Rationale
Part of my role within my organization (a private asynchronous online high school in Ontario) is to act as an Educational Venture Analyst (EVA). I research educational technology tools and services, present them to the the senior leadership team, and implement them (if approved). In late 2020, I sought out an online tutoring/student support solution for our school and ultimately landed on Skooli. We implemented it shortly after (January 2021) and currently have around 4000 students using it. Thus, I chose to analyze Skooli because it is a tool that I am familiar with from an EVA perspective. More importantly, we are in the early stages of using this service and are still monitoring it closely to see if it is meeting our needs and objectives. This analyst report will help bring some clarity to this as well as provide insight for other those in the education field who may be considering an investment into such a service.
E-learning has been a powerful force that has grown at a rapid rate in recent years. In Ontario, we noted 90+ new private online schools emerging into the market in the last 5 years. Governments are also encouraging universities and schools to offer online learning sessions. For instance, Ontario’s Ministry of Education rolled out an educational plan in July 2019 which mandated pursuing four online courses for high school students to graduate (Next Generation Technologies, 2021). This, no doubt, has contributed to the number of new online schools in the province. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the mass adoption of e-learning and solidified its importance in the current educational landscape.
With e-learning came many challenges, particularly in asynchronous courses where students work somewhat independently and at their own pace. This issue was known to those already in the industry, however, the move to emergency remote learning due to COVID-19 for the majority of the population really brought these concerns to the forefront.
In many parts of the world, the idea of "learning loss" became a prominent concern. Essentially, people began to become really concerned with the loss of knowledge and skills that students experience as a result of not being in school. With students out of the physical classroom, but still learning online, there was concern that students simply were not getting enough out of it. This could be due to a variety of factors, such as students not being motivated to log into their online course, teachers unprepared to deliver content in this manner, lack of the appropriate educational technology tools to deliver content effectively, and many more. In an attempt to blunt the pandemic's impact, the American Rescue Plan Act provided U.S. schools with $122 billion, wherein at least 20% of which had to be set aside to address learning loss (Bloomberg, 2021).
Case Study: tvo Mathify
The Ministry of Education in Ontario invested significant funds into providing their students with on-demand teacher support in Mathematics. Skooli was the platform of choice for this project.
Students in the modern era are accustomed to on-demand services, whether these be for entertainment or educational purposes. With the threat of learning loss due to COVID-19, the concerns about e-learning itself, and the fact that students will always be looking for additional support (even in traditional learning settings), online tutoring services have an excellent opportunity to fill these gaps and alleviate many of the concerns plaguing students, parents, and educators.