Corona Specials: How is the Corona Virus Impacting Education around the Globe

At the beginning of ~~this~~ last week (March 16th to be exact), it became obvious to me here in Munich, Germany, that the Corona Virus will severely impact our lives. While I was working from home already for more than a week, suddenly the schools closed and our three kids were also at home.

I reached out to my existing network of interviewees and asked them if they would be able to describe the current situation where they live and how it impacts their lives. I am also interested in finding out how parents, teachers and of course our kids deal with this situation and what great ideas they came up with to deal with the situation.

If you would like to describe your current situation in your country, please have a look at this PDF with the questions and some information about this initiative. You can easily record 3-5 minutes using this voice recording tool online. Once you’re done, just send the downloaded mp3 file to [email protected].

These short special episodes are recorded directly by former interviewees and everybody who has something to share. I will keep artwork and editing to a minimum to get these out as quickly as possible. I hope that many will find these snippets interesting and will find a helpful resource and tipps during these challenging times! Let’s turn this into a big lesson learnt!

April 8, 2020, Odense, Denmark

Corona Virus: Rikke Paaskesen about their free KUBO webinars and recommendations for tinkering at home. Links: KUBO Webinar about Coding++, KUBO Home Learning Resources, Full Episode with Rikke abut KUBO Robotics.

March 29, 2020, Yale, Connecticut, USA

Corona Virus: The SpinWearables team about virtual teamwork and labs, their Kickstarter SpinWheel and a free online event for parents. Links: SpinWearbles, The SpinWheel Kickstarter, virtual parent and educator workshop (Update: now available)

March 24, 2020, York, UK

Corona Virus: Pen Holland about her current situation, how workshops turned virtual and what we can teach our children in these times: BE KIND. Links: Pieter the Seed Eater Podcast Epsiode and Project Page, MyLearning.org, STEM resources for home learning

March 22, 2020, Boston, MA, USA

Corona Virus: Solomon Menashi about distance learning with the new online materials for BlocksCAD from Boston, MA, USA. Links: BlocksCAD, Parents Guide, Distance Learning, Full Episode with Solomon Menashi about BlocksCAD

March 21, 2020, Austin, TX, USA

Corona Virus: Brandon Satrom with great tips all parents who are suddenly home-schooling their kids from Austin, Texas, USA. Links: CarrotPantsStudios and full episode with Brandon Satrom

March 20, 2020, Singapore

Corona Virus: Pranati Bagchi describes the school situation in Singapore, the impact on her educational business and video-conferencing tools for online classes. | Links: The Lavender Spaceship Project, Zoom Meetings, code.org, Scratch coding

March 19, 2020 – Barcelona, Spain

Corona Virus: Marc Pous about conductive dough and training teachers on the BBC micro:bit from Barcelona, Spain. Links: Conductive Dough – Squishy Circuits, BBC micro:bit, Scratch

March 19, 2020 – Munich, Germany

Corona Virus Special: Sven Haiges about the use of video-conferencing and maintaining a proper schedule from Munich, Germany. Links: Jitsi Conferencing, Google Hangouts and Classroom

March 18, 2020 – London, UK

Corona Virus Special: Giles Booth about remote teaching with the BBC micro:bit classroom and the situation in London, UK. Links: Remote Teaching | micro:bit classroom.