New case study: IQ007 Online

A couple of days ago we told you that one of our latest projects – IQ007 Online service – won 5 awards at the Summer Tagline Awards ceremony in Moscow.

This project was created due to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Together with our client IQ007, we are working on a unique platform for conducting online classes for the intellectual development and learning of children. And we help to take their offline educational business online.

Check out our new case study for more details! 

About the project

IQ007 – an international network of schools of speed reading and intelligence development – is our longtime client. It is the first training centre aimed at developing all intellectual abilities (memory, speech, attention, thinking, reading) in children starting from 4 years old. More than 230,000 people in Russia and neighbouring countries have been successfully trained using the unique methodology of the IQ007 School.

Over the past three years, the IQ007 franchise has been ranked first in the Forbes ranking of franchises with investments of up to 5 million rubles. The number of opened offline schools has exceeded 500.

The main part of the business is offline.

With the introduction of quarantine restrictions, the entire work of the IQ007 school network had to somehow be transferred from offline to online. Having tried different online platforms, IQ007 faced the fact that none of the existing tools could ensure the preservation of their unique author's teaching methodology.

Therefore, now, together with the client, we are working on a unique platform specifically for the intellectual development and learning of children. It allows teachers to keep the attention of children in a group of four or more, give individual assignments and feedback to each student.

Challenge and solution

Main challenge

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, all educational activities had to be moved from offline to online. Having tried different online platforms, IQ007 faced the fact that none of the tools could ensure the preservation of their unique teaching methodology.

Zoom and other messengers don't allow to monitor the individual progress of the student and issue individual assignments. All these messengers are tailored for holding meetings and general calls, with "all with all",  "one on one" or "one for all" modes.

The teacher needs to keep the attention of 4-6 students at once, but at the same time all children in the group study at a different pace and learn in accordance with individual vectors, each child needs to be given feedback on the assignment so as not to interfere with the rest of the students in their current tasks.

What we’ve done

We suggested the client use a product approach: we put forward a hypothesis – quickly create an MVP – test it – move on. This allowed us to get the first interface of the system, which could be tested with teachers, methodologists and students, in just a month.

How does the class take place?

1. The teacher creates a lesson and sends a link to this lesson to the student.

2. The student opens the link (from the phone or desktop) and goes immediately to the lesson.

3. During the lesson, the student sees and hears the teacher, sees the assignments, completes them and sees the teacher's notes right in the assignment.

4. At the end of the lesson, the teacher discusses the results of the lesson with the student.

What are the features of the system?

In the teacher's interface, you can:

- select the "everyone hears everyone" mode – this is necessary for general group work and to give a general explanation for the tasks for everyone, while the task itself of each student may differ – all students learn according to individual vectors;

- choose who the teacher is talking to at the moment: with everyone or with a particular student. In this case, the selected student hears only the teacher and does not hear other students, and the teacher can also hear what other children say;

- divide the group into subgroups. In this case, each subgroup will hear each other, but will not hear the rest of the students. It is also possible to set up an isolated mode for each student within the subgroup. And the teacher can easily switch from one subgroup to another;

- set a specific time for completing each task for each student;

- use interactive tools:

• pencil - to emphasize the important things, this tool can be used by both the teacher and the student;

• pointer - to direct the student's attention in the right direction or to make an emphasis;

• curtain - to control what part of the content the student can see, for example, to close part of the table or text so that the student works only with the selected part of the assignment.

In the student's interface, you can:

- see and hear the teacher and other students,

- receive and complete tasks,

- see the timer,

- answer the teacher,

- raise your hand and ask questions.

About the content

All content, as well as the teaching method itself, is fully copyrighted. In order for methodologists to quickly and painlessly transfer the content to the new admin panel, we have assembled the content admin panel directly in Word. So, the methodologist simply enters the content into the template marked with styles, creates a new lesson in the admin panel and uploads the Word document. The system itself breaks everything into separate slides, which are then turned into separate tasks for students.

In addition, we are able to display not only text and audio content, but also multimedia, for example, video.

Achieved goals and KPI based on the launch results

- We work in two-week sprints, at the end of each sprint new functionality is added to the service. The basic functionality was launched in 2.5 sprints from the start, at the end of May.

- With the help of the current version of the system, we can easily upload author's content, stream different types of the content in class, and also combine group work according to different rules, choosing who to talk to and showing individual assignments.

- The teacher's interface was originally developed for the desktop, the student's interface is mobile-first, and we are now preparing to release a separate design for the desktop.

- All teachers who have tested the new platform want to continue using it.

- Video recordings of online lessons show that children don't lose their concentration and remain focused on the lesson. At the same time, the teacher can work with each child individually, with tasks that are different from other students.

- We continue to work on the service – this is just an MVP – there will be many interesting features coming soon).

Launch date

The first test lesson took place at the end of May 2020.