Homework 2.0

An article by Ayelet Noff    4 Comments

Most of you have probably heard of Shvoong. Shvoong.com is a world-wide center for abstracts, summaries, reviews, and short essays on a wide variety of topics in 34 different languages. The goal of Shvoong is to serve as a knowledge tool and summarize all that has been written in the areas of literature, scientific research, and popular culture throughout time. All the content is written by users who also earn royalties for their work.

Now Shvoong has come out with a new product – Shvoong Homework. Shvoong Homework lets students write and keep track of their class notes and homework online. They can even share it with classmates and friends. Shvoong Homework is designed to assist students of all ages manage and organize their homework. Instead of using disorganized notebooks, students can use Shvoong Homework to type-up their school work, keep it organized, and then share it with individual or groups of classmates, the entire class, students from other schools, or no one at all.

Some of Shvoong Homework’s key features include:

My Timetable -allows students create a Timetable for their personal class schedules using an intuitive wizard. Students can indicate specific lessons, add exam schedules and attach a teacher’s name.

Each Timetable is linked to Notebooks and allows Students to easily navigate between their Timetable and any particular Notebook they created.

Students can even receive email alerts for upcoming assignments and exams.

My Notebook – lets students write-up their class notes, homework, summaries, and exam preparations. The number of Notebooks students can create and the amount of content in each Notebook is unlimited.

My Notebook features include:

· A text standard editor embedded in the Shvoong Homework interface

· Uploading of Word or TXT documents.

· Sharing functionality: My Friends, My Class, Everyone, Private. Students are alerted whenever any of their classmates/friends finish a homework assignment that is shared.

Shvoong Homework supports 30 languages. These include languages such as Hebrew, Hindi, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, and Farsi.

Shvoong Homework is currently holding its first essay writing competition for American high school students in grades 9-12. Students need to write an essay on the topic: “If you were elected President of the United States, which issue would you work on first?” Other students will vote on their favorite essay entries and determine the winner. Ten semi-finalists will be chosen first by the public based on entry ratings and popularity (number of visits). The final three finalists will be chosen by an independent panel of judges, appointed by Shvoong Homework and judged based on creativity, appropriateness for the theme and overall presentation.  Finalists will then be posted on the Contest webpage where visitors may vote for the winners. Cash and other prizes will be awarded to first, second, and third place winners.

Shvoong created this product because it noticed that student-oriented Websites were overlooking many of the “2.0 advancements” that have become so prevalent across social Websites. Eyal Rivlin, the CEO of Shvoong explains: “We spoke to teachers who were frustrated with their students’ lack of dedication to homework. We then spoke to the kids and asked them what would make doing homework more fun. We then took all their feedbacks and created Shvoong Homework… With so many distractions it’s no wonder kids don’t do as much homework as they should. We decided to revolutionize homework and make it fun. The result is Shvoong Homework.”

It is a known fact that educational practices of today need to be revolutionized in order to keep up with the fast changing technological and social evolution we are facing. In today’s age when students are spending a great deal of their time on the net and specifically on social networking sites, Shvoong Homework can definitely serve as a friendlier and more enjoyable platform for students to do their homework.

Below you’ll find Shvoong Homework’s introduction video: