[marcind]

I'd like to offer an alternative to the surrogate method... Many of the folks on our team have kids and, like so many people worldwide, were greatly disappointed by what happened in early 2020. We watched our kids suffer as this normally human-rich interaction was replaced with powerpoints and tiny talking heads. We decided to offer a solution of our own.

Our team developed https://sharetheboard.com - an app which digitizes handwritten content in real time. The practical application here is that any analog surface/content can be shared simultaneously online, in real time.

For teachers this is valuable for a number of reasons (direct feedback from educators): - it allows them to teach "as they always have" - standing in front of a board or writing on a notebook, etc. - they don't have to learn anything new - they don't have to buy new equipment - they can simultaneously address in-person and remote students (again, without "doing anything new") - they can work (in the same way) from home, when needed

You'll note that many of the above points are of interest to school administrators as well. - No hardware + no learning curve = high adoption. - Mobile/scalable = fast deployment. - Low cost = well, low cost.

For students (direct feedback from students): - the biggest plus is that this is as close to "like in class" as it gets: they get to see their teacher's natural body language, maintain eye contact, see the explanations evolve on a familiar medium (whiteboard, chalkboard, etc.) - they can do more than ask questions: the app facilitates direct interaction with digitized content - they can focus on the lesson: the app allows you to easily save board contents any time

What was meant to be a quick response to a problem is beginning to turn into an actual product. For better or for worse, some form of remote interaction seems to be in the cards (not only in education) for quite some time. Our goal is to help make it a more real/physical experience, despite being shared remotely. Interested in feedback from teachers, parents, and students on this thread.