Dear ETEC522 Alumni – By now you should have received, via your external email, all of your remaining grades for the course, including your final grade. Please let me know immediately if you haven’t received these, or if you have any questions about them. It has been my distinct pleasure to have shared this learning […]
Continue reading Final Grades and Happy August! Posted in: Announcements
Hi, Here are suggestions for improving participation as well as comments on the course in general. Just about everyone in the MET has a background in education or technology or has experience in instructional design. The consequence is that, as individuals, we have a lot to start with in most ETEC courses. In this course […]
Continue reading Suggestions Posted in: Venture Forum
For suggestion of this course, I would hope that the “emerging marketing analysis” to be reduced by 1~2 weeks, giving more time to exploration of really successful ventures. We could study their early pitches, match their venture plans with their real corporation trails, and discuss the secrets of them to survive through risks and chances. […]
Continue reading For suggestion of this course, I would h… Posted in: Uncategorized
It was a pleasure working with you all this term. I really enjoy MET courses as they allow us to learn from each other, work collaboratively and share insights on a variety of topics in our field. As a suggestion for improving participation in future cohorts, I think having a greater opportunity to work with […]
Continue reading Constructive Suggestions… Posted in: Uncategorized
Sheza,
Your suggestions for increasing participation in the OERs make a good deal of sense. Many of the groups offered significant content that needed to be reviewed before participation of any value could be made. I found in some cases this took a considerable amount of time leaving me until near the end of the week before I could reply and respond to the comments of others. By allowing a little more time for each might help alleviate some of that pressure.
gillian
Hi Sheza and Meggan,
I agree that 3 extra days to deal with each OER would have been very useful. Often, it seemed that just as discussions were warming up, the week was ending. Having two overlapping OERs at any time would be manageable.
Oops, I meant Gillian instead of Meggan. I mixed up my team mates.
Hello, Great comments so far, lots of suggestions that I agreed with. Not much to add, just that it was difficult to find certain submissions. Though I liked the hyperlinked searchable words at the right-hand margin of the screen for quick reference. As for the assignment descriptions, I would suggest putting at least one sentence […]
Continue reading Suggestions for future… Posted in: Uncategorized
Hi Regen,
I missed the self-reflection like you 🙁 Agree with your that there should be a description of this in the assignment outline. I even think that reflection is not so necessary, as we are not sure whether we will base our A3 on the A1 analysis at that early stage.
Ping
I was quite happy to see that this course was not going to be heavily based on postings and comments as my last course had over 6000 submissions and felt overwhelmed by the amount of reading and writing. I did find, however, that each blogging platform used throughout the course had positive and negative characteristics. […]
Continue reading Participation Suggestions Posted in: Uncategorized
Dennis,
I do agree that the quality of postings did seem higher than in other courses (I am sure many of those 6000 posts were “thanks” and emoticons). As I felt that there were less opportunities to participate, I felt pressure to ensure I made the most of the opportunities I did have.
gillian
I found ETEC 522 quite challenging yet extremely helpful for my daily work. The course content and interactivities along with venture pitches and the experience shared by all, furthered my understanding of ventures in educational technology and gave me some really good “food for thought”. In addition to improvements around navigation and usability that have […]
Continue reading Course wrap up Posted in: Venture Forum
I agree that having had the opportunity to get feedback earlier on our pitches would have been really useful for producing a better end product.
Hi Leonora,
I like the idea of doing the pitches earlier. But…..mine and other people’s pitches related to OER that people had done and the disadvantage would be that we might not be able to integrate this new learning if the pitches were too early.
Denise
Thank you for your responses Denise and Dave,
I feel that the process of going through the experience is very important and going through that process more than once would have been helpful for the learning and for developing a viable venture pitch.
Thanks,
Leonora
Leonora
Hi Leonora,
Totally agree with you that we should start early to prepare the elevator pitch. I have little concept of what the pitch should be like, even after watching the Pitch Polls. I realized my problems soon after I launched the pitch in the forum. So it there were a few days left the result would be improved better.
Ping
As many of you have noted, this course has been quite a journey or ‘venture’ in itself. I did, however, find that my own participation came in ebbs and flows and fits and starts. After some reflection, I think that the weblog platform and missed opportunities for further engagement could be improved. When it comes […]
Continue reading A few final thoughts and suggestions … Posted in: Blog Café, Uncategorized
Hi Gillian,
Great comments – I, too, found the navigation in the blog format a little off-putting at times. I also found that there were more individual comments about concepts, but far less interactive discussion about them than in other courses.
I also agreed with your comment about “the Ask” part of a venture. I was stumped on that, too. I also had no idea what is generally considered acceptable for both amount and timeline on the Return, so more guidance on those would have been helpful.
Thanks for your post,
Janet
Thanks for your reply Janet – it was nice to know I wasn’t alone :). I was happy to have the opportunity to express my thoughts.
gillian
Hi Gillian
Great suggestions to facilitate greater participation! The format of the blog did not lend itself to interactive discussions but instead as Janet said posts were mostly comments about concepts covered. For me a LMS offers more structure, ease of use and facilitated more collaborative learning opportunities.
Enjoy the rest of your summer
Valerie
Valerie,
Thank you. Best to you for the rest of your summer as well.
gillian
Gillian;
Great ideas. I did like that this course was not “post heavy” as some courses eat too much time reading and posting comments. I believe the amount of time on discussions should match the weight of the mark given to it but that seems to rarely be the case. I agree that some things were difficult to navigate and I am aware of a few instances where directions were unclear.
