For my critical analysis I have chosen ZD net’s Top 10 ED tech predictions for 2011. Obviously this is an older article so it is interesting to look at what was predicted as being top ED tech for 2011. I also searched and found several articles relating to that one “The top 5 ed tech […]
Continue reading ZD Net Posted in: Week 02: The Edtech Marketplace
YES, I would invest in this venture. This young CEO clearly has the enthusiasm and charisma to market this product effecitvely to his peers (his target audience). He has clearly developed a product that is original and feasible in the Elementary and Middle schools. As it is similar to many of the card games (ie. Magic, Pokemon and YuGiOh) the educational market would definitely benefit from a product like this.
While it is clear that the CEO has the passion, it isn’t clear how he is going to deploy and market his product other than through his website and making more decks.
This seems like a fairly safe venture to invest in but would require some guidance for the young CEO as he brings his product into the real world. It does appear that additional information and reserach is required as to whether a game like this would work with students using test groups but the energy is compelling from this individual. The game must be compelling enough. That being said the idea is original and could move forward successfully.
As a side note, after watching a few I was most compelled by this one. I had to take a step back to figure out if I was just taken back by his youth and energy. I looked into it and found an older version of him and that it’s clear his venture moved forward. Earlier in the year he even released an iPhone app to complement Elementeo. Neat idea and I couldnt’ be happier to see this in real life!
Check him out on TEDx 4 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxLfkvl6f0I
No I would not invest in Elementeo but it was not an easy decision. I do like the enthusiasm and creativity of the CEO, Anshul. He is obviously working hard designing and trying to be innovative with his product but my main problem comes with the product’s marketability. I think that this game can help students learn about chemistry but really the target market is students who take chemistry and like playing card games. He has expanded into an app as well but I don’t think there is a real large market segment for this product even with an app. In addition he was asking for $100,000 which I don’t see being returned too quickly. I thought that some teachers may buy it for a class but I don’t think many parents would buy it for their children as it seems more of a game than an educational tool. Students would only buy it and spend the countless hours learning the game if they are really into card games. Too small a market segment so no I would not invest in Elementeo.
Just saw your reply and then I had doubts about my thoughts! I wonder if I’m thinking more as a teacher about the situation than an EVA. It was tough to separate the two while I was thinking about it. He does ask for a lot of money Colin to produce some cards. Perhaps he would be better off asking for a lower amount so that he could conduct a test group.
Proper marketing would definitely be needed to convince the parents but if it is being promoted by teachers than it could be successful. Although as I write this, I can see why it may be a while for the return and a somewhat risky investment!
No, I would not invest in this venture. While the CEO’s enthusiasm and confidence are great and genuine, he is asking for a HUGE sum of money in order to “…print many decks…” (the vague nature of this does not inspire much confidence). While educational games can sell, an expectation of 1 million in the next year is unrealistic. Were the game electronic and something that an individual player could play (increasing the potential market), he might have a better shot. His market would be very small at best and this genre of card-based fantasy game already exists (like Magic cards) and, I would argue, offers a storyline that most potential buyers would find richer and more engaging. Another point is that this product does not necessarily satisfy a need. While there are certainly students who struggle with chemistry, I would suggest that there is a much greater demand for a math-related game. Furthermore, if this is to be marketed as an educational game, then there needs to be a closer examination of potential buyers. Nuclear reactions are typically not encountered until upper-level science courses (grade 10+)… would this age group be likely to buy such a product? I’m inclined to say no.
I also think that the CEO’s product does not meet the needs of his consumer. Some of the concepts of chemistry that he is explaining seems a bit to advanced for the level of students that would enjoy playing with cards. I think he would be better off if he created a game that could be downloaded as an application. He could still have the same questions and diagrams, but this could then be more interactive game and have cool backgrounds to capture the attention of his buyers.
Sadly, I would not invest in Elementeo as it stands.
I realize this is a business analysis and while I very much appreciate this CEO’s incredible enthusiasm and original idea, there is not enough credibility evident in the pitch. He states that the goal is to inject fun into the education of chemistry and “Print out many decks and distribute around the world.” He is asking for a large sum of $100,000. I’d like to know how many decks this would buy and what the projected profits would be.
