{"id":5811,"date":"2011-09-30T13:10:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T21:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/?p=5811"},"modified":"2011-09-30T13:18:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T21:18:08","slug":"earthwalk-green-learning-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/2011\/09\/30\/earthwalk-green-learning-technologies\/","title":{"rendered":"EarthWalk – Green Learning Technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"

EarthWalk<\/a> is a learning technologies company that focuses on developing and delivering high-efficiency, cost-effective learning technologies to classrooms, government and businesses globally to enhance learning environments in a cost and energy efficient way.\u00a0 The company was started by founder and acting CEO Evan T. McConnell who “saw a real need to improve computer and Internet use in the classroom” (EarthWalk, Inc., 2011).\u00a0 The company now delivers energy efficient products including their main line of wireless mobile computer labs to schools, companies and government agencies in both the USA and internationally.<\/p>\n

\u00a0McConnell’s boasts an extensive history of entrepreneurial experience\u00a0opening\u00a0his first business, a school store, as a highschool student. He continued down the entrepreneural path\u00a0starting a professional disc jockey\u00a0company in the 70’s in which he managed and trained and employed over 50 djs.\u00a0 Other successful ventures headed by McConnell included Bogart’s, a dance and dinner night club in Fairfax, Virginia and Best Weddings, a bridal magazine that published for eight years selling “…over 500,000 issues annually, and was distributed on over 4,000 newsstands nationwide” (EarthWalk Inc, 2011). In 1995 McConnell say the digitalization of media and developed an interactive website for the magazine. Evan created EarthWalk in 1997 seeing a greater need for schools to use\u00a0technology more effectively\u00a0in the classroom.\u00a0 His\u00a0background in both computer programming and business\u00a0start-up and management\u00a0provided McConnell\u00a0with both the business sense and the technical experience in design and programming needed to\u00a0not only to\u00a0start\u00a0but continue this company in it’s success. \u00a0<\/p>\n

EarthWalk’s vision statement, “to bring emerging wireless computer lab technologies and solutions to our customers enabling them to communicate, educate, and train people more effectively” (EarthWalk, 2011) is met through products such as their wireless mobile computer labs and high energy-efficiency laptop charging systems and contribute to their marketing campaign of a socially responsible company providing sustainable solutions through longer lasting, energy-saving\u00a0products” \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

EarthWalk’s leardership team, while small always brings valuable business and tech experience to the table. Margaret McConnell, Co-founder, COO and spouse of Evan McConnell also has a strong background in business venture and entrepeneurship, having started several of her own businesses. Robert Vanderlip, Executive Vice President and General Manager has over twenty five years experience in consumer electronics and computer industry and his expertise in sales force development, motivational and product training, conceptual product design, product development and vendor negotiations only strengthen the teams already impressive background.<\/p>\n

This is clearly a for-profit company and attempting to help schools, business and organizations use learning technologies more effectively and efficiently. This company first caught my attention with it’s pitch on sustanability and “going green” as I consider myself an environmentally-conscience consumer and am generally interested in any company that\u00a0 strives for sound environmental policies and sustanability. However after further research into the company I question their sincereties in being “green” and see it as an effective marketing strategy as the society shifts towards sustainability and corporate social responsibility. However these are often just labels that have been taken out if their original contexts and used by corporations as to effectively market themselves. This does not negate the fact that energy efficient technologies are in fact better for the environment and more sustainable but rather that this is a secondary target for this company and sustainable technologies are pushed due to their profibility with environmentalism as a bonus.<\/p>\n

For more information on EarthWalk and their team\u00a0below is a video of their products and services and a link to the team’s biographies:<\/p>\n

EarthWalk Video<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0http:\/\/www.earthwalk.com\/about\/leadership\/<\/a><\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

EarthWalk Inc. (2011). Retrieved from http:\/\/www.earthwalk.com\/about\/leadership\/<\/a>\u00a0on September 30, 2011.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EarthWalk is a learning technologies company that focuses on developing and delivering high-efficiency, cost-effective learning technologies to classrooms, government and businesses globally to enhance learning environments in a cost and energy efficient way.\u00a0 The company was started by founder and acting CEO Evan T. McConnell who “saw a real need to improve computer and Internet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8700,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325975],"tags":[352367,26687,2212,2821,7041,113925],"class_list":["post-5811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-4-entrepreneur-bootcamp","tag-earthwalk","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-green","tag-learning-technology","tag-social-responsibility","tag-sustainable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8700"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5811"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7855,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811\/revisions\/7855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522sept11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}