NOVA — The Future of Oral Education
NOVA is the education universe of ELBO, built for teachers who want to get their whole class speaking — language, ESL, EFL and communication teachers, in secondary schools as well as colleges and universities, whether state, private or language schools. It gives them a toolkit to teach critical thinking, argumentation and speaking through structured oral activities — not just written assignments that AI can now generate in seconds.
What is NOVA?
NOVA is an integrated pedagogical platform that brings the art of oral argumentation into every classroom. Unlike traditional learning management systems that focus on written assignments and multiple-choice tests, NOVA is built from the ground up for live, interactive oral activities.
Teachers can create structured debates, interactive quizzes, class polls, collaborative brainstorms, student presentations, Socratic discussions, and preparation spaces — all from a single dashboard. Every activity is recorded, evaluated, and automatically added to the student's ECHO portfolio.
NOVA addresses a critical gap in higher education: the oral skills gap. While written communication has dozens of tools and assessment methods, oral argumentation has been left behind. Until now. NOVA brings the same rigor and structure to oral education that platforms like Turnitin brought to written work.
7 Pedagogical Tools
Everything an educator needs to transform their courses into interactive argumentation experiences.
Structured Debate
Organize FOR/AGAINST live debates with a timer, configurable rubrics, and automatic recording. Students face off on curriculum-relevant topics while the AI provides real-time feedback on argument quality, logical fallacies, and persuasiveness. Available in classic, blitz, and open mic formats.
Interactive Quiz
Kahoot-style quizzes designed for the classroom. Teachers create multiple-choice questions, set timers, and watch real-time leaderboards. Perfect for checking comprehension before or after a debate. Questions can be randomized, and results are exported to the teacher dashboard.
Class Poll
Measure opinion shifts before and after a debate. Students vote anonymously, and the teacher sees the percentage swing in real time. This tool visualizes how effective argumentation actually changes minds — a powerful teaching moment in itself.
Collective Brainstorm
Virtual sticky notes for the whole class. Students post ideas, categorize them collaboratively, and vote on the best ones. Powered by Supabase real-time, every contribution appears instantly. Ideal for generating debate topics or exploring multiple angles of a complex issue.
Student Presentation
A managed presentation queue with live timer and peer evaluation. The teacher controls who presents next, sets time limits, and moderates Q&A. Students in the audience can rate presentations using configurable rubrics, creating a culture of constructive feedback.
Socratic Discussion
Open-ended exploration without rigid FOR/AGAINST positions. The AI suggests probing questions to deepen the conversation, encouraging students to examine assumptions, consider counterarguments, and develop nuanced thinking. Perfect for philosophy, ethics, and social science courses.
Preparation Space
Individual note-taking workspace with auto-save, source management, and structured argument templates (FOR/AGAINST). Students prepare their positions before debates, organizing evidence and anticipating counterarguments. The AI can help structure arguments without writing them.
Why NOVA?
Five critical problems in higher education that NOVA solves.
Problem: AI is making written assignments obsolete
Solution: ChatGPT can write an essay in 30 seconds. But it cannot debate live. Oral argumentation is inherently human and unfakeable. NOVA shifts assessment from written work (easily gamed by AI) to live oral performance.
Problem: No structured French debate tools exist
Solution: English-language platforms abound, but French-language classrooms have almost no purpose-built debate tools. NOVA is natively French and built for schools, colleges, universities and language training centres — in Quebec and abroad.
Problem: Oral assessment is subjective
Solution: Teachers grade oral presentations based on gut feeling. NOVA provides configurable rubrics, AI-assisted feedback, and recorded sessions that can be reviewed. Assessment becomes transparent, consistent, and defensible.
Problem: Student engagement is plummeting
Solution: Passive lectures and slide decks are losing the battle for attention. NOVA transforms classrooms with live quizzes, interactive debates, and collaborative brainstorming. Students are active participants, not passive consumers.
Problem: Students are unprepared for real-world soft skills
Solution: Employers consistently rank communication, critical thinking, and persuasion as top skills. Yet most curricula barely teach them. NOVA builds these skills systematically, and every achievement is recorded in the student's exportable ECHO portfolio.
The NOVA → ECHO Bridge
Every course completed, every academic debate, every evaluation — everything is automatically recorded in the student's ECHO profile. ECHO is ELBO's universal argumentation portfolio: a verifiable, exportable record of every oral performance and skill developed on the platform.
By the time a student finishes the course, they have a rich portfolio documenting their critical thinking, persuasion, active listening, logical reasoning, empathy, and rigor. This is not a self-reported resume bullet point — it's a verified, data-backed record of hundreds of real performances.
Think of it as the academic transcript of argumentation.
Employers, graduate programs, and professional schools can review a candidate's ECHO portfolio to understand their communication abilities far beyond what a GPA or cover letter can convey. NOVA creates the data; ECHO makes it portable and meaningful.
Pricing
Discovery
Free
- 1 class, 35 students
- Basic debate + quiz
- 2 recordings/month
Prof Pro
$14.99/mo
- Unlimited classes
- All 7 tools
- AI feedback + rubrics
- Export + recordings
Department
$49.99/mo
- 5 professors included
- Department dashboard
- Topic library
- Priority support
Institution
$199.99/mo
- Unlimited profs/students
- LTI integration
- Admin panel + compliance
- Dedicated support
Start With Your Class
Free to start. Create a class, share the code with your students, and run your first debate.
Discover NOVA