Ideally, he would first state that existing chemistry education is not effective, because it is not fun and cannot be used at home as a game. The reality of teachers using a card game is class is potentially low, given the set curriculum. Therefore, this card game would require a ‘teaching kit’ in order to be integrated into a course. If this is simply a game for leisure, then perhaps it has more potential. However, I do think the demographic is therefore small. In the end, I do not know enough about this market to know if this would be profitable. Therefore, I would need more information from the pitch.
I do believe this CEO has what it takes to refine this pitch and sell the game, perhaps, as someone else stated, as an APP, rather than a card game. This could reduce the start up costs significantly and would potentially lead to a less risky investment. Of course, if this young CEO was accompanied by a more experienced individual and refined his pitch for an app version, I would sincerely reconsider my decision.
Eva
No, I would not invest in Elementeo for the following reasons. First, It is an extremely niche and competitive market which requires a well thought out exit strategy. The ultimate goal here would be for a large toy production and distribution company to take over the patent. The CEO is extremely enthusiastic but currently provides no details of any sales and is seeking a 100k investment. With no sales, you cannot even put a valuation on this company. Had the CEO already produced a million in sales I would have strongly reconsidered. Secondly, I do not see the educational benefits that this card game offers. The logo of create, combat, and conquer sounds like a territorial game whereas words such as create, compounds, etc… could have made the connection with Chemistry. As an elevator pitch it did raise some interest and I would welcome a venture pitch in which I could maybe see a demonstration of the game. However, based on this pitch, it is simply too risky and I would not invest my money.
Manny
No, I would not invest in Elementeo based on the information presented by Kimberley Elsback. I would be concerned about the age of the CEO and how much experience he has and how this would impact on the sustainabiltiy of his company. As the viewer I have categorized him in the few minutes of viewing his pitch. Educational games are a very competitive market and how is this game going to solve a problem in learning, it might but he didn’t focus on this apsect, and how would it improve a current issue in the educational environment. Although, I was impressed as the viewer with his enthusiam, ability to present his pitch and how he engaged the audience due to his age but his pitch requires further development. The ptich was lacking in the description of a problem, what it was going to do to solve the problem and how it would save money.
Catherine
I was also concerned by the credibility of the CEO. While we can’t discredit someone because of their age, experience in the field of chemistry and education in this scenario are clearly limited. The only way an EVA could look at this venture more closely would be if the CEO had assembled a team of researchers and developers with the required experience to ensure that the vision of the young CEO was carried through in a way that would be profitable for the investor.
I’m not sure I agree with that comment completely. Yes, age can be a factor in determining whether the product can be carried out from start to finish but if the product or service offered has potential, I wouldn’t rule out investing on this basis alone. Potentially one of my requirements for investing would involve hiring a capable CEO to lead the company to profitability and determining the optimal route to success. Unfortunately, for this particular product, that would not be enough as I don’t think the product has enough potential to warrant any further investigation on my end.
Hi Catherine, I can’t believe I overlooked one of the most obvious things in analyzing this pitch, the presenters age and lack of experience. As I have been looking through the list that we were given regarding the rationale for our analysis, I am beginning to think that it would be almost impossible to cover all criteria listed. In terms of identifying a problem and then posing a solution, one would think that this alone would take a few minutes alone. I am starting to think that a venture pitch would be more suitable for the given criteria. Thoughts? Ideas?
