March 2020

24 March 2020Mark Schwartz, WriQ Product Manager

Game-thinking in the writing classroom

Gamification in education is not a new notion. Nor is it a fly-by-night thought. It’s here to stay and it can certainly deliver some outstanding results. In this blog, I’ll look at the theory behind game thinking and nudge theory in the education sphere and explains how we’re putting the theory into practice with WriQ.

23 March 2020Guest blog: Edufuturists

Supporting remote learning

Online learning is not the next big thing, it is the now big thing. - Donna J. Abernathy

For Edufuturists’ Dan Fitzpatrick, butterflies were bouncing around his stomach as he opened his eyes this morning, a million thoughts of remote learning quickly rushed back into his head and the flood of emails from anxious colleagues made his phone light up the dark room. It’s Monday and it’s the first day of school closures in the UK.

12 March 2020Jason Carroll, Director of Product Management

Coronavirus and Remote Learning

It’s incredibly hard to escape the headlines. We’re hearing about COVID-19 (the Coronavirus) every day now. It’s an issue that has dominated the global news since the start of the year, increasing in intensity over the last week.

UNESCO is reporting that over 370 million students around the world are currently out of school. At the moment, some schools are closing anywhere between two days to two weeks, but health officials in some countries warn they could even close for anything up to two months. In Higher Education, many institutions have moved all of their classes online, anything from one month to the remaining of the semester.

As a result, more and more schools are either planning or implementing their Academic Continuity Plans and looking to remote instruction to help safeguard both students and staff. Teachers are also engaging students in lessons using tools such as YouTube, Google Classroom and Meet, Microsoft Teams and Office tools online - not to mention a range of complimentary tools supporting everything from assessment, feedback and peer-to-peer collaboration.

10 March 2020Louis Shanafelt, EquatIO Product Manager