A catch up with Darya Yegorina the Co-Founder of CleverBooks

CleverBooks, is an Irish-based company, leading digital transformation in education industry changing the way we educate kids at school globally. Back in 2017, I interviewed Darya Yegorina the Co-Founder of CleverBooks for one of my podcasts. Three years later I catch up with Dara to see how she and CleverBooks have gotten on since we last spoke.

Two years ago the Education Minister Richard Bruton announced that schools would share €30m grants for digital teaching equipment. How has that worked out?

Digital teaching equipment fund is a broad area. It looks like the first cycle of digital technology adoption in Ireland falls mainly on necessary hardware equipment which can help to run software platforms and applications. Augmented Reality falls in the areas of innovating and emerging technology that has not gained a lot of attention in Ireland yet. In 2019 CleverBooks has conducted several Augmented Reality showcase workshops at Festival of Knowledge in Dublin Institute of technology for primary students. There was a lot of excitement and interest among the participants. There is definitely a potential and room for growth for Augmented Reality technology adoption in Ireland.

Has Augmented Reality become an integral part of digital teaching in Irish school?

Augmented Reality is getting more popular around the world. It shows steady growth in the education sector around the world (stats: https://financesonline.com/augmented-reality-statistics/). Some countries adopt it faster and some countries need more time to follow the innovation. CleverBooks is well represented in the USA and gaining traction in Arabic speaking countries. Irish schools do have interest in Augmented Reality solutions however the adaptation of this technology is slow.

Has COVID-19 had much of an impact on CleverBooks ?

COVID-19 has opened tremendous opportunities for our company as digital learning suddenly became a new norm. CleverBooks has provided digital samples and opened doors to emerging technology for many remote classrooms. A lot of social media mentions can be found about the use of CleverBooks during lockdown times.

Additionally, we have used the opportunity to test-drive our new educational platform in a real remote environment. The goal of the Augmented Classroom by CleverBooks embraces digital citizenship concepts and supports consuming, creating and collaborating within Augmented Reality. Stay tuned for the big announcement!

With COVID-19 forcing schools to change the way they teach what problems have you noticed that they have had to face?

The challenges that digital transformation has brought to education is massive. Nobody expected such a sudden lockdown and not all the schools were 100% ready. It was interesting to figure out the major areas of struggle:

• Follow curricula
• Keep motivation up
• Address wellbeing and mental health
• Stay connected and collaborate

Darya conducted two-panel discussions on this topic at the event arranged by our partners EdTech4Future – https://edtech4future.com

Panel 1

Panel 2 –

Furthermore, Inna moderated a discussion with educators, as a part of AR Challenge that EdTech4Future arranged, to talk about the changing role of immersive technologies like AR in the current circumstances:

Bonus:

CleverBooks has been mentioned in connection to SpaceX launch! CleverBooks has an engineering and space solution for K12 that helps to learn about space, build own spaceship and launch it on a mission to space all in Augmented Reality and free.

More here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stemceo_ar-stem-augmentedreality-activity-6673356739728969729-8Gdi and https://gamuteducation.com/2018/08/27/gamut-education-partners-with-cleverbooks/

Have you noticed a growth in the usage of your products since COVID-19?

CleverBooks products are used globally for both traditional school education and also homeschooling. It has been noticed an increasing number of parents who are using resources now to engage students in learning.

CleverBooks has launched a campaign Educators voice WHY AR – https://www.cleverbooks.eu/educators-voice-why-ar/ for teachers across cultures to share their opinion on a potential of AR in education.

This campaign supports global teach the teacher movement on why the introduction of emerging tech is important for future sills development and teaching digital citizenship.

Do you see remote schooling becoming part of our daily lives?

Digital learning gets more attention and becomes part of standard teaching and learning practices. If remote education used to be a “nice to have” option, during complete lockdown globally it has become the only option. This shows the importance of technological process in all the spheres of our lives.

Augmented Reality in the form it has now is a “nice to have” option, however, the development of this technology and the application areas to education will bring it to the level of a “must-have” as a standard educational practice.

CleverBooks solves the global problem of leveraging existing technology to provide a low-cost, high-value unique AR technology-based solution for making it easier and faster for children to learn new subjects and develop skills needed for the 21st-century workforce. Augmented Reality is a tool that supports a personalised approach to the development of future-ready skillset.

What’s next for Clever Books?

CleverBooks vision is to help educators to embrace the curriculum of the future by providing cost-effective Edtech resources with a proven impact. Resources that help to deliver 21st-century skills, get the students ready for future jobs and influencing future economic development.

The future direction of CleverBooks will be actively managed based on changing market conditions and opportunities as well as technical trends that can feed into the product development to deliver must-have functionality. Hence product R&D will be very much a core part of the CleverBooks program. This is closely connected with ARETE project supported by Horizon 2020. In 2019-2022 CleverBooks is participating in a new research project on an Augmented Reality Interactive Educational System (ARETE) supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020. The European wide research will be conducted on the application of CleverBooks AR resources in Education across over 100 schools throughout the EU.

CleverBooks offers educators a full integration package that includes training, AR resources, academic research, teaching material, educational influential opinions, and access to the database of best practices from the global community of educators enabling a smooth transition towards the application of immersive technologies and easy onboarding process.

We set the standards in the integration of augmented learning in the STEM curriculum on a global scale. The most exciting news is the launch of an Augmented Classroom focused on Consuming, Creating, and collaborating in Augmented reality – https://www.cleverbooks.eu/cb-edu-launch/

Our global goal is to reimagine education in every classroom, bring some magic to enhance students learning through seeing, hearing and touching the knowledge. Thus, create a bright future for our kids together and impact economic growth through disruptive education.