Manny
Hi Manny, I agree with you, that it is almost impossible to cover all the criteria required to conclude whether a venture is viable or not, especially in an elevator pitch. I was torn about my analysis for both pitches, as I felt I did not have enough information. In one instance, I said yes, but in hindsight, I think it was unwise. Since I am in the film industry, I also base my reactions to these pitches on knowing that the premise of an elevator pitch is merely to get an investor interested. The real material follows in a more in-depth proposal. Eva
No I would not invest in this venture although the concept does appear to be interesting. The target market is too small to have any chance of being profitable. The first question that came to my mind while viewing the pitch was “Who would purchase such a product?”. The only logical answer I could come up with was parents of children who happen to enjoy science and even then I’m not so sure that it would have much pull due to its limited scope. If given the chance, I would approach the CEO and recommend converting his board game to an online version that can be integrated to some form of online social gaming site which uses a business model that generates revenue on a pay-per-play model. It’s too bad though because he definitely has passion and has solved a very particular issue with a topic in science. It’s just far too limited in its scope to justify any purchases from an educator’s standpoint.
A university-school workshop program:
Continue reading Learning Unlimited Posted in: Pitch Pool
Venture pitch – Learning Unlimited
No, I would not invest in Learning Unlimited as I do not know what Dan wants or needs through this pitch.
This sounds like a great service – “leading a movement of College students to teach high school students to love learning” So I assume the problem they are solving is high school students lack of enthusiasm for learning. It is a great concept to inspire high school students by College students who may only be a few years their senior.
Dan shows his enthusiasm and passion for the project so this helps the viewer to pay attention. He provides authority through his credentials as CEO, the large growth of the movement with students served and campus’s served, and the well-known Universities served. The video clips show the excitement by both the students and teachers.
As a citizen, this pitch made me feel good as all stakeholders are benefiting: teachers, students, Colleges. But as an Educational Venture Analyst, it left me wondering what he wants other than to let me know this is a great cause through his infomercial.
Doug.
I am wondering if this was more of a general pitch (to provide general info about their product and spark interest) but if a longer venture pitch aimed at investors (the head of the colleges) would get to the business details that were lacking in this elevator pitch. Even on their website they only mention the topic of cost once. Like you say Doug, it’s nice that they are letting us know about this great cause but I really think that a look at a business plan would reveal how money is made (I didn’t notice that it was non-for-profit, I am assuming it isn’t). My guess is the college who signs up pays them a fee for their services.
No, I would not invest in Learning Unlimited as Dan the CEO of this company is unclear about exactly what problem he is trying to address after viewing his pitch and exactly what the venture is. He is very enthusiastic and does mention credible schools that are involved already so this might spark some further investigating about his company. He does identify the target market but it is not clear as to how it will sovle a current issue and if this product will save money and improve learning. The visual aspect of the pitch did keep me interested as a viewer.
Catherine
No, I would not invest in this venture because as an investor I don’t understand how money would be made; details of the business plan would need to be reviewed.
I though the pitch was well laid out. It addressed a need and solution for highschool students (as well as the college student leaders) to be more engaged and excited about learning. It provided concrete details on what they have done and where they are going. The only thing I found lacking in this pitch was that he didn’t say what the universities and colleges get in return. I am not familiar with how students choose which school they will go to but I would think that creating this sort of learning opportunity could hugely benefit the university. As the president of the university, I would be very interested in learning more about this venture.
The presenter was credible and professional but I didn’t like the background as it reflected an old style of teaching, the use of a blackboard, which seemed to contradict the type of interactive learning they strive towards in their programs. It didn’t mention competition but it may provide a easier solution for the coordination of highschool student engagement than what is currently available in many colleges.
It is highly unlikely that I would invest in this venture as it is unclear to me what this product is offering. Based on the video alone, I believe they are offering services to setup a movement at each campus but if that’s the case, it is too easily duplicated and likely a limited lifespan for renewing members. However, Dan’s motivation and description of the movement gives me hope that there may be more than what was initially shown so I would likely request at least some additional details to get a better idea of what is being offered, what is being requested, and how profits will be generated.
I agree Patrick. I know of a few programs that are similar to these in our area. Day camps and after-school camps lead by university students with elementary. While the kids enjoy the camp, the program is dependent on enrollment and availability of school space to host the camps. I think the program here is more for social gain and providing university students with experience working with children rather than a money making venture?
A national-scaled intrapreneurial venture:
Continue reading Future Learning Finland Posted in: Pitch Pool
Future Learning Finland
NO, I would not invest in this venture, for the following reasons.
