New Social Networking Project To Bring Academic Relief To Caribbean Students
Online, January 1, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Students and academics within the Caribbean community will soon breathe a sigh of academic relief when IntelMedia officially launches the Regions first social networking site for students and teachers at CaribbeanCampus.com
The site, which was developed using core support from Germany's Software AG, Facebook , and a clique of other social networking support entities, is currently undergoing open testing and public usability assessment at: www.caribbeancampus.com.
It is schedule for a Beta launch on January 5th, 2010 and would remain in the Beta stage for the next six months, during which time it will be monitored for any unforeseen bug fixes or hiccups.
Access to its forums and most core services on the site will require free registration for a username and password for new members.
However, Caribbean students who already have an account with Facebook do not have to register with CaribbeanCampus.com, since they would be able to use their current Facebook username and password to log into the Caribbean Campus site from January 5th. They will then be able to use their Caribbean campus and Facebook walls and profiles in unison.
The site developers asserted that it is the Caribbean's first and only social network catered for school children and young adults primarily between the ages of 12 and 30 who shares varying but common educational and social challenges relevant to their academic development.
The network (considered a regionalised and modified version of the Facebook platform) boasts all of the elements of Facebook, but includes more extended facilities for Caribbean students, such as;
- A state-of-the-art e-learning platform that can be used free of cost by any school in the Caribbean region to extend online tutoring to their students.
(1) A CSEC/ CXC learning portal that is free to use as an information exchange medium between regional students and teachers. (This aspect is not associated with the CXC body)
(2) A live assistance network of teachers to assist students with HomeWork questions that are common to our Caribbean educational syllabus.
(3) An interactive network connecting students and teachers on various CSEC subjects, offering students an option to chat live with available support teachers and assistants on the network.
Considering the nature of the site, it has been classified as potentially the only collective source for educational and social connection between Caribbean students, and in essence will become the primary source for information exchange between teachers and students regionally.
Several regional education officials have expressed optimism at the project and lauded the developers at IntelMedia for taking up the initiative to develop such a site that is more in tune with our Caribbean identity and educational needs.
They suffice that the project should be embraced in its entirety, as the Caribbean must capitalize on the infinite benefits of information technology and its impact on our social networking and education sector.
The project does not come without it challenges, as developers are worried about the budgeted US$7,800 per month price tag to operate many of the core services provided by the network. Though it's a very small amount compared to other medium size social networks worldwide, the developers opined that the figure is challenging by Caribbean standards.
Nonetheless, Director of Marketing and Media Relations at CaribbeanCampus.com, Ms. Odella Patterson has expressed optimism that small scale online advertising support from the Region's private sector would be enough to sustain the project. She reiterated that the social networking site is here to stay, as it will offer immense benefits to our educational system and our children, while contributing to their academic development and by extension the socio-economic development of our Caribbean Community.
Caribbean Campus projects an average of 110,000 (post-launched) site visits daily during the Beta stage, and currently employs eight full-time technical staffs, in addition to twenty four teacher volunteers throughout the Caribbean, to effectively manage such a high anticipated visitor influx.