I believe that technology can truly transform education in Jamaica. When we launched EduFocal in 2012 I did not fully grasp how powerful our platform could be and I still don’t think we fully do, but we’re getting there.

Data can be defined as: raw, unorganised facts that need to be processed. Data can be something simple and seemingly random and useless until it is organised.

Information: When data is processed, organised, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called Information.

We have a lot of data on EduFocal. Data that we’re trying to make sense of, data that can be turned into useful information that can be beneficial not only to students and parents, but also Jamaica. As of writing 77,570 tests have been taken on EduFocal. To give this some context, That’s 114 tests per day, or 2,280 questions by hundreds of students since we launched on March 15, 2012. A lot of patterns can emerge from this.

Making sense of the data

In November 2013, we released an extremely useful feature for paying EduFocal members, a feature called the Student Report Card; our first step at making sense of the data that we have in aggregate and on each individual student. You can read about this feature here

Interesting case study

I can’t reveal the person’s name, but let’s call her Kim. Kim joined EduFocal on December 16, 2013. She is preparing for her GSAT exams in March of this year. EduFocal’s GSAT platform is very competitive and it’s pretty hard to break into the top 20, much less the top 10. To do so not only would she have to attempt a lot of practice questions, she would need to get them right. Not only has Kim been doing well, she has broken into EduFocal’s GSAT top 10 in less than than 2 months.

To accomplish this, she had to take 160 tests (a test consists of 20 questions) on EduFocal. That would equate to about 3,200 items/questions. This is what her stats look like:

Mathematics:

Amount of tests taken: 36

Average: 82%

Language Arts:

Amount of tests taken: 36

Average: 82%

Science:

Amount of tests taken: 33

Average: 62%

Social Studies:

Amount of tests taken: 67

Average: 77%

Now, if you were only to use her rank on EduFocal’s leaderboard, it’s easy to think that he/she is doing extremely well (and it’s not that she isn’t), but it’s clear that she still has some work to do. Our report card feature isn’t a perfect system, but it does give you some insight into student performance and the area/areas that they need to work on.