The CEO is not identified (perhaps it’s the presenter?) and the Team is very vaguely described as “the cream of the crop”, with no indication of where the 72 member public/private team has been drawn from, what expertise they bring to the organization or their roles.
The Venture Concept is essentially unclear to me. The presenter states that Future Learning Finland is exporting “world class Finish educational solutions” but no indication is given as to exactly what solutions they will provide, beyond a mere mention of the five very broad service sectors they intend to target.
The Market appears limited to India, which albeit is a very big market, but no actual indication of the size of the market within in India is provided. What they are selling, who they are selling it to and how I could make any money; I’m not sure.
No Venture Plan is mentioned. The presenter states its a three year program, leaving little time to recoup any initial investment or better yet, make any profit.
Finally, the presenter lacks enthusiasm and authority, which has resulted in a lack lustre pitch. I also find the slide deck too text heavy and the pacing too fast for the audience to read, if they could.
If this is indeed the future of learning in Finland, based on this pitch, I’m concerned for them.
Stammik I completely agree.
I have spent some time in Finland and yes the people can be a little flat but this is no excuse for very poor presentation slides (they were text heavy with little or no value to the presentation) and the presenter (whoever she is and what her role is) ticked boxes of points she had to make but failed to give any validity to them.
Sounded like this was a government initiative and she was just a drone from sector 7G drafted in to ‘deal’ with the presentation.
Zero investment potential for me on this one.
Your observation about how people in FInland can be a little flat at times is interesting.
My father was born in Estonia and I feel I share his somewhat “stoic” personality, as I am sure other eastern European people might.
In short, I’ll need to be quicker to remind myself in future, that the differences in terms of how cultures communicate and inherently present themsleves during pitches, should be taken into consideration.
I have a hard time judging someone’s presentation skills when dealing with someone who is not speaking in their first language. In most cases, people using 2nd or 3rd languages for communication tend to be flatter by nature because it’s difficult to know which inflection is correct in that language so they play it a little safer by trying to be a bit flatter to avoid unnecessary attention to incorrect speech patterns. So, as much as I agree that her presentation was “flat”, I wouldn’t use that as a criteria for eliminating a potential candidate in that situation. If she was “flat” in her first language, then that definitely is a criteria to weigh on as it makes you wonder if there is any passion in the product or service they are trying to build.
It would be interesting to hear her present in her native tongue, but I doubt there would be a difference. I would not invest in this company simply because I felt no excitement from the presenter whatsoever about the service/product that her company has to offer. This made me feel that she may not be too fond of the company herself, and brought doubt to the championship of the company’s leaders. The slides were packed with information in a font size too small for people to see other than those sitting in the first row. Sadly, this presentation brought attention to the company’s pitfalls rather than its investment opportunities.
No I would not invest. As others have mentioned I was very surprised by the lack of engagement between the presenter and the audience. She could have been just as easily have been reading the phone book. I am still unclear as to exactly what it was she was trying to promote as a Venture. The learning opportunities that they planned to share weer listed but how this takes place was not clearly defined for me. I am not sure about marketability. What competition exists already? As an EVA I don’t know if there would be anything other than money that I could contribute and what my actual return would be and when I would receive it. To me there is not enough information to get an EVA excited about joining this venture.
This venture gave me something to think about, however I am a little concerned that their idea of “publishing” is a little bit out of date as most publications and book stores that don’t have an electronic option aren’t doing to well currently.
After watching the CEO’s pitch, I can see exactly what they are trying to market. However, I also think that considering the bandwidth that will be used, (text being so much smaller than any kind of video and requiring much less storage space), and that current business models are operating on the 70-30 ratio rather than the 50-50 they are offering, they are being a little greedy/conservative with their profit sharing.
It’s immediately apparent that this service is marketed to writers rather than readers and they spent a good deal of time focusing on writer benefits as opposed to reader since they didn’t mention how the service would be marketed to readers at all.
The vision is there for fifty percent, but it needs some work.
Hi Joel,
First let me say that I think this was a good elevator pitch so I do not agree with some of your points.
