- EdTech startup Campuswire provides a communication tool which increases student collaboration and emphasizes a social media-inspired experience.
- The tool offers Slack-like, multi-user chatrooms in addition to a host of course-specific features.
With 10 million active daily users across 600,000 organizations, Slack has become a nearly ubiquitous presence in the workplace. The software giant acts as a hub for idea exchange and inter-company connectivity. But while the tool effectively streamlines employee discourse, there is one workplace in which it falls short: the college campus.
That’s why a recent group of college graduates started Campuswire: an EdTech startup which offers a sleek solution to the current course communications problems facing professors and students.
Like Slack, Campuswire offers multi-user chatrooms designed for rapidly communicating and disseminating information. Unlike Slack, Campuswire aims to localize all possible forms of campus communication within one intuitive tool by introducing a “Class” or “Group” feed meant for sharing announcements, facilitating course discussion, and providing a question-and-answer forum for students who may be struggling. The tool also offers direct messaging so professors can engage with their students one-on-one.
The idea, founder and CEO Tade Oyerinde says, “is to eliminate the need for multiple channels of communication. We regularly hear from professors who teach classes with hundreds of students. If you’re trying to communicate with three hundred sophomores who all have the same homework question, your inbox explodes. Add all of those emails to checking your current LMS for notifications and responding to every students’ discussion board post– it’s no wonder so many professors get frustrated and so many questions go unanswered.”
By enabling features like Class Reputation and Leaderboards, built-in LaTeX and Markdown keyboards, read receipts, anonymous posting, and polls, Campuswire hopes to create a singular platform for student collaboration and discussion. So far, it seems to be working: the company’s user base has grown by 277% over the past three quarters, and a recent study conducted by UTEP researchers found that the tool’s social media-style approach to student collaboration significantly improved students’ grades in a difficult engineering course.
With presence at more than one hundred universities and funding from investors including Bloomberg Beta and Rethink Education, Campuswire seems poised to become the next Slack – but built for the college campus.
