* UPDATE: We hit the #TassoBillion on 10th April and our one-billionth question was answered by Jessica, a student from Cleeve School in Gloucestershire. We’re sending Jessica a Kindle Fire to celebrate! *

We are fast approaching 1 BILLION quiz questions answered on Tassomai! This is a huge milestone for us and we're excited to see who answers the billionth question; we expect it to happen over the next few days - if you’re doing your Tassomai this week… we might be getting in touch! 

Reaching the #TassoBillion is also hugely significant for our founder Murray who shares some reflections on the growth of Tassomai below…

Tassomai started as a tool for me to help my students to learn effectively and independently and to increase their knowledge and their confidence in their knowledge. In the early years, it was not so different from the system we have now, but only covering a few courses of content (I’d written all the questions myself), and with only me able to look at the data to help my students.

As a piece of software, my co-founder and I had put all of our savings (and more) into getting it built and, once it was running, we were pretty thrilled to see that handful of students getting through more than a hundred questions each day.

Because of the way I designed the algorithm, each time a student answered a question, their answer helped the program work out where they needed more work and adapt accordingly (not omitting, of course, to include some more confidence-building or memory-stretching material too). The system learns, too, from the way students answer questions - so a hundred times each day, the database would get a tiny bit more sophisticated about how the questions could be structured for maximum learning benefit.

Then something amazing happened - a student who had recently jumped from a C to an A told his teacher that he’d used Tassomai to help him practice. The teacher contacted me and I set it up to try with one of his classes. They all logged in on the same day, and my usage jumped to a record 5,000 questions… I even took a screenshot at the time it passed 3,000.

... but that was nothing compared to what was to happen over the following couple of years. As schools around the UK cottoned on to Tassomai as a means of boosting science knowledge and attainment, we saw ever-more surreal numbers coming in. Soon after, we recorded 100,000 questions in a single month. Within the year, we were easily passing that number in a single day, and with each question answered, Tassomai became more and more powerful in its ability to personalise learning through quizzing.

Within a few short years, Tassomai has grown into a tool that is a cornerstone of so many families’ revision support and so many school’s teaching and learning programmes. We now see as many as 2 million questions answered each day and, this week, approach the staggering 1 Billion Questions milestone.

So while this feels like an amazing achievement for Tassomai, most of all, we are proud and honoured to be trusted by so many - and to have been a part of so many students’ hard-won successes. 

Here’s to the next billion!

Murray