Posts from — October 2009

———————-

Food for thought; What the press reported when the initiative started that the international companies are engaged in this program for free, I believe there’s no such free lunch. What’s in it for the big guys is still something to debate and research further.

I was recently introduced to Engrade, as some of the colleagues I’m teaching with are using it with a lot of success.  It is easy to use and very intuitive.  The company, Engrade, is based in San Diego, California, and was founded in 2003 by a team of Internet entrepreneurs.  Engrade is used all over the world today.  Engrade is free and claims to remain free of charge for educators.

Face 1: Market Focus

Engrade seems to be focused for school systems from K-12; or for any company that need to keep track of student records, such as tutoring services, summer camps/courses, or educational services that do not have a required grading system.  Engrade provides services to principals, teachers, parents, and students – all at the same time.

Face 2: Types of Offerings

Engrade provides services to principals, teachers, parents, and students.  Some of these services include updated information of students’ class marks, attendance, work habits, and scheduled tests and exams.

• For teachers, they are able to input grades of student assignments online.  This can be done anywhere with an Internet access (and the password to sign-in).  It is a paperless gradebook.  The teacher can manage several classes, multiple students, and customized weighting and grading systems as well.  In addition, they are able to communicate privately among colleagues.
• For principals, they are able to send messages to teachers at once or individually.
• For parents and students, to check their grades and their information, class marks, missing assignments, work habits, customized feedback from the teacher, etc.

Infrastructure

Engrade also provides some infrastructure in that it manages student and content.

Face 3: Who is the Buyer?

As this service is absolutely free, there is no “buyer” per se, but there are users.  The people who will be logging in to this service are students, parents, teachers, and principals.  So, the buyer would be people related to the K-12 system (or as mentioned earlier, an academic environment  – ex: tutoring company).

There is nothing to download; however, the only thing that participants must “buy” is access to the Internet.  If Internet access is a problem for the student, teachers can also print out specific pages for students to bring home.

Face 4 – Global Markets

Looking at Engrade, I do not see the option for other languages.  Therefore, I assume that this service is for English speakers only – or those who can navigate student names, numbers, and letter grades simply in English.  As our school is located in Beijing, China, it would be only be fair to say that English speakers in Asian Countries with Internet can also benefit from this service.  Basically, Engrade has a global market as long as there is interest.

Face 5 – Development of the Market

The market is among educators around the world (Engrade claims that over 250,000 educators are using this service).  Engrade is continually improving since 2003.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

Every classroom, regardless of public or private, has some sort of grading system.  Teachers will assess the students’ development in one way or another.  Engrade is an alternative to paper gradebooks, and because its functions are very similar to Integrade Pro (or now, PowerSchool Pro – Pearson Education), it may be in competition with electronic gradebooks that the school or school districts are required to use (such as BCeSIS – which I am, unfortunately, not familiar with).

Regarding the link to Dick Hardt of  sxip, Inc., delivering his introduction to Identity 2.0 and how the concept of digital identity is evolving.

Simple eXtensible Identity Protocol

I mentioned in a previous post here in Module 4 that I have always been trepidatious about putting my personal information on the internet.  My facebook page is an exercise in watching what everyone else is doing…not very valuable in terms of getting any information about me.  I am not part of the twitter movement so that people won’t know exactly when I am going to Costco 😉  (as mentioned in the comment by Ed on their module 4 ning)
I like Dick Hardt’s  analysis that your virtual identity is what a website knows about you. But another website doesn’t have access to that information. So your identity is site centric. This means that you are entering information about yourself to an infinite number of website registry pages.  Not an efficient use of time for the user, nor is it an efficient use of your identity information.
So in the end we aren’t really anonymous in terms of our personal information or identity, so why don’t we have a user centric model where my personal information exists and intersects with the various websites that I interact with?
In our world operating under Web 2.0, Identity 2.0 is inevitable.  I agree with him.
And I know that after signing up for a series of networking sites in the last month, that a better way of navigating my way through the internet HAS to exist…and people will seek it out.

Recombo 2004

CEO Credibility:

Brad McPhee (VP): In this clip, he does not come across as very confident; not quite sure where this company is really going – it is not clearly stated

Management Team:

Says there is a great team, but no description.

Business Model:

The model seems to have many areas of products and services – it feels very scattered.

Competitive Products:

Market size, market share, and selling price were not discussed.

Market Readiness:

The company seems ready for tackling various areas and pathways, but this also means that there is no clear path being laid.

Technical Innovation:

Being able to unlock information from any format and share the content object with others – this seems to be their “edge”

Exit Strategy:

Does not seem to have a clear destination.

