According to Technorati, the blog count reached 80 million last year. Even though a quarter of them are most likely bot-created spam blogs, the quantity of content ‘in the cloud’ is still staggering. Blogs give everyone a voice to communicate, teach, spout opinions, learn and network. And with RSS technology, blog posts are quickly pushed […]
Continue reading Blogs Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll Personalized Learning has been been a dream of educators forever, one that is reaching a tipping point in terms of the technologies available for realistic implementations. This marketplace opens to data-driven evaluation enabling learning experiences that cater to individual students learning styles and needs. Opportunity Statement While the venture prospects for Personalized Learning are awesome […]
Continue reading Personalized/Adaptive Learning Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
As the school I teach at caters to students with learning difficulties, each student has a different learning profile and as well this it the direction the ministry of education is shifting, so by having strategies in tools in place a school can shore up their section of a market, and as an individual it gives room for development as a consultant.
As an Administrator in post-secondary, there is more and more demand for us, as an academic unit to be as accommodating to all people as much as possible. I think that, with this demand, there are lots of opportunities (venture-wise) for technologies to address this.
Some companies are employing algorithms (Grockit, Khan) to create a highly adaptive and individual learning experience. Great market potential and lots of room for discussion as the idea could promote test mania.
The ever-evolving affordances of technology have the capability of moving online education from “read this, answer that” status to truly interactive, personalized opportunities. As the demand for online education grows, this area has the potential to grow exponentially.
Adaptive learning seems to fit in with the idea of universal design for learning. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it means that learning materials are adapted for use by many, not just those with special needs. That means it’s more likely to get used in a class room than technology that has to be implemented for a single student. The need for adaptive learning seems to be immense. However, one major obstacle I see is the huge amount of time needed to develop content that is sufficient for a broad range of knowledge levels (developmentally disabled to gifted).
Finding ways to appeal to every student presents a challenge that technology may be highly able to meet, if the right people are at the wheel. Presenting education as a one on one relationship catered to individuals turns it into more than an assembly line and creates a dynamic opportunity for advancement.
The ability to be more selective and autonomous as a student is appealing in today’s world. This opening of educational choice through the use of technology can be a motivating factor for many of our high school students who seem to lack it under the (often) straight-jacket opportunities they have. Self-paced opportunities will allow more students to be successful in more challenging areas.
The classical approach to learning has failed to give a chance to learners to choose the way they like to learn and as a result of that many educators feel they are ready to adopt any different approach that can break this rigidity in education. I think this project is important.
Hussain
It would be my dream job to design and work on a project\program that provides personalized adaptive learning. Although I am presently a FSL teacher, my interests are not limited to teaching languages, but I would be interested in developing a program that caters to adult individuals.
In researching e-portfolios for another course, I discovered Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). PLEs go far beyond e-portfolios as they include the integration of a whole host of web 2.0 tools for students to reach learning goals and present evidence of their learning through a variety of multimedia tools that suits their particular learning style and their educational interests. PLEs are definitely something I would be interested in exploring further.
For more information see the following websites: http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Personal_learning_environment and http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutPerso/171521.
Most people prefer to tackle the majority of their continuing learning objectives independently or informally in professional groups, as Self-Guided Learning. Additionally, the availability and affordability of qualified teachers and accessible learning environments can’t nearly meet the global demand for higher and better educational opportunities. Opportunity Statement Venture opportunities exist in a vibrant global marketplace […]
Continue reading Self-Guided Learning Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
A simple idea with huge market potential. Lynda.com generated $70 million without one formal course – just resources for self-guided learning (http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/03/lynda-70m/).
The potential for self guided learning within a supported environment for younger learners will respond to the needs of home instructors. Creating the content, providing tutoring, supplying accreditation is a potential work environment for under-paid, under-employed educators.
When working with students who struggle with learning in many ways for various reasons the power of self guided learning becomes clear. For many students (and teacher) being able to work through material in a different environment, at their own speed and at the pace that suits them best is ideal. Creating such educational worlds is the key.
Self-guided learning is a very engaging a exciting concept. While many aspiring students might feel the constraints of formal education, self-guided learning provides an interesting option for individuals who might not have time, resources or other necessary elements to engage in furthering their education.
An ultimate goal for me following this MET prgram, would be to work within an organization that provides higher learning opportunities around the world. I recognize that for many countries, paying for qualified teachers is near impossible and there are few accessible learning environments students can afford.
I would love to work on a venture that explores self-guided and self-paced learning opportunities for adults. The challenge would be to create a learning environment, including content and curriculum that is culturally sensitive. I would particularly like to work on content and curriculum.
Cloud Learning is about employing essentially limitless web-based storage and services (the “cloud”) to enhance the learning experience with unprecedented accessibility, continuity, extensibility and integration. Most analysts believe that humanity’s move from computers to the cloud will be more transformational than our recent move from paper to computers. Opportunity Statement While it may seem that most […]
Continue reading Learning in the Cloud Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
As we struggle with server space and anywhere access to information I see the cloud as the way of the future. My family and I own numerous technological devices and I like to access my files on any device wherever I happen to be, in the house, or on the go.
With the rate of change of technology, I think that computers will become devices for linking to the internet, rather than for housing and running software. As more of what we do individually becomes housed in the cloud, educational technology will follow suit.
As school budgets continue to be cut, cloud computing has the potential to save school boards money. In addition, students won’t have to worry about forgetting to send themselves a file to work on at home; their files will be accessible from anywhere.
I am curious to know where these real savings might occur? Students will still require computer hardware to connect to the cloud, and servers may be fewer and in centralized locations, rather than each school, but they will have to be a larger capacity. Just wondering. What are your thoughts?
The sky’s the limit – the potential to connect communities of learners from across the globe is enabled by cloud computing. Time zones, synchronicity and location are irrelevant. Learners working on projects can create, collaborate and connect in ways that were not possible before i-clouds and sky drives.
True collaborative work is possible with cloud technology. No longer do students need to share one computer to do a PowerPoint assignment or play e-mail tag with the file. They can edit the same presentation at the same time. The cloud concept is amazing … as long as there is internet access.
The extreme adaptibility of working in the cloud to almost any time, place and circumstance makes this a tool worth using and exploring. The ability to work from any computer both synchronously and asychronously is invaluable for knowledge generation and review. The reduction in stress on local servers is very important.
This is definatley the way things are moving, I would love to get rid of my flash drive and external hard drive and have all my documents, files etc available from any computer any place in the world. Security and safety of confidental data are things that come to mind though!
The “cloud” frees people from the physical devices and give flexibility as to how and what they use to create and present. The simple Dropbox has made my personal work easier since it allows me to create on my Mac and present using Windows based student response systems. I can see how the cloud helps the integration of tools such as Ipads and other mobile technology.
Yes I believe Cloud Learning will reform the education, with unbounded environment, converged content, ubiquitous & seamless access. Since the reformation is big, the chances in it will be big too for ventures who will help this trend
Cloud learning has the potential to allow students and teachers to continually have access to learning material and content. In the move towards ubiquitous learning and the potential to always be engaged in learning activities the use of cloud computing increases the flexibility of learning for student learning and teacher delivery.
Though I am totally in agreement that this is the most practical evolutionary step for computing, I am hesitant to dive in considering privacy/digital ownership concerns. Once your family photos, etc. are loaded to “the cloud” who then owns them? What safeguards are in place to protect your information and privacy?
In the corporate sector IT managers are trying to cope with the ‘impossible’ situation that workers are insisting on coming to work, and doing their work, with their own mobile and work devices (Bring Your Own Device – BYOD), creating (for the managers, they say) a tsunami of technology management, security, etc, problems. For the […]
Continue reading BYOD Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
My school is moving in the direction of BYOD. I have blogged on the topic http://whatsitinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2012/03/bringing-your-own-technology-to-school.html and am interested in the contrast between our mixed platform environment and schools that have chosen platform for their users: are there significant impacts on learning when users are responsible for selecting and maintaining their devices?
Our school has laid the footings for a BYOD school but have not taken the final step of actually letting kids bring their devices. We are at the tipping point and I cannot wait to see what happens.
My school is in the dark-ages as far as this topic goes as we still ban cell phones in the classroom. I saw a wonderful use for cell phones in my daughter’s university class last semester when students used their phones to respond to questions the professor posted during class. What a great formative/diagnostic tool that could be!
One of the advantages blogs have over other online options is that they can be much more personal. I want the work my students to do to be meaningful to them and see a blog which includes highlights, accomplishments, and reflections as being of great value especially if it’s shared with peers.
Oops! I posted my blog comment here in error.
As part of a revamping of the technology plan in our district we are looking at BYOD. Right now students are not allowed to bring devices to school and phones are discouraged. Schools in the district are in the process of becoming wireless. It is a long process but I am interested in seeing how this initiative will pan out.
Student’s and staff are encouraged not to buy their own tech (such as appletv units) not due to security/reimbursement issues but issues surrounding our wireless internet capabilities & bandwidth/speed problems. These devices need to be supported by a stronger/faster internet connection before a school as big as ours (2000+ students &100+ staff) can sustain effective use.
BOYD is a debatable venture in the world of e-learning. But what encourages it on the long run is the fast pace of technology. It makes it inevitable in some fields of education.
Hussain
BYOD holds a lot of promise as it opens the chances for students to engage in ubiquitous learning and extending their learning beyond the classroom. Giving students the chance to continually learn and be engaged in their learning will enhance their learning and move their understanding to deeper levels.
I recently returned to a Markham public school after teaching internationally for the past 2.5 years. I was awe-struck when the classroom teacher asked the students to take down the notes on the board, and I saw a group of students come up to the board with their cell phones and snap a picture of the notes! The students who didn’t do this had been taking notes at their desks on their tablets or netbooks and laptops. Students were personalizing their learning with the devices that best suited their learning styles. I think that this is definitely the way to go considering the fast pace of today’s technology- students are investing in it at home anyways; our public schools cannot afford to keep up with the latest changes, so why not allow the students to BYOD?
BYOD holds promise for students to be engaged and it can be cost effective, but for a small organisation like ours the challenges are:
1. creating good connectivity and access across platforms and
2. how to effectively develop courses that integrate the use of the devices for learning, and not just result in learners being able to access their emails or multitasking irrelevant to the learning at hand.
I wish my school was moving in the direction of BYOD! It seems as though it is a recent trend in the more developed countries. At my school, students are not allowed to take any form of devices to school, however they still do especially since internet access is readily available. BYOD has its advantages and disadvantages, however, as an educator of Info Tech, I do allow students to use their devices in my class to integrate with the lesson being taught which brings about a more collaborative lesson; one which holds a discovery appraoch to it as well. In other words, students are more involved with its use as teaching and learning take place in a creative fashion!
Shawn Naomi
I think our devices are becoming evenly more deeply entrenched as an extension of ourselves, so it makes the most sense that our own devices are the primary tool to engage in our learning environments. On a practical note, my school was selected to be first in the district for a hardware refresh cycle. Our prize, 5 year old recycled off lease computers… My students phones seem to have more computing power than the “new” machines we just acquired. A BYOD may be the only way to solve the political and administrative nightmare of connecting students digitally.
BYOD is certainly an issue for the corporation I work for, but it also present a possibility of expanding our classroom horizon to include a student response system that utilizes common smartphone and personal electronic devices as input instrument.
Just today I received an e-mail from our district tech guys letting the staff know that our students now will have access to the school’s wireless internet and they have just received their own wifi password and the teachers have theirs. This will be a new venture for our school to see how the students and teachers work with this new found freedom.
My only concern with BYOD is that the underpriviledged students who can’t afford iPhones etc, will be left out in the dark. In my school, there are quite a few students living below the poverty level.
I’m curious to see how the next few months before the summer holidays will unfold and how each individual teacher will deal with the fact that the students will have constant access to the internet. Certain teachers don’t allow cell phones in class while they’re teaching so I predict that we will need a few staff meetings to decide how we’re going to handle the situation.
We are in the midst of implementing BYOD on our secondary school in our school board and I am a member of the planning and implementation team. It has been a whirlwind ‘ride’ to date but nonetheless has proven to be exciting times. Although I am involved in all aspects of the project, my core focus is the ‘pedagogical’ use of BYOD. The goals are to facilitate ‘transformed practice’ with the use of technology in the classroom. We must go beyond the first step of ‘digitizing our current practices’ to truly adapting our teaching practices to maximize the potential afforded to us by these technologies, and this will have a significant impact on how we deliver content, how we assess students and how we collaborate to achieve our end goals.
Game-Based Learning seeks to apply the technologies and engagement factors of the hyper-successful electronic games sector, and of games more generally, to create effective learning experiences. This includes everything from the creation of original games with learning outcomes embedded in the gameplay (“serious games”) to the game-like animation (“gamification”) of more traditional learning approaches . Opportunity […]
Continue reading Learning with Games Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
I am working on a Minecraft project in which we have set up a Minecraft server and have students from other countries playing with us. This project is very much under development, but we have already had students complete project work using Minecraft, and we hope to run lessons on Minecraft in the fall.
I’m interested in both the idea of gamification as a style of teaching and the use of games in subjects that are perceived as intimidating like science and math.
Game-based learning is one which excites me and my students. Some individuals such as parents may think educators waste time when gaming is used in the classroom, but little do they know it does enhance learning and engage the students fully! Students do take charge of their learning where Game-based is concerned.
I think games that simulate real-world experiences have great potential, especially in the business courses I teach. I already use a game that simulates running a company where students must make decisions about pricing, number of units to produce and research and development costs. Student engagement during the activity, which lasts a couple of months, always exceeds my expectations.
As a computer lab facilitator at the hospital, I have taught with both self-directed online modules and a Medication Safety game designed for healthcare disciplines. In my experience, I have witnessed how some of my learners struggled dealing with the self-directed online modules which led to a state where my learners were less motivated to complete them. On the other hand, those who used the Medication Safety game showed better learning results and have derived greater enjoyment from it. Compared to the online modules, the Medication Safety game was designed with less text reading. I am interested in exploring further in regards to learning with games and see whether game play would benefit learners within the healthcare structure.
Karon
The idea of learning without realizing that you are doing so since you are enjoying the process is incredibly powerful, particularly for youth who expect everything in life to be simple and fun! Whether the games are designed for education or are simply applied in the correct way, the potential inherent in gaming is intriguing.
Earlier this term, my programming students started to create games for Windows and the Xbox 360 using Visual C# and XNA. Students used creative problem-solving and decision-making skills working on the project; they were also much more engaged in game making than traditional delivery of programming. Next year, the plan is to polish the polish the product and possibly sell them on the Xbox Live Community.
I love the idea of Learning With Games but I have struggled with its application. I have tried the middle school math game, “Lure of the Labryrinth” which did not interest my students….but I thought it was a nice try. I am convinced that games can help with understanding math/science.
Game-based learning is one of my passion, and I truly believe, from my personal experience that game-based learning results in high knowledge retention as the curriculum I deliver with associated game generally would result in better test scores in that segment as well as more positive student feedbacks.
