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Obami.com

Specialist social network brings elearning to schools

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:07

South Africa's school-orientated social networking site, Obami.com, has added a new feature to its offering that promises to boost educators and students' productivity, while providing for a more streamlined process for the setting, submission and assessment of school assignments.

The new feature, aptly named 'My Assignments', allows teachers to obtain, generate and share worksheets, tests, revision papers, exams and questionnaires electronically; and on the other end of the scale, allows students to complete and submit their assignments through the same platform.

This, says Barbara Mallinson, founder of the social networking site that is offered free to schools, for all intents and purposes extends Obami into the realm of eLearning.

"And, as with all the functionality we've built for Obami thus far, 'My Assignments' is intended to supplement the already rich interactive two-way educational experience currently available through the platform."

Mallinson says a number of interesting and innovative refinements have been integrated in the 'My Assignments' feature and that these make a huge difference to the overall functioning of Obami.

"For example," she says, "depending on the assignment settings selected by the teacher, learners have the ability to save work that they have begun, or complete and submit their work in one session, making it perfect for homework, but also for tests and exam assessments.

"Further making life easier for teachers, the feature's assessment functionality can be enabled so that auto-marking of assignments can take place. This not only saves teachers' time, but also affords them an immediate indication of a learner's progress through course materials," she adds.

From a workflow perspective, Mallinson says 'My Assignments' slots in neatly, alongside the other major applications within Obami and as such, once a teacher has set an assignment, it is automatically added to the learner's list of "Due Assignments" which appears on their home page.

"This means that 'My Assignments' also functions like a virtual homework diary, allowing parents and learners alike to track homework tasks, and overall performance results too," she adds.

"As is the case with Obami's entire offering, learners engage with this tool in an environment that stimulates communication and collaboration, and there's the option to set tasks that are to be completed individually, or in groups.

"Parents will also appreciate that 'My Assignments' now provides them with a quick report of their child's performance at school, and drilling deeper, on-demand access to marks and comments made by teachers.

"More importantly, it allows for planning of upcoming tests, assignments and examinations, making the work flow more manageable for learners, teachers and parents alike," Mallinson adds.

"Overall, we're really proud of what we've achieved with Obami so far and feel that this new feature takes us strongly into the realm of eLearning enablement.

"Teachers, learners and their parents can rest assured there are more compelling features in the pipeline, since it's rewarding to see the education space benefiting from our innovations," she concludes.