A Franschhoek school has collaborated with education technology company, Digemy, to create the first online high school in Africa to use “dynamic adaptive learning platform”. This was according to David Clark, headmaster of the private school, Bridge House.
The online school, ConnectEd, will launch in 2021 for grade 10 and 11 learners, said Clark.
The adaptive learning platform software, provided by Digemy, will enable ConnectEd teachers to identify where learners understand concepts insufficiently and increase the rate at which information is retained, said Clark.
“We realised that there were certain students that really enjoyed the online offering that level 5 lockdown forced upon us,” said Clark.
As a result, in May this year, Bridge House School started communicating with Digemy about launching ConnectEd, said Kate Cowling, deputy head for college academics at Bridge House.
PHOTO: Danny-B Smith
“We thought if we were to combine our exceptional teachers at Bridge House with this adaptive learning program, we would have a world-class product that could be offered to kids off of our campus,” said Clark.
Bridge House offers 24 school subjects and ConnectEd will initially only offer 14 of those subjects to ConnectEd enrolled students, said Clark. Bridge House learners will have access to the material available to ConnectEd enrolled students, said Clark.
The school will follow the Independent Examinations Board (IEB) form of assessment, she said.
“The complementary nature of blended learning will be recognised and implemented in good schools,” said Anne Oberholzer, CEO of the IEB.
Adaptive Learning
According to Oberholzer, ConnectEd intends to facilitate a unique adapted learning experience that is tailored to the learners’ specific abilities and needs, while simultaneously providing the necessary individual attention to provide a fulfilling and supportive learning experience.
“The adaptive learning [aspect] is completely unique and that will make a big difference,” said Cowling.
According to Cowling, adaptive learning will reduce the time taken for learning “and increase [memory] retention, which is big”, she added.
“For every single key piece of information, the platform identifies a unique learning structure for each learner whereby information is repeated over time,” said Kobus Louw, CEO of Digemy.
Additionally, it ranks information by prioritising what the learner struggles with most, Louw added.
Digemy’s role decoded
According to Louw, Digemy takes the academic content, framework and methodologies provided by Bridge House, and places it in the technology on the learning platform.
“The platform measures the knowledge of a learner and repeats concepts over time, based on the learner’s actual knowledge. It then adapts the ‘knowledge curve’ according to the learner’s engagement,” said Louw.
Audio: Danny-B Smith
“The platform is gamified to incentivise learning and [increase] engagement, so it’s a learning platform on steroids,” Louw added.
Parent perspective
Barbara Kirby, parent of two Bridge House learners, will be enrolling her daughter with ConnectEd in 2021, after moving to Europe.
“ConnectEd will give her the confidence to do her school online while still being able to interact with the teachers and mentors,” she said. “During Covid, the online learning was arranged with ease and therefore we can imagine with a structured system [like ConnectEd], the results will be a success.”