Enjoy what is left of your summer.
Dennis
Dennis,
I agree that there have been some courses where participation expectations have been overwhelming and the value placed on them rather … um … underwhelming. The value in this case does seem to match the time and effort allotted; however, I do feel that there were missed opportunities for learners to give and receive constructive feedback which would have helped to build a more supportive and active community.
Cheers to the rest of your summer as well.
gillian
Hi Gillian,
I agree with your comments about navigation. I found it time consuming to locate the posts I was supposed to provide feedback on this past week. I had the same problem in weeks two and three of the course before the group presentations started. While it may have been easier to administer the course in a LMS, I was happy to get experience with this blogging tool and I’m certainly feeling more confident with it than I was at the start of the term.
Deborah
Deborah,
It certainly was a valuable learning experience in regards to using a weblog as a learning platform. While I still prefer the accordances of an LMS, weblogs are a less costly alternative.
Thanks for your comments and I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer.
gillian
Hi Gillian,
I agree that it would have been useful to have more information about estimatiing the value of the “ask” and “return”. I was able to estimate some values, and having watched Dragon’s Den a few times, I had a bit of an idea of values that were reasonable. Perhaps references or a video on cost and profit estimates would have done the trick.
After looking back upon our very fast time together, there were a few things that I can offer as suggested improvements. First of all, the WordPress platform is one that a colleague and I are seriously looking at for future use in the classroom (over other learning environment platforms). The one thing that I struggles […]
Continue reading Looking back…. and looking forward. Posted in: Uncategorized
Hello, This has been an overall great learning journey . . . I learned much about learning ventures (fictional and real) and felt there were brilliant ventures out there I would love to add to my technological tool box. The highlight of the course, in my opinion, were the OER’s; I really enjoyed viewing, participating and communicating […]
Continue reading In retrospect Posted in: Uncategorized
Hi Marie-France,
I like your adjustment of the OERs to get extra time for feedback on the pitches. I definitely agree that this adjustment would be helpful and everyone would still be able to engage with all of the OERs. It also might help to keep people fully engaged with each OER, as it felt as though people were more focused on their pitches than the OERs in the last few weeks.
Good thinking!
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Thanks for responding . . . It is a bit normal to concentrate on the pitches as they require quite a bit of time to create, so it would be nice to have extra time to work on them without feeling the need to cut back on OER participation.
I think the idea of gathering constructive criticism in an open forum at the end of a course is daring and useful. I think all MET courses should do this, there is always room for improvement and to get a learner’s point of view is a great way to improve the learning experience from course to course.
Cheers!
Marie-France
Hi Marie-france,
i agree about your comments about the community of practice.
I can see some benefit in your suggestion about the OERs and more time for pitches, but I also wonder what the benefit of sprucing up the pitches for final submit would be (apart from better marks?) . I have learnt a lot from people’s comments and seeing other pitches . What I would suggest rather than more time revising the pitches that we submit the pitch reflection after the week of feedback and reflect on what we noticed when we posted, what we learnt from other people’s comments and other pitches and then outline changes we would make.
Cheers
denise
Hello Denise,
I think that if the peer evaluation is part of the project it would really make it more ‘real’. In real life one would never launch a venture pitch unless it has been seen by an audience willing to give you feedback. Whether you actually get a better mark or not is irrelevant, but the creation process is more complete if you include a peer review that allows you to make changes (or not) to your presentation.
I like your idea of reflecting on what we learnt from peers’ comments, and instead we could say or outline the changes we did make.
Cheers!
Marie-France
HI Marie-france,
I don’t think we are disagreeing. I absolutely agree – peer evaluaiton has been incredibly important – I am just not sure I would want to redo my pitches (esp as they are hypothetical). The advantage of the reflection after viewing everyone else’s pitch and feedback is that is integrates it all without the need to redo the pitches.
denise
I really appreciated your comments on the communication and postings. I found it difficult if I wanted to be in a “discussion thread” with someone, who had posted a day previous. There were so many posted after, that I know that the individual who I was aiming at wouldn’t be reading mine.
Cheers,
Todd
Marie-France,
Some very constructive ideas. I think overall an overall message is emerging through yours and others’ suggestions is the missed opportunity to engage more fully in a community of practice.
gillian
Hello Gillian,
Any suggestions on how to improve or increase opportunities to engage more fully in a community of practice?
Marie-France
I have mentioned a few in my own post above yours, but I think the best opportunity is one mentioned by others and that is the opportunity for peer feedback on assignments.
gillian
Marie-France;
I agree that a category needs to be mandatory as I submitted a post and then realized it was not in the proper category. Once I figured out how to switch it over some of the editing was changed and there was no way to change it back.
Good suggestion!
Dennis
Hi Everyone, Thanks very much for all the great discussions, input, and ideas. I definitely know that I will be drawing upon a lot of them as I continue to progress through education and administration. I have two suggestions for revisions to this course. The first is a minor structural one, where I’d have liked […]
Continue reading Future Consideration Posted in: Uncategorized
I agree Dave, lots of good learning to use for the future.
Agree too about your two suggestions.
Denise
Dave,
some very practical suggestions for ease of course navigation through a blog platform such as this. While I see the value of having everything ‘out there’ in regards to this course creating an OER, it does point to some obvious disadvantages when compared to an LMS platform. Your point was made extra clear this week as I was hunting down the venture pitches assigned to me for evaluation. It would have been great if this somehow made easier and less time consuming. Perhaps we could have each created our own subpage?
gillian
Hi Dave,
I agree with both of your suggestions. I struggled with the navigation in this last section of the course, as well as in weeks one to three as older posts were several pages back, making them time consuming to locate. It would also be nice to have a full list of who had posted comments into each post instead of person 1, person 2, person 3 and xx others are discussing. When I pop into the course throughout the week, it would be nice to quickly see which posts I had responded to and which ones I hadn’t.
Deborah
Hello everyone, Like many of you have mentioned, this was another amazing term here in MET. There were some rough times throughout this term, but I think we did a great job! I have learned a lot in regards to ventures. I don’t think I am meant for it, but at least I know a […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio – Course Suggestions Posted in: Uncategorized
Hi Sherman
I like your idea. It is a good way to check for understanding and at the same time promote participation.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Valerie
Hello all,
I’m not sure what a pulse check is. I saw it in this last optional participation improvement assignment but I’m still wondering.
Cheers,
Donna
Hi Donna,
Pulse check is a regular check in to see if team members are still surviving. In this case, what I refer to as pulse check is a bi-weekly check-in post by students to state how they are doing within the course. It is simply a post where students express how they are feeling in class, which I think would help keep the class on track. This will also allow other students to give suggestions as to how they are tackling certain task that the author of a post may express difficulties in.
Sherman
Thanks Sherman,
When David had mentioned Pulse checks in the final participation portfolio outline, I thought that there was actually a button that we could press where we could vote on how we felt about others’ assignments:)
This is what was written:
4.Use the PulsePress tools to like/dislike other students suggestions, and possibly comment on them to add value
So, I thought the Pulse tool was actually a button.
Yeah okay, time for a break I think!
Yours,
Donna
Well I am with you Donna – I too thought it was a button – like the votes for the pitches.
Denise
Sherman,
With better understanding of your idea – thanks to your elaboration, I think it is a very sound one. Although there is participation within the OER’s each week – there does seem to be a disconnection within the course log itself.
A quick check in would help build a community of practice and give learners an outlet to vent and perhaps seek answers to questions.
gillian
Hi all The summer term is almost at an end. I’m not sure where it went but August 5th is just around the corner. One suggestion I would make to promote greater participation would be to have small cohort groups peer edit and provide feedback on assignments and/or to work through OER activities. This would […]
Continue reading Participation Suggestion Posted in: Uncategorized
I really like your idea of smaller groups which stimulates more discussion. I think that collaboration at any point is hugely important.
Todd
Hello everyone, I’ve really enjoyed the Venture Forums this week and I’m amazed at the innovation of so many great ideas from eveyone. For our participation portfolio, we have the option of giving constructive ideas on how participation could be improved in future ETEC 522 courses. One thing that I would add is to have even more […]
Continue reading Participation improvement potential Posted in: Blog Café
Hi Donna,
I like the suggestions you made, particularly the one to review pitches in advance with a small group. Along the same line of thinking, I would have liked the option to create our ventures in small groups, partnering with peers for more expertise, to bounce off ideas and *perhaps* to create a BETA or prototype of the product/service we want to offer. I’ve enjoyed seeing everyone’s ideas, but it might be nice to begin implementing them, which could be possible if we worked in small teams. I realize this could make some programming-intensive ventures impossible to create, but it would be wonderful to be able to move forward and get our ventures to a real marketing stage rather than role-playing one.
May
Hello May,
I like your idea of creating our ventures in small groups and then moving forward to getting them on a real marketing stage! That would be an entire degree program in itself. Perhaps a new doctorat program we should propose:)
Cheers,
Donna
Hi Donna
I was thinking along the same lines as you. Peer editing /feedback on assignments would promote participation and learning.
I have enjoyed working with you and reading your contributions.
Valerie
Hello Valerie,
I’ve enjoyed working with your too. Our BYOD group was a great one!
Cheers,
Donna
May,
I was thinking along the same lines as you in regards to giving and receiving peer feedback prior to the due date of A3. I have always had very positive experiences in courses that have done similar exercises in the past. I think such activities really go a long way in contributing to an active and engaging community of practice.
gillian
Hello Gillian,
I’m glad that we’re thinking along the same lines. Peer support is a must!
Have a great summer,
Donna
I agree with the opportunity to seek out peer feedback in advance of handing in the venture pitch. I feel as though we should be using each others’ comments to strengthen our pitches. Very astute comment, I feel.
Todd
Hello Todd,
Thanks for your comments.
I know that I learned so much from the others’ critiques of my Venture Pitch and would have loved to have had another week to clean my presentation up a bit.
Enjoy your summer,
Donna
Hi Donna,
It was a pleasure working with you again on another MET course and I was great being your group member for A2. I agree we have all learned so much from each other in this course and peer collaboration and group collaboration opportunities are always great for this!
Thanks for your insightful input, great work ethic and for sharing your contagious desire to learn with the cohort!
Hope to see you in some of my courses in the fall 🙂
Sheza
Hello Sheza,
Like I said in my other course posting, I was a pleasure being in 511, 522 and 532 with you this term.
Looking forward to working with you again.
Have a great summer.
Donna
Donna,
I really like the idea of reviewing and critiquing Elevator and Venture Pitches prior to submitting. Having never done one, nor seen one before, it would have been very beneficial. Also the feedback I received from colleagues could have helped immensely.
