 | This article contains promotional content .(January 2022) |
 | |
| Developer(s) | Sebastien Lebbe Jonathan Alzetta |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2015 |
| Available in | FR, EN, DE, NL, ES, IT |
| Type | Educational technology |
| Website | www |
Wooclap is a Belgian company specializing in the development of educational tools.
Launched in 2015, [1] Wooclap was founded by Jonathan Alzetta and Sébastien Lebbe, engineers from the École Polytechnique in Brussels. Initially self-funded, the company attracted private investors [2] in 2017 to support its development.
In January 2019, Wooclap was named "Innovative Young Company of the Year" by Innoviris, [2] the institute for promoting scientific research and innovation in Brussels, winning a €500,000 prize.
Early in 2019, the startup announced raising an additional €1.4 million to expand its features. [3] [4]
By 2021, Wooclap had reached 1 million users, primarily consisting of teachers and trainers. [5] In September 2023, Wooclap surpassed 50 million users.
In 2023, both the Wooclap and Wooflash platforms integrated artificial intelligence. The AI technology enables the creation of multiple-choice questions (MCQs), polls, and open-ended questions in just seconds.
Since its launch in 2015, Wooclap has been the subject of numerous research studies on its impact on learning. [6] [7] [8] [9]
According to a study at Lille University with 3 teachers and 75 students from the faculty of pharmacy, they deemed that "smartphone or computer improve their education" and that "students reported higher mean scoring preference for Socrative and Wooclap applications compared to traditional and Votar system". [10] The study also shows that for "learning, understanding, participation during class, ease and integration of tools are higher for Wooclap and Socrative compared to Votar and traditional lesson with no significant difference between these 2 tools". [10] During the study, the main difference between each interactive EdTech was that "Wooclap allowed students to ask questions directly through the website or application". [10]
When describing various EdTechs, the study deemed that "money wise, Wooclap app is the most expensive and is very limited in its free use (only 30 students per session). Free license software Votar seems to be the most interesting if we do not want to use a complete system and ask only a few simple questions during a lesson. One of the important advantages of Votar is that its use requires very few materials". [10]
A study in Morocco evaluated the familiarity and effectiveness of interactive learning sites with English teachers. [11] The Wooclap app was effectively used in order to increase the amount of participation in the classroom. The study also found that Wooclap was "the least known interactive learning site among the participants" out of "Kahoot!, Quizlet, Quizalize, Wooclap, and Jeopardylabs". [11]
A teaching method is a set of principles and methods used by teachers to enable student learning. These strategies are determined partly by the subject matter to be taught, partly by the relative expertise of the learners, and partly by constraints caused by the learning environment. For a particular teaching method to be appropriate and efficient it has to take into account the learner, the nature of the subject matter, and the type of learning it is supposed to bring about.
Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process. This support is specifically tailored to each student; this instructional approach allows students to experience student-centered learning, which tends to facilitate more efficient learning than teacher-centered learning. This learning process promotes a deeper level of learning than many other common teaching strategies.
A learning management system (LMS) or virtual learning environment (VLE) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learning management system concept emerged directly from e-Learning. Learning management systems make up the largest segment of the learning system market. The first introduction of the LMS was in the late 1990s. LMSs have been adopted by almost all higher education institutions in the English-speaking world. Learning management systems have faced a massive growth in usage due to the emphasis on remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An online school teaches students entirely or primarily online or through the Internet. Online education exists all around the world and is used for all levels of education.
Educational technology is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech", it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology. In EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age, Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world."
Technology integration is defined as the use of technology to enhance and support the educational environment. Technology integration in the classroom can also support classroom instruction by creating opportunities for students to complete assignments on the computer rather than with normal pencil and paper. In a larger sense, technology integration can also refer to the use of an integration platform and application programming interface (API) in the management of a school, to integrate disparate SaaS applications, databases, and programs used by an educational institution so that their data can be shared in real-time across all systems on campus, thus supporting students' education by improving data quality and access for faculty and staff.
"Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting... Effective technology integration is achieved when students can select technology tools to help them obtain information on time, analyze and synthesize it, and present it professionally to an authentic audience. Technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools. The focus in each lesson or unit is the curriculum outcome, not the technology."
Digital rhetoric is communication that exists in the digital sphere. It can be expressed in many different forms, including text, images, videos, and software. Due to the increasingly mediated nature of contemporary society, distinctions between digital and non-digital environments are less clear. This has expanded the scope of digital rhetoric to account for the increased fluidity with which humans interact with technology.
