Critical Links

COVID-19 will change how we educate future generations

Over the past few weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed our lives in ways we never had thought possible. Education is one of the most affected sectors and many schools around the world had been forced to close.
According to a UNESCO report, more than 1.5 billion students are learning from home.
The lockdown has forced schools to quickly come up with solutions how to continue teaching and keep students engaged. The majority have chosen to use technological tools to create content for distance learning.
Students and teachers who were already familiar with technological tools in their classrooms were able to manage the transition to remote teaching and learning relatively efficiently. But for all those who were not, it has been a real challenge – the digital divide has never been so exposed.
This is the opportunity to rethink and revamp the educational sector: what should learning look like for future generations? Is the notion of an educator who imparts wisdom to their students in a classroom still fit for the purpose of a 21st-century education? How can I prepare my school if we have to go through a pandemic again? One thing’s for sure: when we go back to school everything will be different!

Education can be la life-saver and provides safety, protection and hope for a brighter future. Interruptions to education can have long term consequences, especially for the most vulnerable, who are more likely to be exposed to risks like child labour, or family violence. Governments in many countries are aware of this and are funding technological devices to distribute to students with fewer economic resources, and are also looking for e-learning solutions to ensure the interruption to education is as limited as possible.

And when schools reopen? Are they prepared for the new learning reality? Will they have the necessary infrastructure to adapt learning to a 21st century education?

Due to COVID-19 crisis, the majority of schools will likely see declines in revenue and increases in costs – but now is the time to prioritize their students – those who do not prepare now will probably not survive another crisis.

At Critical Links, is our desire to support the educational community in this difficult times with a micro-cloud solution. The C3 Micro-Cloud is a self-contained, cloud-enabled environment that allows the provisioning of content, resources, and management to local students (and teachers) even if they do not always have an upstream connection to the Internet. Content, in the form of texts and other resources, can be centrally curated in the C3 Cloud Control portal by those responsible for curriculum, and distributed to any authorized C3 Micro-Cloud, regardless of where it is, whenever a network link becomes available. In addition, rich added value educational resources, such as those from approved HTTP and HTTPS web sites, can also be included in the school’s local C3 Micro-Cloud repository – again to be available even if the upstream network is down.

With the C3 Micro-Cloud any school can use podcasts, e-books, quizzes and learning games, allowing students access to seek and gather information on their own, under the guidance of their teachers, instead of passively receiving only the hardcopy information available in books. It has been proven that students who can access the internet have an unfair competitive advantage over those who don’t. By adopting this solution in your schools, you are allowing them to have a better opportunity to achieve excellence in education and in their future jobs and, at the same time, you are preparing your school to adapt quickly in a new crisis situation.

This life-changing solution only costs a penny per day per student. This small amount will give your students the chance to receive a 21st century education, where knowledge is a mouse-click away.

Are your students worth $0.01 per day?

Let us show you how can you use this technology in your school to open a world of learning and opportunity to your students!