The coronavirus has taken the world by storm and New York State is not exempt as there are now over 16,000 confirmed cases and over 150 deaths in New York State alone. It’s taken a huge toll on the stock market, businesses, and schools. The governor has issued an executive order to close schools for two weeks and it is anticipated that it will be extended; it could even last the balance of the school year. With this, online learning has come to the forefront of the education industry as schools look to develop plans to support their students and their families. Software providers have taken action to provide platforms for education to continue online for students.
Here are some examples of applications that are available to help educational providers deliver online learning:
1.) Zoom:
CEO Eric Yuan announced that he will give free video conferencing tools for K-12 schools in the US, China, and Italy. Zoom offers free personal meetings that can host up to 100 participants. They allow an unlimited amount of meetings, both in groups and one-to-one. Zoom is easy to use, and a great platform that provides many free features.
2.) Microsoft:
Microsoft is offering its Office 365 service with a six-month free trial. With this, schools can use Microsoft Teams, which allows users to chat, meet, call, and collaborate from anywhere.
3.) McGraw-Hill:
They are providing support for remote learning instruction to K-12 teachers for free. It has several resources and tutorials available for teachers to set up classes online based on their specific needs.
4.) Atlassian:
Atlassian made their collaborative program, Trello Business Class, free to users for an entire year. This is an organized, visual way of unifying several classes into one agenda for both teachers and students.
5.) Loom:
Provides free access to recording and sharing video services for all K-12 schools. They also removed the time limit on recording and slashed their “Pro” service rates in half.
6.) Avid:
Avid is offering free, temporary licensing to its educational customers. From March 16th to April 17th, educators with closed facilities can obtain 90-days of free use for several of the services provided, such as the Media Composer, Ultimate Pro Tools, and Sibelius features.
7.) Follett:
They waived the cost of its Destiny program through June 30th. Follett provides access to 40,000 eBooks, up to 750,000 resources and easy to use tools to recommend books, build comprehensive quizzes, and track material comprehension.
8.) Gale:
Gale has created a resource center for educators to use with a live training medium, curriculum centered material, eBook library, and a current event paper source. It provides updated information to educators on the state of COVID-19 and how its effect is changing each day.
9.) Adobe:
Students and educators can request home access to the Creative Cloud features through May 31st. They are also offering their conferencing service, Adobe Connect, free for 90 days until July 1st.
10.) OneLogin:
Delivers secured virtual classroom experiences to its K-12 teachers. The Trusted Experience Platform is free and has single sign-on, multi-factor authenticity, and certificate authenticity features to ensure its strong security promise.
Albert Borghese, CPA
Manager
Austin Harvey
Staff Accountant
Austin is a staff accountant of Cerini & Associates audit and consulting practice. He works with nonprofit, special education and school district clients. His auditing experience allows him to assist in vital audit functions, such as system testing and analysis, as well as claims audit functions.
