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Curiscope US & Worldwide

Our plans during the Coronavirus shutdown

Mar 17, 2020

Posted by: Edward Barton

Like many others around the world, we’re really seeing the effects of COVID-19 play out around us at a rapid pace. Personally, my partner is a teacher, and I’m well aware of the impacts this is causing already to the education system both in the short term and to plans across 2020. I’m also aware that this is going to throw up a multitude of secondary impacts, too numerous to note and many of which our governments might not yet be fully aware of.

In light of everything, we wanted to make our pledge to the Curiscope community and to also open up a discussion about how companies like ours can not only serve you better with resources but also seek to amplify your concerns and to help develop solutions to the most critical problems you’re experiencing.

Curiscope, of course, won’t be the complete solution. But we hope that by compiling resources, acting compassionately and talking to all of you every day that we can help make the next few months more manageable.

-Ed

Last Updated: 25th March 2020. We will update this resource as frequently as we can.


Index of Contents


Curiscope’s at-home offering

Our Core Products

We’ve always had a product that you can use for at-home learning and that won’t change. Whilst we anticipate that some delivery routes may be slower and our fulfilment capacity may be lower at times, we are still shipping Virtuali-Tees and Multiverse Posters via Amazon and our website. 

Our supply chains may be impacted in the mid to long term but right now we have sufficient stock in our warehouse to last us months and we’re looking at backup production solutions.

Note: in recent days (15th March 2020) a number of countries have announced plans to close their borders or have already done so. This does not apply to freight shipments which are still ongoing globally, although some routes may be slower. Post and packages are a bad transmission vector for Coronavirus, as detailed on the WHO FAQ here.


Free Printable AR Lesson on the Digestive System



We’ve created a lesson that you can access via :

This will give you access to the digestive system mode of the Virtuali-Tee app including a 360 experience inside the intestinal tract.

Anybody can access this without cost just by downloading the free Virtuali-Tee app for IOS or Android. 


Unlock all content on the Virtuali-Tee printout via a low cost in-app purchase ($2.49 / £1.99)

We’ve enabled all content in the app to be unlocked via an in app purchase. This will mean you can experience all the content in Virtuali-Tee without a t-shirt. We recognise that t-shirts for every student aren’t realistic in all circumstances and so we are making all content available via the printout and an in app purchase.

If the in app purchase is too much, the digestive system content remains free. 


Free lesson plans, no purchase required

We have a suite of lesson plans that we have made available. These cover the US and UK curriculums across elementary/primary and high school/secondary levels with quizzes, worksheets and presentations. 

We have arts/crafts like how to create a digestive system model, worksheets on measuring your heart rate, quizzes, challenge questions and digestive system bingo!

Resources on Digestive System
Resources on Skeletal System
Resources on Circulatory System

You do not need our products to utilise these and they are free to access regardless of whether you have purchased from Curiscope or not. You are also free to copy, download and adapt them as you see fit.


Future Product Development

We’re going to be accelerating plans to work on new digital AR products that are as accessible and as scalable as we can make them. More on these plans to follow but if you’d like to input on what you’d like us to develop, start up a conversation in our community group.


Videos, how-tos, webinars

In order to make using our products as easy as possible in remote settings, we’re going to be starting a video series of how-tos, lessons and webinars starting from March 18th. We’d also love to involve community members in this and would love to be sharing some of your stories on how you’re handling teaching during the outbreak. If you’re interested, please drop us a message in the community group.


How you can speak to us

We want you to know that we’re a resource for anything and everything, even when it does not involve Curiscope. Our role as a community member is far broader than that and we’re happy to do our bit to help resolve anxieties, amplify messages or search out resources to make your lives easier.

You can reach us via twitter on the following handles:
@curiscope
@ed_barton

We have a Curiscope community group set up here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/curiscopecommunity/

And you can contact us via email here:
support@curiscope.com


Other Educational Resources & Guides

We realise Curiscope isn’t going to cover the whole curriculum and we also realise that there’s a resource overload going online. Because of this we want to point you in the right direction. Most of you will have never taught remotely and some of you (parents) may have never taught at all! 

So firstly, be kind to yourselves! It’s a tough time, it’s not easy. We hope the below resources serve as a good starting point. We've tried to only pick the best.


Starter Resources

Our favourite resources

  • Home Learning UK (primarily UK focused) has been compiled by a series of well recognised educators in the UK and is a comprehensive guide of how-tos, resources and strategies that not only cover teaching but also safety, mental health and wellbeing.
  • Amazing Educational Resources have compiled a list of every free or discounted educational resource currently available online. This site has exploded with demand and there are 1000s of resources on there. Now hard to search through but they’re working on it.
  • Edtechimpact (primarily UK focused) has a comprehensive listing of edtech tools that is filterable and searchable and highlights any specific offers that are available.
  • Twinkl has an extensive series of lesson resources (500,000+) covering every subject and every age. They’re offering these for free to parents and to schools.
  • Taming Gaming has a fantastic guide to video games that you can play with your kids. Covering over 200+ tested games at the time of writing.

What our partners and friends are doing


Small business in the age of COVID-19

It is certainly of secondary importance to our health but all small businesses are going to be suffering right now. We know, we are one! (there’s only 4 of us)

In most of the world these are the lifeblood of the economy and employ a huge percentage of the workforce. In the US it’s close to 50%, in the UK it’s close to 66%. So at a moment like this, think about how you can help them and keep their livelihoods going. If we do this and if we think of others, we’re all going to collectively benefit.

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