We want the best for our children and we need to find a way to educate them without annoying them, trying new forms of ‘edutainment’ or ‘infotainment’ using quizzes such as ‘Quizling’ as a quiz educational tool.
For instance, a core part of the educational process for children virtually worldwide comprises tours, visits to museums, sites of interest (historical places, houses of government, etc), sports arenas, gardens, zoos and technological organisations. Kids should store thousands of ‘bits’ of information from these visits and this is easier if the learning process is a game and a challenging activity. Each of these institutions welcomes many thousands of children each year.
For instance, in Australia, there are nearly 4 million school students and in England there are well over 8 million each doing about 4 excursions per year. The larger institutions such as national museums, houses of government and manufacturers usually offer a structured tour, but not often is the tour linked to the curriculum of the students, and except in rare cases there is no feedback to determine whether the students have gained knowledge during the visit. It is proven that interactive exhibitions and laboratories within museum and galleries attract a lot of attention from the students, but it is not easy to set up laboratories and workshop for kids at all hours of the day.
So how can the high cost of including excursions and visits to these institutions be justified in the school budget? This question occurred to two Australian school teachers who came up with an answer that matches the lifestyle and expectations of today’s children. Their answer is Quizling, a revolutionary new quiz education tool, an education app that enables students to gain maximum benefit from visits and everyday education via an innovative quiz-based learning platform, by playing and sharing quizzes on mobile devices.
The app is free to download and users have immediate access to hundreds of quizzes, on loads of topics from quizzes aligned to the curriculum to fun sports quizzes. Engagement is boosted with friendly competition and social sharing – all in a safe environment for children. At the end of 2012, the Daily Mail reported that the global average of ten-year-olds who own a mobile device is approaching 50%, so this is the right space.
The market is obviously growing as schools are increasingly adopting BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies, with tablets favoured in primary schools in many countries. This sector requires social learning; student created content; game based learning and learning analytics. Within schools, teachers face the problem of complex, boring and unsecure apps.
The Quizling quiz education tool has been tested and trialled with organisations such as the Australian Mint that has put together enthralling quizzes about the history of coinage and characteristics of Australian coins and notes. This approach is, for each child, a 3D social medium – the student has direct involvement with the product not just tactile and visual reaction with the device.
The Mint engages with a wide variety of audiences, ranging from foreign governments and central banks (for whom it produces currency), to numismatists (coin collectors) and the many thousands of people that visit its site in Canberra, including 70,000 school aged students. The visitors have usually less than an hour for the visit, so communication density is high and, normally, data retention low.
The Quizling app is a convenient and contemporary way of adding value to that tourism product, and enables the Mint to put coins and coin-related knowledge on to people’s phones for them to take away, “and hopefully create that enduring relationship and become an advocate for people back in their own community to visit the Mint.”
The Mint see the advantage in teachers using the app to condense the learning and content deployed during the visit, “we would envisage that the teacher can debrief the visit by encouraging students to jump on their device, and go through these fun quizzes as a learning opportunity”. Doing quizzes is a source of enjoyment as the many board and web-based games demonstrate, so there is little resistance even from the most recalcitrant student.
So what are the unique features of this innovative quiz based educational tool? The competitive advantage is that the Quizling multi device quiz education tool provides:
1. Channels for institutions to send out branded quizzes to students, and parents and teachers;
2. Access to quizzes from respected sources for students, parents and teachers;
3. Feedback to parents and teachers concerning the learning value of any particular experience;
4. Increased market appeal for institutions, as students become sales advocates;
5. Useful data and analytics to cultural institutions, parents and teachers;
6. Fun, creative engagement for students – it is not limited to the educational curriculum.
The market place (how Quizling makes its money) is fourfold:
Students –the children who can download the quizzes for free and whose answers are recorded and stored
Parents interested in the performance of their children who can purchase for a small subscription access to the results and solutions
Teachers and schools whose interests are the performance of their bodies of students i.e. the results and analytics, and hence improving the quality of the educational programmes
The institutions who become Innovation Partners and use the Quizling app to expand their addressable market, increase the market appeal of their products and fulfil their mission for the benefit of their funding bodies.
The app is targeted at primary to middle secondary students along with their parents, teachers and schools, forming a direct link between students and those interesting in engaging with them in an educational format. Of course it can be expanded for any age group, even professionals. Any organisation can enrol and present quizzes for its own target audience. An Innovation Partner Program developed specifically for organisations with an educational agenda, such as museums and galleries, is set to further broaden the quality and outreach of the content.
Then the world will be Quizling’s oyster. While the existing and planned quiz programmes are applicable to any English speakers and final product testing is being carried out in Australia, Quizling is interested in expanding its programme by linking with curricula in other countries and by becoming multilingual. Are you interested in being part of this success story whether as a franchisee, institution or educational authority? Contact Dion Oxley at Quizling on
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