Augmented learning is an on-demand learning technique where the environment adapts to the learner. By providing remediation on-demand, learners can gain greater understanding of a topic while stimulating discovery and learning. Technologies incorporating rich media and interaction have demonstrated the educational potential that scholars, teachers and students are embracing. Instead of focusing on memorization, the learner experiences an adaptive learning experience based upon the current context. The augmented content can be dynamically tailored to the learner's natural environment by displaying text, images, video or even playing audio. This additional information is commonly shown in a pop-up window for computer-based environments.
Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a framework for learning while solving real-world Challenges. The framework is collaborative and hands-on, asking all participants to identify Big Ideas, ask good questions, discover and solve Challenges, gain in-depth subject area knowledge, develop 21st-century skills, and share their thoughts with the world.
Chegg, Inc., is an American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, online tutoring, and other student services.
D2L is a Canada-based global software company with offices in Australia, Brazil, Europe, India, Singapore, and the United States.
Duolingo Inc. is an American educational technology company that produces learning apps and provides language certification. Duolingo offers courses on 43 languages, ranging from English, French, and Spanish to less commonly studied languages such as Welsh, Irish, and Navajo, and even constructed languages such as Klingon. It also offers courses on music and math. The learning method incorporates gamification to motivate users with points, rewards and interactive lessons featuring spaced repetition. The app promotes short, daily lessons for consistent-phased practice.
Digital learning is learning that is supported by technology. It encompasses any type of learning that is accompanied by technology or by instructional practice that makes effective use of technology. It includes a wide array of practices, including blended and virtual learning.
Open educational practices (OEP) are part of the broader open education landscape, including the openness movement in general. It is a term with multiple layers and dimensions and is often used interchangeably with open pedagogy or open practices. OEP represent teaching and learning techniques that draw upon open and participatory technologies and high-quality open educational resources (OER) in order to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning. Because OEP emerged from the study of OER, there is a strong connection between the two concepts. OEP, for example, often, but not always, involve the application of OER to the teaching and learning process. Open educational practices aim to take the focus beyond building further access to OER and consider how in practice, such resources support education and promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. The focus in OEP is on reproduction/understanding, connecting information, application, competence, and responsibility rather than the availability of good resources. OEP is a broad concept which can be characterised by a range of collaborative pedagogical practices that include the use, reuse, and creation of OER and that often employ social and participatory technologies for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation and sharing, empowerment of learners, and open sharing of teaching practices.
PhET Interactive Simulations, a project at the University of Colorado Boulder, is a non-profit open educational resource project that creates and hosts explorable explanations. It was founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman. PhET began with Wieman's vision to improve the way science is taught and learned. Their stated mission is "To advance science and math literacy and education worldwide through free interactive simulations."
Brainly is an education company based in Kraków, Poland, with headquarters in New York City. It is an AI-powered homework help platform targeting students and parents. As of November 2020, Brainly reported having 15 million daily active users, making it the world's most popular education app. In 2024, FlexOS reported Brainly as the #1 Generative AI Tool in the education category and the #6 Generative AI Tool overall. Also in 2024, Andreessen Horowitz reported Brainly as #6 in the Top 50 Gen AI Mobile Apps by monthly active users.
Kahoot! is a Norwegian online game-based learning platform. It has learning games, also known as "kahoots", which are user-generated multiple-choice quizzes that can be accessed via a web browser or the Kahoot! app.
Social media in education is the use of social media to enhance education. Social media are "a group of Internet-based applications...that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content". It is also known as the read/write web. As time went on and technology evolved, social media has been an integral part of people's lives, including students, scholars, and teachers. However, social media are controversial because, in addition to providing new means of connection, critics claim that they damage self-esteem, shortens attention spans, and increase mental health issues.
Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) is a mobile learning management software and pedagogical model that introduces an innovative approach to students' education. It is designed to push higher-order learning skills such as applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Instead of a passive, one-way lecture, SMILE engages students in an active learning process by encouraging them to ask, share, answer and evaluate their own questions. Teachers play more of the role of a “coach,” or “facilitator”. The software generates transparent real-time learning analytics so teachers can better understand each student's learning journey, and students acquire deeper insight regarding their own interests and skills. SMILE is valuable for aiding the learning process in remote, poverty-stricken, underserved countries, particularly for cases where teachers are scarce. SMILE was developed under the leadership of Dr. Paul Kim, Reuben Thiessen, and Wilson Wang.
Digital pedagogy is the study and use of contemporary digital technologies in teaching and learning. Digital pedagogy may be applied to online, hybrid, and face-to-face learning environments. Digital pedagogy also has roots in the theory of constructivism.