Nordic EdTech News #15 : 2020-03-16
Your Week 10 & 11 update from the Nordic & Baltic EdTech ecosystems
The ongoing impact of the Covid-19 virus on global education is obviously the biggest story of the last two weeks and, I suspect, will be for the foreseeable future. The latest UNESCO reports suggest that the infection is keeping 1 in 5 learners globally out of school (Link, Link) with borders and schools shut across the Nordics and Baltics.
I’ve found it impossible to include all of the work individual businesses are doing, but will tweet as many as possible from here. I wanted instead to highlight the amazing work being conducted at lightning speed across our ecosystem by formal/informal associations/groups. I do also want to draw readers’ attention to Geir Sand Nilsen, who launched ‘Korona-dugnad for digitale lærere’, a Facebook group for teachers on 11 March and which now has nearly 48,000 members. Just fantastic! (Nor, Eng)
Denmark - EdTech Denmark have pulled together over 50 EdTech businesses and other supporting firms to support education at edtechdonor.dk .
Estonia - There’s already a comprehensive list of EdTech businesses offering their products and services for schools to use here.
Finland - Watch out for further news on this later today (16/03) but in the meantime, there’s good lists of available resources here, here and here.
Latvia - The Ministry of Education has provided detailed advice for schools and a comprehensive list of support available. (Lat, Eng)
Norway - Oslo Municipality have prepared a list of useful EdTech resources (Nor, Eng) and there’s further information available here and here. (Links in Norwegian)
Sweden - The Swedish EdTech Industry have worked brilliantly with their members to coordinate national efforts in support of educators and learners. (Link)
In other times, the launch of Sparkmind.vc, “the first Nordic venture capital company focused on the learning sector” would have dominated this newsletter. As Sari Hurme-Mehtälä, CEO and Co-founder of Kide Science put it on Twitter:
This is awesome! Nordic and Baltic region has lacked a sector focused venture investor, not anymore! First education focused venture capital fund with €40M is a huge help to really make an impact.
Congratulations to all involved and particularly to the team at Fuzu, who have received the fund’s first investment. (Link)
As always, please reply to this email with any comments. Do also let me know if you’re supporting education in any way in these challenging and difficult times.
Stay healthy and with best regards, Jonathan
News from Denmark
Alinea acquires EduLab (Den, Eng) and sets up sofaskolen.dk. (Den, Eng)
Problems for Aula as users flood onto the system (Den, Eng) and as municipalities identify additional data leaks. (Den, Eng)
CanopyLab host new 2030 NOW, a UN SDG programme on their platform. (Link)
Eduflow publish helpful guide supporting institutions on how to pivot to online-first teaching model. (Link)
Students build a LEGO robot to encourage hand-washing (Link) as global sales rise. (Link)
KUBO Robotics argue the case for teaching computing (Link) and announce launch of new Coding++ TagTiles. (Link)
Significant updates to the Labster platform (Link) as they launch new Nucleophilic Addition simulation. (Link)
News from Estonia
Eliis receive certification from Education Alliance Finland. (Link)
Innovative projects to develop digital learning resources receive Innove funding. (Est, Eng)
Prototron brings entrepreneurship to Estonian schools. (Link)
Tallinn University on how Estonians are building the school of tomorrow. (Link)
News from Finland
Code School Finland announce agreement to support after-school education in China. (Link)
Four Ferries announce launch of new eMath Checker. (Link)
Freeed and Kide Science are in the eEemeli 2020 final. (Link)
Funzi graduate from Facebook’s LDN_LAB Accelerator (Link) and announce agreements with FB (Link) and Pearson (Link)
HEI Schools promote their first school in the Americas (Link) and celebrate the importance of Nordic know-how. (Link)
HundrED and Supercell support Visual Arts in education. (Link)
Kide Science launch new partnership with the City of Helsinki (Finnish) and with Finland’s largest chain of kindergartens. (Finnish)
School Day announce their Microsoft Teams integration. (Link)
News from Iceland
As expected, the Icelandic teacher community are supporting each other brilliantly through school closures via #menntaspjall.
Mussila and BuddyPhones announce new partnership. (Link)
How Kara Connect’s technology is supporting delivery of remote healthcare and eduation services. (Ice, Eng)
News from Latvia
Edurio provide Covid-19 survey tools to support parental engagement. (Link)
New “Kodē vai arī nē” coding workshops proposed from secondary schools. (Lat)
Great update on recent developments on the soma.lv platform. (Latvian)
Lots of support for teachers and parents from Uzdevumi. (Lat, Eng)
Zvaigzne makes their Māconis platform available to schools. (Lat, Eng)
News from Lithuania
BitDegree identified as Global Champion at the World Summit Awards 2020 in the Learning & Education category (Link) and announce February updates. (Link)
Qoorio announce as Startup of the Week by Startup Lithuania. (Link)
Solfeg.io produce online music teaching resources to help schools. (Link)
News from Norway
Aschehoug support Lær Kidsa Koding and the super:bit programme. (Nor, Eng)
Children's Minister Kjell Ingolf Ropstad thinks children spend too much time on screens. (Nor, Eng)
Challenges ahead as schools switch to digital teaching (Nor, Eng) including teachers’ digital skills according to IKT Norge. (Nor, Eng)
Some initial difficulties as Norwegian schools go online (Nor, Eng) as Noroff School of Technology and Digital Media shares their approach. (Nor, Eng)
Norway’s fifty top women in technology were announced last week. (Nor, Eng)
News from Sweden
New research shows that IT problems affect many lessons, which will be a huge concern if schools are closed this week. (Swe, Eng)
Update on progress at Kognity (Swe, Eng) as they launch a Webinar Series to help teachers move to online teaching methods. 17 - 20 March. Sign up here.
Liber and Matteappen announce new partnership. (Swe, Eng)
Skolon announces new collaboration with Lexplore. (Swe, Eng)
Sweden spends the least of all Nordic countries on educational resources. (Swe, Eng)
Positive feedback from Uppsala on Swedish Edtest. (Swe, Eng)
Swedish EdTech Industry announce new ethical and market guidelines. (Swe, Eng)
Thanks for reading and see you again on 30th March!
Many thanks, Jonathan
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