David McInnes
Hello David,
Thanks for your comments and have a fabulous summer
Donna
Thank You & Summary of Week 12 Dear colleagues, thank you all for participating in our OER with such enthusiasm. We initially felt that Week 12, being the last week for everyone to work on assignment # 3, would perhaps mean a little less participation . . . on the contrary – we were pleasantly […]
Continue reading Thank You & Summary of Week 12 Dear … Posted in: Week 12: Masters of Educational Technology Thank You & Summary of Week 12 Dear colleagues, thank you all for participating in our OER with such enthusiasm. We initially felt that Week 12, being the last week for everyone to work on assignment # 3, would perhaps mean a little less participation . . . on the contrary – we were pleasantly […]
Continue reading Thank You & Summary of Week 12 Dear … Posted in: Uncategorized
Thanks Week 12 Team,
The activities you provided encouraged participation. I appreciated the opportunity to reflect on my reasons for choosing the MET program and consider how well it has met my expectations. I appreciate seeing the results of the survey so promptly. You all did a great job not only of preparing for week 12 but also of moderating during the week.
Claire
Elevator Pitch: Shakespeare in Minecraft Elevator Pitch from Chelsea Woods on Vimeo. Venture Pitch: Shakespeare in Minecraft Visit the website: http://shakespeareinminecraft.wordpress.com/ Chelsea Woods ETEC 522: Ventures in Learning Technology University of British Columbia Dr. David Vogt July 30th, 2012 Pain Point 3D virtual games are teaching our children to become engaged, collaborative, inspired individuals, […]
Continue reading Shakespeare in Minecraft: A Venture Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello Chelsea,
I think your venture presentation is very strong. As a prospective investor I feel that I would really need to be convinced to support a gaming venture. I am not very pro educational game, because most are time consuming to foster within the classroom or I feel they do not necessarily improve a student’s learning experience.
Your venture pitch is well laid out and you have covered every essential element. I find that the pain point and solution segments are particularly well elaborated. Also your biography is impressive and as an investor I feel that would be an important element. In retrospective, It makes me think that I could have further elaborated on this aspect in my own venture pitch.
The fact that you have already begun your website and identified the present lacks helps to determine what you are seeking, and what you need as an investment.
The only element that might also be important for an investor that you could have included is perhaps provide more concrete examples of advertising (either links on the internet, or a short video, or graphs etc). Otherwise it is a great presentation – you have really researched your subject very well and it shows that this subject is passionate for you! Kudos!
Marie-France
Thanks Marie-France, great idea to put in advertising samples, and it would have been easy to do. Thank you 🙂
Chelsea, your venture brings two diverse concepts and brings them together in a unique way. Fascinating concept! Not sure how you propose to deliver on investor’s returns, but I’d buy in just for the social cred. of being involved with anything Minecrafty! Perhaps designing some unique Minecraft ‘stages’ that others could ‘purchase’ access to and then co-create performances within these ‘locations’. Just thinking of options, from my limited Minecraft experience.
I agree that the potential for huge returns are available within the Minecraft environment, but not sure the market would be there for a Shakespearean venture, since this will limit the potential client base. Just wondering how you came up with the concept and do you have ‘proof’ that it is a viable, marketable product?
Helen
Hi Helen, Great idea to create and sell Minecraft/Shakespeare stages, although it makes the social cred take a hit. I was thinking of it as an open collaborative development venture, but making it more private and selling the product would certainly be an option. I suppose there could be elements of both: when stages got to a certain state of quality they could become proprietary and be moved out of the ‘free’ development zone. So many possibilities.
I came up with the idea because I was trying to think of what specifically could be developed to support Minecraft, and I happen to love Shakespeare. Were the venture to be developed, I would want to expand to other subjects, so that it could be an academic base for multiple learning areas. The proof is in the number of teachers blogging and testing Minecraft for education, in the Massively Minecraft group, and in MinecraftEdu. The test will be in whether Minecraft sticks like lego or fades like GI Joe. It would need a solid team of developers, though, I could not do it alone.
Thank you for your feedback!
Chelsea
Hi everyone – I’ve now emailed each of you your review assignments for the Venture Forum, so please let me know immediately if you haven’t received it yet. Good luck! David
Continue reading Let the Forum begin! Posted in: Announcements
I’m Lisa Allen, President and Owner of the Educational Technology Experts (ETE), a global consulting firm that specializes in providing analytics, recommendations and training of educational technology to educational institutions. This pitch is requesting the venture’s first year operating costs of $300,000 as an investment in the company. Youtube Elevator Pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R9m3qq63Z8 Venture Pitch Paper
Continue reading The Educational Technology Experts (ETE) Posted in: Uncategorized, Venture Forum
Hi Lisa
Your venture sounds interesting however I wasn’t able to view your elevator pitch due to your privacy settings.
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Thanks for letting me know – all fixed now 🙂
Lisa
Thanks Lisa. I can now access it.
Valerie
Hi Lisa,
I can definitely see the potential in your venture and I think it fills a gap in the education system. I thought you did a good job describing the service in your written venture pitch, both to the educational and institutional customer.
Before I would invest, I would like some additional information on your marketing plan, and how you determined that you would need three consultants to begin with. I also wasn’t sure whether you would be focusing on the educational or institutional market first. Would you be pursuing them equally? Would your focus be elementary or secondary, or both?
Deborah
Thanks for this feedback Deborah – you’re right, a more comprehensive “plan of action” would have been a good thing to include in my pitch.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hey Lisa,
I like the idea and think it be great once it’s implemented within schools but getting access to schools will be difficult. I think district contracts with companies like G&T (Grand & Toy) & Staples will not let you anywhere near the financial outflow for continuous spending from departments. I love the point you make that we are educators not technological experts, which is so accurate. I think technology use within schools will continue to follow the pattern, ‘Hey I want what that guys got’ and that person goes and gets that device from and for their own departments funding. For the future I would suggest planning how you will innovatively gain access to public school department heads, and school spending. Good luck.