The Visual-Intensive Learning (VIL) marketplace recognizes the rapid trend away from text-intensive information environments to visually-dominated web experiences that is apparent on most web sites but is championed most specifically by sites such as YouTube and Pinterest, as well as immersive collaborative environments and games. The concept of a “visual learner” is not new, but […]
Continue reading Visual-Intensive Learning Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
Visual literacy is quickly becoming equal in importance to textual literacy as we embrace technology and the ability to share images, video, animation, and graphics for communication. Educational institutions will meet the needs of todays learners by rapidly adjusting and integrating visually stimulating new media for learning in the classroom.
The need for visual literacy both in terms of meaning-making and creating is more pressing and belongs in a larger information and communication technology framework aimed at preparing learners (as well as immersing them in) digital learning, social and work-related environments.
Personal experience with student creation of videos and other visual representations of learning in the sciences has emphasized the incredible importance of this tool. Allowing the student to become the teacher produces far more learning and using technology only enhances this greatly. Remixing existing digital information from a variety of sources into a visually stimulating presentation by students to students produces meaningful learning, especially when done in collaboration with others.
As someone who is very interested in the visual arts, I have already experienced (self-guided) learning through visually intensive websites. While text-based learning can become very dry, image and video-based curriculum materials provide added visual interest that help to capture student attention.
From my experience as an ESL/ELSA teacher, this tool has become a must in the field. It is indispensable in the world of adult education. To be fair,actually I should say it is indispensable in the world of education in general.
Hussain
Learning visually with videos, images, games, VRs etc are more efficient and directer than learning with texts. It’s natually cross-languages and cross-ages. Although visual-based learning is often more expensive than text-based learning, thinking the creation, transmission and presentation, I have no doubt, with the help of developing technologies, that VIL would play a dominant role in the future education.
The Visual-Intensive Learning (VIL) marketplace is of great interest to me as a visual learner. Before embarking on this MET program I knew of few ways or tools to visually communicate my ideas and share my learning. Based on my experience within text-based asynchronous forums, I recognize how important it is to supplement these with visually-dominated web experiences.
I find it exciting to think that I will be exploring and perhaps designing ‘visual’ learning ventures, allowing me to at once build on my web experience and perhaps contribute to the world of educational technology.
Visual learning is certainly not a debateable topic. It has a rightful place in the learning environment with children and like wise with adult learners. Institutions need to be up to speed with such form of technology if they wish to continue meeting the needs of our versatile learners.
Insurance concept has always been a difficult concept to learn due to its complexity and numerous rules and regulations, which is especially true for students with an ESL background; this challenging learning is enhanced when visual representations are used just so that it forms a ground for big picture for details to build on.
In an online world of resources and endless information, visual-intensive interfaces allow learners to quickly scan through massive amounts of information without being overwhelmed by text. Pictures, symbols and numbers allow learners to scan sites like Pinterest and quickly focus on the areas that resonate with them based on various criteria such as visual image, category, and peer rating.
When UBC MET was created it was the first of its kind, now there are a number of similar graduate programs. As part of normal academic process a formal internal-external review of MET has just begun – this qualifies it as an ’emerging market’ because all of its many possibilities and opportunities are on […]
Continue reading Masters of Education Technology Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
With the expansion of technology in the workplace, coupled with the expectation that employees be highly educated (credential-wise) and a persistent expectation that employees are engaging in professional development opportunities, I think there is a lot of room for expansion in the MET program – specializations, PhD’s and much more.
I agree with your ideas, Lisa. I believe that the MET program is not a revolution in the e-learning but a massive continuation of a revolution in the digital-based learning. There no doubt things will not stop at the MET program or similar programs. The program is paving the way towards a complex net of innovative e-learning platforms. I personally believe that future MET programs will require a comprehensive knowledge of programming. And that means the expansion will not be horizontal but vertical as well.
I love the way we are referred to as consumers. I totally agree with this terminology but sometimes forget that these are how students are seen from a marketing perspective. I initially earned my post-bacc diploma in Teacher Librarianship and instead of working towards my Masters in that field, I chose the MET pathway and it seems that the way in which public K-12 school is heading in BC, that this was probably the more appropriate field for a teacher librarian looking to advance their education.
Hello,
I believe there is a lot of room for expansion within the MET program and think that it could possibly branch out as K-12 and adult education. I agree with you as well Lisa that this MET program could also expand to specialized PhD’s. I would be particularly interested in seeing the MET program further explore and develop a holistic approach to online learning.
Hello,
I, too, think that there is much room within the MET programme to allow for greater specialization. While I have enjoyed this programme immensely, I would appreciate the opportunity to delve further into more specialized areas. MET only scratches the surface of educational technology opportunity, and I feel that there would be no shortage of interest in PhD’s in any number of areas.
~Kim
MET, and other courses, offer excellent grounding in a growing area. I think it caters well to K12 but coould expand to offer specialisation eg. in adult education, and definitely PhD. Continuing professional education opportunities should also be offered to support the number of educators completing these courses and as technologies rapidly emerge and our learning environments change.
I think it would be an excellent opportunity to create a PhD program out of the MET programme. I agree with Denise that it’s been a long time coming for the program to offer areas of specialty. There is an excellent PhD online distance education program from San Jose State University’s Library and Information Science program that has attracted students from across the world. I see an opportunity for the Faculty of Education to do the same!
Allan
Tablets, game systems, smart phones and application like Siri all suggest a trend away from the inefficiencies of the keyboard for virtual interactions. Touch, Gesture & Voice are some of the more “natural” ways learners will access and immerse themselves in learning experiences. Opportunity Statement Learning technologies venture opportunities in Touch, Gesture & Voice are bountiful in that […]
Continue reading Touch, Gesture & Voice Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
We are implementing a 1:1 technology plan with iPads starting in 2012 and these tools provide many of the gestures, voice, and touch tools that learners are familiar with, but I think that the spaces they learn in also represent areas for development in tactile and voice interactivity.
As of September, 2012, each of the federally run tertiary institutions will require all new students to purchase an iPads in an effort to “transform higher education in the UAE so that students are motivated and engaged in their own intellectual development and achieve higher standards of success” leaving faculty with the intimidating yet thrilling task of learning how to use the iPad as a pedagogical device.
I am presently at a 1:1 school where they are also offering Ipads to teachers who are wiling to investigate their classroom use. I am a math teacher with a science background and I value learning through doing. This is not always easy in math, but I think that there is something out there that can help the students immerse themselves in learning rather than spectating. Using other senses can only make learning more interesting which in turn fosters curiosity.
This is probably the subject that is of most interest to me. Because I am interested in a holistic approach to online teaching and learning, the idea of being able to complement text-based asynchronous forums with touch, gesture and voice elements is exciting. Finding adequate design applications that provide these elements within course design or LM sytems would certainly be a challenge – but well worthwhile!
This is the area in which I would be most interested in.
Currently, I am advocating class sets of iPads for my K-6 school, as I see the use of touch and voice as allowing learners to beome more actively engaged.
Recognition of the importance of 21st Century Skills continues to grow, particularly in the area of competencies across digitally-rich domains involving communications, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Higher education and employers are seeking systematic ways to support and evaluate the acquisition of these skills. Opportunity Statement A set of 21st Century Skills venture opportunities exists […]
Continue reading 21st Century Skills Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
Our district is really pushing the 21st century skills and I see their vision as progressive and necessary in preparing our children for future careers.
Employers across all sectors are pushing for the 21 century skills and looking at educational institutions to prepare recent grads better in this area.
In our conceptual age success in adult life is dependent on 21st century skills including: critical thinking, problems solving, collaboration, communication, and creativity with creativity being of particular importance.
Our district is also pushing 21st century skills. I am on the district committee who is in the process of developing policy, teacher Pd. We are in the process of getting the message out to all schools in our district. Technology is a piece however the 4c’s is the foundation of the strategy. It is an interesting process.
Valerie
21st century skills is also very big in school district 41. Many schools have 21st century goups who meet on a regular basis to discuss how best to implement and support this.
Ever since being introduced to NETS for teachers and students, 21st century learning has held great interest for me. Clearly it is also a focus of the BC Ministry of Education as is evidenced by the Premier’s Technology Council Report on 21st Century Learning. However, what is lacking in the Ministry directives is strategies for implementation. I do, however, see great potential for ‘new ventures’ in this area, for when government shows interest in something, there is often funding to back it up. I would really enjoy exploring opportunities within this market as it seems to have the most potential for “consumers” – at least in regards to my own career.
Along with our BYOD, Google Apps for Education and new portal, it goes without saying that the consideration of 21 century skills are core to the success of these initiatives. The “4Cs” should be integrated into current practices, not as ‘another’ thing the teacher must add to their content, but in the ‘way’ they deliver their content and collaborate with students. Personally, I have concluded (although unofficially and certainly not finalized) that the success of TIC integration relies on 3 components: hardware / infrastructure, the services and the practices/content. My thoughts on this are based on the work of Sangra & Bates (triangulation). I firmly believe that 21 century skills are essential to maximize the use technologies in learning. Putting the infrastructure, the services and the content in place are only part of the puzzle – the ‘way’ in which we use them for an effective pedagogy is the other piece of the puzzle.
Welcome to LevelMe, an educational app for teachers, parents, students and educational professionals. Level your books using the newest smartphone app, anytime, anyplace. Watch the elevator pitch, read the venture pitch and get ready to invest! Elevator Pitch Read LevelMe Venture Pitch by Valerie Wells LevelMe Venture Pitch References Valerie
Continue reading LevelMe Posted in: Venture Forum
Hey Valerie,
You’re very well spoken. Great presentation of your elevator pitch. So when you’re out shopping you could scan a book and see its reading level and then you would have to determine its appropriateness based on the person you are buying it for. That means you would also need to know that persons current reading level. The one problem I see here is publishers eclipsing this idea by including reading level suggestions on the spine, or dust covers of books. I also realize that publishers place age suggestion and not usually reading levels, and the two are not usually the same. I’m also not sure what to suggest as an improvement or a consideration for the future.
Nice delivery though.
-Regen
Thank you for your feedback Regen.
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Your elevator pitch was well delivered and it was helpful to see you in the video to increase potential investor buy-in.
Your venture pitch was supported by some relevant statistics such as number of mobile internet activities and number of smartphone owners. I thought your summary of competitors was very effective. I was curious why you weren’t planning to develop the app for BlackBerry users. I am from Waterloo (the home of RIM) and know that most of us here use BlackBerrys. I think you may be excluding a large potential market by only developing for iPhone and Android devices. I also wasn’t clear about your target market. Your venture plan referenced K-12 students, but wouldn’t the primary users of this app be parents and educators?
Good luck!
Deborah
Hi Deborah
Thank you for your feedback. The plan referenced the number of students to give investors an idea of just how many students there are out there and in turn then the need for an app like this for parents and teachers.
You are right about BlackBerry users, however I was trying to narrow the market at first and then expand slowly. You make a good point and these users should have been added to future directions for markets.
Again thanks for your interest
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Your confidence in your venture comes across clearly in your elevator pitch and I commend you for stepping in front of the camera – something I was not comfortable doing. You hit the key points and piqued interest to investigate further into your venture. My only criticism would be the fact that it was clear you were reading your pitch and thus losing some personal engagement with the viewer by breaking eye contact.
As for your venture itself, I thought it was a very unique idea and was unaware that there was even any competition out there for such a product, yet you were able to communicate your venture’s edge quite well. I wonder though – how does your product work with e-books? E-books themselves are becoming a large market and one I think should not be discounted for consideration for your product.
I thought it was genius to market to parents as well as educators, but I thought you did not spend too much time on this aspect of your market.
Your research and stats were very helpful in showing the value potential of your product. A very concise and comprehensive pitch overall.
gillian
Thanks for your feedback Gillian. You have made some very good points.I think the reading part was nervousness, no matter how many times I did it I always reverted to reading, Frustrating!
I had not considered e books but should have. Thanks for pointing that out as it will be a huge market.
Again thanks for your interest
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Absolutely LOVE your venture idea! As a K-6 teacher, I have spent way too many hours on the Scholastic et al. sites figuring out the reading levels! I would love your app!
Your pitches were concise, comprehensive and professional. Your presence, and your included background would give me, as an investor, confidence in your credibility and in your team. You appear to have done a good amount of background research, and I was impressed by the listed apps and sites that you had (I will be using some of them myself!)
The only area where I would have liked a little more info would be the “roll-out” plan of the app, and the long-term plans ( but I realize there is a limit to how much you can include on this assignment!)
Overall, I think you did a great job, are very credible, have a viable product, and if I were an investor, I would certainly arrange to me w/ you!
Well done!
Smiles, Kim
Oooops!
That should say “…arrange to MEET w/ you.”
Kim 🙂
Hi Valerie,
I think you have done a great job with your elevator pitch venture pitch. Your ideas are very well researched and I think that such an application would be highly valuable to both educators and learners.
As a language teacher, it is a challenge to find reading texts that are appropriate to my learners level. Such an application would simplify my job significantly.
Your pictures very optimistic! This is great, however, your investors might appreciate being aware of some of the and potential challenges.
I think this is an excellent venture idea and I’m certainly interested!
Danielle
Thank you for your feedback. Good point about the challenges.
Valerie
Thanks Kim for your feedback. I agree that the roll out plan is definitely missing and would need to be added.
There are resources out there for reading level however they are cumbersome due to having to type in the text.
Valerie
Hi Valerie!
I think that your tone of voice exuded confidence in your elevator pitch and that, along with the idea of the venture itself made me want to go on to your venture pitch and I’m glad I did because it was very well put together!
In regards to your elevtor pitch I think perhaps you could have used a different medium if you weren’t too comfortable putting yourself in front of the camera or memorizing what you had to say without having to read it – for example mybrainshark presentation or an imovie where you could overlay your voice onto corresponding images and what not.
However, spaking again as an EVA I was moved to go onto your venture pitch because I did hear the confidence and thought the venture was interesting.
Your venture pitch is very well written and researched. You do a very thorough analysis of your market and your competition. I can see that you have also done the math regarding the revenue and ROI and these figures do look promising. I can see that this would be a viable venture and I would consider investing after seeing your complete business plan.
Thank you!
Sheza
Hi Sheza
Thanks for your interest and the constructive feedback. 🙂
Valerie
Valerie;
My first thought was “What a great idea!”. My daughter is entering grade 2 but reads at a higher level (not meaning to brag). It is difficult to even go to the library and find books that are at her reading level. Usually we just let her pick what she wants to read but if we want to push her forward we would get her to read books at (or just above) her level. I have to admit this might even be good for me as sometimes I might pick up a book that is too heavy for the light summer reading I am trying to relax with. I don’t know that the reading level would help but if you can scan for reading level maybe you can scan for other things, too.
Good luck on carrying this venture out.
Dennis
Hi Dennis
Thanks for your reply. I think that with the increase use of mobile devices and constant updates to the software scanning for other things may be a possibility and perhaps an in app purchase down the road..
Love to hear about your daughter’s reading level as difficulties in this area can be such a frustration for children.
