during this COVID-19 outbreak.