Overall Investment Status:

There is an innovative idea, but the path to success is not clear.  They need to have a clearer vision before I would invest.

Recombo 2005

CEO Credibility:

Brad McPhee: Compared to the previous pitch, he is more confident as a speaker; knowledgeable, but still lack a clear vision (always changing throughout the last few years)

Management Team:

Mentions that there are 3 sales, currently 12 people on team, in process of hiring 10 new employees within the next 3 months.

Business Model:

They have moved from a products model to a service (solutions based) model.  Clearer than last year. They plan to be more focused and choose the “right” companies to work with.

Competitive Products:

Brad seems confident in only working with big companies (100 million dollar business) and will turn down smaller ones. Compares the company with IBM.

Market Readiness:

They are in a year of transition, changing their targets. They are willing to sell the business when the time is right.

Technical Innovation:

They have the support of a lighthouse (publisher), which seems to lead them into a bigger network of customers.  This will give them an “edge” into the market.

Exit Strategy:

The business seems to be growing (expanding and doubling in staff size).  Again, the company seems flexible with its path, but this means that they do not have a clear vision of a path.

Overall Investment Status:

Although the company is innovative and always looking for new chances and ways to improve, it is not solid enough – I would be cautious when investing.

Ingenia

CEO Credibility:

Ramona Materi: Confident, although stumbles through her presentation; knowledgeable and has a vision.

Management Team:

Claims to have a team of qualified people with masters and PhD degrees, but does not state exactly in what field.  Also, her presentation (including photos) was more about herself than her team.  There is no “team” presence.

Business Model:

They have done research and have a good argument about their market.  They have experience already in the region.  They have done their homework and understand their competitions (ex. Japan)

Competitive Products:

It seems that there is a market and support from the government; they have a price for investors, but these prices are not specific enough for me to want to invest.

Market Readiness:

The company seems ready and is waiting for investment.

Technical Innovation:

E-learning is not new, but it seems that it is an “edge” in Vietnam.  However, there is not enough evidence about Vietnam’s interest in this market.

Exit Strategy:

She has a clear destination; she seems knowledgeable that there is a market and money to be made in Vietnam.

Overall Investment Status:

She is asking for a large sum of money.  However, 40% of the $100,000 investment is for airfare for 2 people.  On a simple online check, her quote is 4x the amount that is needed.  This makes me wonder: where exactly is all the money going.  I need more convincing before I part with $100,000.

UBC OLT

CEO Credibility:

Michelle Lamberson: Knowledgeable about her work, has a clear vision, confident that her and her team will succeed with the support of UBC; comes across as a good leader with a big team

Management Team:

Have highly qualified individuals on the team

Business Model:

Has a strategic plan. Work with many faculties and faculty members to support them in the projects. Have IT as support to provide the infrastructure.

Competitive Products:

Perhaps there are competition with other institutions; but they seem to run the entire platform system in their own university.

Market Readiness:

Continually tries to improve. Have bought and are hosting wiki’s and blog’s

Technical Innovation:

Innovative – look towards students as knowledge builders, provide framework and tools for individuals to use.  Success comes from blending technology with learning

Exit Strategy:

Driven by faculties and schools.  Provide services.  Will be successful as long as the institution (UBC) supports it.

Overall Investment Status:

Need to prove to UBC that they are valuable.  There is a great leader and this section seems to be successful.

UBC IT

CEO Credibility:

Ted Dodds: A very confident speaker, has a clear and strong vision of where he is going, seems very knowledgeable.

Management Team:

Has a strong team; all of the VPs at UBC (5) are on the team

Business Model:

Knows the importance of having a clear vision. Community based; interactive; have annual town hall meetings. Have partners working at the strategic level. They have an e-strategy framework.

Competitive Products:

They are innovative. Prepared to create and work with other universities.

Market Readiness:

The team seems to be ready to deal with anything that is new on the market

Technical Innovation:

They are innovative and unique in Canada.  Prepared to stay on top with technology (open source, community source, etc.)

Exit Strategy:

Very clear vision and path to success.

Overall Investment Status:

Ted has a very clear vision and knows where this team is going.

While Noah Burdett has already completed an entry on this venture, I thought I would expand and look at the project from a different angle.  I have closely followed the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project for a number of years now; the philosophy and controversy behind the project fascinates me.   Negroponte and the program have struggled to get the devices produced, on budget (the XO no longer referred to as the $100 laptop), and adopted by countries.

However, after finding this video:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/nicholas_negroponte_takes_olpc_to_colombia.html

I think Negroponte may have found a buyer that typically has much deeper pockets than the educational branch of government one would expect this product would be marketed to.  Here, Negroponte partners with the Columbian Ministry of Defense to bring laptops to children in remote areas.