Valerie
Valerie:
You’ve done an excellent job in convincing me to invest in LevelMe. I think this would be an excellent and useful tool to have as an app on a smartphone. Your elevator pitch clearly shows your enthusiasm in this product; you are convinced it is something that can and will be used by potential customers. Your personal presence in describing your product is effective and convincing. The only thing you may want to fit in is a little more about the market size in terms of client numbers and revenue. I feel this is important for me, as an investor, to know right at the start. I realize you cover this and cover it well in your venture pitch but just a brief mention in the elevator pitch would be good.
Your venture pitch is thorough in identifying the need and solution your product will accomodate. You do an excellent job of breaking down your potential market and your projected revenues are very believable. You have provided clear research regarding both the existing and potential market. Your team appears clearly competent to develop and market this product.
Overall, I really like the concept and,as a parent, would find this to be an extremely useful tool. I have found that the few books that are currently marked with a reading level are not very accurate in their projections. Your tool would hopefully provide an unbiased analysis of the reading level. I am somewhat concerned regarding the revenue generation through advertising in the general, parental version of your app. If I was to use this as a parent (which I think would prove to be your largest client base) I would be annoyed and turned away by this advertising. I feel that after an inital free offering of your product in a very simplified format, you could quickly move to a product you could charge a few dollars for to have it be ad-free. Just a thought. Overall, I am very excited regarding this product. You have made an excellent proposition.
Tim
Hello Tim
Thank you for your interest in LevelMe. I think your suggestion to have a paid ad free version for parents makes sense for those who want to pay. This would be very easy to arrange as an in app purchase.
I will certainly pursue this offering for the parent app.
Thanks for the constructive feedback
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Your elevator pitch, while not filled with bells and whistles was very convincing and when you asked the question “Have you ever had to buy a book for someone only to find it was too hard or too easy for their reading ability?” I found myself answering “yes” since this happens to me on a frequent basis. The ease and mobility of using apps appears to me to be one of the strongest points of your idea. I would also add grandparents to the list since they are often the book buyers who feel lost in the field of new books and stories making them gravitate to those with which they are already familiar.
From what I understand there is not an international standard for reading levels so what system would you propose to use when determining the reading level? I assume that your program will work with e-readers.
I like the idea of offering the freemium along with an upgrade, however, I would be interested in learning what you are considering as the added features. As readers enter middle school they often find that the thought of reading longer books to be daunting. I think that an interesting feature might be the ability to determine how long it might take to read the book and then break it down into 15 min per day etc. in order to help them set realistic goals to finish.
I am very interested in providing you with the $250 000 financial backing for LevelMe and I look forward to a great partnership.
Bridget
Hi Bridget
Thank you for your interest and support. I am sure this will be a successful partnership for both of us.
Valerie
Valerie,
While not a parent (yet), I cannot tie in personally with your venture. But as an English teacher, I would love the ability to have your product to suggest to my parents. You have presented in such a clear and concise way that all questions are fully answered even before being asked.
Well done, and I would certainly back this venture!
Todd
Hi Todd
Thanks for your support and feedback.
Valerie
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
Hello and welcome to Speaking Visually, the online arts integrated modules that address the need for learners to develop 21st century literacy skills including: visual, critical thinking, and creativity skills. To learn more about this venture you can view the elevator pitch and review the venture pitch. Elevator Pitch Venture Pitch SpeakingVisually You’ll also find […]
Continue reading Speaking Visually Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Claire
I really enjoyed viewing your elevator pitch. The images and music were beautiful and held my attention throughout the pitch. Your idea is original and certainly would have a niche in our education system. One suggestion that I think would improve your elevator pitch would be delivering your pitch in person on the video. This would, I think lend more credibility to the CEO, and give investors a chance to see firsthand your commitment and passion for your venture.
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Thanks for your suggestion Valerie.
There’s much to consider in preparing a presentation. After viewing many of the presentations in the venture forum I have to say having video of the CEO does add credibility. To improve my pitch a blending of images and video of me presenting might be a good solution.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Your elevator pitch worked. Your proposal is so far out of my area of expertise, that I watched the elevator pitch three times before I caught on to what the venture was about (not because you didn’t explain it well, but because I am so unfamiliar with art education). That speaks volumes about your elevator pitch because even though I didn’t understand at first, it made me want to watch again and figure it out. In fact, it really worked because I went on to read your venture pitch.
Your venture clearly outlines a need in the art education market and identifies why your solution will meet that need in a unique way. You have a well laid out plan for marketing and the personal credentials you have outlined give me confidence that you can lead this venture. Your overall plan for development was comprehensive – I appreciated how you explained the proposed teacher to student ratio and at which points you would need additional teachers, admin and tech support. It is clear that your venture is well thought out and extremely organized. It was a pleasure to read.
I think this venture has real merit. After reading your proposal, you have me convinced that there is a need in the education system, but I am somewhat concerned that it might be a hard sell to school districts or students who may not see that need. Finding the right angle and venue for marketing it would be key to its success.
Overall, an impressive proposal.
Janet
Hi Janet,
I agree that generally speaking districts don’t pay a great deal of attention to art education. However, with the current trend toward personalized learning and the push for educational reforms, they are paying attention to options that contribute to students developing 21st century skills. I can see that a marketing goal needs to be to very quickly communicate that this venture goes well beyond offering art instruction and describe how modules are designed to aid students in gaining the skills they need for success in the conceptual age.
Claire
What a unique idea Claire!!! The stats you provided added “weight” and made the venture concept more appealing.
An in-person pitch would have been even more impactful. I myself filmed two versions, one just voice and then another one with video but finally decided to use the video version.
Concept and team
The venture concept “a solution to enhance visual literacy” is very clearly articulated.
The detailed information about team roles and the thinking behind supporting the future growth convey confidence and competence in carrying out the plan successfully.
Marketability
I like the idea of tying this to essential skills because that to me sounds promising in terms of market opportunities. The competition is well researched – my only suggestion would be to probably elaborate a bit more on what differentiates Speaking Visually from the competition.
Venture Plan
A very well thought-out plan Claire. As an investor I would have liked to see a larger profit share and if not possible then maybe a rationale would be helpful.
Great work.
Leonora
Hi Leonora,
I appreciate your comments and agree that some in-person segments would improve my pitch. I actually began by creating a video of myself but it didn’t seem to fit my venture idea so I switched to presenting images and me speaking. Now that I’ve had more opportunity to reflect I think a combination of in-person video and visuals would have worked well.
As I understand it an investor is looking for a return equal to or greater than the initial investment. I might not be clear on that though. It would be helpful for me to participate in discussion regarding expectations in that area.
Claire
Hi Claire
I really like this idea. I have always thought, that with the recent improvements to web-based digital media, that high quality education in fine arts would become possible. I got the sense from your elevator pitch that a quality learning experience would be offered.
My hesitation regarding this venture and other tuition based ventures surrounds facing the emerging competition from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). There are some major university partnerships in the US such as the $60 million dollar edX partnership of MIT and Harvard. I would need to know more about how this service would be differentiated from existing MOOCs and platforms like Udemy and Coursera which are attracting the big universities.
Hi Chris,
Whenever the idea of selling online courses comes up so too does the fact that some of the major universities offer open online courses. It’s my understanding that what these courses offer is content. While they include video instruction and demonstration, they are in fact the equivalent of online texts. The modules I’m marketing are designed for learning communities and the construction of knowledge. My approach is to encourage learners to pull content rather than having content pushed at them. Each module encourages students to be creative as they define problems and work collaboratively to find logical solutions. Once they’ve arrived at a solution or solutions the next task is to go beyond spoken or written forms of communication and use visual forms to articulate their findings.
Claire
Hi Claire,
I really like your elevator pitch, which is so engrossing and passionate. It does work to lead me into your venture proposition, though I wish there could be a few key words in the pictures to give me a quick idea of the story behind (forgive my poor hearing).
I love the cover of your venture pitch. That shows a great sense of art. I have no doubt that your credit and capability can make you a qualified leader for this venture. I would hope to see a clearer story for how the “visual” and “speaking” parts work together. Do students orally speak out opinions for presented pictures, or do they “speak” in the form of visual pieces? What kind of arts can be considered as “ill-defined”? Does the “illness” mean in art sense or in social sense? In my understanding (not professional), art is perceptual which values creativity and innovation, how to associate it with very rational “problem solving” and “critical thinking”? I think you have a very thorough plan for operating the venture, including human resources, but I would like to see a more detail description of your potential users. In the competition paragraph, a brief comparison could help to clarify the differentiation advantages of your venture to the others.
Well done, Claire!
Ping
Hi Ping,
You offer something for me to consider when you suggest that I use text as well as images and audio to communicate my idea. My idea highlights the fact that visuals offer a language of their own. We’re so accustomed to communicating through spoken and written language that we easily overlook the power of the visual language that is everywhere.
In my competition paragraph I don’t compare my idea with the art options listed as these options teach technique and aren’t offering arts integrated education. Perhaps I should add a sentence to that section to make it clear that to my knowledge there currently are no online arts integrated options.
Claire
Hi Claire,
This is a very interesting idea, as I think it is very challenging to get school-aged students to reflect on art in more ways than saying that they “like” or “dislike” it. I believe this venture would be quite beneficial to art education curriculums. I was wondering, however, whether the learners are working collaboratively on problem-solving through art, on understanding problems represented through art or on creating art that represents current problems … or a bit of all of those. I also wonder how you might market this course as superior or different from existing art education courses, or art-centric blogs.
Great work!
May
Hi May,
As you suggest students are problem-solving, gaining understanding of problems, and representing solutions to problems through art. The difference between existing face-to-face art education courses and my proposal is that the students go beyond a focus that is personal in nature to explore issues that are relevant to their cultures and communities. This means that modules offer arts integrated options to students at the grade 10-12 level. Students learn to communicate through a range of art forms but also earn credit for disciplines other than visual art. When comparing Speaking Visually to online art options the differences are greater as the online options’ primary goal is to teach technique. With an increasing number of students at the grade 10-12 level electing to learn from home and seeking online courses there is a need for quality online art options.
Claire
Hi Claire,
I thought your elevator pitch was excellent and I really like your venture concept. After reading your full pitch, it’s clear that this venture is needed and different than many other products out there on the market today. I wonder how you would gain entrance into schools with this product tough – and would you target school districts – or ?
Overall, great pitch,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I think that endorsement from national, provincial, and state organizations such as the Canadian Society for Education through Art (CSEA) and the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in the US would prove valuable in marketing to schools and districts. In the public system the decision to purchase Speaking Visually might be made at the district level but I would also market to school administrators and art educators. Marketing to Independent schools should be primarily to administration and art educators.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Your elevator pitch was visually intriguing which of course is perfect for the venture you are proposing. However, I must admit that I found myself distracted from your words by the imagery – perhaps, as Ping suggested, a few key words of text for emphasis may help to keep your viewers focused.
Your venture pitch was well laid out and I was especially impressed by how clearly you communicated the need to expend visual communication and its oft overlooked benefits of critical, collaborative and critical thinking skills. I was also impressed by the structure of the service from an educator standpoint. I have seen many students fail to complete self-paced courses due to lack of structure and isolation – your plan seems to resolve these issues. Your proposed orientation process is very comprehensive and it appears your team is more than capable of implementing it.
On the money side, I was somewhat confused. I found your start-up costs very low – it seems to me that you are under-valuing yourself and your team. It was also unclear to me how you are actually ‘selling’ your product to your customers – what is the cost to them?
Overall an idea worth investigating. Well done
gillian
Hi Gillian,
Thanks for offering your thoughts concerning my pitch. I have some things to consider if I choose to move forward with this venture. I agree that I could be more courageous when it comes to launching this venture. While I’m trying to be practical and keep things manageable, and therefore small scale, I hadn’t considered how this might be perceived as communicating a lack of confidence or under-valuing the idea and the team’s capabilities.
Costs to customers varies depending on whether it’s an individual or a group signing up and the level of the students participating. You’re right a summary of student fees should be included with my proposal.
Claire
Hi Claire, I found your elevator pitch highly effective, engaging, and clear. I would have liked to see more about how the courses would be designed: I liked the idea that students would engage in visuals relevant to their communities: how will connections with people from other communities be moderated? Great idea with excellent potential. Thanks, Chelsea
Hi Chelsea,
If I had a few more weeks to prepare for this presentation I’d create at least one module and include a preview of it in my proposal. The opportunity to see how modules are organized and presented would certainly help to convince investors that this is a worthwhile venture.
Students participate in a placement interview prior to beginning a module. The purpose of the interview is to ensure that learners with similar interests and skill level are placed together. While learners will have the opportunity to address issues of relevance to their culture and community this does not mean that cross-cultural groups will not occur. Many topics will lend themselves well to contributions from learners from varying backgrounds.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Good job on your venture pitch and proposition. Your elevator pitch was very well-designed as you tried to use pictures to reflect your venture and the opening phrase “a picture represents a thousand words”. You did a very good job in articulating the core benefits and what your venture does, although in your elevator pitch you didn’t quite state what is the current challenges that people are facing but your detailed proposition has presented that information which made up for that and it acts quite nice as a follow-up document to your elevator pitch. As an EVA, I would suggest that you incorporate a brief introduction for your elevator pitch and perhaps having a scene or two with yourself leading the elevator pitch would have been more convincing as that would help you gain credibility and accountability, I think it is important to the investor in knowing who is actually presenting the venture to them.
Karon
I have put all of my work together at http://www.mrmckinnon.com/ossltonthego1. The elevator pitch is on the first page and the subsequent webpages flesh out the venture. For those of you that are not familiar with Ontario’s curriculum, all students in Grade 10 must write the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT). It is written in […]
Continue reading I have put all of my work together at ht… Posted in: Venture Forum
Great job Jody!
I thought your pitches were clear, concise, engaging and realistic. Both appeared well researched very professional. I had some questions about “assigned teachers” to provide feedback. Is that something that already exists, or a service your company would provide?
At this point, I’d be a little on the fence, but might be willing to invest. Well done!
David McInnes
Hi there. Thanks for your comments. IN many schools, a teacher or group of teachers has the responsibility for preparing students for the test. In my school, it has been the core English teacher. So in this case, he/she would be the ‘assigned’ teacher. This way no teacher is responsible for no more than 22 students (the class size cap for Applied courses in my board). I hope this clarifies it for you. Thanks!
Yes, I would invest.
Your presentation was dynamic and engaging and pretty much grapped you by the eyeballs from the start. 🙂
I much enjoyed the format of your presentation – simple to navigate, concise and to the point. I would like to hear more about the market expectations and before actually signing on the dotted line, would like to hear more about motives behind the users (as it is the MEO that wants high grades in this case, and not necessarily the students, no?).
regardless, this holds potential for me.
well done.
errr, ‘grabbed’. 🙂
Jody,
Jody,
I really like the app and service but I would not invest under the current fee structure. If all approx. 900 Ontario High Schools purchased a licence for $50 you would have a total revenue of $45 000 minus app store and processing fees. You would have to bank that a major amount of parents would purchase this app at $5 price point.
I would be interested in this venture if the app could be sold directly to the Ministry to provide the services to all stakeholders free of costs. Otherwise, the market is too small to cover the overhead costs to properly deliver the services promised (staff, hardware, network, development, support ect.)