As you rightly said you could see see exactly what they are trying to market but you think that the 50-50 split they are asking is greedy when compared to current models. Since this is a new concept then does it make sense to apply the old formula to it. Remember apple turned the music world upside down by offering songs at 99 cents a figure that a lot people then thought was too small and apps are selling at 2.99 when applications sells at hundreds of dollars.
Lets not forget that this is just the elevator pitch and details such as marketing could be provided at the next level
You pointed out many factors that would make this product a dangerous investment. When simialr products are offered for a cheaper price or free then it is unlikely that the product will do well. The specificness of the product for writers results in a loss of a large quantity of the market. I do not think I would invest in this product. Too many red flags.
NO, I would not invest in this venture
No I would not invest in WEbook because for one thing, they reference the problem as a closed market, which is in fact not true as there are other open online publishing platforms like Amazon for example. Furthermore, I feel their process and general solution to the ‘problem’ is not unique since other companies also provide consistent feedback and it is less favorable as they have a community panel that selects certain submissions for publishing, implying many others are rejected. With that said, I think that this could be detrimental to their interest in expanding their market share because the more people are not chosen by them for publishing, the more likely they will be to seek out other competitors.
In regards to the CEOs credibility, she did come across as well spoken and passionate but there was no data or any support to back up her claims, nor did she offer information about her or her team’s credentials.
No, I would not invest in this company. As was mentioned above, there is a lot of competition in the self-publishing industry and has been for a while. She claims she wants to upend a 50 billion dollar publishing market, but instead might want to address how her company will stand out in an increasingly crowded field of self-publishing possibilities. It is not entirely clear who she is addressing. I think Joel is right, that it is probably writers. Either way, there is nothing much in there about getting a return on your investment, whether that means money or time put in to contributing. She compares her project to what eBay does for commerce, what Linux does for software and Wikipedia does for information. Not only are these things very different to one another, but if you want to catch the imaginations of people who want to make money, you probably shouldn’t reference projects that don’t make money for their contributors. Just about everything on Wikipedia was done by volunteers. Most of the software out there developed for Linux was also contributed by volunteers. (To say nothing of making an obscure reference that most people probably wouldn’t get…) She talks about how, when the project is ready for ‘prime time’, it is submitted by a project leader. She is introducing terminology here that could mean a lot of things. Is this the writer? Someone who works for WEbook? Who determines when my project is ready for prime time? I’ve may have lost control over my own book and i haven’t even signed up for the service yet! She offers a 50-50 share which seems a bit dear for a company that is in its infancy. She claims to have ‘over 1500 projects’. So, how many of those are ready, or will every be ready for ‘prime time’? A handful? That’s a big share for a company that is totally unproven. iBooks is 70-30. Lulu is 80-20. We hear nothing about how the content will actually get to consumers, or who those consumers are. 60 seconds is not a lot to work with, I admit, but she probably could have used hers a little better.
I appreciate that the speaker spoke clearly and was engaging. While I need more information as an EVA I would at least know that if I spoke with this person again they would be prepared and would be engaging.
An application for storing everything in your digital world:
Continue reading EverNote Posted in: Pitch Pool
YES, I would invest in this venture.
The CEO seemed knowledgeable about the service provided but I do not think his passion came across too clearly in the pitch. He explained the service well in terms of functionality and capability but did not paint a picture as to which need would be fulfilled with use of EverNote. I found myself wanting more information regarding the other important players in the market and what this company had to offer in terms of a competitive advantage. There was also no information regarding the requirement for additional capital or what it would be used for.
While watching this pitch I did not think that it was an original venture idea as I am user of Dropbox. Upon further investigation of my own however, I have come to know that this service is similar to Dropbox but offers additional capability as well, for e.g.: text in images is searchable. Even though this was mentioned in the pitch, I feel that it wasn’t stated in a way that conveyed how this feature sets this service apart from its competitors.
The market size for a service like this could include students, employees, virtually anyone who wants to be able to store and retrieve important information from various devices. The free and subscription-based services should be able to capture the casual and heavy user respectively.
