School closures not a holiday: Access the SMART Learning Suite Online for free
“The closure of schools should motivate communities to develop a stronger home schooling
guide to assist parents to step in as interim teachers”, Gauteng education MEC Panyaza
Lesufi said in a tweet, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address at the Union Buildings
on Sunday evening. Lesufi advised that school closures were an opportunity and not a
holiday for kids.
All schools in South Africa closed their doors last week, and parents who may need to work
and juggle childcare, will have to fill the gap. While no-one expects them to replicate school,
there is plenty of online help to stave off boredom.
With national lockdown, it is imperative that schools, TVETs, universities, training
companies and learning and development teams have a distance learning solution in place.
SMART Learning Suite Online, is one such platform to help you through this tough time at no
cost.
According to the United Nations, school closures to contain the spread of Covid-19 are
disrupting the education of over 290 million students globally, “a figure without precedent.”
That has left millions of teachers, administrators, and students at the mercy of online
learning, much of which is unfamiliar, and untested at such scale.
SMART Learning Suite Online enables students to connect remotely to live lessons delivered
by teachers and engage in real-time with lesson activities. For more than just participation –
true virtual collaboration. Access the suite anytime, anywhere – even at home. Students can
access and contribute from any web-enabled computer, tablet or phone.
Collaborative Workspace activities empower students to work together from home on a
shared digital canvas to co-create, add content and problem solve. Shout It Out activities
enable students to send text and images from their devices to a lesson. Teachers can then
rearrange, organize, and discuss contributions.
Shout It Out activities enable students to send text and images from their devices to a
lesson. Teachers can then rearrange, organize, and discuss contributions.
- interactive, flexible lesson delivery
- collaborative workspaces
- game-based activities
- formative assessments
- integrations with familiar workflows including Google and Microsoft
SMART is also providing opportunities for our education community to continue the
learning through:
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- Webinars & Tutorials
- Distance Learning Resources
- Parent Resources
So there’s no need to scramble to pull together brand-new content – existing lessons can be
shared and optimized directly from Google drive. It’s easy to transform existing lessons into
engaging interactive activities that students can participate in from anywhere, on any
device.
This is a time to put new ways of learning to the test, and online is the way forward. Please
sign up for full access to SMART Learning Suite here at no cost.
