How a start-up wants to digitise learning

Sofatutor has been offering learning videos for almost 13 years. But never before have so many watched them as in the Corona year. Can the trend continue in the long term?

And suddenly, school is out. As of mid-March last year, eleven million children and teenagers were home-schooled - sometimes more, sometimes less well. Currently the schools are closed again. And online education is working - sometimes more, sometimes less well.

For Sofatutor, this presents a unique opportunity. The tutoring start-up made free licenses available to students back in March. The access numbers rose sharply. Bremen immediately bought licenses for all 55,000 students, Saxony a total of 20,000. The students and teachers are thus the entire range of Sofatutor available: now about 10,000 learning videos, 42,000 exercises and 37,000 worksheets.

The start-up shows how digital teaching can work. The states have gratefully accepted the offer in a time of need. But other start-ups are also sensing their chance. In the long run, those that teachers can integrate well into their lessons - and that don't distract students too much from the actual learning - are likely to prevail in the end.

Behind the idea of Sofatutor is Stephan Bayer. The 37-year-old with tousled brown curls, a three-day beard and an open blue jacket actually wanted to become a director, but then preferred to study social sciences in Berlin. But even then, filmmaking didn't let him go: in the midst of exam stress, Bayer shot a short film about the subject matter and shared it with his fellow students. They were so enthusiastic that he developed a business idea from it: "Revolutionize learning with videos," it says. Bayer started Sofatutor while still a student.

More than one hundred employees now take care of learning videos and worksheets at Sofatutor 13 years later. The start-up was growing even before Corona. Bayer himself describes the learning videos as "when education meets Hollywood". For him, they're not just animated explainer videos. Writers, motion artists and sound designers work together to produce high-quality films. To explain the Pythagorean theorem, a fictional Greek hero's journey is told, almost casually explaining the mathematical formula. The videos are designed to encourage children to learn because they are structured like their favourite cartoon series. Pupils can also get help in a homework chat if they have any questions. Teachers work freelance for the start-up. The premium membership costs just under 18 euros per month for all subjects - and is thus significantly cheaper than a tutor.

Unions complain purely digital learning is no panacea

But Beyer's competition isn't sleeping. During the Corona school year, other learning and tutoring startups are benefiting. One of them is StudySmarter, a learning app from Munich. Together with Stark-Verlag, the start-up has put together a "Corona help package": the start-up gave away its app with premium access, which grants access to books, assignment sheets and flashcards, to thousands of students during the lockdown. "Through the giveaway, but also independently, hundreds of thousands of users have come to love StudySmarter this year," says Max Groetsch, Lernapp's paid marketing manager. "Overall, that's how our users more than doubled last year." Groetsch won't give more specific numbers. On its website, StudySmarter advertises more than one million users. The app is basically free for pupils and students, and those who pay ten euros a month get it without advertising. Studysmarter generates revenue through companies that pay for collaborations.

But purely digital learning and matching apps from start-ups are therefore far from being the panacea, says Ilka Hoffmann of the Education and Science Union. Because every child learns differently and the digital helpers can quickly distract, one should not rely exclusively on them. At most, such apps could serve as a supplement. "The programs need to be evaluated in ongoing lessons," says Hoffmann. "Whether something runs well and is used always becomes apparent when it is used with pupils," says the trade unionist. "The important thing is that they motivate." She herself has used programs in very measured doses as a special education teacher. Many of the students would be distracted by too much stimulus.

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"Learning should no longer be exclusively place- or time-bound, but also independently differentiated"

Stephan Bauer, founder of Sofatutor

Sofatutor already sees itself as part of future learning. The site had up to six million monthly users last year. Founder Stephan Bayer says just under half of all German students now use the site every month, and it is also used by ten percent of all teachers in the classroom. "So we've finally arrived in the morning, meaning in classrooms and as part of lessons, in addition to tutoring in the afternoon," says Bayer. For him, good learning only works in multimedia. However, he sees schools as still a long way from digital teaching, which the current situation also shows. "Learning should no longer be exclusively place- or time-bound, but also independently differentiated," finds Bayer.

Hoffmann also sees at least one major advantage, also for the time after Corona: thanks to digital aids, all students would no longer have to learn the same thing, but each and every one could be promoted according to his or her strengths and weaknesses. "Digital and analogue can complement each other, but teachers need a compass: Which app fits which learning concept?" Students in high school and above in particular could learn better with digital tools and programs than younger ones.