I like how the presenter referred to the service as an ‘external brain’. The CEO discussed examples of using EverNote to take a picture of a business card or creating a voice message and searching the data by location. This made me think that for this company, success would be having users use this service on a daily basis for a variety of situations. To reach this goal I think a marketing strategy is essential. I would assume that is what an investment would be used towards so I would be open to making an offer.
Hi,
I also did not think that this was an original idea since I have experienced several other technologies such as this. However, the range of markets that this technology has the potential to span is huge- students, teachers, businesses, etc. The CEO did a good job of highlighting some of the key features of Evernote such as it’s ability to store notes in text form, photo form, video form, etc. that is available on any device with an Internet connection. Although the CEO was not super enthusiastic, he came across confident and knowledgeable. Although this pitch was very short and not all of the key features of a good pitch were hit, I feel like a few of the key features were hit well enough to spark my interest.
Jhodi
YES, I would invest in this venture!
Although this pitch was very short, the concept is one that has the potential to be very wide spread. The market for this idea spans from students to large companies that need to manage a large quantity of content and are frequently on the move. The CEO does a good job of marketing Evernote as a ‘second brain’ and describing the wide range of abilities that Evernote has to store different types of content such as text or photos. Although it misses out on describing some of the points such as differentiation, championship or information about a return, the CEO does describe the different types of memberships and features that could contribute to this information. I would have liked to have learned more about this however before making a decision. However, my decision may also be influenced by the fact that I have experienced Evernote briefly in one of my courses and thought at the time that it was a neat, useful idea, although I did not explore it in depth. I feel like the CEO could have been more passionate in his speech, but I also feel as though he know what he is talking about, it confident, and has the drive to make Evernote succeed.
Yes, I would invest in this venture.
Although his pitch did not display all of the content facets, he did highlight several aspects of his product that caught my attention. Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, spoke very confidently about his product in a manner that suggested that he knows his product well. This indicated to me that he is a competent CEO. He also spoke at a good pace and clearly. He explained the features of his product that would entice potential users and offered different levels of subscriptions – free and premium. This would suggest that there is money coming into this company, but without further information and investigation, I’m not sure how much. Evernote could also be used on many different devices and had versions for Windows or Macs, which would be optimal for a wider range of users.
What I was a little unclear about and was assuming (although it was in a description for the clip) was if Evernote was an application. He calls it the “external brain”, used to remember things and always on hand. He indicated it can be used to take pictures of business cards to whiteboards, which suggests to me that this could be marketed towards business people as well as students. The capability of Evernote to be able to have a text note, voice note, and pictures, as well as the ease to find saved information makes it a good product, but Phil Libin does not compare it to any other company or why it is an original product. As well, I’m not sure what he is trying to get out of the investors? Does he need money to promote his product more or to discover more aspects to be used with Evernote? All in all, I was interested in this company and would like to see more of their business plan.
This one is a bit tricky, since I am quite familiar with the product. I have to separate what I know already from the pitch that he gave. Based on what he delivered, I think I would invest in the company. While he came off as a bit geeky and, as was mentioned above, a little short on passion for his product, it looks as though it will become the sort of niche product that develops a limited, but devoted user-base. There may be a ton of other productivity applications out there, but each person is different and each person’s needs are a little different. A lot of these products seem to find a market. And once you have developed a system that works for you that incorporates a particular tool, you may be less likely to try too many others. Just a brief look in the Android Play store, for example, shows a lot of different programs that include features such as to-do lists, calendar integration, clip saving/sharing, all in different combinations and a lot of them have over a million downloads. And then, looking in the comments section, I see a lot of active debate. People jump up to defend their favourite productivity app to detractors.
I think he presented his product well. The pitch was clear. We knew what it was and, for the most part, what it wasn’t. That being said, I see a comment above that compares it to Dropbox, so perhaps his pitch wasn’t that clear. EverNote is quite different from Dropbox. While it does let you sync files, the biggest file you can transfer is 50MB. When you open it, it is much more of a ‘program’ that does stuff–saves and organizes web clippings, notes, pictures etc… Dropbox is more about backup and storage and sharing big files. There is no real interface. It’s a file on your computer for the most part. He probably could have been a bit clearer.
