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InGenius is a powerful tool that helps you to create and deliver interactive online content. The tool is especially effective where the user's responses and response times need to be measured, tracked and reported, or when instant and automatic feedback needs to be provided. Text, audio, slides, animations, movies, sound files and many other kinds of digital media can also be added. Ingenius can be used to create self-help activities with strategically placed, automated interventions, or it can be used as a testing tool. Student progress is monitored and logged, and can be viewed by users as well as their parents or supervisors or teachers.
StudyWell is an online self-help system that provides
diagnostic and remedial activities for mainstream or Learning Disabled students
in first year university Psychology courses, but the activites
are applicable to all students. Designed by psychologist, Dr.
Evelyne Corcos, this system also tracks and analyzes online student
activity. The InGenius project was developed primarily as an
Internet tool kit, in both French and English, to provide remedial
activities specifically aimed at the First-year and/or the University
student with Learning Disabilities. The over riding aspect of
this project is to furnish information in an experientially based
learning space in the following six areas: time management, listening,
reading, writing, studying, and exams.
The tool kit includes several unique dimensions.
Set in the context of the various disciplines studied at University,
its initial feature is to present actual experiential activities
that students normally encounter in the context of their courses.
The kit incorporates audio-visual and interactive properties of
the Internet platform to address the strengths and weaknesses
of the student's information processing profile. Finally, the
instructional sequence is designed for individualized learning
with a three-step procedure: presenting a diagnostic activity
that determines the student's present level, providing intervention
tasks to upgrade the student's performance, and finally, assessing
the student's skill acquisition by measuring performance on an
evaluation assignment.
Currently, there are no diagnostic and intervention
tools specifically created for the needs of students of first-year
and students with Learning Disabilities in Universities. Post-secondary
institutions tend to use ill-adapted materials developed for elementary
school age children or for adults in literacy programs. By focusing
on the study skills associated with higher learning in the context
of actual disciplines, In-Genius offers a learning system unique
to the University student.
In addition to the practical aspect of teaching
study skills, there are numerous research opportunities. This
toolkits will be available to Canadian post-secondary institutions
that will use it for clinical purposes with their students, and
at the same time, will generate data of student performance. This
data will be gathered in the database that was constructed to
give feedback to students about personal performance, to the counselors
about their group's performance, and to the administrator who
is able to access data of all users of In-Genius. This large source
of performance data will be used to study various research questions.
The pilot evaluation of the site completed by first-year
Psychology students at Glendon indicated that they were willing
to use In-Genius if it was made available to them. This endorsement
also came from students who complained that that it was not sufficiently
entertaining -- no flashy animation, etc.
Author: Dr. Evelyne Corcos, Glendon College, York University,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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