The worldwide pandemic has accentuated the need for new work tools that are easily accessible online, and the education sector is no exception. In fact, universities have struggled looking for solutions that ensure students continue to receive teaching materials without interrupting the academic year.
This Summer Brainstorm has launched Edison PRO, an affordable and easy-to-use high-end presentation tool that quickly transforms any live, online presentation, or conference session into a fully immersive experience using Augmented Reality (AR) and virtual environments. A solution that has already been tested in several educational centres during the beta phase of the Edison launch, with very favourable results.
Isabel Trapero, Associate Professor at the Nursing and Podology department at the University of Valencia, has been one of the first to adopt the Edison technology. “The pandemic left the university without attendance in the second semester of academic year 19-20 and only partial attendance during the current academic year 20-21. Most of the teachers use PowerPoint as support, so what was done, to a large extent, was to record and deliver the lessons to the students, allowing them to study from home. However, in the two courses I lead as a teacher in the Nursing School, I chose to record the materials using Edison,” describes Isabel.
After incorporating this new tool, the university conducted a small study to assess its impact. According to the survey, carried out among the nursing students, 98% of them affirm that the presence of the teacher interacting with the PowerPoint in the video recorded with Edison has helped them focus their attention on the subject. The result increases by one percentage point (99%) when students are asked if the presence of the teacher in the video has helped them better assimilate the topic as a whole. Likewise, 94% of those surveyed confirm that Edison’s videos makes it easier for them to learn the concepts explained, and 99% of the students say that having the material edited in video format “provides motivation to their study.”
After several months of use, the lectures created with the support of Edison have already started to have an impact on academic results. In the Nursing degree, the student is evaluated with a final exam divided into two parts; the percentage of students who took the first part of the exam increased slightly compared to the previous year (87% vs 89%), and so has the percentage of students who took both parts of the exam (36% vs 69%). This may be an indication that the students felt they were able to learn the entire subject, implying that the academic material facilitated this.
Regarding the percentage of students who have passed the exam, the number of passes is higher in relation to the previous academic year (the first part shows an increase from 47% to 50%; the second part from 16% to 35%). This indicates once again that the material has aided learning.
A student from the University has highlighted: “Having support material in video format where a teacher explains the lesson and also points out the most important aspects of each topic has been key. If any doubts came up during my study, I would turn back to the video content and replay it however many times I wanted to make sure I had a good understanding. This has also been very useful when preparing study notes”.
“We have received many emails from students, as well as in-person statements, congratulating us for the teaching material supplied (generated through the Edison platform). These testimonials also highlighted how much the technology used was helping students in their study time. We look forward to increasingly seeing and adopting new technologies in the field of education,” concluded Isabel.