At the request of the French Ministry of National Education and Youth, the CNED (National Centre for Distance Learning) implemented a virtual homework assistant for secondary school pupils in January 2019. Since the beginning of lockdown, Jules, the virtual character who embodies this digital tool designed by dydu, has seen peaks in traffic with nearly 235,000 interactions per month. This chatbot provides valuable and free educational support from Year 7 (6 th grade US) to Year 10 (9 th grade US),
bringing pupils greater autonomy and motivation, and helping them complete their homework.
Already 70,000 users*
Methodology sheets, advice, quizzes, tips, videos… Everything a pupil needs to help them learn and revise. Jules, an animated character who reacts to different emotions, makes learning fun and helps develop research skills by encouraging students to rephrase and clarify their questions in order to
obtain the correct answer. The number of users has significantly increased since mid-March, with over 70,000 users (not including teachers) having now registered since the beginning of the school year.
An important figure that reflects the evolution and democratisation of this digital tool, which perfectly complements the lessons taught by teachers in the classroom and at a distance.
“dydu is immensely proud to contribute to the mission of public education through our collaboration with the CNED. Lockdown has reinforced our product’s use, as reflected by the increase in dialogues, and it will continue to be a true ally for pupils, teachers and parents, until secondary schools fully reopen… and even after!” Mathieu Changeat, co-founder of dydu, adds.
Three goals: autonomy, motivation, support
Jules answers questions in a friendly tone about French, Maths, History and Geography, such as: “What is an ellipse?”, “What is Pythagorean theorem?”, “What are the theatrical genres?”, “How do you mentally divide an integer by 25?”, “What are the keywords to remember about the Roman Empire?”, “What was the situation just before the Second World War?”, etc.
Easy to use, and perfectly adapted to 11-15 year olds, Jules motivates pupils and encourages them to be more autonomous, which has been required of them since the beginning of lockdown. It is available on the schools’ Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), the CNED website and the “Devoirs Faits” app on iOS and Android. Jules is a key academic support resource.
“Interaction is a key part of learning; to be able to ask questions, ask for clarification, confirm an intuition… Jules, dydu’s conversational chatbot, makes these exchanges possible at any time of the day and at a distance. With a well-adapted level of understanding, Jules provides clear and serious answers in a tone that is well suited to secondary school pupils” Jérôme Villot, director of Learning, Teaching and Digital at the CNED.
Continually enriched knowledge base
Jules is doted with a scalable knowledge base, that is continually enriched by teachers, delivering differentiated content that allows pupils to explore key learning concepts through a network of interconnected knowledge articles. With every user interaction, the digital companion improves; the
more it is solicited by students, the more relevant the content it provides. With up to 235,000 interactions per month, Jules is continually perfecting the chatbot’s knowledge to support the most curious students. By the end of the year, Jules will provide academic support in two new subjects.
*Number of users over the 2019-2020 school year.
Share this article!