Thanks,
Brian Hotovy
Thanks for your comments. The purpose of this app was to not make money. The fee was nominal on purpose. If this were a real venture, my hope is that the government would have invested in it and provided the differences in costs.
Hi Jody,
Thank you for sharing your elevator pitch with me. I do think that you presented a compelling pitch, however, as a parent of a 17 y/o boy in the Ontario public school system, I would be very grumpy having to purchase “extra” help in any format for him to succeed. That said, my children (I also have a 19y/o daughter) were both successful with the test and I am sure there are other parents and teens who might appreciate it.
Ronna
I hear that Ronna. IN theory, if this were a real app and the province paid for it, parents would pay nothing. Because in theory, this app is free for the user…only more if the parents want to receive the reports and controls.. Thanks for your comments.
Hi Jody,
Great job on your pitch!
I think that your focus on this new educational app to help risk learners is very fitting for the current educational technology market! I would surely invest. This is certainly an area with potential for growth in the next several years not just in Ontario but in the Caribbean and other developing countries. I thought that the tone of your pitch was very professional, clear and to the point. This venture seems convincing compared to others I might add.
I think “No student should be left behind” could be your company’s slogan. What do you think?
Jody I notice you did not talk about the global market or did I missed that? Is this new app only for Ontario? Are you planning to go global? We have literacy exams here in the Caribbean too. Your team seems credibility and look highly spirited.
By the way, loved the video about you receiving the Olympic Torch in Dec 06. That must have been an awesome experience. Thanks for sharing with us!
Overall, I do think your venture has a good market that is increasingly growing overtime. You have provided a detailed venture pitch with information about the market and the product. The concept is a good one… again, thanks for sharing it with us and all the best!
~ Shawn
Thanks for your comments. My market is local and I have no interest in going global at this time. I don’t know much or anything about the structure of tests around the world, However, if this were a real venture and it worked well here, it could easily be adapted for export to other jurisdictions. Thanks!
Hi Jody. Your presentation was clear, concise, and captivating. I like the concept of this venture, using technology and motivation to engage at risk learners. However, I’m slightly concerned with your target market size: Of the 147,000 eligible students, 24,000 failed. 14,880 (62%) are at-risk boys. About only 11,160 are at-risk boys with technology. Not all of them will use the application even if the product is available for free. This is a small niche market. As a teacher, I would definitely purchase one for my school at this price point. However, as an investor, I think you undervalued your product and I recommend increasing the price. As a non-profit investor, why not provide the service for free (and get good tax breaks)?
Colin
Hi Colin. Thanks for your response. You are correct in that it is a niche market and that is what I wanted all along to begin. Should it prove worthwhile in the real world, it could easily be available for all learners preparing for the test. I had thought about the tax break thing for investing, but I wasn’t sure about how that would work or if it would be realistic or legal. I’m not a marketing expert, entrepreneur or a business person. I’m just an English teacher that wants to see boys be more successful on the literacy test. Thanks again!
Jody
Neat work! Everything was done nicely. I think your venture will find its place in the market easily especially you mentioned that you prefer it to be in the local market. With the statistics you provided in regard to failing percentage of the exam takers specifically among boys, I presume the market welcomes such education-oriented business initiative because it is simply needed. What helps here is the fact that it is a unique attempt.
However there is one thing that makes me a bit hesitant which is the profit. You are driving at moving the investors to put their capitals in such a project but you don’t promise them with a good financial repay. Jody, you are addressing and dealing with investors not philanthropists!
Good job!
Hussain
Hi Hussain. Thanks for your comments. The purpose of my venture was never to make a profit. You’ll notice that I’ve positioned this as a way to fit a corporate social responsibility model…i.e. a way for the company to give something back to the community. Thanks again!
Hi Jody
I thought this was a very well done venture both in presentation and in concept. You were very clear in you elevator pitch and I think that you have hit on a market which does exist. Working in a school with students who are often disengaged and who struggle to study I could see the use for a mobile review tool with extrinsic rewards. I know in BC there is a slow removal of some of the standardized testing and I wonder how this trend could affect the OSST?
As an investor I would be interested in seeing the full venture plan and implementation scheme, as even if the OSST were to be removed this tool could be adapted for other testing needs.
Very well done
Dave
Hello Jody,
I was impressed with both your elevator pitch and venture pitch. Both looked quite professional and offered a good balance of visuals and text. As CEO you inspired me confidence that you know your stuff.
Your venture pitch and entire website was well researched and you really covered all possible questions a possible investor might have. Just one little thing, some of your lines on your web site overlap near the bottom and make it difficult to decipher those last few lines. Otherwise the whole look of the web site is appealing and as an investor I would certainly consider investing in your venture!
Congrats on your hard work . . . it really paid off!
Marie-France
Hello Jody,
Just as an aside, I can see your care for your students through your venture, and I think that is a great thing as an instructor myself. Putting my investor cap back on, your OSSLT on the go has potential. Your elevator and venture pitches were effective. The elevator pitch was efficient and effective. One personal pet-peeve of mine is dragged on and slow-paced elevator pitches. I see them almost like a commercial for investors – too slow and you killed the budding interest. Your venture pitch was well presented, and has your elevator pitch nicely embedded in it for easy referral. Overall, it was a great job!
CEO & Team: You left the best till last. I think you had a great structure that you introduced what your product was attempting to address and how it brings value to investors before reinforcing that trust with the introduction of you as the CEO and your highly capable team. By doing so, you gave a reason for me to remember you and your team by!
Venture Concept: I think this is a plausible concept. Being very familiar with the tutoring industry, I know how product that is driven by a standardized exam could draw a lot of interest. This is not only interest coming from the students, but more so from the parents. And what’s better than an app that you can easily take anywhere with you. This definitely beat those phone-book size study guides!
Marketability: I like it that the users get to use this for free. It is often easier to manage by schools if the students don’t have to pay. That is a big draw in for this market. Do you have any plans on expanding your market beyond who you have identified? I see that the at risk and also the re-write as more of a niche market. Since this standardized exam is for Ontario, I can see that it is of your best interest to reach as much of Ontario as you can. Another suggestion would be a global market. Yes… although your product was created for a niche, it doesn’t need to stay in it. Again, from my tutoring experience, there are parents who are thinking of immigrating to Ontario who might be interested in this as well. This would, of course, be a great marketing feat to reach deeper into the immigration population. There’s lots of potential, so make sure you plan things out!
Venture Plan: I would like to know a bit more about your plans for kick-off. How are you going to promote this product? What is your plan for dominating the market and keeping your product unique?
With such a great pitch, I would like to invest in your venture. Prior to committing a solid amount, I would like to further discuss with you in regards to the OSSLT on the go business model and marketing plans.
Thank you and great job!
Sherman
Hi Jody,
I would invest for the greater good of the students, the ask is not much and the outcome makes it worthy of an initial investment. However, I do have a concern and that is with the government’s reaction to more students being successful on the exams, will they respond by increasing the standards and making the exam harder if future sessions? I know that some provincial exams I have had experience in administering have a set expectation that a certain percentage of students fail.
I think that a venture like this could also be expanded to include apps for other provincial or standardized exams, (I am not very familiar with the Ontario system), but in Alberta something like this would be useful for all other provincial achievement and diploma exams.
You pitch is excellent and very well constructed. Great work.
Kenton
Greetings all from Iceland..I”m still up after 36 hours, so I apologize if this post isn’t that coherent. Thanks for all of your comments since yesterday. I appreciate the feedback and do see that something like this could work in not only Ontario, but abroad. Re: the test getting easier? I’m not sure I buy that, but there will always be kids that don’t pass. We just need to make that a lower number. Anyway thanks again for all the excellent feedback. I’m not likely to post again. A pleasure working with y’all!
Great job! You presented the problem well and introduced the solution clearly. Your visuals enhanced the message I was intrigued to know more about your product. I would not invest in your product since I am not a big believer in teaching to a test, sorry. Great presentation though.
Welcome to MotionMath, where math problems are transformed into multimedia situations. Created for math teachers by math teachers this program provides easy to use, affordable access to problems which come to life in the classroom. See our Elevator Pitch for a quick introduction or the Venture Pitch for more details. I am looking forward to […]
Continue reading MotionMath Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi there. As a mathphobic guy, I say yes yes yes to this venture. I love that it melds multimedia and math together. Maybe I would have done better at it had it existed 25 years ago when I was in grade 7! Wow. I just realized how old I was…anyway. I love the concept and I can this working very well. To extend this idea, what if you had students make their own videos too that could be added to a database of student exemplars.
Overall, I like the idea, although, I don’t recall learning about your CEO or team.
I’m all in!
Jody
Hi Jody,
Thank you for your comments. My goal has always been to show people that experiencing math can be fun and with technology it is getting easier.
I fell into the selling the product trap in my elevator pitch but after watching others I have a better feeling of how I need to hook the investor so that they will even consider looking at my venture pitch which holds more information. Yes, students making videos is excellent and part of my plan this year which I am very excited about.
Bridget
Bridget,
I really liked your pitches. I thought both were very clean, clear and succinct. You did an excellent job of presenting a clear vision that focuses on a very real problem. Very professional and believeable. I’d be interested in investing.
Well done!
David McInnes
David,
Thank you. I learned so much about editing in this one and have even more to learn. It has been great watching other people’s pitches for ideas.
Bridget
Bridget, you had me at ‘hello, errr, ‘demo’!
Your elevator pitch was excellent. Being a math head, I appreciated HOW you connected math to real-life and I think there is terrific potential with your concept.
I also very much liked that you are VERY pedagogical and that this aligns perfectly with the future of curriculum as per mandated by minsitries of education far and wide.
Before I invest, I would like to discuss a few items with you and the team:
– could we put more ‘pitch’ on the presentation and a tad less on ‘demo’ if we want to get more investors?
– What are the plans for key partnerships? I think of a company called ‘Explore Learning’ Gizmos that have a similar concept and I think there is great potential in exploring partnerships with these kinds of companies.
– Perhaps i need to go through the material again, but I would need to hear more about the market and competition (sorry if is there, I was perhaps still jumping up and down about the demo).
Well done! Where do I sign?
Hi Yves,
I am glad you liked the demo idea…..kids are all over the few I have made and used with my classes.
Thank you for the comments. Great point about the “more pitch” and something that I had realized when the final product was complete. Fitting it all into 1 minute was quite difficult but when I sit back after view so many others I can see how I could have presented more as a pitch.
I have used Gizmos and that would be a good partnership…nice thinking. The main competition in TedEd which came out in June/July this year. It’s different but still new so who knows where and how big it will go. I do plan to contribute directly to their repository though…why not.
Bridget
That’s a great attitude… I agree, ‘why not?’. However, I seriously do think you are on to something though… I would love to see the reaction from the group MoEd group that asked me to present this past year… they would eat this up.
🙂
-y
Bridget,
Your elevator pitch sold me on the product but didn’t hook me as an investor. As an investor I would love to see returns that would be higher that what is projected in your numbers.
However, your content could be valuable to one of the big text book companies. Have you considered selling your content to the highest bidder? Or are you the next company that will provide resources on a mass level?
Very compelling as an educator. Wary as an investor!
Thanks,
Brian Hotovy
Hi Brian,
Thank you for your comments.
Yes, I agree, got sucked in to selling the product. However, I have some ideas now that I have seen a few pitches. I missed that point a bit in hooking the investor so that they will have the interest to look at the longer pitch.
I am not sure where the text book companies will be going in the long run but it is good idea.
Bridget
Hi Bridget,
Nice elevator pitch! I love the idea.
Would this work together with a specific set of objectives common to a particular province, or textbook publisher, or be largely generic ? I’m thinking of math IXL, which although not at all like your idea, is successful due largely to its concentration on math curricular objectives by Canadian province.
Well done!
Smiles, Kim
Hi Kim,
Thank you for your comments.
You ask an interesting question. I had originally thought about having the content be solely Canadian which is similar to what IXL does although they are more of an online quiz/tutorial system. All my examples would be Canadian content with topics being tagged appropriately. I would be Interested to know how well IXl does….an interesting thought for partnership.
Bridget
Hi Bridget,
I think you have done a fabulous job with your venture. Both your elevator pitch and your venture pitch are very clear and well laid out. The only thing is I thought your elevator pitch was more of a sales pitch then a message conveying the essence of your venture. However, I was captivated by the idea and I’m certainly interested!
I think the pilot idea is excellent. I think this is a very important for investors to see this and to get market research feedback from end users. I also think it would be useful to include current research on the effectiveness of authentic, meaningful, and relevant learning experiences.
Finally, I would suggest including the credentials of your management team.
Overall I think this is a fabulous venture and certainly one I would consider investing in!
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
Thank you, much appreciated and great point about the credentials.
Bridget
Hi Bridget,
I was really impressed by the professional quality of both your elevator pitch and venture pitch. The product is wonderful – I can definitely see it being used in classrooms and students learning a lot from it — I say this as an educator, but as an investor I wouldn’t have moved onto your venture pitch since your elevator pitch was more of a demo than an effort to convince me to open my wallet. I would have liked to see mention of the pilot schools and the revenue generated or projected in your elevator pitch so that I would have asked to hear out your venture pitch. The venture pitch was extremely well done and the demo was certainly thorough! I think again though, that an investor would like to see more emphasis on the “so what” rather than only see “the what”. Your information on the market and your projections for increasing that market share are believable and I also like the fact that you were able to show revenue projections in graphs. The comparison between competitors was also well done. Your team looks great, though I agree with Danielle in that it would be wise to tell us why these people are the best for the job.
Overall, as an EVA, after seeing your venture pitch I believe this is an impressive venture and I would be willing to invest! As an educator, I can’t wait to be able to use it in my classroom.
All the best!
Sheza
Hi Sheza,
Thank you for your comments. I do agree that I needed to pitch more and got sucked into the demo.
I appreciate the vote of confidence.
Bridget
To start great job with you pitches, they were easy to follow and they have made me interested in investigating further. I like the idea of taking textbook questions and making them more real world questions just like the tank question that Dan Meyer presented in his conference video. I love the idea of getting students to explore questions in a more hands on way, supported with multimedia support. As an investor I question the viability of the product since there are a ready several online sites that offer similar services like 101 questions and Dan’s own personal site. As an investor I would be concerned that once the product was used by one teacher in a school why wouldn’t that teacher just copy as many lessons as possible then give it to his colleagues or store them for future use. It also seems that this product would be easy to duplicate and your competition would increase.
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your comments.
My biggest worry was passing Dan Meyer’s video off as my own…..referenced it but not sure if it would stand in a real pitch. I am glad to hear that you are a fan and although this was his first 3-act problem (I think) it has remained a favourite of mine.
Dan focuses on the 3-acts which I think are great yet they are often not structured enough as a marketable product and they need a flexible teacher who knows the content very well in order to be successfully executed. I use his, and my own quite frequently in my classes. I am aiming to make more of a package out of the situations which can be more friendly for newer teachers and can be open or closed questions depending on the comfort of the teacher.
Great point about the duplicating and even with registrations teachers share passcodes so this is something to consider. Competition is good and I think that there are going to be many changes in the way in which math is taught in the near future and good fun to be part of the ride.
