Publicis Teams with Singapore Polytechnic on New EdTech Tool

Publicis announced today a collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic’s Diploma in Visual Communication and Media Design (DVMD) on a new interactive tool that aims to harness the benefits of technology and boost learning in the classroom environment.

Academic lecturers all over the world possibly face a similar problem – determining the level of engagement with students. It is often unclear how engaged students are, whether they are inspired by class materials, or if the content expands their knowledge of the subject matter. Students often sit through class with stoic expressions, distracted by their devices instead of actively participating in class discussions.

As a first step towards addressing some of these issues, Publicis developed the EmoGenius Classroom Tool, an interactive feedback tool that aims to help collect data when teaching in a classroom environment. Built and designed by Publicis’ in-house experience design team, EmoGenius consists of an interface with three emoticons for students to share their feedback instantly on the material being taught in class – all they have to do is tap on the emoticon that best describes how they feel about each particular presentation slide. The scales range between a simple affirmation to an expression of confusion, which serves as constructive feedback for lecturers to provide clarifications on the spot. In addition, the tool collates the responses received into a simple analytics dashboard, allowing lecturers to improvise an on-going lesson and optimise course materials to better suit the students’ learning needs.

As this collaboration to launch EmoGenius with DVMD remains at a trial stage, Publicis will be monitoring the feedback gathered for this tool to optimise the user experience and provide deeper capabilities, especially within the analytics function.

On why DVMD chose to collaborate with Publicis, Jaffry Jalal, lecturer and practice lead for digital at DVMD at Singapore Polytechnic highlighted, “There are online tools that can be used in many ways in a learning  environment to enable collaboration, interaction, and peer-learning. However, digital analytics tools for a physical experience are very hard to come by. With the trial of this tool, we hope to be able to improve the experiential learning process that is the hallmark of a Polytechnic education.”

This tool is the first of its kind for DVMD, and Ng Teck Tiong, course chair for DVMD, looks forward to the benefits of classroom analytics to improve pedagogy and lesson planning. “We look forward to the future  implementation of tools like EmoGenius to further our effort towards using technology to enhance the learning experiences of students, by helping to provide platforms to cultivate healthy discussion and debate, in the desire to cultivate soft skills, strengths and passions that go beyond academic results in today’s society.”