Concentr8, a Young Enterprise company made up of eight Sixth Form students from St Aloysius’ College, Birkirkara, has developed and launched an educational app called DistractMe. It is designed to encourage students to make revision an integral part of their everyday use of phones, tablets and laptops.
The app enables users to test themselves in an innovative way, doing away with the stress often associated with studying.
Users enter their own questions and answers about any subject they are studying, which the app then uses to test and re-test the students at a later stage.
DistractMe can also be set up to ask users set questions from particular subjects derived from the Matsec syllabus. In fact, there is no limit to what the student can test themselves.
The app also allows users to connect to Facebook to compete among friends and find out who best knows ‘their stuff’.
The app, which is available on the Apple Store and on Google Play, aims to turn the disadvantage of being distracted by technology into an advantage, using the tag line “distract me to concentrate”.
Concentr8 developed the app as part of its participation in the HSBC Company Programme organised every year by the Junior Achievement (Young Enterprise) Malta Foundation, a non-government, non-profit organisation promoting Entrepreneurship Education, Skills for Employability and Financial Literacy.
During the launch of the app at the Microsoft Innovation Centre at Skyparks Business Centre, Luqa, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said innovative ideas such as this will change the way education is organised.
He said traditional learning processes are centered around the teacher, focused exclusively on classroom learning, and dismissed anything else as a distraction. This thinking is outdated he said, and such initiatives help to change and democratise education.
Bartolo stressed the importance of initiatives such as Junior Achievement Young Enterprise that give students an opportunity to learn skills that are valuable in the working world.
Investors in Concentr8 are welcome. Anyone interested in buying shares in the company may send an e-mail to info.concentr8@gmail.com.
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