-Regen
Thanks for these comments Regen, I think that you’re right when it comes to public elementary and secondary schools. With higher education and private institutions though, I think they’re much more open to bringing in consultants. Perhaps that is where my “consulting firm” should try to gain entrance into the market.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa
I enjoyed watching your elevator pitch. You present the advantages of your venture very clearly. I can see the potential in your idea and agree there is a need for this in the school system. I was left with a couple of questions; Most districts employ their own IT staff so why would schools go outside of this? Would districts allow schools to go outside, as most schools have to choose goods and services from district approved lists?
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Thanks for these comments – and great questions. Not working in the public school system, I don’t really know how they contract vendors… that being said, perhaps my consulting firm can gain access into the private educational market to start and build credibility there? I think the biggest issue with IT staff is that they don’t have that education theory background – and that’s what sets this consulting firm apart from the IT staff.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hello Lisa,
Here are some comments on your venture pitch and your elevator pitch:
Elevator pitch
It is difficult to say all that you want in a one minute period, so it sounds a bit as if you are rushing to say it all quickly. A suggestion might be to make a simple powerpoint presentation outlining the main points, and then use this presentation to read out from on your computer as you are filming yourself.
In one minute you do manage to summarize the essence of your venture however.
Venture Pitch paper
You present a very strong paper here. You outline the need and the solution quite well. You establish your marketing possibilities expertly and it shows your paper is well researched. If such a company was looking to hire I would be interested . . .
As an investor, you certainly have convinced me that it would be a worthwhile project to invest in.
Well done!
Marie-France
Thanks Marie-France,
I agree, in hindsight a powerpoint presentation would have been more effective for the one minute pitch!
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I liked your venture plan and how you specified the growth projections. Here are my comments.
Elevator pitch message
The need for The Educational Technology Experts (ETE) services is clearly outlined in the introduction – piqued my interest with the question at the very beginning. The solution is well explained but I would have been persuaded about the success of the venture if I got a clearer sense of the ”uniqueness or differentiation” characteristics of the service provided by the venture.
Marketability
While I see understand the importance of having these professionals advise school administrators, given the arguments and stats about the market, I wasn’t convinced about market opportunities for this venture. Just stating that the government of Canada and BC spend 5 -7 and 4.5 billion in the next 3 years” doesn’t necessarily mean that money will be allocated to a service specific to what the venture is proposing.
There was no mention of competition and that made me a bit nervous despite the specific growth figures (although long-term – 5 years)
Venture Plan
Your venture plan is very well structured and clearly laid out. It includes details plan – revenue and expense processes are very clear and outline promising prospect for the company therefore convincing the investor on ROI.
Thanks,
Leonora
Thanks Leonora,
It’s hard to pin point the competition since “consultants” are everywhere and the information out there is quite vague. You’re right though, it would have been good if I had included that information in my pitch.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I completely understand the challenges of pinpointing the competition. I had the exact same challenge – the main competition for my venture is corporate training companies and there are myriads of them.
Enjoy the rest of the summer.
Leonora
Hi Lisa,
You were braver than I was for your elevator pitch – couldn’t get myself in front of the camera. I found the elevator pitch to be somewhat disengaging however as you were not looking at the camera, but rather reading somewhere off to the side – losing eye contact. I did think that your voice had good variation in pitch and tone though.
As for your venture pitch, it sounds like a great idea. The service sounds extremely thorough from needs assessment to implementation, and I thought it very smart of you to note that consultants were experts in both education and technology, so that you would retain credibility from all sides of the market. I also appreciate how you are careful not to disparage educators by explaining that teachers and admin are experts in education, but not necessarily technology. I also think that the public would appreciate how you are careful to note efficiency and effectiveness – ensuring that private business is accountable with public funds.
As for your numbers, the costs that you mention sound reasonable, but it does seem that you may be missing a few expenses such as office space, equipment etc.
gillian
Thanks for your comments Gillian,
In hindsight, a powerpoint presentation would have been better for the one-minute pitch (especially since I am not the best public speaker in the world).
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for sharing your venture with us. I quite liked your venture idea and I think you have done a good job in trying to deliver as much details and specifics as possible within 1:11 minutes. It is very challenging to be able to pin point the core ideas and being able to present it. You did very well in that matter in trying to convince your investors. However, as an EVA I am a bit picky in the presentation itself, I would find it more convincing if the presenter was looking at the camera providing some eye contact and at the same time adding a smile would definitely boost up the atmosphere of the pitch. Other than this, I think you have did a good job.
Keep up the good work.
Karon
Thanks Karon,
I appreciate your comments. It’s sometimes difficult to smile when you’re nervous! 😉
Cheers,
Lisa
Hello Lisa:
Your venture, Educational Technology Experts, is a great idea and similar to my venture proposal for professional development in educational technology. You have good personal presence in your elevator pitch but focusing in on the camera once in a while would have relieved the “scripted” feel to the video. You identify clear pain points and explain your market expectations well. As the venture leader, you sound convinced of your product’s value. Great job. You mention the need for investment based on labor and advertising. I wonder if you are short-changing yourself here. What about office space, equipment, travelling costs and internet access? Will you have a team to support you? You may have provided answers in your venture pitch but I am just analyzing your elevator pitch here. The first half of your elevator pitch seems aimed at convincing your clients rather than your investors. I think your investors need to here this same information but somehow it needs to be clear that you are directing this at them rather than your clients. Good work!