Now, as it turns out, EverNote may not have been the first one at the party, but they stuck around to clean up. They have a huge market share, grew far beyond what was likely predicted and have already bought out some other companies to add to their offerings. They have raised tens of millions in financing and are considering an IPO in the next year. What started as a slick to-do list is growing into something that may eventually compete with products like Google Docs. While he may not have stated as much in his pitch, he left room for that, and left enough to our imagination.
I noticed their huge success when I further researched the company as well. teacherben, are you a user of EverNote and Dropbox? Thanks for an explanation of their main differences. I may become an EverNote user as well. It can be difficult selecting appropriate applications and programs as the selection seems to be radpidly increasing.
A lot of these sorts of applications come and go as well, so you don’t want to commit time and energy to something that might vanish in a month or two. Evernote is a good bet. It has a userbase in the millions. I actually don’t use it much anymore. It has way more features than I need. I use a much simpler to-do list. But I am a big Dropbox advocate. I have been using it for years to share photos and videos of my kids with my family. Super useful.
Fair disclosure on this one before I start: I LOVE Evernote and use it all the time. Now onto my completely unbiased review:
Yes, I would invest in this company. I found the CEO to be likeable and knowledgeable, and he managed to give a lot of information to us in one minute but it didn’t seem rushed and I understood the value proposition that he was bringing. Specifically:
• Evernote works on many different devices and browsers
• He gave a lot of different examples of how it could be used: pictures, business cards, labels, voice notes, text notes
• He explained many of the features and functionality: indexing, searchability, synchronization
• He gave some information on how the revenue piece is set up – free subscription and a premium subscription
Even if this wasn’t a company that I already knew about, I would be very interested to hear more based on this pitch.
I need to start using EverNote, perhaps it is related to my age, my professional life, my family life and my social life all needing attention. Immediately I recognized from this pitch that this would assist me in remembering all that I need to and act as my external memory/brain.
I would invest in this product/company. The pitch addressed a problem for a particular target group, that being difficulty in remembering and tracking everything we need to and this product could do this through various devices such as your phone or computer. The CEO provided a very clear and concise summary of what the product is and how it works, and the cost to the user. Phil Libin is a likeable person, very informative, and his presentation would leave the “catcher” impressed, as I was.
Catherine
As a user and passionate Evernote fan, I am far too biased to evaluate this pitch. That said, I found the pitch interesting. It was very general and as someone who uses it for multiple purposes I think Evernote could create multiple pitches based on different target audiences. For example, he never mentioned use of Evernote for assessment for educators. I love how I can create a notebook for each student and then stack content notebooks within the students main notebook. I can take digital images of their work, add anecdotal comments and place these with notes under the appropriate curricular area. Should I wish to share this information with other teachers or the child’s parent I have the ability to share notebooks. I could go on and on about the great uses of Evernote for educators but again this just extends my point that I think Evernote could diversify their pitches or have shown in this pitch how they meet the needs of multiple professionals such as as Educators, Businesses, etc.
I would invest in Evernote. I have friend who is a real Evernote fan yet I’ve not yet taken the plunge, largely because I seem to have too many other tech tools that I haven’t taken the time to learn yet. I think the pitchman did good job of getting me interested in the product as an investor by focusing on aspects that sells its usefulness to potential customer although as an investor I would want more information about how the free veresion would generate income (yet for dot coms this doesn’t seem to deter investors). In the short elevator pitch, he was able to highlight the pain point and the solution; his manner and presentation gave me confidence as a potential investor.
Although Evernote is already fairly established, this is a venture I would have invested in from the beginning. It solves a problem by providing an elegant solution and offers many different solutions to garner a large user base and encourage non subscribers to eventually become subscribers as their usage increases. I also feel that his presentation shows confidence and professionalism which encourages me further knowing that the product is in the hands of a capable CEO.
