The Cogito diary for iPad, a promising tool for students

A new free electronic diary for iPad, Cogito, developed by the Quebec company Lagente, is currently being tested in certain schools in Quebec in order to assess its pedagogical relevance.

One of the main difficulties encountered by students is to manage their time and effectively plan the tasks to be accomplished during the week. Despite all the goodwill in the world, it happens that some homework or some exam preparations slip into the "cracks" of the floor.

Without making a global judgment, Julie gauvin, deputy director of teaching and pedagogical innovation at Saint-Paul College de Varennes (on the South Shore of Montreal), explains that the results obtained to date seem promising. “It is not the only diary of this type offered on the market, but for the moment, it appears to us to be the most complete. For example, the fact that the school does not have to release a resource to enter all the data, which is centralized in a server, simplifies our life. "

Ms. Gauvin particularly appreciates the user-friendliness of the tool, which can be consulted by the young person, the teaching staff, as well as the parent. “In the near future, the teacher may even modify a task that he has sent himself. The entire school calendar is entered there (fixed days, extracurricular days, pedagogical days, etc.) and since the content is sent to Cogito, who is responsible for managing it from the outside, the risk of error is zero. Everyone is on the same page. "

In addition to a calendar, there is a tab for the tasks, allowing you to follow the progress of the work to be done and to tick off the completed items as you go.

“For the moment, we can sense a great assiduity on the part of young people in using this electronic diary. In addition, they are happy to participate in the evaluation of this product and to contribute to its improvement. We note a great openness on the part of the Lagente team, whose leader comes from the school environment. We feel that he speaks the same language as us. "

The evaluation work is therefore continuing in Varennes as well as St-Jean-Vianney College (Montreal region), but if the trend continues, to use the time-honored expression, the application Cogito could have a bright future in Quebec schools.