Tim
Hi Lisa, great concept, and certainly an area where schools need support. The school I am currently working at brought in EdTech Audits, and they provided us with recommendations for development and areas of strength. I would have liked to hear more about the structure of your reporting process and how you will ensure that your people are experts, and provide useful recommendations to your clients.
Great idea!
Chelsea
Private consulting is a great idea for offering professional development for teachers. I would actually prefer to take PD from someone in the industry rather than a colleague teacher. I seem to get more out of the presentation as they usually provide real examples of work that they are doing. The difficult part might be to find, train and keep qualified staff that can relate to teachers and education and try to turn a profit doing so. I know we spend quite a bit of money on PD and some of it gets wasted in my opinion. I would want to make sure we are getting the most for our money and think that most schools are the same. If you have a great product and teachers like it, the word will spread quickly.
Good idea! I can’t wait to see what sessions you have lined up.
Dennis
Lisa,
Very well done, especially with the paper. You have obviously thought about gaps that exist in the current educational systems. As for the venture pitch, I was a little disconcerted about not being “looked in the eye.” I know that camera work can be daunting, especially for 1 minute.
Coming from both secondary and middle schools, what would your primary focus on implementation be??
Cheers,
Todd
Hello, I am Sherman Lee, CEO of cDesign. I work with a team of dedicated instructional designer and corporate training strategists in partnership with Level-5, a video game company to put together this course design tool that does not only let you create, but also guide you through instructional best practices. Launching into the $130 […]
Continue reading Hello, I am Sherman Lee, CEO of cDesign…. Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello Sherman,
Very clear and well laid out Elevator and Venture Pitches. Your slides are easy to follow and presented neatly. I like your idea of creating a partnership with other companies and not rivalries.
One critique I might add is that I would have like to have seen you present more of your future plans and go beyond just the first year outlook for C-Design.
Good work,
Donna
Hi Donna,
In hindsight, I do want to project more into the future of cDesign. Stepping out of my CEO role play for a bit, while I was writing up my venture, I question my source of information. Since this is not a real venture and we don’t have budget to work with, I didn’t have real market information from surveys. From that standpoint, I reserved to saying that I will make 1% of the market in first year because of the lack of information on resistance and saturation point of the market. It would definitely be interesting to know though. If this venture was real, I would conduct a survey before I even do this pitch.
Thanks for reading 🙂
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
I think you presented your company very well. I was happy to hear your voice and see your picture. However, the power of video presentation has become evident to me in this course and might be a consideration for “next” time (I am guilty of NOT doing that myself). Other than that I think your idea has GREAT potential and you were very clear on your “ask”.
Thanks for sharing your idea,
Ronna
p.s. I would invest!
Hi Ronna,
Thank you for investing in my venture! I have to thank Dragons Den and Kickstarter for my “ask” section. I was too shy to do it at first because I have never really pitched before and I am very used to just letting people offer whatever they think I am worth, but my boyfriend, who’s a web design freelancer showed me a couple of real pitches and coached me through the process he would go through when he is doing a pitch. I think it really helped me.
I agree with you 100% on the video part. I regret not doing it but I was in a toggle of between doing a video feed or just voice over. The funny story behind this stems from the project I worked on in my company. I had to come up with an introduction to our teaching program to our business partners and originally we thought, you know, since our core project group know the project inside out, it would be good to film one of us in the intro instead of hiring an actor or getting upper levels to do it. That proposal was rejected and marketing explained that the age and voice of the person has a lot to do with the buy in of the user. And the comment was my team was pretty young so it would deliver a stronger message if we have someone older doing that. Anyway, that was my rationale of not putting my face on there. Looking back though, there are a lot of young venturers so I think I was thinking too much about what the marketer said to my team.
Thank you again for investing in my business 🙂
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
As a potential investor I am very interested in what CDesign has to offer, though I have a few questions as well. Your pitches were very well organized, clear, and professional. As Ronna said, it would have been nice to see you speaking a bit. You highlighted some key points that give strength to your venture, in particular the information about expected retirements creating a gap in the next few years drew me in. I also liked the use of word clouds.
I am curious, however, about what you mean by interactivities – does cdesign include templates for games? discussions? What other types of interactivities? As well, in your information about the potential market you mentioned that the first number was simply for one corporation – were the national and North American numbers also based solely on one corporation? If so, what are the larger possible market numbers. My last question comes from the suggestion of partnering with large lms providers – do you think that your competition would be willing to work with you when cdesign could replace large aspects of their company?
I would be curious to see the answers to these questions, but am encouraged by your pitches and would be a strong potential investor!
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Thank you for your interest in cDesign. My team certainly put a lot of effort into creating this web application. The interactivies cDesign delivers include games, quizzes, puzzles, quests and simulations. Our game development partner, Level-5, offered a lot of expertise in terms of presenting challenges to users in many different ways. If you are interested in seeing some of the samples of Level-5 interactivity, you can definitely refer to their well-known role playing game series – Professor Layton. The only difference is, our users will get to be a part of the game design and twist the professional game interface to fit their own content. Imagine how this could help engage learners and how much more effective this would be in a classroom versus our ordinary course authoring software.
My first number for the potential market was for a single corporation. The second number is the total of all corporations within Canada. In other words, if we reach ALL corporations (which, of course would be a HUGE success) we would be dominating the $18 billion market nationally. This is the same for the North American market.
