In a class on the fourth floor of Rosemont middle school, all the students have their noses in their phones. The game they are about to play, however, is not solitary. It’s quite the opposite.
In their phone, the same app is open: Nomie. And this application has just randomly assigned them a group number to form subgroups of three to four students. Joshua Benitez Quintanilla, Madina Derrar and Luz Maria Aguiar settle around the same island. The game can begin.
A question appears on their screen: “Who said: my favorite place in the world is like Paraguay”? “Luz,” Joshua and Madina respond without hesitation. Luz smiled. “It’s my home country. I grew up there. I was 16 when I came here. »
Who has the Leo zodiac sign? Nomie asks. This time, it’s Joshua, who must then find a personality trait that he believes should be found in the description of his sign. “Mental toughness,” Josh replies. And I like to be the center of attraction, I like gold,” he says teasingly, showing off his jewelry. Dalila giggles, Josh and Luz too. In the class, smiles light up the faces of these big children. The atmosphere is decidedly joyful.
For around fifteen minutes, Nomie will ask them questions based on the presentation sheet that each student completed before the start of the session. Students will play a game of Nomie about five times during the session, to build relationships little by little.
“Usually there are icebreakers at the start of each session, but Nomie is a more organized way of doing it,” observes Madina. Nobody really likes it, being alone, eating alone, not knowing where to sit. And at the start of CEGEP, it’s inevitable. »
The Nomie web application was created by Sonia Hudon, administrative techniques teacher at Rosemont college. As part of her master’s degree project in education, she had to set up an innovation project to help students in their learning. His plan was first to create a tool to help teachers learn the names of their (many) students. Studies have shown that this is the first thing to do to increase students’ feelings of engagement in class.
But the students Sonia Hudon consulted as the project developed told her about another problem. “They told us: ‘Yes, it’s important that our teachers know us, but we don’t even know each other,’” she says.
The teacher hands us a sheet of paper on which are printed sentences spoken by students in the discussion groups in the spring. “I feel really alone and I don’t know how to make friends. » “Everyone wants social interaction, but we’re afraid. We immediately take out our cell phone so we don’t have to talk. But in reality, everyone wants to talk to each other. »
You can hear it in Sonia Hudson’s voice: these words touched her. “Since the pandemic, it’s gotten worse than worse,” she said. Students, during the break, take refuge in their cell phones because they don’t know what to do. Sometimes there is total silence. »
Sonia’s son, Alex Bussing, is Nomie’s web programmer. He is 23. “When we are in elementary school, we know everyone, we are happy to go to school, but in CEGEP, it becomes a little hard,” says Alex, who emphasizes that in CEGEP, the students are adults , but they are still very young.
The CEGEP dropout rate exceeds 30%, underlines Sonia Hudon. “It’s multifactorial, but it’s certain that if you don’t have friends, you’re not really tempted to go to CEGEP. »
In the class, even though the game is over, Camila Rosado Diaz and Exavie Bintona continue to talk. Nomie helped them find things in common: they both prefer the city to the countryside. “When you come from another country like me, it’s more difficult to make friends,” observes Exavie.
It’s break time, but Exavie and Camila still have things to talk about.
Nomie has just been marketed. Currently, five teachers use it in Quebec. New games are in development. Sonia Hudon and her son hope that the application will one day be used in all CEGEPs. “It’s definitely new, it’s a change of habit,” says Sonia Hudon, “but the students like it. » Annual subscription costs $200 per year, per teacher – another challenge. “The government has a digital action plan, but CEGEPs do not have a budget for digital tools,” emphasizes Sonia Hudon.