Depending on the motivations of a country’s military, having a wired, educated, distributed network of users in remote locations that have traditionally been under the control of guerrillas or insurgents could prove a boon to these isolated areas.

As adage goes, the military rarely holds bake sales to fund its operations and the paltry $200 cost per device compared to other communications systems typically employed by the military could make this a very interesting experiment – and most importantly, will get these device into the hands of the kids.

Running this through the cube we get:

Market: Developing Nations (and philanthropic individuals in developed nations who participate in the buy one, give one program).

Offering: this is a hardware offering and arguably a service as the mesh network created by the laptops for a community web.

Buyer: Still a national level – only large scale purchases can produce the low price of these machines.  If Negroponte can “pitch” the benefits to branches of government other than education, we will see some significant development of this project.

Piece of the global market: Definitely targeted towards underserved, developing nations with established education system but little other supported technology.

Development of the market: This is a contentious piece.  Many think this project can revolutionize education in impoverished areas – many think that $200 per child could be better spent on teachers, food, clean water, shelter, etc….  The market seems to be still in the pioneering phase.

Integration of learning technology: The environments that these laptops are entering have, almost by definition of the marketplace, little integrated learning technology as we would see it from a western perspective.  The laptops offer a quantum leap in environments where they are placed.

Software:  Inspiration 8

Powered by the proven techniques of visual learning, Inspiration 8 supports multiple learning styles with three unique environments for creating diagrams, outlines and mind maps. Using Inspiration, students develop critical thinking, planning and organisational skills for lifelong learning and achievement.

Face 1:  Market Focus

• Although Strategic Transitions, the parent company of Inspiration 8, markets the software to all ages.  I’d say the main market demographic that they appeal to is the K-12 segment. Although they clearly state that it is meant for students age 10 to adult.  Inspiration is similar to CMAPS the minding mapping software that we currently use at UBC. 

Face 2:  Types of Offerings

• Inspiration is Infrastructure based.  Inspiration can deliver graphical organization of content through creating visual representation of the course material.  The software allows students to make and create their own connections to the material that they are learning.  As the learn new concepts they plot them in their concept map.  Within these concept maps they can embed hyperlinks to websites, wikipedia definitions, pictures, video etc.  This multimedia graphical display enriches the overall education experience. 

Face 3:  Who is the Buyer?

• In our district (SD36) the buyer was the curriculum planning and support branch of the district.  They purchased a district wide license centrally for Inspiration a few years ago.  Then they made it available to high school in the district for free.  This central branch of the district has been heavily promoting the software throughout the district.   It is up to each school to use the software through guides or facilitators in the schools.  This form of a buyer is probably similar to other parts of the country where Inspiration 8 is marketed in.

Face 4:  Global Markets

• A major component of their market is wired Anglophone Countries.  There head office is located in Aurora, Ontario.  But they also provide software to international markets as well.  There products are available in multiple languages; English, French, Spanish, and German.  It seems they are mainly marketing their software to developed nations in North America and Western Europe.  These global markets have a lot of money to spend on education.

Face 5:  Development of the Market

• Inspiration has great potential around the world.  Large markets are available in Asia.  It might be worth while to develop software for the Chinese and Japanese market.  Chine is an up and coming market.  Although these markets might also have local companies which provide the same software.  In countries like India and China many post-secondary intuitions provide education in English.  This might a great place to market Inspiration 8.

Face 6:  Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

• Inspiration 8 is just one piece of the puzzle.  It is not a platform to teach e-learning but a tool to add to the e-learning environment.  Because of this there are probably many competing software packages out there. Old technology is also a competitor.  Inspiration’s graphical organizers can also be duplicated with a pen and paper.  Thus the competition is the old technology.  And if schools cannot afford to purchase this software, students can still get the educational benefit of creating mind maps on the board or a piece of paper.  Although it is hard to embed links and pictures into a static piece of paper. 

Hi everyone!

Group 4’s site on “Social Technologies” is now open! You can find it at: http://etec522module4.ning.com/ . You will need to create a Ning account for yourself, if you are not already a member of Ning. Luckily, it’s free!

The Social Technologies Bandwagon!

Please participate in the discussions, take a survey or two and explore the links. Most of the sections have RSS buttons, so you can pull in the feeds from the site. Probably the best one to use is the “Latest Activity” feed (http://etec522module4.ning.com/activity/log/list?fmt=rss).

Enjoy being a part of our social learning network!