If you like Meyer you might also like Stadel http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca/ who is also creating 3-act stories.
Bridget
Hi Bridget,
If I had more investment dollars, I would definitely commit money to your venture as well! It was actually a rather difficult because you did make an awesome pitch. I really liked it. The video and the showcasing make it authentic and easy to see your vision in action.
My biggest question for you is, how will you keep your product unique in the long run? Do you think that your product is easily replicable? How will your business model help prevent the market from diverging from your current dominance? I would also like to hear more about your team, to help me build trust in your venture.
Do pitch to me again when you are ready!
Sherman
Bridget
Nice venture and a clever pitch! I am not a math teacher but I remember I used to be a top student. I used to love it. I think this project is unique and not easy to make. But nothing is impossible as long as there is a will to do it. Such initiatives should be encouraged to take their proper space in the world of education.
One of the positive things about your project is that it could revive math teaching in general. You are starting a different method of teaching it, not the usual conventional style. And that is really unique in itself.
A subject can be hated if it is not taught properly. Here we are tackling a very sensitive point, which is creating the interest in the learner. The new format of math teaching might trigger this interest and keep it tuned.
Your project can get through the hearts of investor especially those who know how important math is for the whole system of education. The investors might get scared at first of the idea of teaching math through media tools but their reaction will not last long as soon as they understand that there is a huge market for it.
Bridget, you will get a lot of investors. I am one of them!
Good job
Hussain
Hi Bridget,
Amazing pitches! I think this venture has really good potential. The market size for math education is huge in North America alone, since it is a mandatory course. As a math educator, I think Motion Math will help those who struggle with abstract concept of math by using real-life, concrete examples. I particularly like the rate question that you posed in your elevator pitch, as it required students to think beyond what is required from a typical textbook question. I think the examples that you used help illustrate what your product is about. I would definitely consider investment if the asking the right. Well done.
Colin
P.S. You will probably need a good legal team since this product can be easily copied as pointed out by another potential investor.
Welcome to Construct-Ed, a scaffold and consulting service that provides knowledgeable individuals with the instructions and resources for creating effective online courses based on constructivist teaching methods. To find out more, please watch Construct-Ed’s elevator pitch, below: Construct-Ed Elevator Pitch Still have questions about Construct-Ed? Please the Construct-Ed Venture Pitch and Analysis. Looking forward to […]
Continue reading Construct-Ed Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello May,
Your pitch looked great and was very well presented. I had to watch it a few times to get a full understanding of the pitch….you delivered it well, but I just needed to catch-up with some parts. Overall, I liked the idea and do realize that ‘yes’ some need help constructing courseware especially if they’re not teachers originally. I would invest in this idea.
Good job.
-Regen
Thanks for the feedback!
May
Hello May,
Here are some more of my thoughts on your idea. Looking over your feedback and responses to the posts and feedback of others made more of a great impression on your commitment to the idea. There doesn’t seem to be a question you can’t answer thoughtfully. Good job. As for the idea, again I think there are many people out there who wind up in a position to teach something they know about, but do not have the skills to deliver some lesson plans that will engage. The exact market I think this idea would be best for is within trade schools such as BCIT/Kwantlen Trades/etc. These schools have the most knowledgeable staff for the topics they deliver but could use extra help in making lessons plans that match their superior knowledge of the trade. Keep up with this idea, and good luck. The presentation was great.
-Regen
Elevator Pitch:
Hi May
I really enjoyed your elevator pitch. Your presentation of the venture was professional and clearly delivered. The images and music were well matched and held my attention throughout the pitch. The logo for your venture was fabulous! As Founder and CEO of Construct-ED, your voice exuded an air of confidence that gave weight to your pitch and inspired confidence in me as a potential investor. Overall your pitch caught and held my attention and made me want to delve deeper into your venture by moving on to your venture pitch.
One suggestion to strengthen your pitch would be to include some information about your credentials and some information about who would be working with you.
Well done!
Valerie
Venture Pitch Analysis
Pain Point
The problem that your company Construct-ED would be addressing is clearly defined and supported with sound research. The need for well designed courses that utilize constructivist strategies is a niche that needs to be filled.
Solution:
The development of a custom design of LMS to meet the customers’ specific needs and support for customers sounds like a realistic. Because it is customized for particular clients type of LMS does not matter so that should attract a wide market base.
Differentiation:
While you identify companies that offer some of the services your company has the clear advantage of offering the whole suite of services that gives you a clear advantage.
Marketing:
Marketing strategy using a 2 year phase in model clearly laid out. Your uniqness ensures a broad market base.
Championship:
Your commitment, credentials, confidence and passion about your product are clear and inspire confidence.
The Ask:
I would need to know, as an EVA, how much of an investment you would be asking me to make.
The Return:
I am unclear as an EVA how much return I can expect on my investment.
Yes I would potentially be willing to invest in this venture at this time however I would need more financial information around my investment and return on investment before I could fully commit. The pitch is credible, concept is feasible and the potential market is there for this venture to be successful.
Well done
Valerie
Thanks for the thorough feedback, Valerie!
If I were to modify my pitch now, I would ask an investor for $30,000 for 25% of the company (shares/profits). While I believe there is much growth potential for this venture, I think that at the idea stage (i.e. no sales yet), any investment is essentially a gamble, so I would not want to inflate the valuation. The $30,000 would cover set up costs, web programming basics (because I could do most of the design and web implementation myself) and cover attendance at one trade show (which my MBA contact tells me can cost approximately $10,000). Because the initial “team” would consist of only myself and occasional consultant work until the demand surpassed my abilities, profit would be redistributed among investors.
Great questions – I wish we’d had a chance for feedback sooner, since it would have helped me to fine-tune the venture pitch 🙂
May
Hi May,
I enjoyed your elevator pitch. The combination of graphics and your presence led to an engaging pitch.
This is a very interesting concept and I think you did a wonderful job summarizing the competition. I was a bit unclear as to who your main market was as you mentioned K-12 educators as well as the corporate sector. Were you planning to target one of these in particular? I was also curious as to whether or not you see the need to provide technical support to your customers. You are delivering information such as LMS tools to use, but I’m wondering if there wouldn’t also be a great opportunity to follow that up with tech support as they’re building their solution.
Great job!
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
I like the idea of providing technical support. In my venture pitch, I do mention providing one on one consultations, and these could include tech support. The reports (templates) would also include not only recommendations for which tools to use, but instructions on how to use them (for example, how to sign up for a specific LMS, create a blog on a certain platform, etc).
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi May,
Good job on your elevator pitch presentation! It was very aesthetically pleasing and it totally got my attention. Your friendly smile in the beginning also started off the pitch with a very positive touch. As an EVA, in reviewing your pitch I was able to obtain information as to what is the current problem and Construct-Ed is the solution to all the problems business men and people with degrees are facing. You went into the details as to how Construct-Ed works which was very detailed in facts. The only thing I was unclear on was who you’re marketing this venture to, my assumption based on the pictures I saw in your pitch was that it was meant for both corporate professionals and students in post-secondary? Other than that, I think you did an excellent job and I can see a lot of effort has been put into creating this pitch.
Karon
Hi Karon,
Thanks for your comments – Yes, the target market is professionals, business managers and DIY enthusiasts who have little or no educational background. My goal would be to begin with this focus online, but eventually offer the consulting service to business and focus on corporate training, once the online venture has gained momentum, to minimize risk.
Hi May,
Excellent elevator pitch! Very innovative idea! I think constructive education is necessary for many professional people, as I can find many engineers in my company don’t know how to present their ideas properly. I can see your venture has market potential both in school and in professionals. I like the idea of “constructive templates”, which I believe could be a convincible selling point of your products. I wonder, however, how your templates would look like? Are they similar to those templates freely available in Microsoft PowerPoint? Or, will your template be more comprehensive, constructive, and relevant to professional features? I’ll be interested to see your market strategy, as for what part of users you plan to target at first stage. You might have answered these questions in your venture pitch, sorry I only find a lost link in it at this time. I think you’re very qualified to lead this venture, and I can see its chance of success in the market. Well done & good luck, May!
Ping
Hi Ping,
Thanks for the feedback. To answer your question about templates, Construct-Ed Would offer a template-based report (so Construct-Ed would have several templates based on type of client – professionals, business managers, DIYers and so on) but the client would receive this as an instruction manual/report. Each report would have client-specific customization, though after a number of clients Construct-Ed would have a complete framework for each client type. I hope I’m making myself clearer and not more confusing, but the gist is that this is not software, but a consulting firm that offers a business model for education.
Thanks again for the comments & questions,
May
Hello May:
Your Construct-Ed venture has great potential. I like the emphasis on application of teaching theory to online learning. Your elevator pitch does a great job explaining the need for your product and your personal presence at the beginning lends the necessary credibility. You speak clearly and at a good pace to reflect your enthusiasm. I would have liked to see a little more information in your elevator pitch regarding market. What is your expected revenue? Who, specifically, are your expected clients – is it individual teachers, companies or institutions? What is the projected size and extent of your market? You likely provide these answers in your venture pitch but touching on them in your elevator pitch would have made your proposal more convincing to me, the investor. Overall, great work!
Tim
Your elevator message pitch was clear and engaging May. You struck the perfect balance between your narration and animated images to convey your venture concept.
You conveyed confidence, credibility and enthusiasm as a CEO.
Concept and marketability
Your venture idea addresses a very relevant need in education. I like your ambitious growth plan ($100 + 5% of the e-courses student enrollment fees (3% after 100 enrollments). Your “personalized” approach to determining the clients’ needs will go a long way I think.
You have differentiated the venture from competition through the comparison matrix and that clearly shows your venture’s marketability.
The ask is quite clear, however, it may have been helpful to outline the financials for the investor because the way it’s laid out, it seems a bit overwhelming and difficult to see the ROI or the “one year” breakeven projection.
You did a fantastic job with the elevator pitch and the design of your venture pitch May.
Thanks,
Leonora
May,
I found your elevator pitch extremely effective; it was the perfect mix of narration, text and image. I also love your logo (I think that allowed you to put your love of graphics into action).
Your idea is an interesting one and I agree there is a need in the market for such a service. However, I wonder how easy a sell it will be as you do seem to touch on the very dangerous area of teacher autonomy.
I have to say I really enjoyed reading your reflection as my reactions to this project were very similar in regards to entrepreneurship and being business minded. I too found putting value on ideas a very difficult thing to do.
May,
Like the others I enjoyed the elevator pitch as it was well done and explained the venture well enough. I know how fast 60 seconds can go when you have 10 minutes of material. I had to make sure I selected what I thought were the most important points and put them in the elevator pitch, leaving lots of details out. It looks like you had to do the same. I agree that many teachers (as well as many others) would like to develop education materials to fit their needs but do not know how, or how to make it interesting. I think that a well-trained consultant would do wonders as they teach some of the basics and guide the user in creating great resources together. Simply put, I think this is a great idea and hope you can find the right people for the job. That will be a key element for your success.
Dennis
May,
ConstructEd is timely, relevant, and has an excellent design. You have tapped into a key concept that is preventing the spread of learning: the teaching certificate. Sadly, even with a teaching degree many of us falter at the creation of effective online or blended courses, and ConstructEd would help teachers and non-’teachers’ alike to share knowledge in a time when knowledge in increasing so rapidly that those who specialize in education are often unable to keep up with progress in their fields of expertise. Your business model would enable teachers to connect students with experts in the field and take on the role of coach or mentor as appropriate, and help experts to share their knowledge in a way that makes it accessible to others.
Every aspect of your pitch is thoroughly researched, detailed, and innovatively constructed. Your pricing plan, education plan, and customer support will all make your venture effective, and you have presented yourself as an extremely competent champion.
The logo and layout are beautiful.
Thank you for developing an excellent venture!
Chelsea
Welcome to the Student Interview Coach! Our online service provides timely feedback to students on their interviewing skills based on a mock interview that they upload to our website. Read the Venture Plan here. Deborah
Continue reading Student Interview Coach Posted in: Venture Forum
HI there. As a guidance counselor, I see this venture as being extremely valuable. What a wonderful opportunity for students to practice a very important skill! I like the quick turnaround for feedback. My only concern is this: you’ll need a huge staff potentially to deal with the onslaught of interviews! Good job with the video!
Jody
Hi Jody,
Thanks for the feedback! I think interviewing skills are really important and something that we don’t pay enough attention to. In my experience, an interview can be the deciding factor as to whether or not someone is offered a job. The sooner students can improve their skills, the more successful they will be later on.
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
I think this is a solid venture concept and I really liked the quote “Practice is the best teacher”. Having done this very kind of practice a few times, I can clearly state that practice is key. I was wondering however about the ‘niche’ you are targeting and wondering if it is too broad and competitive? I did this sort of thing when I took a leadership course awhile back – should this be a consideration as a strategic partnership or expansion phase? As for market, students are a fickle bunch that seem to want to spend their money on other things than these kinds of services…
I would want to hear more about these items before investing.
I really like the concept and think it has great potential.
great job on the presentation.
cheers.
Hi Yves,
Thanks for the feedback. This service is actually being marketed to school boards and university administrators. I don’t envision that students would pay for it themselves (as you’ve noted, they find other ways to spend their money) but rather it would be a line item in the school or university budget.
Deborah
Deborah,
Great job on your presentation. As always done by you, it is very thorough, well-researched and totally believable! I think interview skills are a critical asset, that for the most part completely over-looked. They were as I was growing up anyways.
In your venture pitch, I really appreciated your breakdown of market potential, etc. Putting hard numbers to an idea really helps with your credibility.
Count me in as an investor.
David McInnes
Hi David,
Thank you for your generous comments! I think it’s important to try and quantify things and I like numbers. Good to know I can count you in should I decide to pursue the opportunity : )
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
Really nice job on your presentation! You have touched on an area that really does need to be addressed and most times overlooked. My biggest concern would be the satffing – I think yu would inundated with requests for interviews!
Well done!
Kim
Thanks for the feedback, Kim. You raise a valid point about the potential staffing issue and one solution may be to try and schedule schools ahead of time to ensure appropriate staffing is in place.
Deborah
Deborah;
I think you have a creative use of technology targeted at a niche market. If you have a small team (depending on use and growth) it might actually work. I know interviewing is a skill and can get or lose you a job. I can see the benefits of this type of assistance. I might be interested to know if your team would consider going live and do mock interviews over Skype or something similar. Your team could ask the questions while the interviewee is working on their responses. This would give your team a better feel for the client as they could expand on questions or follow a tangent just as you might in an interview. I don’t see the lack of technology as barrier as most students have access to a video capable smartphone, iPod or webcam, if not at home, at school.
Dennis
Thanks, Dennis. I did consider real-time feedback, but thought it could be challenging due to time zone differences and that would also mean I’d need lots of interview experts all at the same time. It’s definitely something to consider though.
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
This is an excellent venture that has been very well pitched! Your professionalism and confidence will win over investors, not to mention your thoroughly researched plan. The logo on the wall was a nice touch! Though I think your cameraman was a little nervous :-D. You have thought of all of the challenges that you might face and as an investor, I might want to know a little more about how those challenges will be dealt with. But I am impressed by the overall presentation and I am definitely in.
