The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC) will make his­to­ry in Grena­da this week with the record­ing of its first-ever com­plete­ly video-based syl­labus ori­en­ta­tion.The record­ing is be­ing done for the launch of CXC's CAPE Dig­i­tal Me­dia Syl­labus and will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed by Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, a Trinidad-based tech­nol­o­gy ed­u­ca­tion non-prof­it. A team of teach­ers, CXC of­fi­cers and vol­un­teer dig­i­tal me­dia spe­cial­ists will be work­ing to­geth­er to pro­duce the ori­en­ta­tion video. Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider, Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions has made its CC6 Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­tion stu­dio re­sources avail­able to CXC for the oc­ca­sion.

Rhea Yaw Ching, cor­po­rate vice pres­i­dent sales and mar­ket­ing at Colum­bus said, "Colum­bus has been work­ing close­ly with CXC and Bright­Path to en­sure the suc­cess of this im­por­tant ini­tia­tive.A Dig­i­tal Me­dia Syl­labus is an im­por­tant in­clu­sion in the Caribbean cur­ricu­lum, and it al­so sup­ports our large cor­po­rate ob­jec­tive of en­abling learn­ing through tech­nol­o­gy."A team of teach­ers, CXC of­fi­cers and vol­un­teer dig­i­tal me­dia spe­cial­ists will be work­ing to­geth­er to pro­duce the ori­en­ta­tion video. Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider, Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, has made its CC6 Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­tion stu­dio re­sources avail­able to CXC for the oc­ca­sion.CXC pro­vides pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and post-sec­ondary ex­am­i­na­tions and oth­er ed­u­ca­tion ser­vices for Caribbean coun­tries.

Reg­is­trar and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr Di­da­cus Jules said the re­gion's ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem needs to be up­dat­ed to pro­duce grad­u­ates with the req­ui­site tech­nol­o­gy-based skills."Em­pha­sis will be placed on project work and ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion to en­sure that stu­dents have op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op both prac­ti­cal skills and a sol­id un­der­stand­ing of how dig­i­tal me­dia is ap­plied in re­al-world sce­nar­ios."Bevil Wood­ing, Con­gress WBN's Chief Knowl­edge Of­fi­cer and Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, is co­or­di­nat­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty in Grena­da. He ex­plained that the new­ness of the sub­ject mat­ter has meant that CXC had to turn to tech­nol­o­gy to ac­cel­er­ate the syl­labus roll-out process.A spe­cial Ac­cel­er­at­ed CAPE Dig­i­tal Me­dia Im­ple­men­ta­tion Strat­e­gy has been de­vel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the CXC's civ­il-so­ci­ety part­ner Con­gress WBN, a Trinidad-based in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tion."We want­ed to en­sure the same prin­ci­ples and tools high­light­ed in the Dig­i­tal Me­dia syl­labus were re­flect­ed in the ap­proach to im­ple­men­ta­tion," Wood­ing said.

In ad­di­tion to the syl­labus ori­en­ta­tion video, Wood­ing and his Bright­Path team of vol­un­teers are putting to­geth­er Caribbean-cen­tric ref­er­ence texts, dig­i­tal and phys­i­cal teach­ing aids tar­get­ed at teach­ers, stu­dents and par­ents. Al­ice Thomas-Mar­tin, a teacher from St Bene­dict's Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do and one of the ed­u­ca­tors se­lect­ed by CXC to help cre­ate the syl­labus, is in Grena­da for the record­ing."Us­ing dig­i­tal means to in­tro­duce CAPE Dig­i­tal Me­dia is a per­fect way to kick of this new syl­labus. This is tru­ly a step in the right di­rec­tion. I feel priv­i­leged to be part of this mile­stone mo­ment in Caribbean ed­u­ca­tion. I am ex­cit­ed about in­tro­duc­ing this sub­ject to my stu­dents. The sub­ject ma­te­r­i­al lends it­self to very prac­ti­cal and 'hands on' ac­tiv­i­ties which will make the teach­ing and learn­ing process very stu­dent-cen­tered."She added, "The ma­jor­i­ty of my stu­dents are 'dig­i­tal na­tives' hav­ing grown up sur­round­ed by tech­nol­o­gy. I know they will be most ex­cit­ed when this launch­es in Sep­tem­ber.CXC is ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ap­ply­ing the ap­proach tak­en for the Dig­i­tal Me­dia Syl­labus oth­er sub­ject ar­eas.