On the Positive Side of the Crisis. Scaling Education Nation

Within a few days, 99math has developed a new version of their product that supports distance learning. While previously the 99math application was designed to be used for solving math problems in the classroom, then the new version allows the teacher to give children tasks to solve at home. At the same time, the task remains social. Children will be able to compare the results, which serves as motivation to improve their performance.

This week, a real-time online math game will take place. In a situation, where physical contact between people is minimized, such "virtual encounters" are essential. “We've done real-time math tournaments online before and we have good experience with that. But these were very large events that require a lot of work to organise. Now we are customizing this product to bring together children who are at home for weeks and have little social contact and fun, several times a week. They all get online and have their classmates and schoolmates there and children from other schools and they all play math games against each other,” Kusmin said.

The game is international and can be played in Estonian and in English, games will be held both in European and US time zones. It is very easy to play the game and people with even very little knowledge of English can participate.

Clanbeat, a provider of personalised growth support tool, has also responded promptly to the situation and, seeing a big need for it, has opened its virtual teachers’ room to schools. On Clanbeat platform, teachers can share best practices with each other and school authorities can share information with teachers on the current situation. According to Kadri Tuisk, founder and CEO of Clanbeat, over 200 schools have already registered, of which more than 100 are from other countries, and the numbers are growing fast. Clanbeat is working with the public sector to tailor the product to the needs of schools. The necessary initial changes to adapt the product to the situation were introduced within half a day, and within a couple of weeks they hope to get the platform ready for teacher-student communication as well.

According to Kusmin, Estonia is well adapted to the use of e-services, also in the education sector. While Estonia was already considered a strong e-state five years ago, it didn’t really show yet in education. Everybody had a mobile phone, but it was not common to use digital devices for classroom activities, with a few innovative schools as exceptions.

“Today, the infrastructure has been significantly improved, and digital solutions are being used extensively. Teachers are accustomed to digital solutions in education, so in the current situation where the world needs to very quickly adapt to using e-services in education, Estonia is well ahead not only in the private sector but also in the public sector the teachers have some very useful experiences that we could share with the world. "What the others are just starting to learn, we already know," Kusmin said.