New app makes maths and science look ordinary
JOBURG – A newly developed online tool is available to help pupils master maths and science with ease.
Siyavula Education – a private company with a mission to make high-quality education accessible – has developed an online tool for students to practise their maths and science exercises for only R15 per month.
Siyavula believes this technology can also be applied by pupils in Alexandra with great success, as it is already widely used as curriculum-aligned science and maths textbooks which can be downloaded.
The openly-licensed books can also be accessed free online on even the most basic internet-enabled phone. But to truly master the skills and concepts they learn in class, pupils also need to actively engage with the content by practising.
Siyavula has developed an interactive learning platform that gives pupils in grades 8 to 12 unlimited exercises to practise their science and maths at a level that is tailored to their ability.
“We’ve taken the latest cognitive science research about how pupils achieve mastery and combined it with powerful technology to create an experience that truly impacts learning maths and sciences,” said Mark Horner, Siyavula’s chief executive officer.
Because of the way Siyavula builds the software, pupils can try a variation of the same question, testing the same concept but with different values, different diagrams and a different answer, all at the click of a button.
Each question is automatically generated and each question is different so they can practise as much as they like until they feel confident that they’ve really understood.
After submitting an answer, it is marked automatically and immediately, providing targeted and contextual feedback. Besides just seeing if they were right or wrong, pupils can also get a detailed step-by-step explanation of how they could have tackled the problem.
The service carries a subscription fee of only R15 per month (payable with airtime by sending a premium SMS) or R150 upfront for the whole year. The website has been zero-rated by Vodacom – meaning that the cellphone network’s users aren’t charged for the data they consume while using Siyavula’s products.
To use the service, students simply need to sign-up and/or log-in at everythingmaths.co.za
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Quick video links:
Watch a quick introduction video to Siyavula and their practise service
Learn about the technology-powering the service
Details: Kelly Berman 076 978 3728.
