Students Circle Network-Where Education and Learning is Social
In July during the Education Networks Conference Africa held at University of Lagos Nigeria,the leading education network-Students Circle Network was presented to the participants with great enthusiasm.The rate of growth and expansion of the network for students globally is really exponential,we had this online interview with Mr Gossy Ukanwoke,the Founder of Student Circle Network who gave an insight into their new design.
Interestingly the Students Circle Network’s team is comprised of young Nigerians who are poised towards changing the way Students, Teachers and Institutions approach education.
Mr Ukanwoke said in his interview said”We are getting into the African market and working towards a general adoption that will enable us reach more students and teachers alike”.He adds that the educational social network hopes to become the hub for all students globally.
Students Circle Network allows students to interact and communicate over educational resources, making online education and learning more social and human by providing unlimited resources, study groups, social connections, scholarships offers and university placements.“We are committed to our vision of “building a body of knowledge” that is FREE and accessible to everyone across the globe. We hope to take online education to the next level in the coming months and years”
The Idea
Our business idea is to integrate social experiences and free open online learning. This will enable students to have that ‘classroom effect’ when studying and interacting with educators. This will drive better learning and e-education.We are particularly excited about the African market because our materials come from the top global 200 Universities and these resources will be helpful for the creation of local content in Africa.
The Uniqueness of the Idea
Our idea is unique because we have gone a step ahead of the regular online Education. We have also gone a step ahead of the normal social networking as we have found a unique way of mating these two markets in one. Most importantly is our membership with the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which gives us access to unlimited course resources that we have ordered and prepared in the best usable way for students.We also partner with individual schools to provide our premium academic solutions to them for free, giving them exposure on our network and help them get across to our over 200,000 prospective student list. They in turn help us grow within their institution.
What Have You Learned with this Project?
I have learned that one has to work with a committed team that is oriented towards the growth of the network. It is a task to find those who are capable of doing the best they can in their areas. It’s been amazing working with my team so far.
How have you changed since you started?
Yes we have changed greatly. At the end of August 2011, we released Students Circle 2.0 a new version of Students Circle that allows better User experience for our users. We have reduced the clutter on the network and allowing users to have better concentration on what’s most important.
Plans for the future?
Once we start to gain our stronghold in Africa and most importantly Nigeria,we will start further expansion into other continents and countries in Asia and South America.
Our expansion will be in two stages
1. Students / Teachers: We will be reaching direct users who will use Students Circle Network to both teach and to learn. In this light we will be working on making the platform to be multi-lingual in all aspects. Currently our courses are starting to be rolled out in different languages; the next stage is to activate different languages for all aspects of the network.
2. Institutions: We will be partnering with more institutions to build a custom learning platform that they will be used to deliver a better e-learning solution to their students.How we can help Students, Teachers and Institutions are highlighted in our For Who Page
