Learn how Iversoft made learning biology terms fun for tech-obsessed university students.
In large university classrooms, professors often struggle to encourage participation and accurately evaluate progress, especially with nervous first-year students. The University of Ottawa is all too familiar with this challenge.
Biology Professor Elaine Beaulieu and her colleagues decided to create a game to help their students learn technical vocabulary. There was only one problem — they had no idea how to build it.
“Iversoft was able to understand our idea really quickly and provide solutions that we hadn't thought about before. We felt like they knew what they were doing, that we were in good hands, and that communication channels were wide open and easy.
We created the app in two phases. In phase one, we researched, designed, and developed a custom web app. In phase two, we layered on graphics and branding to make it more engaging.
The result is BioLingo, a mobile-responsive web app that packages leading education research concepts in a fun, accessible game. Students test their knowledge through multiple-choice trivia questions and compete on a class leaderboard.
We also custom-developed a content management system (CMS) so Elaine can easily add or remove questions to create new test sets.
While Elaine is still collecting data to test her hypothesis on game-based learning, one thing is already clear: students enjoy it.
During the initial launch, several students complained about restrictions and requested to use it more. They are motivated to earn points and collect tokens to improve their grade.
Professors in other departments have asked about reskinning the app for their own students.
Let’s discuss how Iversoft can help you scale with elite technical talent.