Students across the United States now have access to one of the design industry's favorite tools at no cost, as Figma announces a new partnership that expands program access to K-12 classrooms.
Figma, a collaborative design tool used by developers, engineers, and designers, is partnering with Google for Education to officially launch its new educational offering this year, an attempt to make the commonly used tool more accessible to teachers, students, and future designers via in-class Chromebooks. The program was beta-tested last year in select U.S. high schools using Chromebooks, and was officially announced at Figma's annual conference, Config, this week.
Those who sign up will gain access to the full Figma design program, as well as Figma's FigJam, a collaborative whiteboard tool that lets users work together and which Figma describes as a way for teachers to "facilitate collaborative group learning while encouraging active participation from students." Figma and FigJam are both "mulitplayer" programs that work in tandem to create graphics, presentations, prototypes, and more with real-time collaboration and feedback, the company explains.
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"We knew giving students access to industry-standard design software would help them build foundational skills for the future — learning how to problem solve, think iteratively, collaborate with others, and build empathy," Figma said in its announcement. "But we also had another hypothesis: By bringing Figma's infinite canvas and design tooling to Chromebooks, students could engage more deeply with their work and more effectively demonstrate what they know visually — bringing together diagrams, images, mind maps, videos, and more in one place for visual storytelling."
School districts will notably get free access to the tool's premiere tier, Figma Enterprise, rather than the limited tools offered with Figma's current free tier, and the program can be added to any Chromebook that is registered to a Google Workspace for Education by the supervising teacher or Google Admin. The company is also expected to expand its offering worldwide, beginning in Japan.
Interested teachers and schools can register to become verified for the program now and learn more on Figma's website.
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