A Digital Tool for Education

Relate is a digital teaching and collaboration tool for higher and secondary education: online course organization, lesson planning, curriculum mapping, and collaborative learning support.

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Hypothesis

If we can design a means to naturally and efficiently map out the evolving understanding of concepts that closely matches how the brain works, then we can provide a structure:

  • for teachers to help assess levels of learning by accessing a much deeper view of the current state of knowledge acquisition;
  • for students to scaffold their learning on prior knowledge.
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Design Requirements

Coherent with human cognition

  • Represent levels of abstractions;
  • Represent different types of relations between information.

Flexible, semi-structured

  • Build from a partial understanding;
  • Reorganize as things make more sense;
  • Support divergent and convergent thinking (creativity processes).

Efficient for a large amount of knowledge

  • Structures multiple thousands of concepts and relations;
  • Use the strength of the visual system, but avoid overload.

Smooth usage, multimodal

  • Stay in the flow;
  • Good first choice for most tasks to centralize work.

Collaborative

  • Support co-creation;
  • Build a common vision, up-to-date.
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Concept space illustration

Concept Space

A graphical workspace aiming to represent and manipulate mental representation in a way that closely resembles mental structures as informed by cognitive science.

** It is pretty different from a concept map!

Researches

Several areas of research are at the source of the design of concept space:

  • Epistemology;
  • Cognitive Science;
  • Socio-constructivism;
  • H.M.I. (Human Machine Interface);
  • Group Problem Solving;
  • Artificial Intelligence;
  • Expertise;
  • Vygotsky’s Activity Theory.*
  • Activity diagram

    *Diagram of Vygotsky’s Activity Theory.

    Meet Relate's Ambassadors

    They teach, support, learn, and innovate. Our ambassadors bring Relate to life in a variety of educational settings, convinced that organizing knowledge can transform learning.

    Users' Testimonials

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    Cathel Zitzmann

    Teacher-Researcher

    EPF Engineering School

    When I discovered Relate at a conference, I said to myself: “It’s the digital tool I no longer thought I’d find.”

    For me, Relate is human, visual, adaptable: everyone can use the tool according to their own way of structuring information.

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    Emma Riendeau

    Natural Science

    Cégep de Sherbrooke

    I would recommend Relate to any student, in any program.

    For studying and taking notes, really, it makes it so that when you study before the exam, it's easier to review and go through the course content rather than having to search through paper notes where there are lots of things and words that do not necessarily have a connection between them.

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    Marie-Pier Bonneau

    Mechanical Engineering

    Université de Sherbrooke

    We had a complex team project to work on and Relate really allowed me to develop and organize information in a way that the other team members could rapidly understand what I was doing and where I was going.

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    Lotfi Gharbi

    Educational advisor

    CSS des Hauts-Cantons

    Visually organizing my Relate projects allows me to create mind palaces (a memorization technique).

    This approach transforms information management into a more fluid, engaging, and satisfying experience. It creates a clearer mental space, conducive to better concentration… and, most importantly, to planning a quality education.

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    Maxime Léveillé

    Biochemistry

    Université de Sherbrooke

    I have a Relate for every important thing that I do, my music projects, my pole vault trainings, all my classes and my research.

    I am able to go deeper in the material while I am learning and when it is time to to prepare for exams, I can easily see the big picture. Studying is a lot faster and I can understand better what I'm learning.

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    Anthony St-Cyr

    Vice-President

    Technopub

    Relate is the only platform that is able to make a distinction between surface and deeper work. People often show me pretty diagrams that give the impression there was reasoning behind, but no! Often when we dig, we realize there is no foundation behind theses ideas.

    With Relate we can access the deeper layer allowing to easily show the thinking behind every blocs of a presentation if there is any question. We would see quickly if someone hasn't done their homework.

    Explore case studies

    See how students and teachers have used Relate in their projects and what they think of it.

    What's Next?

    Our latest findings outline a high potential in improving education; we are welcoming everyone that wants to use concept-space, for improving education or for research.

    Future research ideas:

    • Mesure long-term benefits of learning through concept-space construction and organization, including lifelong learning.
    • Study how concept-space provides an inclusive tool for both divergent and convergent learning styles, creativity.
    • Provide alternative learning assessment that can't be generated by AI (Chat GPT).
    • Develop detections of patterns in knowledge construction to help identify ADHD and giftedness (probably AI).

    Start the journey with Relate

    Click the button below to start the Relate's journey. Contact us to discuss a personalized offer or to start your first pilot project.