The result of more than twenty years of experience in teaching, research and educational reflection, SOLEIL is an artificial intelligence application designed to support learners from elementary education to university. Led by Dr Dame KANE, teacher-researcher at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies of Education and Training, the application offers a new approach to educational support based in particular on voice interaction, analysis of lessons and copies, correction, annotation and evaluation.
Discover the SOLEIL application
An application designed like a virtual teacher
It is a tool designed as a virtual teacher intended for pupils, students, independent candidates and anyone wishing to learn or strengthen their knowledge, from elementary education to university. She works in several disciplines, including French, mathematics, history, geography, philosophy, physical sciences, chemistry, economics, law as well as life and Earth sciences.
Learners can use their own materials by importing lessons, exercises or copies in PDF, Word or photographs. He can ask for an explanation of a concept, go over a difficulty or be guided in solving an exercise. The goal is to promote understanding and reasoning rather than simply providing an answer.
SOLEIL also stands out for its copy correction, annotation and evaluation features, which make it possible to identify errors and provide explanations to promote progress. The application also offers dictation, reading and voice interaction in French, English, Spanish and Arabic, thus providing support that combines written and oral work.
Finally, it presents itself as a complementary tool for the teacher, allowing learning to be extended outside the classroom. In particular, it offers independent candidates and people preparing exams or competitions alone the possibility of working at their own pace, with support available according to their needs. Through this approach, the application aims to make educational support more accessible and to contribute to reducing inequalities in learning conditions.
An innovation born from more than twenty years of experience
SOLEIL is the result of more than twenty years dedicated to teaching, research and educational reflection. The project was born from an observation gradually built over the course of Dr Dame KANE: not all learners benefit from the same conditions to succeed. Some have regular monitoring, significant educational resources and additional courses, while others, despite their motivation and abilities, do not always benefit from sufficient support.
This difficulty also concerns people who evolve outside the traditional school circuit. Free candidates who are preparing for exams or competitions may in particular encounter difficulties in finding serious and regular supervision. In these situations, failure cannot necessarily be explained by a lack of motivation, work or ability. It can also result from the absence of appropriate support allowing the learner to understand their errors, to take up difficult concepts and to progress. It is from this reality that the idea of creating a tool capable of making certain forms of educational support more accessible developed.
Thousands of users since its launch
Officially launched on August 22, SOLEIL has already enjoyed a significant response, according to its designer. Thousands of people already use it in Africa as well as in other French-speaking areas. This rapid adoption demonstrates, according to Dr Dame KANE, the existence of a demand for accessible educational support solutions, adapted to the needs of learners and available beyond traditional school settings.
This launch marks a new stage in the development of the project. The application intends to gradually expand its audience and its possibilities of use in order to meet the diversity of educational needs. The objective remains to put technology at the service of a learning experience that is more accessible, more interactive and more adapted to the pace of each user.
Democratizing access to quality educational support
Beyond the technological dimension, this tool has a social ambition: to help democratize access to quality educational support. The project is based on the idea that the possibilities of success should not depend exclusively on the financial means available to a family or where the learner lives.
A student who cannot benefit from private lessons, a student who encounters difficulties in a subject or an independent candidate who prepares for a competitive exam alone may need additional support. SOLEIL intends to provide a complementary response to these situations by offering a virtual teacher capable of intervening when the user needs it.
This ambition ties in with a broader issue in contemporary education: how to use new technologies to reduce inequalities rather than reinforce them? For Dr Dame KANE, artificial intelligence can constitute an instrument serving this equality of opportunity when it is designed based on the real educational needs of learners.
It is thus presented as an educational artificial intelligence application which places the learner at the center of its system. By bringing together learning, explanation, exercise, correction, annotation, evaluation and vocal interaction in the same environment, it seeks to propose a new way of using artificial intelligence in education: not just to obtain answers, but to be supported in a real learning process.
Dr Lady KANE
Teacher-researcherFaculty of Sciences and Technologies of Education and Training (FASTEF)Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD)
SUN application: soleilcours.netlify.app
Contact : dame7.kane@ucad.edu.sn