Hello, everyone!
Exciting news from EduFocal! Our students will be pleased to know that EduFocal is now partnering with Versan Educational Services to bring you SAT prep questions. Anyone looking to apply to college abroad will now have the edge of using EduFocal and Versan to study for their SATs!
Versan Educational Services is a company that has been operating in Jamaica for over 20 years, helping students in the Caribbean and all over the world to achieve their goals of getting to some of the top Universities in the United States. They have a strong history of guiding and supporting students on the road to Ivy League Education. Their specialized team of SAT tutors will provide the questions that students need in order to prepare. Their reputation and experience with SAT preparation coupled with EduFocal’s fun and challenging programme will give you the ultimate advantage.
Look out for more info on the EduFocal-Versan partnership soon. We’ll be ready for you in the new school year!
Introducing the EduFocal Report Card
It can be extremely challenging for busy parents to stay on top of their child’s exam preparation progress, an almost impossible task when the preparation only involves the use of a pen and paper.
Imagine coming home from work and not knowing if your child did any work or being unaware of how they’ve been progressing in a specific subject or topic area. With so many things to distract your child, it’s important that parents have useful tools at their disposal to keep on top of their child’s progress.
EduFocal’s reporting feature seeks to solve these problems.
As your child uses EduFocal to practice for their exams we generate detailed reports to give you valuable insight into their performance.
Our reports are designed to give you the information you need to help your child reach their full potential. With EduFocal, you can identify your child’s strengths and pinpoint areas that give your child trouble, view improvement over time, and monitor their progress over a specified period.
Features
Date picker: Parents/teachers can see a child’s performance over a specific period. Let’s say you’re interested in seeing your child’s activity on EduFocal for the month of October, the date picker would make this easy
Average score: You will be able to see your child’s average score over the specified period on a subject by subject basis and also on a topic by topic basis.
Lowest/Highest Score: You can see your child’s lowest or highest score over the specified period.
Tests taken: A parent can see the number of tests taken on a subject by subject or topic by topic basis over a specified period.
Full report: The full report link shows all your test information from the first time you started using EduFocal.
Our reporting feature will only be available to our scholar ($1,500) and genius ($4,200) subscribers.
This is just the beginning and we will be rolling out additional features soon!
Email us at: help@edufocal.com or Call us at: 1876-545-6316 between the hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Mondays to Fridays if you have any questions
EduFocal and The West Indies Cricket team join forces
ORLANDO, Florida – Members of the West Indies cricket team utilised a customised version of EduFocal, the innovative social learning platform, in one of their team building sessions on Wednesday, October 24, 2013
During the week, the team will be involved in several team building exercises – indoors and outdoors – as well as interaction with Dr. Jason Scott Hamilton, the Jamaican Elite Sports Psychologist, who has worked with the team for the last six months.
Members of the team congregated in one room and battled for the top spot. With 4 levels, players were quizzed with simple questions ranging from general knowledge to music; answering questions correctly was a requirement to advance to subsequent levels. Correct answers carried points which allowed the players to rank on the publicly displayed scoreboard. With 44 points, fast bowler Tino Best seemed like the likely victor, but Team Captain Darren Sammy took victory from him in the last minute with 48 points.
The EduFocal Leaderboard Reset
Wow! The new school semester is certainly going by quickly. Our GSAT students would have by now settled into their new schools and our CSEC students would have moved on to 6th form or to college.
At EduFocal, we believe that learning should be both fun and rewarding and we’re privileged to have helped with your exam preparation along the way.
The second year of the EduFocal leader board competition starts now! You may notice that your points have been reset to zero if you chose to join our new competition for 2013 to 2014. If you haven’t done so yet, what are you waiting for? Visit your rankings page and click the red bar that appears at the top of your screen. Opting in to our 2013 to 2014 competition gives you a chance to win prizes, and climb to the top of our leader board to win an award at our annual EduFocal Awards.
A point of note: all members who decide to participate in this competition will also have their points reset to zero. This is to give everyone a fair chance in the new competition.
Profiled: EduFocal member, Warren Cassell Jr
14 year old Entrepreneur, Author, student and last, but not least, EduFocal member!
Warren is a huge EduFocal Fan, check out his testimonial:
“Unlike most learning platforms, EduFocal makes revising a non-monotonous and enjoyable task. Not only has preparing for exams with EduFocal’s practice questions boost my confidence but also my overall performance. “
EduFocal’s exam tips!
With GSAT being just a few days away (March 21 and 22, 2013), We know the anxiety is building. Some of us are nervous, some of us wish it were next year March, some of us would like an extra month, some of us just want the exam to come and go…. Whichever group you fall in, one thing is certain – Everyone wants to do their very best. EduFocal has helped with the theory and now we are giving you tips on how to be mentally and emotionally prepared.
- Pack/prepare all items you will need for the exam at least a day before the exam
- Go to bed early – get a good night’s rest
- Arise early
- Eat breakfast
- Be at the examination centre at least 20 minutes before the exam is scheduled to start
- Read through the entire paper before beginning
- Ensure that you understand the instructions and follow accurately
- Read each question carefully
- If you are not sure of/don’t know an answer, move on to the next question and then if time permits, return to the one you were unsure of/did not know
- Check over your answers
- Remain calm in the exam
CEO’s Speech, EduFocal/Observer Partnership Launch
EduFocal, a social learning platform for GSAT and CSEC students was incorporated on November 19, 2010. The company was launched on March 15, 2012, a little over 10 months ago at the Jamaica Pegasus.
