A HI-TECH firm from Winchester has won a top government award to help develop revolutionary educational software.
MacKenzie Ward Research has received a Smart Award grant from the Department of Trade and Industry's Small Business Service, which aims to encourage innovation.
The company has developed 'Understand', which encourages learners to answer questions in their own words and then starts a dialogue with them. This encourages them to improve their answer.
Until now most educational software has simply asked the learner to select an answer using true or false, or choosing one of a number of options.
Dr. Andy Sawyer, of MacKenzie Ward Research, said: "To incorporate these new features, we had a big technical challenge and we needed to test our enhanced product in real teaching situations, which can be high-risk and expensive. The Smart Award contributed 75 per cent towards our costs. Now we can rapidly test our new product and, already, existing clients in the UK, USA and Canada are keen to see the results of this project."
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