In response to this worldwide pandemic DNA closed to the public on March 23th and as the world began to self-isolate and engage in social distancing, our team came together to plan and strategise the best way to provide access to our programme while students were working from home.  

While the NZ government and NZers around the country have done an incredible job fighting this virus, the future is still uncertain. How long do we stay in lockdown, what does a post Covid-19 world look like, will we see future outbreaks and need to return to level 4??

It made sense to us to move online, as a way to offer continuity during such great changes in our society.

– Potaua Biasiny-Tule, Founder DNA, Nativez Esports, Digital Basecamp, 4CompanyB

Considering these factors, DNA felt it was prudent to iterate on our current face to face classes and create online equivalents that could act as self-directed classes to be used during COVID-19 as well as tools used tutors when teaching live online.

DNA – Level 4 Lockdown

Starting April 1 DNA began to pilot three online classes that are held three x per week (2 hours each) covering animation, content creation and esports.  Themes also included the impact that COVID has had on our student’s lives allowing them to find creative ways of sharing their experiences during lockdown.

Students connect via Discord (a Zoom type platform for gamers and creatives) and DNA tutors take them through their lessons for that day. Limiting factors have been primarily low spec PCs which are unable to run more than one programme at a time (ideally they will have Photoshop and Discord open). Lack of access to tablets has also been an issue.

Going forward our plan is to create a series of video tutorials to develop our online presence and strengthen our systems for non face-to-face contact, in recognition of the severe impact Covid-19 has had on our world.

These courses provide online training, free of charge to young people aged 10+ in the areas of animation, content creation and esports. Each course is 12 weeks in length and can be self-directed or used in tandem with DNA tutors who teach the course live online.

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