“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 though:
●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.