How SaaS Is Transforming STEM Education During the Pandemic, and Beyond

As the pandemic stretches into a second full school year, STEM instructors face another pervasive challenge that might be invisible to those outside the classroom. Most students learning how to use computer-aided design (CAD) software, a primary tool necessary for teaching product development, cannot access their work unless they are physically sitting inside their school’s computer lab. This is because many schools are still using on-premises CAD software, which must be individually installed (and updated) on every computer. The software cannot be accessed remotely and, in most cases, will only run on high-end PC workstations.

This year, the need for STEM students to be able to work from anywhere and on any computer is critical. With absolutely no warning, students who test positive for the coronavirus (and those identified as close contacts) are quarantined at home for seven to 10 days, and in-person class attendance can potentially become a nonstop game of musical chairs. But there need not be a crisis to prove the value of the new generation of cloud-native CAD in improving both peer-to-peer and student-teacher communication.

The freedom to innovate

Cloud-native CAD takes advantage of all the benefits of software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, and, by virtue of being created specifically for the cloud, untethers teachers and students from the limits of file-based CAD design processes, giving them the freedom to create on any device, anytime, anywhere. It’s the same technology the pros use—and it’s amazing to see students innovating at the speed of today’s business world.

Rich Mooney, an engineering manufacturing instructor for Jefferson County Public Schools, in Louisville, Ky., teaches in the state’s largest urban school district, with more than 90,000 students. His high school sits between two of Kentucky’s highest-poverty zip codes. When Mooney started his job in 2018, he was the seventh person in the role in just three years. Perhaps distracted by outside issues, some of his students would keep their heads on their desks all day instead of participating in class. When learning remotely, very few of his students would agree to turn their cameras on, preferring to engage with social media instead.

Mooney, who teaches high school sophomores through seniors in a technology magnet program, switched from on-premises installed CAD to cloud-native CAD in 2020 so his students could access their work on school-issued Chromebooks. Because it runs in a browser or app on any device (desktop PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, Chromebook), cloud-native CAD levels the playing field for STEM educators in a region where there can be wide inequities in public school funding, even between cities and towns in the same area.

A significant economic impact

PTC offers a free educational version of its cloud-native Onshape product development platform. However, software savings is only a fraction of the total economic impact. Schools that use Onshape no longer need to purchase high-performance hardware to run CAD and can reallocate those financial resources elsewhere. Furthermore, by adopting a SaaS platform, teachers no longer have to worry about downloading or installing software, using license codes or waiting for their IT department to deploy upgrades, one computer at a time.

Students can be onboarded in less than a minute—as easy as entering their email address—and regular software updates released on cloud-based servers minimize downtime. More importantly, notes Mooney, is how a collaborative digital engineering platform transforms how his students learn. Cloud-native CAD enables multiple people to simultaneously work on the same design document—similar to the way his students are already accustomed to working online in Google Classroom.

At PTC, we call this the “power to create”—the notion that digital innovation can significantly improve the ways in which we live, work and learn; it’s what we mean when we say that “Digital Transforms Physical.” We’re empowering the workforce of tomorrow by giving students access to the tools they need to succeed today.

“A couple of my students who had been completely disengaged started working together on projects and it was just glorious to watch,” Mooney says. “They find this very rewarding. It’s about as close as you can get to doing something with your hands virtually. Making an assembly and getting it to move is very satisfying.”

Real-time collaboration

In Onshape’s shared cloud workspace, Mooney can see his students create CAD models live, and can take control of the cursor and demonstrate a task or skill when needed. This real-time collaboration provides the immediacy that his digital-native students instinctively expect. Younger people have grown up in a post-desktop world and have different expectations about computers. They don’t even think about having “a computer”; they walk in with their laptops, tablets and phones, and are used to their information being available anywhere, anytime on any device.

A cloud-native CAD platform also enables a comprehensive edit history, tracking which student made which design change and when. This feature not only allows teachers to revisit students’ step-by-step processes, it also deters cheating and makes it easy to detect if there was uneven participation within a team.

These benefits, which are not possible when teaching with on-premises CAD software, transcend inequities in public school funding. In Michigan’s relatively affluent Saline Area Schools District, technology teacher Steve Vasiloff’s students routinely win statewide STEM competitions. But he believes switching to cloud-native CAD has improved his overall teaching style and created more opportunities to challenge his students.

“I’ve never really, truly been able to give my students homework before,” he says. “Now, I can actually increase the rigor of my classes, knowing that these kids will all have access at home. Every year, I’m reevaluating my tools. I’m always trying to figure out what we can do better.”

The pandemic has forced educators to seek out new ways to streamline communication with their students and make collaboration more engaging and immersive. Those improvements will result in a better classroom experience, period—regardless of whether there is a crisis or not.

—Jon Hirschtick is at PTC Executive Vice President and General Manager of Onshape., a cloud-native software-as-a-service product development platform for manufacturing companies, schools and universities.