With the vision to personalise education through technology and help learners perform better in classrooms, a former teacher and software engineer Titus Hidishange has created ‘Passmygrade’, an after-school learning app for learners who are preparing for junior and senior secondary exams.
‘Passmygrade’ is a technology-enabled learning tool that provides a huge database of unlimited access to animated video lessons, practice questions, tests and 24/7 doubt clearing by expert tutors.
The app also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to track every student’s progress and displays personalised recommendations along with analytical data reports to point out strengths and improvements areas.
Speaking to Youth Corner, Hidishange said during his years of teaching, he realised that the traditional education system of the one-size-fits-all approach fails to take into account the varied abilities among the learners.
“The teacher usually focuses on the pace of fast learners, leaving the average learners to catch up on his/her own. We also realised that most learners are hesitant to ask questions in class for fear of being judged,” said Hidishange, adding that the app will enable learners to study at any time of their choice and they can track their progress and create learning profiles to improve memory retention by using technology as an enabler.
Explaining how the app works, Hidishange said it is user friendly – and a learner can sign up on the app to access resources for free; however, learners might also have to subscribe for premium features.
According to him, the app expands growth possibilities for all learners while affording historically-disadvantaged learners greater equity of access to high-quality learning materials, expertise, personalised learning and tools for planning for future education.
“Learners are learning from the top teachers across the country, where every lesson is taught using world-class technology and realistic visual aids. These life-like videos enable conceptual clarity and lifelong term retention, making it easy to consume knowledge and information,” he added.
Although the app development phase started last year, Hidishange said his team is currently busy with content creations, such as writing interactive notes, recording video lessons, animating lessons, creating question banks, and gaining more technical personnel to join the team.
“We are looking forward to launching the platform in September 2021. We just finished creating content for all science subjects (Maths, Biology, Physics and Chemistry). We are expecting to launch our platform before the beginning of national examinations to allow learners to quickly see the app’s value proposition and solution. We have started with the secondary grades and will go all the way to primary grades in the future,” he elaborated.
More information about the ‘Passmygrade’ app can be found on various social media platforms.
- ashikololo@nepc.com.na