Partnering with large LMS providers is actually quite possible. I think cDesign threatens not the LMS providers but the corporate training consultants. LMS is a tool, and the corporate training consultants does what cDesign offer, but at a much higher price. The partnership between LMS and cDesign is one that would take over consultation firms. I see that we will have a challenge in regards to building the trust in our potential client. As some of our potential customers express worries for not having a real person to talk to and put together courses for them. Although our forum and ongoing support to our customers is in place, I propose that a trade show presentation and trial versions be distributed to show the ease of this tool. If anything, cDesign only make LMS more powerful and appeal to the unexplored market of smaller companies with too little resources at this time to even attempt eLearning on their own.
Please let me know if there is any other point that is still cloudy, I would be more than happy to clear those up for you.
Again, thank you for your interest in cDesign.
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Your presentation in the pitch is rather neat as I am sure you worked very hard on it. The voice over was very clear, the graphics and fonts were good. I was really looking to see the founder/CEO/Executive Director. I am not sure who is speaking. The CEO speaking in person to me would show more credibility and would give the potential investor your commitment for your venture. You also did not make mention of the management team. I might take a negative inference based on the fact that the CEO was unwilling to talk about the team.
Nevertheless, there’s potential for Cdesign, I think it needs more information though on the target and global market for me to think about investing.
~Shawn
Hi Shawn,
First of all, thank you very much for your time in reviewing my venture. It is my regrets that at this time a lot of our team members are still tying up other work they have with outside companies, so their identities were not to be revealed.
(jumping out of the role play for a second, I actually put down a couple of big names for the executive team, but I was thinking that this video would be loaded onto YouTube and I took a step back and deleted all of them. In hindsight I really should have asked David if we could or could not role play all the way in a new venture like this. I was concern about privacy and freedom of information issues even though this is a school project. I was thinking a bit too much).
I will definitely take your advice to heart and make an appearance in my future pitches. Perhaps I will ask my executive team to give a speech too to build trust with interested investor like yourself!
Sincerely yours,
Sherman
love your spirit Sherman! All the best!
~Shawn
Sherman, you have carried the CEO role of your company well!!!
You have outlined your company direction, product and vision clearly and directly. The market potential and partnerships will certainly help with your returns. I found your option to turn competitors into partners quite interesting.
I’m not familiar with how corporate training occurs, but your venture indicates that LMS may be a possible opportunity for improved distribution. For smaller corporations, your product combined with an LMS delivery system would appear to give your product a competitive edge.
I would agree with others that have already commented that having your ‘presence’ in the venture and/or elevator pitch, even for a portion of the presentation, would help investors gain ‘buy-in’. As it is, your venture is worthy of investment, your personal pitch presence would make it a sure thing.
Helen
Good evening Helen,
Thank you very much for your interest in cDesign. Corporate training is usually on a very tight budget and because most of the knowledge is sensitive to changes in company targets and direction of the year, many of the training is not built to stay. Therefore making training a very expensive aspect to sustain should it be constantly contracted out. Of course, we are then left with only subject matter experts to come up with courses, which, as I have mentioned, is not the best way because they have no or little pedagogical knowledge. Hence, cDesign leverage on the fact that corporation would spend money on the migration over to our company in exchange for a long term saving.
As I have said to other investors who had mentioned my lack of presence, I will definitely present myself more clearly as the CEO next time. I like your idea of presenting at least for a portion of the presentation. I will keep that in mind.
Thank you for your investment!
Sherman
Hi Sherman
I thought that you had an excellent venture concept, which was well researched and supported. I really liked how you addressed the fact that your competitors offered similar products in terms of the tools, but that you had the advantage with actually providing the training and experience.
The market would appear to support the growth and development of such a venture, especially if you could move into the North American Market.
As an investor I was interested by both your elevator pitch, and venture pitch, and would like to move on the next step of seeing the full-scale venture plan and implementation.
I would agree with others that you could work to carry a little more weight and emphasis in your voice, but you were clear and easy to understand.
Great Work.
Dave
Hello Dave,
Thank you very much for your investment in cDesign. I agree 100% that if I make an appearance with my team, we would probably have drawn more people into our venture. I look forward to contacting you and going over the full-scale venture plan and implementation. It will definitely be even better than what you have viewed so far as our team has learnt from the pitch experience and made improvement to the overall planning.
Looking forward to prospering with you in this venture!
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Your presentation is clear and effective, however, it would have been nice to see your enthusiasm rather that only hear it.
As for the company, I am curious about the partnership with level-5 and what their stake in the company is. Is this a contract agreement with them or is it a business partnership/subsidiary? I think knowing the answer to that would make me understand full what I would be investing in.
I would be interested in also seeing an early version of the program and how the templates and system works for the actual users. That would definitely convince me to invest my money.
Thanks,
Kenton
Hello Kenton,
Thank you very much for your interest in cDesign, and for your further inquiry in our business structure. Hopefully I will be able to provide you with a satisfactory answer to our vision here.
cDesign and Level-5 is in a business partnership. Level-5 is actively developing the next game in the Professor Layton series. In this partnership, cDesign has made an agreement to provide them with pedagogical expertise in return for their animation work for our project. A lot of the templates are results from the development of the new addition to the Layton series.
We can arrange a time for you to either come to our headquarters or connect with you through gotomeeting, so we can show you the power of this program.