Today we’re here for another launch, the launch of a partnership between EduFocal Limited and the Jamaica Observer Limited. EduFocal, the first service of its kind in the caribbean to incorporate gaming elements in education has seen a very positive response from the media, students, teachers and other stakeholders. The Observer, with its forward thinking Leader, The Hon. Danville Walker didn’t hesitate to get this partnership off the ground.
Our partnership with the Jamaica Observer will see students being able to access EduFocal for free with the purchase of a Sunday Observer. The partnership will also see EduFocal expanding its content base to offer not only questions and answers for subjects, but reading content material from the Observer’s popular Study Centre publication. This, with the unique offerings of EduFocal will be beneficial to many students.
I’ve always said that EduFocal was created from a student’s perspective, i.e how a student would want a service to practice for their exams and not how a teacher wants his/her students to practice for their exams.
At 22, I figure that I’m still young enough to understand the needs of a High School student and I dare say, the needs of a GSAT student. Times have changed and children have so many things that are competing for their attention, including video games. Using elements from video games (particularly the concept of leveling up and a leaderboard) and incorporating it into learning has proven to be an effective method of piquing a child’s interest in learning.
On December 30, 2012 EduFocal and the Observer did a demo campaign. On January 13, 2013 another campaign was initiated. In that short space of time….hundreds of students at both the GSAT and CSEC level have registered to EduFocal and have done over 5,000 tests with a 5-10% test abandonment rate.
Tips for Getting the most out of EduFocal
EduFocal utilizes gamificiation to make learning fun; the first tool of its kind in the Caribbean. Below are tips that should make your experience on EduFocal much better!
Don’t use calculators: Students are not allowed to use calculators in their GSAT or CSEC (Paper 2 is the exception) exams. Using calculators or any other aid on EduFocal doesn’t help you to grow or improve. Sure, leveling up, winning prizes and being #1 on the leaderboard is fun, but at the end of the day the idea behind the service is to help you improve in a particular subject area or areas and to prepare you for your examinations as best as possible.
Diversification: Don’t stick to one subject, topic or teacher. The more subjects/topics that you do the more experience points you’ll earn. If you attempt to do the same questions repeatedly the amount of experience points you earn at the end of the test will decrease even if your score was high.
Get stuff wrong: You’re practicing for your exam, but EduFocal isn’t your exam. Don’t be afraid to try different topics ( even topics you’re not familiar with) and get questions wrong. Getting things wrong is the best way to learn.
Don’t guess your answers: Guess too many questions and you’ll lose experience points. Our system is pretty smart and can tell 🙂 And it’s getting smarter!
Finally, have fun!
EduFocal + The Jamaica Observer: The Details!
A few weeks ago, we announced that EduFocal would be partnering with the Jamaica Observer, but the specifics of the deal were not disclosed. We’ve always wanted to make it easy for people to access our service, but many don’t have access to credit cards which hindered a great deal from joining our service.
The Partnership
With that said, starting January 10, 2013, you will be able to access EduFocal with the purchase of a Sunday Observer. You will find an EduFocal voucher in each Sunday Observer, every Sunday! The voucher will grant you a week’s access to EduFocal. You can always find a new voucher every Sunday that you can use to renew your account on EduFocal.
We will also be hosting The Observer’s GSAT and CSEC Study Centre material on EduFocal. This will be rolled out over the next 2 months or so. I think this is a great partnership – a partnership that will be beneficial to the many students sitting their CSEC and GSAT exams in 2013. This will help to make educational content more accessible to everyone.
Look out for an announcement from the Jamaica Observer soon!
BCIC’s Managing Director Peter Levy EduFocal Speech
Let me start by thanking the EduFocal team for inviting me to make a few remarks today. It’s an exciting occasion and I’m thrilled to be here in any capacity.
I’m going to ask you to indulge me for a minute. In keeping with the educational theme, I’d like to ask you to raise your hands if you have a personal twitter account.
And keep your hand up only if you’ve personally made a post to twitter in the past seven days.
Thanks. The relevance of that question today is that I met Gordon on Twitter. Were it not for that fledgling communication medium, neither I, nor more importantly BCIC’s money, would be present today.
I see that as an illustration of the opportunities that can be thrown up through the use of interactive technology.
What I know about the educational system is what I have gleaned from having three children in school, and also by being married to a lady who I, and her students, consider to be the best school teacher in Jamaica.
But like many, I have pondered on the issues facing us in Jamaica as we struggle to make it possible for our young to deliver on their enormous, if not limitless potential. I have looked at school buildings that are shuttered for a quarter of the year, and thought “There must be a way to extract more value from those resources”, even while admitting that getting more from physical resources is only part of the solution.
And then I came across Gordon and EduFocal, who aren’t just thinking outside the ‘box’ or classroom if you will – instead they are promising to blow it up.
That’s what excites me – the possibilities that arise when new techniques are applied by young, energetic minds, to old, seemingly intractable problems.
And that’s why I’m thrilled to be here on behalf of BCIC to wish Gordon and his team all the success in the world.
_____
Visit BCIC here
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Introducing the EduFocal Report Card
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EduFocal + The Jamaica Observer: The Details!
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EduFocal + The Jamaica Observer: The Details!
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EduFocal + The Jamaica Observer: The Details!
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