Danielle
Thanks for the feedback, Danielle. This was my camera-person’s (my 17 year-old daughter) first assignment : ) She also composed the music that I used in the elevator pitch.
Deborah
Hi Deborah:
Your elevator pitch presents a clear outline of the need and solutions of your venture. Your presentation is professional, enthusiastic and engaged; you seem confident your product has demand and value. A little more information in the elevator pitch regarding market predictions would have made it more convincing to me, the investor. The initial part of the pitch seemed like you were selling a product to your clients rather than convincing investors. This clearly shifted at the end. Overall I have decided to invest in your venture because you have convinced me of its relevancy to today’s students.
I am even more convinced of this after reading your venture pitch. Your needs assessment is fully supported by your significant research. You have differentiated yourself clearly from your competition, exploiting a unique market. Your revenue predictions are well researched by comparing to similar products and projecting market value onto the number of clients. Your background in accounting and education is evident, making you a competent team leader. You have provided good detail in supporting the “ask”. The only question I have regards your management team. You speak well of yourself as the CEO but there is nothing on the supporting cast. Your projected client base indicates that you will need some people to help you. What qualifications will these people be required to have? Will the investment I make rise if your number of clients changes from your projections?
As a whole, you have made an excellent venture proposition and I look forward to seeing its fulfillment.
Tim
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the feedback! I appreciated your comments about the elevator pitch. This exercise certainly gave me an appreciation of how difficult it is to cram everything you want to say into only 60 seconds! If I were going to pursue this venture, I would definitely provide more information on the management team as you suggested.
Thanks again,
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
I very much enjoyed your venture pitch in which you made great use of visuals and offered a very clear explanation of Student Interview Coach. I appreciate the way in which you stated the problem for students and teachers and offered one solution for both groups. I think that this is a great idea and I like the importance that you put on immediate feedback which is always more effective than when too much time has elapsed. There is a lot of focus placed on creating resumes but the interview is often the most stressful part of the process and where job seekers could do with the most practice.
In regards to the students making their interviews, I assume that they enlist another person to do the mock interview. Do you provide a bank of typical questions, which might be asked in order to guide the interview? These are details, which can easily be worked out as long as the technology can be created to support this venture; and I am sure it can.
You did a solid review of the competition and it is interesting to note that no one up to this point has marketed to the students.
I would be interested in investing in your venture.
Bridget
Thanks for the feedback, Bridget! I think you’ve honed in on a future enhancement to the service in providing a bank of questions. I can certainly see the need for it and could easily work it in as a link on the website.
Thanks again,
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
You are onto a great idea here! I especially liked the professional nature of your elevator pitch – I found it to be concise and it gave me as an investor a reason to read onto your venture pitch. You described your market well, and gave me an understanding of the product you hoped to offer and the reasons why. Well done!
Your venture pitch was just as well put together. It looked like a professional report ready to be sent off to an investor. You include a thorough analysis of your competitors and your market share is well-researched. The revenue you hope to generate is based on believable data and I can see the potential that the project holds. I like that you give us a picture of your background as the CEO of this venture, but it would have ben good to see who some of the other players would be on your team.
Overall, your venture looks like it has a lot of worth and I would be interested in seeing a complete business plan!
All the best,
Sheza Naqi
Deborah,
As a teacher who teaches Planning (and deals with many students who are readying themselves for the employment market), I see strong validity in this venture. Students need all of the practice that they can get, and with the quick turnaround, the learning potential is invaluable. I am concerned with the amount of the interviews needing to be done 🙂
Cheers,
Todd
MyPocketUni is the ultimate organizational tool for busy post-secondary students. Using its three ingenious components, MyPocketUni is able to create an individualized learning schedule for today’s ever so busy post-secondary students through cloud-based technology, intellectual scanning software and mobile technology. Please watch my Elevator and Venture Pitch below. Elevator Pitch Venture Pitch Sincerly, Kenton Hemsing MyPocketUni President […]
Continue reading MyPocketUni – Letting Students be Students Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Kenton,
Thanks for sharing your elevator and venture pitch. myPocketUni seems to have some great potential in the post-secondary market and I think would benefit those first-year students who might feel overwhelmed already with beginning a new chapter in their lives. (hypothetically) It might be even worthwhile to beta test the grade 12 students and have them use the application prior to embarking on their university career.
Thanks,
Jon
Thanks for the excellent idea Jon. As grade 12 students embark on their post-secondary studies, focusing a marketing campaign and testing at this level might prove very effective.
Thanks.
Hi Kenton,
As a potential investor, I would be eager to learn more about MyPocketUni as your target market is also the group who are most familiar with mobile devices and therefore seem to be a viable group to target. Your presentation was well put together and you explained the venture well. My key questions and concerns are:
1. How does MyPocketUni work around copyright issues? Are there problems with an application sourcing documents/texts? What does MyPocketUni do if there is no online source?
2. How will MyPocketUni go from beta testing to full operation in only a month?
3. You discuss expected returns from the mobile app, which seem very reasonable, but will this cover running costs, marketing, support, etc.?
4. How does GenieScan know how quickly students read/learn from these things? Analyzing reading level is wonderful, but can the student make adjustments to the programming if they are a fast/slow reader?
What I view as the strengths of this venture are the ability to personalize, the practicality of the programs, and the target market (the eager mobile device users). The potential for expansion of this venture is definitely large, as adding languages and expanding marketing could definitely bring more users, as will each new year when students start post secondary education. Additionally, with some alterations MyPocketUni could easily be adapted to suit the high school market, who would likely find uses for a homework type application.
Depending on the answers to my questions above I would consider myself a likely investor in MyPocketUni!
Thanks Kenton!
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Hopefully I will be able to answer some of your questions well enough to ensure your satisfaction in our product and persuade you to invest in MyPocketUni.
1) Since MyPocketUni uses the student’s university credentials to log into their library resources and repositories there is no worry about copyright issues, its the same as if you were to log into the University of British Columbia’s library system and search for a specific paper, its just that the system does this automatically for the student. If there is no online source available, MyPocketUni will still create an event in the student’s personal learning calendar as if it were found online, but the link and the estimated reading time would not be present.
2) Although we are aware of the tight time frame we have set to get this product on the market, please rest assured that my team and myself are fully dedicated to this project and will ensure that it reaches at least a select few post-secondary institutions by our set deadline. My dedicated team and I will remain focused on this product upon release to ensure that any bugs that remain will quickly be fixed and the dealt with.
3) We are confident that for a design like this we will be able to create and produce our product for under $40,000 CAD. Here is a quick breakdown of the costs that are anticipated and have been accumulated:
Branding and Design – $8,000; Development – $8,500; Mac and PC Desktop Apps – $2,000; XHTML and CSS – $2,200; Misc Hardware – $3,000; Hosting – $1,500 a month (we will be working with a company that offers complete hardware infrastructure, maintenance and hosting solutions to ensure ease for ourselves); Legal Fees – $10,000 (estimated); Accounting – $1,000; Trademark – $300; Linux Specialist – $1,800 (contract); Fee Processor – $1,000; Other Misc Costs – $5,000.
This leaves your initial investment covers the advertising, marketing and salaries associated with creating and producing this product.
4) It is our intention to make the reading time estimator adjustable for the student. If the student is a slower reader, they will be able to change the settings on the scanner to ensure that there is an appropriate time allotted for each reading.
Thank you for your interest in MyPocketUni and I hope that my answers have helped you to make the choice to support our venture.
Sincerely,
Kenton Hemsing, President and CEO
p.s. As a reflection, I should have put those figures into the original pitch…
Hi Kenton,
This is an excellent venture and elevator pitches. I really am impressed with the energy you show in these presentations. This is a sharp presentation online, and shows how you integrate technology well. This is a unique product and I think has great potential. MyPocketUni is a perfect tool for those busy post-secondary students. Your analysis and clarification of the three key tools to this product — cloud-based technology, intellectual scanning software and mobile technology — is effective.
I wonder however if there could’ve been more emphasis placed on the marketability and financial plan of MyPocketUni though. I think this could have given investors some idea of how this product could go out on the market once.
Allan
I think that you are absolutely correct Allan. I feel that I spent too much time explaining just what the system does rather than the future of it. Something to consider in the future for sure! Thanks for the feedback, its much appreciated.
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
I was very impressed with both the elevator and venture pitches. Your passion and confidence come through in the videos. Your elevator pitch hooked me immediately and drew me in to the venture pitch.
You did a great job of identifying the pain point, the uniqueness of your solution and the vast market potential. Your qualifications and confidence gave the team and the venture credibility. I liked how you went through specifically what My PocketUni could do and how it worked. As a potential investor it gave me a clear idea of the capabilities and potential of the product. As a student, I would love having it organize all of my readings for me!
I have a couple of questions. First of all, would the Genie Scan rely on an interface of some kind with the educational institutes or would it physically scan the calendar/documents? Secondly, the timeline for having your venture up and running seemed a little unreasonable. Even with some beta testing already done, one month to secure investments and patents, establish a website and market the product, could be problematic.
Those two questions aside, this is definitely a venture my investors are interested in!
Janet
Hi Janet,
Thank you for your feedback. The way that I envisioned the GenieScans program was to basically be a piece of software that would look for information and keywords in a text document, it would then log into the university library system and do a search for the document. If it found it, it would create a reminder and link for the student, if it didn’t it would only create a reminder.
As for the time frame to get the app complete, I know its short but as I was making the pitch I realized that having this app available halfway through a school semester would limit the uptake and purchasing of it.
Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated.
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
Thank you for sharing your pitch here. MyPocketUni has some valuable features that you’ve clearly described and shown during your presentation. In particular, the capability to combine the course calendar, readings with estimated reading times, course notes, and links to classmates to ease access for discussion lead me to recognize that this is a product that students can benefit from.
While you’ve identified the initial potential market as being an estimated ten percent of the 1.9 million Canadian university students your breakdown of profits doesn’t include sufficient detail to convince me that your initial projections are realistic. I wonder how well research and surveys support this venture. What percentage of university students are concerned with organization and recognize its importance in their success as professionals? The answer to this question is required in order to realistically estimate the portion of the 1.9 million students who would be drawn to MyPocketUni.
While you mention that your team includes experienced sales staff some elaboration on your marketing strategy is needed. The description of your marketing plan doesn’t convince me that your potential market will be reached. How will you communicate to potential customers the benefits of your product so that they will add the MyPocketUni app. to their devise?
Also unclear, are ongoing costs for marketing, operations and future development. A gross profit of $180,00 to $360,000 sounds good however, with a team consisting of professional programers and sales staff, costs for wages alone will account for much of that revenue. In order to consider this venture for funding there needs to be a clear marketing strategy, evidence to support that the estimated percentage of the potential market who will purchase MyPocketUni is realistic, an overview outlining costs, and potential for profit.
Claire
Thank you for your wonderful feedback Claire, you have definitely highlighted some of the areas in which this pitch would need to be improved. Its amazing how intense putting together a pitch for an imaginary venture is, I couldn’t begin to guess at how difficult it is to have your livelihood resting on a total of 10 minutes to present and convince people to invest.
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
First of all, I think your pitch was fantastic! It’s filled with energy and enthusiasm and your explanation is clear, using purposeful visual support. The proposition gave me a lot of the info I was wondering about.
I understand that your venture is fictional, but it absolutely has potential, so I’m treating it as if it were real in case someone does want to make a true venture out of it. Also, don’t feel like you have to answer all of my questions or you’ll be here forever!
Almost 30% of the 1.9 million Canadian students are Francophones, many of whom don’t understand English at all. Has your entire system been translated to French?
If you go internationally, will you target countries where English is not the first language?
Do students need to verify whether the information is displayed correctly? If they have to make too many manual corrections, the time invested could deter students from wanting to use the app.
Each instructor, let alone each university, has a different way of presenting course schedule info. Does GenieScan read all these different formats accurately? What if instructors have different ways of distributing notes and don’t use a format that GenieScans recognizes? I guess the student would add that stuff manually. If one person in the class does it, the info could be shared, saving other people the extra work.
What is the purpose of the discussion board? Will there be a moderator that you need to pay to ensure that it enhances the users’ experience, rather than diminishes it, what with the potential for negativity?
Could your discussion board include alerts for when students find about schedule changes? When I was in university, I relied heavily on rumours to find out what was going on, and without those rumours, would have missed out on a lot of critical information. For example, a classmate of yours posts a message in the discussion forum, perhaps clicking on some sort of calendar button and announces a change they heard about. The change is sent out to relevant students in the forum and asks for your approval before making modifications to your calendar. Something similar could exits for when students plan meetings together. Instead of having a chain of 20 or so messages where students discuss the most convenient time to meet, the app could do it for them, offering a few choices, one at a time that each person can accept or decline.
If students are only uploading info once a semester, they may forget certain steps by the time the next semester starts. Tech procedures that are not habitual need to be as simple as possible so that students don’t get frustrated at having to re-learn how to use the app.
There should also be functions or buttons that students can click on to add tasks to the schedule, like laundry, groceries, meetings with profs, dental appointment, team practice, work schedule…
What is the significance of the colours of the boxes in the examples you showed?
Other comment: The app would have to ensure security of the passwords granting access to the library.
I’m not sure that everything could realistically be ready for September, but if my concerns could be put to rest, and the app made ready for December, in anticipation of the next semester, I would likely invest.
Once again, I think you’ve done fantastic work!
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you for your fantastic feedback! I’ll try to answer all, if not most, of your questions here.
1) I do fully intend to make this program available in French and upon going international, will be available in translated versions.
2) Students will need to verify the information, this will come up as a text box that asks “Is this correct? – Yes or No”. Simple and straight forward, they can edit as they like from there adding information as needed.
3) The system would be designed to look for references to authors names, publishing dates, pages etc. This should be hopefully a rather common component to any instructors course outline/syllabus.
4) The discussion board in the original design was meant to log students into the one specifically created for the class. For example, for ETEC 522, the link would take the student directly to the homepage of this blog or it would link to the dedicated Vista site.
5) I do like you idea of creating alerts for students on new information. This certainly could be included in the final design of the application. I think a function that allows students to make individual contacts with others in the class would also work well in this program. As simple as getting another students name would allow them to contact one another in the class. This would need to work like a social network within those that are using the application.
6) I am hoping that the uploading of documents is very straightforward and not too complicated for students to use. This will limit frustration when using the system later. I also feel that since students will be logging into the site frequently that they will be quite comfortable with the interface when they need to use it for a new semester.
7) In one recoding I know I mentioned that students would be able to add their personal reminders to the task calendar, it must not have made the final cut in my presentation. It will be fully customizable and students will be able to add what they would like to their site.
8 ) The boxes are used to differentiate tasks. Students can assign a different colour to each class or to each type of task (readings, notes, assignments, exams, etc)
9) Yes, security would be of the highest importance. This would need to be maintained and carefully protected by my team and developers.
Perhaps you are correct in that it may be better to make these additions and alterations before rushing our product out to market. We will delay the release until December to ensure that everything is to your satisfaction.
