Studyclix is an online forum for study and exam preparation. Richard Curran was joined on The Business by its founder Luke Saunders to find out what this resource offers. Luke based this service on his experience as a straight-A student and as a teacher for the past 10 years.
"I'm sure like every Irish person, I still have the Leaving Cert dream. I dream that it's starting in the morning and I haven't studied for it. It just shows you the impact it has on our psyche. One of the things I would always recommend to the students I teach and students who use Studyclix is that they try and keep some sense of normality to their lives like they still play GAA or they still go for a walk."
Luke felt that the education system was failing to utilize the potential of the internet so founded Studyclix to bridge that gap.
"When I started teaching… I had noticed that… the internet had changed the whole world, you know we booked flights, we bought clothes, whatever it was, online but the education system hadn't changed a whole lot… The idea for Studyclix was there must be a way of giving the resources to students and indeed to teachers so what Studyclix is. It basically takes each of the subjects at Leaving Cert and Junior Cert and it divides them into topics so for example if you're doing maths, you'll have algebra, trigonometry, in English, it might be Yeats, poetry."
Luke says a common mistake students make is going over the same information time and again to make sure they know it, rather than identifying what they don't know and learning that. That's where Studyclix comes in.
"An example of a topic might be glaciations in geography so what we would give the student is all the past exam questions with the marking scheme so they can actually do what I was talking about, assess their learning, see do they actually know what's required. If they don't, we have sample answers, we've got videos… There's so many resources out there, video learning, reading other students sample answers, it's a very social experience now, studying."
Luke also had a couple of last-minute tips for students in the run-up to the summer exams.
"The very basics in terms of exam technique is managing your time properly… I would also say the real basic stuff, read the questions. A lot of people will answer the question they would have liked to have seen on the paper rather than what was actually asked… I would also say, just from an overall point, students need to manage their health during the exams… It wears your body and your mind out, students really need to look after themselves."
Click here to listen to Luke's interview in full.