Today we interview Diego Santos Sicardo, who is responsible for ExamTime for the Spanish market. ExamTime is a platform that can transform the way our children learn, 'to develop their full potential'. Is about improve learning experiences, and said so it sounds great, because the fact that children feel satisfied with what they learn, can be considered a factor that favors school success.
Behind ExamTime we find a team of people who have gathered the lessons that they themselves have learned over the years, to create tools that help students study more intelligently. Creating digital notes, studying in groups or inserting images in a mind map are just some of the possible actions from ExamTime.
I leave you with Diego, but not before highlighting a phrase that I found significant: “A student who studies intelligently is a student who is aware of what learning style best suits his or her abilities, is planned and uses new technologies to optimize their study. Students who have this open attitude towards changes often reflect it in their daily lives.”. Peques y Más.- Starting from our educational system and its deficiencies: what advantages does it bring to know how to study students? And by the way, your platform is intended for girls and boys from ESO, but from what age is it advisable for children to learn to study?
Diego Santos.- Knowing how to study correctly means achieving better results with less effort, in other words, studying efficiently. Each student has their own way of learning; what is efficient for one, may not be for another. Therefore, each student must explore different ways to learn and adopt the one that best suits him / her. The traditional method of “brooding” the notes for exams is not effective for many students and hence many of the educational system's shortcomings.
Our platform, ExamTime, is intended for students from ESO onwards, simply because we believe that from this age the kids can act responsibly online without the presence of an adult. This does not mean, however, that younger students use ExamTime together with their parents. It is important that children learn to study from their early years in school, since this may depend on your future academic success.
We want to emphasize the importance of planning to succeed in exams
PyM.- Is 'knowing how to study' compatible when we were teenagers to current educational needs? why?
D.S.- We currently have many possibilities to study within our reach, which did not exist years ago. Therefore, 'knowing how to study' nowadays means getting the most out of all the elements that can facilitate our study. Of course, this includes new technologies.
PyM.- From ExamTime you postulate "we want to transform the way you learn to help you develop your maximum potential". Does this also imply the possibility of optimizing the time spent studying? And rationalizing it so that children or adolescents can devote themselves to other areas of interest?
D.S.- Of course. ExamTime aims to be the reference platform that helps millions of students study more effectively. This implies the optimization of study time, one of the main concerns of many students. With this objective in view, ExamTime includes tools such as the online Study Calendar, which allows you to plan the study time of the different subjects, as well as set study objectives and measure their evolution. With this we want to emphasize the importance of planning to succeed in exams.
With this time that students save, Students have the possibility to explore other areas of interest, such as learning a foreign language, learning programming languages, or even blogging. In ExamTime we encourage the acquisition of new skills through our blog, in which we offer advice for students to discover areas that arouse their interest.
A mind map is one of the learning resources that offers more possibilities, as it is very useful for relating concepts and ideas, visually learning, summarizing, brainstorming and much more.
PyM.- Parents complain that their children do not take advantage of time, teachers try to transmit valid forms of study, students usually leave books for the day before the exam. What is your recommendation for studying to give results that resemble our expectations?
D.S.- From our experience, it is important that the student is not forced but enjoys learning. To achieve this, it is necessary to find a way of learning that suits the student and build the learning process from it. Fortunately, today we have many resources and alternatives that expand our possibilities.
PyM.- There is much talk about "mind maps", and I imagine that I will not be the only one who would not know how to explain very well what they consist of, can you help me?
D.S.- Of course. If we focus on the definition, a mind map is a diagram that represents ideas and concepts that start from a main idea. This is based on a central idea, to which other related ideas, words and drawings are linked.
If we focus on its use, a mind map is one of the learning resources that offers more possibilities, since it is very useful to relate concepts and ideas, learn visually, make summaries, brainstorms and much more. We precisely have an article on our blog entitled What is a Mind Map that is perfect for knowing all the details about mind maps.
PyM.- Which of your tools is having more success?
D.S.- All our tools are having a great reception among the educational community. Precisely one of the advantages of ExamTime is the synergy that exists between the different tools that allow us to cover many learning styles and offer a platform with everything the student needs to improve their learning of any subject.
PyM.- Why studying in a group improves the learning experience?
D.S.- Two minds think more than one, and if we talk about five or ten, much more! Collaborative study means having more ideas and insights available. That makes the learning experience is much more enriching. In addition, establishing a study group is an extra motivation, since the student knows that there are other classmates going through the same process that can be supported. Of course, this depends on the learning style of each student but, in most cases, studying in a group is very positive and greatly improves the results.
Again, new technologies make it very easy for us to study as we study in a group does not necessarily involve studying in the same place physically.
Some members of the ExamTime teamPyM.- What requirements does the student who studies intelligently meet? Does this attitude influence your daily life as well as the results?
D.S.- A student who studies intelligently is a student who is aware of what learning style best suits his or her abilities, is planned and uses new technologies to optimize their study. Students who have this open attitude towards changes often reflect it in their daily lives, which makes them prepared for the times we live in.
After the interview I would like to congratulate the entire ExamTime team and wish them many successes in their journey. I think it is very important that we understand the need for our children study intelligently, and in this sense the tools that are proposed to us are most interesting.
We are going to register as evidence, although my son is still small, but the experience may work well for us, and it would be a good precedent for when he is in Secondary School, which will have more autonomy.
Registration is very easy, and also for the moment, the current functionality of ExamTime is free, and so it will continue, so that girls and boys who wish so can use it and access their study resources.
Thank you Diego for answering our questions, and congratulations on your project.