Thank you,
Kenton Hemsing
President and CEO
Kenton, you have a valuable product and enthusiasm and passion to sell it! Nicely done. As the parent of a struggling university student (one who desperately needs a pocket uni) I was enticed to take a closer look.
You have identified the need and found the solution to something that many college and university bound learners are faced with… and your 10% of the 1.9 million students I think is a low-ball estimate. Once students start using this tool, word will spread.
Are there any possible links or connections from My Pocket Uni to facebook or twitter – that would potentially provide the necessary link for these socially connected learners.
The one challenge I see with your product is the potential need for one-one support since you need to be organized to get organized. Students need to make a habit of updating and monitoring their pocket uni in order to know what’s going on, what to read and when to read it, and when things are due. If they don’t actually do that, then the tool is no good for them. Do you have a some way of monitoring to see if someone has not been on Pocket Uni for a while and somehow connect with them to get them back on track?
This venture is worth a closer look, just for the value proposition. Thanks.
Helen
HI Kenton,
Ie njoyed oyur enthusiasm in both pitches. I did find it difficult with you standing in and out of the projector screen at times and going dark, and in the venture pitch some of the screen examples were not easy to read from the distance.
That said as an investor i could see the real potential for a product like this. You clearly identified the pain point, solution, market and uniqueness of the product . It was really important to see how the product would work and made the venture seem even more enticing to invest in.
I was concerned about the time to market – very short. If investing i would want a business case and more financials – there wasn’t much time for this.
If you were pitching to a number of investors and then decided to hold off a few months for the release to add even more functionality from their suggestions, I am not sure I would feel reassured, rather I would be concerned that the original idea could lose its innovative foothold. I would prefer to see the current product which already fills a gap out in the marketplace – with the additional functionalities added in later with an upgrade. This would be a bonus for thiose who bought the app initially (and become part of your market “team” when they tell their friends)and potentially increase the market further with the upgrade.
As identified earlier some more figures would have clinched the investment for me – even without a business case. Great venture.
denise
Kenton,
I found your pitch to be very informative yet to the point. Although your venture encompasses three fairly complex/detailed components, I found that you did a great job of not overwhelming the viewed with too much information; well done! Within your venture, you included a great deal of information pertinent to your venture, however I would have like to see a little more research-based data. Although your presentation platform worked very well, perhaps you could have included some of the information as text on screen as you reviewed it. Screenshots or a webcast of manipulating the software would help the viewer buy into your product more so ( I found the distance from the camera to the projection screen a bit far to see how it actually works). The close-up shots of GenieScan really aided in modeling how it works (I would love such a tool to keep my courses organized!). Items that could help sell such to an investor is backing up some of your statistics with research. Examples could be number of Canadian post-secondary students who have access to mobile devices or other products that do not measure up to the triad of applications offered by MyPocketGenie. Overall, very well done!
All the best,
Danielle
Hello, My elevator and venture pitches outline a learning venture that offers conversational sessions for ESL and FLS learners. Please keep in mind that although the pitches make it out to be a ‘real’ enterprise, and the idea is more than viable – it is fictional in nature . . . (for the moment!) […]
Continue reading Marie-France Hétu’s Elevator and Venture Pitch Posted in: Venture Forum
Good Day Marie-France,
Thank you for sharing your elevator and venture pitches. You can tell that you have a passion for second language development, education and the workplace environments. Your presentation was clear and well laid out and the “live” video footage of workers in action was great to see! With this type of business venture, one would think the government would be interested candidates, especially to help support individuals who may have the basics of FSL, but still need require assistance to become more confident communicators. Would Converse-A-Long have a database of past conversations or mock conversations that users could download and practice? I may have missed that in your presentation. All in all, bravo!
Thanks for sharing
Jon
Hello Jon,
Thank you for your encouragement on my learning venture pitch. There are many governmental programs within the ministries to help employees become bilingual, particularly if a job requires you to oupdate your language profile. This being said, taking group courses is often not enough to provide adequate second-language practice for students, this is how an enterprise such as Converse-a-long would fill a gap.
Conversations take place between a client and a teacher ‘live’ over Skype or on the phone according to the client’s availability. Conversations would be based on client need, this means simply conversing on specific topics, or practising for an exam.
Cheers!
Marie-France
Bonjour Marie-France.
I’ve tried to view your videos but I always receive the notice saying “sorry there was an error encountered while loading this video”. Do I need to download a special program to help view these? I see that Jon was able to view them so please let me know if there is something I need to do.
Merci,
Donna
Hello Donna,
You should just need to click on the play button to view these videos. Perhaps it has something to do with some type of software you need to play the videos, such as mediaplayer or the like. If so you will just need to download this from the Internet – It is free I believe. Vimeo is just a place where I ‘store’ my videos. Have you tried to view HD videos on your computer before . . . has it worked?
Hope that helps – let me know if it doesn’t.
Marie-France
Hi Marie-France,
I really like the idea of a venture that helps people to find others with whom they can get oral practice in a second language as learning a new language without such conversation is very difficult! I think that the ways in which you explain all of the possible reasons for someone to want such a service is very beneficial for your venture. I was, however, left uncertain about a few things, the first of which was exactly what form this venture takes – is it a website? It seems somewhat like a language tutoring system so I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a technology based venture, apart from the use of skype. As well, in your elevator pitch you did not explicitly state which languages Converse-a-long currently supports, though I assume it is French from the titles you used! I would be curious to know which languages are the most sought out – would you also offer English oral practice, for example?
Overall, a very interesting plan!
Thanks,
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Converse-A-Long is a service that is offered to clients who wish to practice their second-language with professional teachers either through Skype or phone or in person. It is a learning venture that uses technology, both for advertising and for the actual ‘conversing’. In the Elevator pitch I mention ESL and FLS, this means English Second-language and Français langue seconde. In the Venture pitch I do mention that contrary to our rival we offer our service in both official languages. So yes we do offer English oral practice.
Please keep in mind of course that this business if fictional – all the characters in the venture pitch are playing along if you would. It is easier to discuss the venture as if it were real however.
Thank you so much for your feedback, I will look at yours this evening.
Marie-France
Bonjour Marie-France,
At last I was able to view your 2 videos, Well done. It’s amazing but your Venture Pitch is very similar to mine. If you have a chance to listen to my idea, let me know what you think.
Your Converse-a-long Elevator pitch was visually appealing and you covered many important points, especially the importance of being bilingual in order to be competitive in the job market.
The idea of “tailored conversational sessions” is catchy and your choice of communicating through Skype shows that you are looking at inexpensive solutions for students and adults who are wanting oral practice for the second language that they are learning.
You mention “oral pocket books”. These are obviously handheld devices and you have chosen a good choice of words to visually describe your product.
I would have like to have seen more numbers and target goals so that I, as a possible investor, could have a better idea of what profits there are to be made in your company. A more detailed future plan of your next few years might offer more information on where you would like to go with Converse-a-long.
A very, well presented Venture Pitch.
Donna
Hi Marie-France,
Wonderful presentation. I enjoyed your elevator and venture pitches. I especially found your promotion of the Converse-a-Long team to be very effective. I found that by emphasizing the team early on, it highlights the expertise and knowledge of the product. Very good thinking!
I found that the fact that Converse-a-long is conducted mainly via Skype to offer lower overhead costs. It’s excellent you brought that into the discussion. It’s also effective that you point out that Converse-a-long does not offer direct competition with ESL institutions.
However, I thought that your pitches could’ve been stronger had there been some financial analyses. As an investor, I am somewhat wary about investing my money without some breakdown of how I could benefit in the upcoming years.
Otherwise, this is a very strong presentation. Congratulations!
Allan
Hello Allan,
Thanks for you feedback! You are right, my presentation would have been stronger had I provided more of a financial analysis, something I found difficult to do seeing converse-a-long is merely a figment of my imagination. Finance is also not my strong point and I’m afraid it shows.
Thanks for your honest opinion of my presentation.
Marie-France
Hi Marie France,
Your venture addresses a common challenge of pairing native speakers with French language learners to facilitate practice conversing. You did a thorough job of describing Converse-A-Long. Nice touch to include photos of the team; including spoken introductions would make this section even stronger. Offering the flexibility of conversing online, by phone, or in person is likely to attract a wide range of users. It’s not clear whether you provide anytime, anywhere service for face-to-face sessions outside the Ottawa area. With your plan to expand into Spanish language options it would be helpful to include information about who will offer expertise in that area. Overall a well thought out venture. Well done.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Thank you for your feedback! I agree that a short video presentation from the teachers would have been great, but my daughters and husband were not willing to go that far in playing along. I mention Converse-A-Long is based and offers services in the National Capital area, which includes Ottawa and Gatineau and that I wish to expand to Toronto by 2016 – but perhaps that is not clear enough in the presentation.
Thanks for your encouragement!
Marie-France
Great job Marie France, your background as a french teacher brings credibility to your venture and you did a great ob describing how the venture would work. I like that you are planning to expand into Spanish as it shows investors that there is upside to this venture.
Greg
Hello Greg,
Thanks for your encouragement! In hindsight, reflecting on my colleagues’ comments and after viewing many other venture pitches I realize I should have further expanded on my expertise, and that of the fellow teachers, to really bring more credibility to the project.
Cheers!
Marie-France
Hi Marie-France,
I really enjoyed learning about your venture! I’m treating it as a real one because it seems extremely realistic and viable, coming from someone who has taught ESL and FLS. Please don’t feel like you have to answer all my questions, though.
Teaching a second language face-to-face allows for a much richer learning experience than training over the phone. For example, in F2F sessions, the confidence level is much easier to assess and allows you to use tools like flash cards, recording devices, visual aids, supporting reading and writing materials and much more. How do you compensate for the difference in service quality? Different price ranges, perhaps? How do you assess whether phone training is good enough to meet a student’s needs? What with the huge financial value of contracts, and having a federal employee’s career on the line, are you prepared to guarantee excellent results with the over-the-phone and sometimes-glitchy Skype services?
If you offer anytime, anywhere services, I understand the need to increase your staff. Many 2nd language schools have a reputation for treating their teacher-employees poorly, giving them inconsistent schedules. How can you prove that this is not the case in your venture, with anytime, anywhere scheduling? I know that’s not directly related to your venture, but it would certainly have an impact on it if turnover were high, and the quality of your services would suffer. The service you offer of meeting people face-to-face may be a challenge too, especially with the NCR being sometimes difficult to travel through. How can you minimize the cost of travel if you have students located anywhere from Gatineau to Kanata?
Your competition is potentially high, what with the NCR being populated with loads of bilingual people able to offer a similar service over Skype. Are you aware that Skype offers programs that make it easy for clients and teachers to connect and that it facilitates payment methods?
How is it that you are not in competition with companies that offer courses based on progressive lesson plans?
I think both of your videos are very well constructed, with great use of audio/visual content and music that doesn’t over-power your voice.
I agree with you that knowing more than one language has a very positive impact on individuals’ lives and on society! If you do go forward with this venture, I wish you a lot of luck!
Cheers,
Dan
Hello Dan,
Thank your for your feedback and questions. I have answered them as if my venture were real.
I absolutely agree that f-2-f or blended environments are best for learning languages, that is why Converse-A-Long does not compete with language schools or programs that offer these types of courses. Rather we offer complimentary conversational practices, because in my experience as a FLS teacher students in group classes don’t get enough oral practice.
Converse-A-Long does not offer support with reading or writing skills, all we offer based on our expertise and student need is conversational sessions.
Not even the most professional schools (the military one I work for included) can guarantee a student will pass an exam, so Converse-A-Long would not be able to offer that guarantee. However, because of our expertise in preparing students for the exam, we could certainly offer simulations of the exam to better prepare students.
Because Skype is not always reliable, we could certainly offer to phone a client (our cost if any is incurred) if the conversation through Skype does not work, and we are already part of the special Skype plan for businesses and clients. It would be more expensive for us to come to an individual’s workplace if a client wants that type of service, but some clients might choose that option, especially if practising for an oral government test.
Strangely enough there is no other company offering this type of targeted conversational service in the Ottawa\Gatineau area. We believe interested candidates will take advantage of the anywhere\anytime service offered, which means that most of them are looking for convenience and want to converse from home or work using the easiest method possible – probably Skype or phone. For those who want in person service, it costs more, so there would be a tendency to have less clients willing to pay the price.
I have travelled a great deal across Ottawa and Gatineau and apart from peak hours, travel time is quite reasonable from one end of the city to the other – unless it is rush hour, and likely we would not make appointments during that time if possible. The increase in demand means we need to grow, which means we have had to refuse or postpone some sessions until we increase our staff. This is why we need the funding to help us handle the hiring and training period of more staff and then time to expand our venture.
Thanks for your honest feedback and asking all these questions, it really sounds as if you were a real investor.
Marie-France
Hi Marie-France,
I’m glad that you say you’re not able to guarantee results. Some schools are over-optimistic with the claims that they make.
Now I understand why you say you are not in direct competition with second language schools; your services are compliemnetary to theirs. Still, while these schools offer training in writing, comprehension and conversation, nothing stops them from offering their own conversation-based training. Individual students will request these services and pay out of pocket if they have to because their career is on the line. I’ve seen schools offer this service and wouldn’t underestimate its value as competition to you.
As for travelling through the city, sure it’s quick enough in a car, but a company like yours, that is situated in a city is likely to hire a significant amount people who travel by bus. A lot of 2nd language teachers I know rely on public transportation. For them to travel from one client to another takes a lot of time, wears on the body and is often a reason to quit for a more stable work environment.
Overall, I still think your venture is strong and has a lot of potential in the real world. Whether or not you go forward with this project, I wish you the best!
Dan
Marie-France, as a current visitor to your area of the country, can I take a short course with your product? Is there accommodation made for the many visitors who come to the Ottawa/Gatineau region and stay for up to 2 weeks? Being immersed in the language of the area would certainly add value to my trip as I could holiday and learn.
I’m not sure I fully understand who the clients are for your venture as you described it. Who is actually handing you money for this service? Are there corporate or individual clients, or both? Is the market in Ottawa ready for skype conversations, particularly with privacy issues (not knowing who else may be in the room at the other end!)?
You mentioned that Toronto may be the next move for your venture. Are you prepared for a very different learning culture in the Big Smoke? What marketing strategy will you use to gain client base in a tough second language market? Just a few questions before I consider investing.
Helen
Hello Helen,
What excellent questions!
First a few precisions:
– We offer our second-language conversational sessions to anyone in the NCR who wishes to practice their second language.
– Our clientele mainly comes from students already taking second-language courses or following language programs, since we are a complimentary service that fills in the need for extra conversational practices.
– We would not be able to provide clients coming in from out of town with accomodation, but certainly our web site could have links to things to do in the Ottawa region, perhaps even paid advertising to help us cover the cost of our web site.
– Skype is already used extensively in the Ottawa region, and at our end, Converse-A-Long staff can guarantee privacy, at their end it is the responsibility of the client. Since our conversations are based on practising the language, there is nothing really ‘private’ in the conversations to the point where we need ultra secure lines.