Talk to you soon,
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Your presentation is engaging and its supporting data is well researched. It’s fresh to see a venture that targets corporate training. This market is significantly larger and more willing to spend money than the K-12 and post-secondary markets. Kudos for having this big vision. As for investing, it would help if I could test out a prototype. I also have several questions/concerns:
1. You said that there are a wide-range of tools developed after surveying educators world-wide. What are some of these tools? How are they different from (or better than) your competitor’s existing ones. (It’s hard to visualize without trying it hands-on)
2. Different companies have different needs. How does it recommend best practices if the needs are different? A “one size fits all” solution to instructional design does not make sense. Please clarify.
Assuming these questions are properly addressed and cDesign has moved beyond proof of concept, I am willing to invest financially.
Colin
By the way, thank you for sharing this wonderful concept with us.
Hello Colin,
Thank you very much for your interest in cDesign. You are correct that the corporate training market has a greater potential than the K-12 and post-secondary markets, and the spending power of these corporation is, to say the least, amazing.
In regards to your questions, here is some clarification on my stand points:
1. Aside from the typical tools such as assessment makers, calendars and reporting tools, cDesign also offer a built-in lesson planner. Teachers can either plan using their own tools and then build the course directly into cDesign or they can choose to build starting from this lesson planner. The lesson planner guides the user through the essentials in a lesson plan, such as objectives and assessment model.
Another tool that I would like to highlight is cDesign’s reference engine. This reference engine allow the user to search and bookmark any internet resources and even import it directly into their lessons! This tool also help with the citation of these sites (this is done automatically when you import the material), which would avoid any copyright issues. This citing engine can be tweaked should the corporation have different rulings on external reference usage. This function is similar to what you would find in safe search in search engines.
2. Certainly, ‘one size’ does not ‘fit all’ in instructional design. Recommendations are set as default unless the user make changes to it. One of the tools that the users have access to is the instructional design standard tab. This tab allow the user to input any executive decision on how their courses should be structured. For instance, if my corporation decide to have no interactivities at all or have 30% interactivities throughout the entire delivery time, all you need to do is type this into the system and away you go. This tab also serves as a guide to help standardize courses within the same corporation, so that learners have a common structure to go by even if the courses are developed by users from different departments with different expertise.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can help clarify, I would be more than happy to connect with you.
Sherman
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I think this is an exciting venture–one that I am interested in investing.
Hi Sherman,
I’m glad to see a venture about corporate instructional design. Your venture pitch is fantastic and very nicely presented! It contains strong reasons supporting your venture, simple images and not a single word was wasted! This is the most effective use of wordles I’ve seen. Your tone of voice and speech rate were great. Your enthusiasm and confidence are clearly evident!
What concerns me about this venture is that it seems to negate the need for knowing learning theories, applying multimedia instructional design principles, differentiating skills vs. knowledge, targeting the level of learning objective (Bloom’s taxonomy) vs. the degree of proficiency, knowing how to motivate students or engaging them with a hook and so on?
The idea of combining all of this with game design templates seems like a lot, given that game design alone is complex, never mind using it for instructional purposes. The only way out of all of these issues would be to have thorough instructions at every stage of course development. Even then, would the “designer” understand what they are doing? Not to mention that graphic design has an impact on instructional effectiveness…
There is certainly a great advantage to using the subject matter experts and forming partnerships with LMS companies, but I’m not certain this is the best way. I would have to see how the program works in different situations to be convinced to invest. I think your marketing plan is realistic with a start of reaching 1% of the Canadian market share. However, I would have liked to see references indicating the legitimacy of the data. I like that you would be listening in on discussions in the forum to obtain user and educator feedback.
Once again, I think that your pitches are presented very professionally.
Cheers,
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you very much for your advice and interest in cDesign. It is very true that ultimately the understanding of learning theories and principles is very important to delivery the most effective lessons. At the same time, corporations that cannot afford instructional designers and only has enough time to enlist subject matter experts into a training project can definitely use this tool. It takes years to build that professional grasp onto the concept of instructional design and what cDesign offer is a fast track for those who do not have a starting point.
cDesign is by no means there to replace professional instructional designers, but it is there to provide a solution which may not have even existed given a corporate structure usually would bypass anything they cannot afford to go for the less costly.
However, I do appreciate your comments, Dan, as it will help guide cDesign towards betterment. From your suggestion, we will try to make our design guidance as clear as possible. We will also consider providing a more accessible route for users to contact us for assistance if required.
We hope to draw your interest in the future, once we have deployed cDesign and be able to present to you more solid data.
Should you be interested, please subscribe to our newsletter at http://www.cDesign.ca (this is fake… kind of want to just complete my role play).
Cheers,
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Thanks for clarifying how your services would be used. I’m ready to invest in your venture.
Cheers,
Dan
HI Sherman,
I too really appreciated your elevator pitch and venture pitch. You were enthusiastic, the presentation was crisp and clear. Like others I would have liked to have “met” you in the elevator pitch, but I wasn’t too concerned about it being video. – the way you presented on the venture pitch would have been adequate. I also think you could have slowed your delivery just a bit in the elevator pitch – it was perfect in the venture pitch.
I was enthused to go on to view the venture pitch by your elevator pitch and remained very interested in investing in your venture. I think you would present well to in the corporate world and this would also encourage me to invest in the venture.
Some of the previous posts have made comments I would have made too, so I won’t repeat them. I did think that it really is a solution for supporting pedagogy of online learning without having to have professional instructional designers and would mean that much more could be achieved in an organisation without the time and wait for the professionals. I don’t think this concept is limited to the business world…
It would have been good to see some of the designs and screens that cDesign uses (but it was a hypothetical).
I certainly would be considerig investing after these pitches.
Denise
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
Donna Forward 9:41 pm on August 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Happy August to you too David and thanks again for a great course.
Donna