Anthony, Barbara, Cari, Ed, Erik and Noah

This project, is supported by the International Youth Foundation,  The Tanzania Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Forum for African Women Educationalists, United States Agency for International Development and Nokia Siemens Networks. It distributes cell phones to teachers and gives them the capability to view information on the phones that helps them teach in elementary classrooms. The project adapts and creates mathematics, science and life skills videos and establishes the necessary technological infrastructure for teachers to access the content in their classrooms.

BridgeIT

Face 1: Market Focus

BridgeIT is aimed at teachers in elementary schools, so the focus is k-12 (although there is an element of training involved in that the information goes to teachers to improve their instruction rather than to the children directly).

Face 2: Types of Offerings

The end product of the program is content. Information is provided to teachers on hand-held mobile phones. One of the partners of the program is Nokia, and they presumably are interested in selling mobile phones, so there may be some interest in providing hardware as well which would come under the heading of infrastructure.

Face 3: Who is the buyer?

In this case the buyer would be the schools who have agreed to be part of the project, although at this stage they are not paying for the devices or content. Perhaps, then, the buyer is the International Youth Foundation that is funding the project? Presumably the idea is to develop a product and service that can eventually be sold to schools and teachers across developing nations.

Face 4: Global Markets

This project is aimed exclusively at markets where there is poor or non -existent internet availability. If the product and the project are successful, it might be possible to market this kind of product to vast populations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Face 5: Development of the Market

At the present time, this project is in a market that does not support learning technologies. The hope is that projects like BridgeIT will develop products and services that will become viable opportunities. Presumably this is why companies like Nokia are involved in the project.

Face 6: Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

This project is bringing content into schools where there was previously no access to this kind of information. This does not compete with any other forms of learning.

Recombo 2005

CEO Credibility
Brad Mcphee.  At first I found his presence not powerful enough to lead the company during a time of transition.  As I watched further, I found he was knowledge but still did not provide with a clear vision about what Recombo’s goals were.  Maybe that is why there is currently a new CEO leading the company.
CEO 2009: Mike Gardner     Source: http://www.recombo.com

Management Team
Only name mentioned in the video was Brad Mcphee.  He also mentioned that there are a total of 3 sales people and 12 current employees.  They are in the process of hiring 10 new employees. 

Business Model
Recombo has technology that allows users to run their course content on.  I believe there product and business model is feasible.   They are trying to sell existing technology to customers.
Private Company with investors

Competitive Products
Have switched from a product based company to a service based company.  “Services provided over a architecture”.   Trying to prove that they have technology that solves business problems.-
-“Content integration router” new product out.  “Adapter “is a performance evaluation product.

Market Readiness
Recombo is currently in a year of transition.  They are shifting from a product centered business to services centered business.  

Technical Innovation
Their lighthouse technology seems to give them a competitive edge.  It seems like there are constantly innovating new ideas and re-packaging old ones to make them better.

Exit Strategy
– Although they have a great product, I believe they do not know what success looks like.  They are prepared to walk away from a business if it does not fit there business model.  Estimated dollar value is 100 million.   If the price is right he/shareholders would sell the business.

Overall Investment Status
Have a signed a new deal with a publisher that is equal to their entire revenue.  Are a growing company which is hiring an additional 10 employees.  Current employee base is 12.   I would invest in this company. 

UBC OLT

CEO  Credibility
Michelle Lamberson (Director).  She seems to come across very knowledgeable and credible.   She understand some the problems that OLT faces and some of the opportunities as well.

Management Team
Nothing is really mentioned in the video.  When access the OLT website the page cannot be displayed.   Page might be down for maintenance.

Business Model
Role: OLT plays a leadership role in Facilitation, Coordination and Communication of technology within curriculum of courses at UBC.   I believe because they are part of university most of their funding comes from the government and student tuition.  This means they are not selling a product or service in the open market .
-Public Education Institution.

Competitive Products
They provide a services of hosting and maintaining e-learning platforms at the university.   It seems they have no other competitors within the university.

Course Management Software. 
– Recently they have bought a new server to host web blogs and wiki’s.

Market Readiness
Success for OLT is not measured in profits but more in the learning success of students within the e-courses at UBC.  Seamlessly integrating technology into courses is a measurement of success. 

Technical Innovation
– learning through blogs and wiki is an new project that they are trying at UBC.  Their goal to always incorporate new ideas.  And they understand that some will fail and others will succeed

Exit Strategy
Student centered goals.
Driven by UBC faculty and students.  As a support unit OLT will always have to be there as a non for profit organization of the university.

Overall Investment Status
They have to keep showing the university that are benefit.  They will never really earn the university money but that is not their role.  Their role is to help facilitate the technology