– Prior to expanding to the Toronto area, our company would do a thorough market analysis to see how it could establish its roots. We would investigate possible challenges and differences in marketing strategies, as well as what languages, beyond French and English, Converse-A-Long could expand upon. Targeting a ‘niche’ market in Toronto would be essential, and would likely take time.
Thanks for asking me to elaborate further on my project, it makes the ‘creating a venture’ exercise even more realistic.
Marie-France
Hi Marie-france,
I found both pitches well presented and engaging. The elevator pitch definitely made me want to learn more and move on to the venture pitch. While the music in both pitches was lovely I think it detracted from listening soley to you as CEO (and was what Clark and Mayer (2005) woudl call extraneous sounds.)
I thought you outlined the pain point and solution and how you differentiate from other ventures – to the point when it is actually unique. It was great to meet the team, but as you commented earlier offering more background on their skills would have strengthened the pitch.
The $300,000 grossed figure didn’t give me an indication of loss/profit in the last year. I saw it as less risky to be investing in a venture that was already established, but wasn’t clear what was involved in the expansion of the company. More teachers means more clients but also more wages and taxes – so will increasing staff and business give a logarithmic rise in profits, only a relative rise or no rise at all? Dis it self limiting? Explaining how you have expanded your business to date and been clearer about the low overheads may have helped put my mind at rest about return.
i did wonder if there was a way to tap into the language schools to which you value add rather than compete, and have them market Converse-a-long?
Having focused on the finance I was however enticed by the social implications of this venture. too.
I liked the idea – simple and effective – but I wasn’t completely convinced to invest because I wasn’t sure about the return on investment going forward.
denise
Hello Denise,
Thank you for your excellent feedback on both my pitches. In my self-evaluation I did notice the same strengths and weaknesses you mention.
I wish we could have posted our pitches a couple of weeks ag so that we would have had time to tweak our presentations before submitting them to David.
I really value feedback from my peers, for it is important to know how others view your presentation. It is a hard thing to do to judge how presentations will be perceived on your own. In the real world I would surely have sent my pitch to colleague to get an honest opinion before actually launching it out publicly.
Thank you again for your honest opinion – I appreciate it.
Marie-France
Hi Marie-france,
I agree. It has been good to review people’s pitches. I have learnt a great deal from how you and everyone else approached their pitch, and that was just as important as the direct feedback from everyone. I have loved the innovative ventures everyoen has had!
Sounds like you might consider making your venture a reality – so good luck if you do.
denise
Thank you for sharing your ideas for advancing and improving upon french language skills! I think you have the basis for a potentially profitable venture, however there are a couple of items that should be included within your venture analysis or your pitch. First a foremost, it would be beneficial to include what language Converse-a-Long supports within the opening of your pitch so that viewers are able to identify if it suits their desires for investment. Secondly, I do believe that you could support the business and product using more technology than solely Skype and a website. With audio, video, and mobile technologies advancing and being common tools used within learning, I believe it is pertinent that you implement such within your business to keep current. Without the incorporation of such, I am afraid that many investors might shy away from putting a great deal of money into a venture that could potentially be updated by a more trendy application in the near future. Overall, I appreciate your expertise and time spent on developing a product that obviously meets an educational need. Well done!
Danielle
Imagine earning your gold level digital learning badge for your personal educational efforts in ETEC 522! Learn more about this disruptive, game changing technology and how learning badges will revolutionize open, online learning environments. See how LB4U will connect learners with opportunity. The ELEVATOR PITCH is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBbyzDwaEDc The VENTURE PITCH is found HERE.
Continue reading LB4U – get your learning badge for 522 here! Posted in: Venture Forum
Good Day Helen,
Thank you for your pitches, you can hear and feel the excitement in the elevator pitch for this possible venture. Despite my own pedagogical and philosophical perspectives on “earning” badges to represent learning (are the learners learning, or just wanting to get that badge, what about those students who are aren’t able to achieve, etc) you are absolutely correct in stating that more demand is being voiced in regards to accountability. With social media becoming almost intertwined in daily life, I think your venture has great potential to be woven into this type of learning market. I haven’t joined the fourSquare world, but I do see how people become “hooked” into this type of activity and enjoy having the recognition for his/her accomplishments or achievements. Parents would also benefit from seeing what levels students have achieved and can follow along with their child’s learning development. From a business standpoint, I would be willing to invest in this company as I can see a dollar value potential (and return and profit from the original investment). Schools/boards I’m sure can’t wait to jump in and get in on this opportunity.
Thanks,
Jon
Thanks for the feedback Jon. I too have some issues on philosophical levels, but so many learners within ‘standard’ learning environments will work for extrinsic motivations as a step to gaining internal motivations. With social learning environments so tightly tied to student success, it is the disenfranchised and disengaged that need this type of support to succeed. Helen
Hi Helen,
Your elevator pitch is engaging and thoughtfully laid out. You made a good argument for the need for celebrating our successes and providing us with a visual reminder of what collecting badges used to be like. I think you are right that having a way to “display” one’s badges online could be trend that catches on.
Good luck with your venture!
Janet
Thanks Janet…. as a former special education teacher who worked with students who just needed to be able to show off some accomplishments, this product caught my attention.
Helen
Hi Helen,
Your pitch for LB4U is well done. You sound excited about this venture and clearly explain its features and why you believe it’s beneficial. As I understand it LB4U supports extrinsic motivation which isn’t the trend in educational reform efforts. That said, some people do like to collect stuff and having the option to accumulate badges may appeal to some. I’m just not convinced that the opportunity to participate in LB4U will contribute to student engagement and lead to meaningful learning.
Claire
Claire, I respect that on philosophical grounds there may be many who would not invest or purchase this product. It provides and external symbol for something that should be internal and intrinsic. The mechanism for creating something that explicitly demonstrates what others have achieved, especially those whom a learner may respect and look up to, will give some students the goal and learning path to achieve more than they would otherwise. Just look at what is happening at the Olympics! I watched young divers watching the bronze medal winners today and aspiring to follow their path. Learning badges are just another way for ‘expert’ learners to model and show the way.
Helen
Hi Helen, you can hear in your pitch that you are passionate about your venture and believe in it. I like the idea of the badges that can be displayed online to celebrate success. I think this is likely a market more targeted towards elementary school students and as an investor I need to know how I am going to make money and I need convincing that this product wouldn’t just be a fad and disappear within a short timeframe.
Greg
Greg, the market would not be limited to elementary students, but that would be part of the potential market. It would be marketed to individual learners at the adult, higher ed level first, and move cautiously into younger learners (with research and design being done to ensure that it is the right move, of course !!). I see this as being ‘sold’ to individuals just as the ‘certificate’ or ‘transcript’ are currently ‘sold’ to learners by their learning organizations. It would be a value-added to the ‘award’ for achievements gained. So, once I receive my certificate from MET, I can migrated my info to the secure LB4U site and there receive the digital images of my courses and achievements which I can then show and share to the world…. does that make sense?
It can also them be embedded into my resume when I go out job hunting for those elusive ed/tech jobs OR be incorporated into my CEO blog/web presence for all to view. Bragging a little, yes! Sharing my path of success for others to emulate, perhaps!
Four square is not a fad and look how people are flocking to earn badges and share their social activities with others. This is the leading edge of a potential tsunami! Jump in before you get swept away.
Have I convinced you to invest! Hope your funds are in transit! 🙂
Helen
I think that with the increase of PLE style learning badges will become mainstream. The market probably won’t be for courses like ETEC 522 which are part of a credentialing program, but for learning that takes place through social participation on the web. There is the potential for people to learn anything they want on the web without the help of teachers and courses and this valid learning should be recognized somehow.
However, with Mozilla Foundation already establish an open framework for badges I wonder where the revenue stream would come from. Is funding possible through a Canadian government agency? Perhaps. But without detailed information on the business model I might wait and see what transpires with badges through the open source movement.
Chris, waiting could potentially leave you out of the windfall once this product hits mainstream. LB4U is positioned to make the most of the OBI by working in partnership with learning organizations (such as UBC) and with learners to provide secure, transfer of data and achievements -rather than each individual applying to UBC for their learning badges on completion, this will be streamlined and design of the badges would be done by LB4U (with approval and control of brand by the learning organization). We are the ‘go-between’ just as Facebook is social media. OBI is the mechanism, hence the proposed partnership with Mozilla in R&D, but our proprietary work in display and design would be where the actual money to be made resides. Hope you don’t miss this ‘boat’. Invest in learners today!
Helen
Hi Helen,
It’s clear that you are passionate about your venture and you have really backed up the ideas presented with theory (which is comforting as an investor). I would have liked to have seen more information on your competition and what sets you apart from them.
Overall, great pitch!
Lisa
Thanks Lisa, your feedback is appreciated. There are a few competitors in this ‘business’ in the US, but none in the Canadian marketplace, that I discovered. But cross-boarder, internet based businesses are not uncommon so it is worth investigating further.
I guess what really sets LB4U apart is our knowledge and experience in the Canadian education field. Hope that is enough to keep Canadians buying and supporting Canadian ventures.
Helen
Hi Helen,
You make an excellent presentation and exude enthusiasm for your venture. Although some may have philosophical reservations about this type of venture, several people could benefit from having markers for signaling and commemorating their achievements. As an investor, I would be concerned with the philosophical issue, which has already been cause for criticism among existing reward systems (such as the one available through Khan Academy). Nevertheless, I believe that this kind of motivation will play an important role in the future of education.
Excellent pitch and good luck with this venture!
May
Thanks for the feedback May. I appreciate your honest opinion.
Helen
Your enthusiasm and confidence in this venture came through your pitch Helen. You clearly articulate what B4U plans to do and what it needs to be successful.
Concept and Marketability
I think the concept of B4U to validate and celebrate learner success is a good one. I can see market opportunities for this venture in being incorporated in electronic portfolio applications and as you have pointed out, strategic partnerships are absolutely crucial for venture success.
Venture plan and financials
Your plan is well thought out and your venture analysis is very thorough.
Thanks,
Leonora
Thanks Leonora, your feedback is helpful. I’ll look forward to our continued venture relationship when we meet to ‘share the funds’. 🙂
Helen
Sounds good to me Helen 🙂
Leonora
Hi Helen,
Great pitch! Your idea is totally innovative to me, for I’ve never heard about such kind of service in my country, but I believe there is a sure market waiting there. Online badge service could be provided cross-country depending on their international reputation, therefore I believe your venture has a prospective potential in global market, with global competitors as well as you have pointed out.
You elevator pitch is very engaging, which instantly catch my attention. I can’t help imaging how much children and other learners will like these lovely badges shown on their websites. Your venture plan is very informative, with professional demonstration of your solution, marketing strategy and financial consideration. I like the “For Profit” chart in the financial overview section, only with a little confusion of what the numbers represents: do they mean the number or users, or the number of badge you plan to release, or the estimated revenue in $million?
From an investor’s point of view, I think your early awareness of Canadian DLB market is a great advantage, but for a long-term competition, I would hope to find more differential advantages on both technical and marketing level. The use of Mozilla OBI platform can be copied by other ventures, what will make yours different relies on your post-developed innovations upon the platform. The postion of LB4U in the DLB ecosystem is somewhat not anchored a little bit.
I think you have an excellent awareness of partnership, that shows how you qualified to lead this venture. I just wonder how you will weave these partners within your framework. Your services are 2-sided, both to badge issuers and to badge displayers. That give you double chances of profit. But how about the 2 sides connect directly? I know many universities hold a system of their own to serve degree badge (and other details) inquiry. You need to make more differences to intercept in these services and redirect both sides to the LB4U platform.
Excellent job for a hopeful venture!
Ping
Helen,
I found the idea behind your venture to be unique and interesting. You provided a great deal of content based on sound research. As is evident from most of our peer’s presentations, this can be a difficult feat; well done!
Good luck with your venture,
Danielle
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
karonw 10:09 pm on May 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I find that blogging is a good way to see one’s personal development as we can see how one’s knowledge, understanding or perspective grew as we review the older posts and compared them to the newer ones.
Karon
Chelsea M Woods 1:23 am on May 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I am looking into developing blogs as a learning log in our school. We have students matched with advisors at a 10:1 ratio, and I would like to see students and teachers blogging in association with our habits of mind/approaches to learning standards. Students and teachers would give each other feedback on learning, and the blog would be used for reporting on student progress.
janetb 4:45 pm on May 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I am currently using a blog as a website for access to information for my students, and as a place for asynchronous discussions (also in a Moodle site). I am interested in seeing how blogging and online discussions can be used to foster metacognition.
Claire Burgoyne 10:21 am on May 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
One of the advantages blogs have over other online options is that they can be much more personal. I want the work my students to do to be meaningful to them and see a blog which includes highlights, accomplishments, and reflections as being of great value especially if it’s shared with peers
vawells 1:44 pm on May 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
As part of my technology position this year I have introduced Kidblog to grades 2 – 6. It has been well received by students and teachers in general. Grades 3 – 6 are integrating blogs across the curriculum.
Claire Burgoyne 1:08 am on May 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I just visited an amazing art education blog that some might be interested in. It’s at: http://www.amiria.co.nz/artist/ It was shortlisted for the best new blog in the Edublog awards.
unclereg 11:49 am on May 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Blogs are simple idea that help students digitally write and author their own material. Students become their own distributors/publishers and make sharing and peer reviews more possible.
gregcamp 12:33 pm on May 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I use WordPress and Blogger with my junior computer class and they really enjoy it. I find that it is a great way to promote creative writing and to get the students communicating with and learning about each other.
maybacon 4:00 pm on May 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Since I’ve became a stay-at-home mom, I’m become an avid blog reader and intermittently have written or produced art materials for blogs. Blogs provide so much flexibility, both for teachers and students, and blogging can really hone writing skills and creativity (verbal and/or artistic). I’ve made some friends on blogging platforms – something I never imagined could happen – and that sense of community is a terrific way to discuss ideas.
mariefrancehetu 10:49 am on May 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Since this is my first experience with blogs within a more formal learning environment, I am very much excited in seeing what they have to offer – again within the adult learning community. I am particularly interested in how these learning environments can be made more holistic in nature.
kimnoel 5:50 pm on May 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I thin that blogs are underrated in K-6 schools. Most often security and additional issues is cited as being the reason for not using them. However, I think that they provide invaluable opportunity for expresion, feedback and reflection.
Denise 5:06 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have been keen to integrate blogs into vocational training. I have experienced the use of blogs in courses for personal use and reflection eg. portfolios and feel that this is a limited use. I am looking forward to seeing how effectively a blog can be used as a collaborative learning environment.
shawn harris 6:55 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Blogging has been around for quite sometime, however it is through MET I’ve become more aware of it. I have been experimenting a bit with my grade 6 students. I find that blogging can be interactive, allowing them to leave a comment and even a message to each other. Its also a way to build social relations with readers and other bloggers. I do find that the passive learners who would never raise a hand in class to speak, are the ones who tend to blog more and have much to say when replying to a comment on the site. It tells me that blogging allows for creative writing skills to be developed. Integrating blog in the learning environment is a step in the right direction!
Shawn Naomi