BlueShift Classroom: live online instruction with embedded analytics

我是石楠里昂，蓝移教育的创始人和所有者。我们通过教授8至18岁的儿童编码和数字技能，使他们成为数字创造者。我们希望鼓励广大学生使用代码和数字技术进行创作，并在此过程中帮助填补日益增长的技能差距。我于2014年创立了BlueShift，重点是通过现场教学激励和吸引学生。公司成立之初，我在厨房的桌子旁教10个孩子。我自己也是一名母亲，拥有用户体验设计，编码和教育背景。自2016年以来，我们已经为我们的俱乐部和营地接受了6000多个预订，并与伦敦的20所学校合作。2020年3月，为应对新冠疫情，我们将所有教学转移到网上。在接下来的六个月里，我们在线教授了840名学生。虽然我们的在线行动证明了在线教学的潜力，但它也暴露了现有工具的一些痛点。年龄较小的学生，特别是7至11岁的学生，往往受到数字扫盲技能的限制，并且难以在编码环境和视频会议工具以及访问学习材料之间进行平衡。另一方面，辅导老师在课堂教学中往往没有常规的物理提示，因此有时会缺乏获得最佳学习效果所需的反馈。为了回应我们从学生、家长和教师那里收集的1500多条反馈，我们构建了BlueShift Classroom的原型和概念验证。此工具使用基于浏览器的扩展进行实时会话，以便学生不再需要在多个窗口和应用程序之间切换。教师仪表板提供了学生参与和活动的视图，帮助教师提供更好的结果。我们希望利用该奖项的财务部分为BlueShift Classroom建立MVP。该奖项的非财务部分将是至关重要的，以帮助我们扩大我们的整体在线提供和接触更多的学生，以及帮助我提升技能和更有效地领导。BlueShift Classroom的建议是基于研究的，与目前市场上可用的工具不同。

I am Heather Lyons, the founder and owner of BlueShift Education. We empower children aged 8 to 18 to be digital creators by teaching them coding and digital skills. We want to encourage a wide range of students to create with code and digital tech, and in the process, help fill the growing skills gap.I started BlueShift in 2014 with an emphasis on motivating and engaging students through live instruction. The company was started with me teaching 10 children around my kitchen table. I am a mother myself and have a background in UX design, coding and education.We have taken over 6000 bookings for our clubs and camps since 2016 and work with 20 schools across London. In March 2020, as a response to COVID, we moved all of our teaching online. In the following six months we taught 840 students online.Whilst our move online proved the potential of online instruction, it also exposed a number of pain points with respect to existing tools. Younger students, aged 7 to 11 specifically, were often limited by digital literacy skills and struggled to juggle between a coding environment and a video conferencing tool as well as access learning materials. Tutors, on the other hand, teaching without the usual physical cues of a classroom, at times, lacked the feedback they needed to achieve the best learning outcomes.In response to 1500+ pieces of feedback we've gathered from students, parents and teachers, we have built a prototype and proof of concept for BlueShift Classroom. This tool uses a browser-based extension for live sessions so that students no longer have to juggle between multiple windows and applications. The teacher dashboard provides a view into student engagement and activity, helping teachers to deliver better outcomes.We hope to use the financial part of the award to build an MVP for BlueShift Classroom. The non-financial portion of the award will be vital to helping us scale up our overall online offer and reach more students, as well as helping me to upskill and lead more effectively. The proposal for BlueShift Classroom is research-based and unlike tools currently available on the market.