Reflecting on What we Have Achieved in 2020 & Planning the Year Ahead

It’s been a long hard year, plagued one may say with unprecedented hardship for Students, Teachers, and the world in general. This is the month where we must all reflect on what has happened, and how we managed to succeed, fail, or improve in the year that is ending. Classter has achieved a lot this past year regardless of the global events that have rocked public health and that brought the global economy to a standstill.

In 2020 Classter overtook a lot of milestones:

• We have reached 500,000 active users and increase net sales by double digits. We managed to Increased projects and free subscriptions as well as expand our operations to more than 25 countries, with 13 regional resellers.
• Improved the features and functionality of Classter platform with the addition of new quiz question types, student/parent online meetings, import of timetables and books as well as a new module for internships & thesis management.
• Added more third-party integrations for teleconferencing and online synchronous and asynchronous education. Integrations with systems such as MS Teams, Webex, and Zoom.
• Grew our team and office with more great individuals, in a larger and improved workspace.
• Adapted our services to a fully online environment for a more efficient and safe experience for the team and our clients.

Much of what has been achieved this year has been driven by what we call the “New Normal”. Educational institutions as well as Classter have had to adapt to the unique situation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Educational institutions everywhere found themselves in a situation where they had to alter their long-standing modus operandi, to switch from a mostly physical classroom environment to a virtual classroom environment. Institutions had to learn and apply new methods, tools, and best practices for education in an online environment.

This change for educational institutions naturally affected the operational needs of the institutions. Classter had to adapt to these new needs and offer a solution in line with the “New Normal”. With the additions of new and improved features, integrations and services Classter now provides a complete Virtual School environment for educational institutions to manage their everyday operations online as well as follow through with their teaching responsibilities to students in an efficient, effective and safe environment.

Looking Forward!

Educational institutions globally have survived and adapted to the extent possible in 2020, according to the United Nations Policy brief on Education during COVID 19 reports a whopping 1.6 billion learners across 190 countries were affected by the crisis.

In the new year, the goal should be, to build on the lessons of the past year and improve online learning, virtual classrooms and try to develop the skills necessary for the successful implementation of the Virtual School. With adapted teaching methods, learning new tools for synchronous and asynchronous teaching, Educational Institutions globally will be able to keep learners from falling behind and hopefully making up for the lost time.

Classter plans and goals for 2021

Classter operates with three basic principles, to adapt, to evolve and to delight. With these principles in mind, we plan and set goals for the future.

Our plans for the new year include:

• To provide even better and richer functionality in all existing modules. We always try to use our experiences and customer feedback to improve and meet needs that may have not been realized by our customers. With the improvements and add-ons to our modules, we plan to meet our goals to enrich and delight customers and leads.
• A focus on the mobile experience. After a successful launch of the Classter Mobile App this year, we plan to add more functionality and improve the user interface. Our goal is for parents, teachers, students and employees to do more with less effort. Just by using their mobile phone.
• 2020 was a milestone year for the Classter integration effort. We did a tremendous effort to integrate Classter with key applications and platforms such as Zoom, Webex, MS Teams and Canvas. In 2021 we plan to work on even more implementations of important out-of-the-box integrations with other platforms.
• We plan to improve our onboarding and do-it-yourself tools and content. The goal is to enable our customers with tools, material and content to make Classter into a more do it yourself platform.
• Investing in our community. As Classter has grown with hundreds of thousands of users using our platform daily we need to invest in our community, our customers and our partners. Our goal is for all our stakeholders to exchange knowledge, ideas, and best practices. We want them to fully utilize the many possibilities Classter fully configurable platform has to offer. Thus, we plan to build more gateways of communication on social groups, with training plans, online workshops, and user conferences.
• In 2021 we plan to shift our focus on educators, students and parents who have been heavily affected by the unprecedented changes brought on by the pandemic with a greater focus on learning tools. Our goal is to provide these heavily affected users with the learning tools required to excel and progress in a virtual school environment.

We wish all our friends, partners and stakeholders a fruitful and successful new year, with hope and courage for a better educational environment for all.