There is an interesting new start-up in-the-making that aims to help students with online learning problems, which has become a central issue due to the coronavirus lockdown and other restrictions. The program is prepared by three young Hungarians. It mainly focuses on students of British Higher Education and it is planned to be available in the second half of September. They are using a crowdfunding page called ‘Seedrs’ to help their business grow after being officially released onto the market.
Prepaired is working to bring back the social aspect of learning – while most students were forced to participate in classes online, the opportunities for asking questions or engaging creatively in seminars were lost. Students can pose ‘study requests’ when they have difficulties with certain materials. They need to first identify the subject and the question, then wait until other users who are more experienced in the material volunteer to help them. So, it’s a program with a mixture of lecture-based and peer-to-peer learning possibilities.
Most universities in England have announced a hybrid model for the first part of the academic year, with lectures delivered online and seminars/other small group activities happening in-person on campus. Prepaired is following this pattern and fits right into it.
The founders have been working together for four years now. They had another project which prepared Hungarian high-school students for their final exams. Now they are crowdfunding their new idea through ‘Seedrs’ to help make higher education online more efficient. The founding programme still has 21 days left, and they have collected 82 percent of their final goal, which equals to £41,203, received by 56 investors.
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