We have written a post on how we contribute to a more sustainable approach to the use of learning resources (link here). In this follow-up post, we will like to share how LEARND.online contributes to making learning resources more accessible.
A quick introduction about ourselves, we are a team of (ex)educators who are passionate about education, technology and problem-solving. Our experiences as educators taught us the inequity in education, and the challenges that learners from different walks of life face. While students in Singapore benefit from the heavily subsidised education, we know how much a difference additional academic support (e.g., tuition) can make. To some, such support is even viewed as a need for students to be “on par” with their peers (who are receiving similar support). This is no surprise that the tuition industry here in Singapore is estimated to amount to S$1.4 billion based on the last Household Expenditure Survey in 2017 and 2018, which according to a CNA report, is reportedly growing due to the pandemic!
If we think about it, it is difficult to argue against the fact that having more attention, resources and guidance will translate into better performance. This is analogous to engaging private coaches for the grooming of professional athletes. Yet, the fact remains that… such services are not accessible to all households.
We want to do something for these people.
Focusing on Learning Resources
One key aspect that supportive families feel helpless about is in the area of the “know-how”. Effective learning is about making meaning out of the content and also developing the right skills and attitudes through deliberate practice. Tuitions justify their high fees through the provision of both human support as well as the technical knowledge to effectively develop the learners. As such, we thought to ourselves, what if we can focus on improving the accessibility to the technical knowledge of learning through the form of learning resources by making them available at a fraction of the cost (of tuition services)?
We had initially thought of creating these learning resources ourselves. After considering our limited specialisation in our respective subjects and the scalability of the effort, we realised that the impact and outreach that we can provide would be vastly limited (considering that we are working on this as a side hustle). Adopting a collaborative mindset, we decided to develop a marketplace platform that enables the sharing of learning resources by all who share our mission and vision — making learning resources more accessible and sustainable.
Empowering Educators and Learning Resource Creators
As educators, we create numerous learning resources every year. These include study notes/guides, bite-size classroom activities, homework practices, topical tests and even videos to support online learning. These resources take a huge amount of time, effort and heart to create, and the motivation that makes this happen is our belief that these resources will aid our learners in their learning.
A Wider Audience = Greater Impact
What if, the positive impact of these resources can extend beyond the learners in our individual classrooms? Imagine helping a keen learner from a challenging background resolve some of his/her learning needs. Won’t that be will be such an impactful moment?
Motivated by the vision of enabling such moments, we put in months of hard work to develop a marketplace where digital learning resources can be shared and accessed by all. On LEARND.online, creators can have the option to share or sell the content at a price they deem fair. This way, we hope to attract professionals to share their wealth of knowledge with the masses.
One-time Effort & Passive Income
Furthermore, the amount of maintenance required for our creators is low. Unlike the case of physical products, once uploaded, the “product” will never run out of stock. This means that each product requires only a one-time effort to be uploaded and will remain available until it is taken down. This would be a necessity since we know educators do not have much time or energy to spare. Hopefully, the passive income will create additional motivation for creators to invest more effort into developing high-quality learning resources
Empowering ALL Creators
Not all passionate creators are certified educators. We believe that great learning resources can be contributed by anyone who invests effort and heart into the subject matter. In fact, we believe that even students can contribute high-quality learning resources that can benefit their fellow learners. This can come in beautifully handwritten notes, concept maps, etc. We would want to encourage learners to also step forth to share their great work with their peers. Furthermore, the creators also benefit as this forces them to ensure that their content is accurate and of high quality!
Our Commitment and Striving for Win-Win-Win
Our desire is that gather as many high-quality learning resources and make them accessible to as many learners as possible. To put our money where our mouth is, we do not charge any fees for the creation of account or the hosting of products. We self-fund our operations and will only earn through each successful transaction. In other words, we aim for a Win-Win-Win situation where creators earn from sales of his/her contribution, the learner gain from the quality resource and we collect a portion of the transaction to keep this business running.
We are hoping for your support in our mission to make learning resources more accessible and sustainable. If interested, you can do so by doing any of the following:
- Share and tell others about our mission at LEARND.online!
- Join us as a creator and share your learning resources on LEARND.online via this link.
- Share with us your feedback/contacts to help us become better via this link.
- If you would like to donate to our cause, you may do so via this link.
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LEARND.online endeavours to leverage technology to make learning resources more accessible and sustainable. As an online learning resource marketplace, we aim to empower educators and even learners to share amazing self-created learning resources with those in need. You can find cheatsheets, notes, practices, study guides, mindmaps, lesson plans, free test papers and more anytime, anywhere, without the need to purchase prints (which damages our environment). Sign up is entirely free! Visit us today and thank you for your support.