Knowing Evernote and its success I would have wished that I had invested in this product. The CEO was confident, identified an issue and how they tackle that issue, and the ways one could use their product/service. During the Sales Pitch though, there was no mention of a few things that might be important to an EVA…
What investment was he looking for?
What would be the next steps with that investment?
When would I see a return?
How does their service differ/compare to others available or are they the only solution for this “pain”?
You still have a chance to invest. They are planning an IPO this year or early next.
Thanks for the tip. I’m not sure I have the cash flow that it would take to be an investor. How many units or shares would one have to buy? Any guess at the price they will set to begin with? I have never invested in an IPO…this is all new to me.
Yes, I would invest in this venture.
The CEO does not appear as enthusiastic as I would expect but he certainly appears to know what he’s talking about. He highights the benefits: ability to use it from different devices and browsers and that it allows all different formats of saving. It is a step in the right direction as far as being able to integrate information from every type of source. From the pitch it sounds like this concept addresses the problem of individuals who might have a variety of sources of information and difficulty keeping it all together in one easy-to-manage location. I, too, have used things like dropbox and other online document storing sites, but this sounds like a whole different idea.
I imagine that marketing something like this would be pretty straight-forward and the market for it would be huge. I’d like to know how they would plan on keeping their hold in the market and what exactly they were looking for in terms of an investment (and, of course, what kind of return would be expected). In addition, I’d like to know what incentives there are for individual users moving from a free to subscription account, is there anything other than extra space for storing that is provided?
Another big question is the security of Evernote. Could school districts use it for storing information? Law firms? The public health sector? Is it safe enough to put any kind of information on? If it is this could provide a huge area for them to move into.
Although Evernote might be successful now, what is their growth plan. Where can they go from there and what else do they have to offer in the future?
All in all future consideration is certainly merited. A great venture to look deeper into.
Yes, I would invest in this product. The presenter did a good job of explaining all the uses of Evernote and how versatile and accessible it is from multiple sources. However, the speaker was fairly monotone and did not catch my attention.
The product is not very original in the sense that there are many products similar to this one in the market. However, I was drawn to this product because this product has many features that others do not have and because it can be accessed from many different technical venues.
The presenter talked about the fact that this product can either be free or can be upgraded with a fee. However, there was not any concrete data or statistic about this product presented. This type of information would make investors feel more comfortable in investing in the product.
Despite the many missing pieces in this pitch I still believe I would invest in this product. Not because the presenter did a good job of drawing me to the product or of convincing me of its potential success. In fact, I found that the presentation was lacking a lot of data, information and enthusiasm. Rather, I would invest because I think this product would have a lot of potential due to all the functions it has and due to its wide range of accessibility. It is a good combination of tools that can allow a user to achieve multiple purposes through one product. This type of tool would have a huge market because individuals of all ages could benefit from the capabilities. The product has a lot to offer and it does not seem to have a lot of cost attached to it.
I do not know much about this product and would not be able to contribute to it in any other regard but I do know that products such as these have a good chance of being successful because I have used similar products and have seen others use them also. The only difference is I have had to use multiple tools to achieve the same purpose and this tool would be all-in-one.
EDU FIRE
Yes, I would invest in this venture. This CEO starts his pitch well by engaging the catcher with his opening questions (‘How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea’, by lsbach, K.D.,Harvard Business Review, September 2003). He mentions the benefits of his product, and though he does not mention an exact market size, it is clear it is a large one. In addition, this product has two types of consumers: teachers that will make money from their teaching videos but need to pay their cut , and students who I assume will pay. An EVA and investor, however, I would get involved in making sure this product differentiates itself from the rest, as there are several similar online tutoring systems out there.
My concern, is that he mentions the worlds best teachers.
How can he substantiate this claim?
For myself, this is a huge sticking point.
Furthermore, you mentioned that you would need to differentiate itself from its competitors. I myself, am finding what you propose difficult, for I have no thoughts on this, therefore I am wondering what your thoughts would be to potentially achieve this. For, I believe, if one was able to do that, this might be a more viable venture.
Thoughts?
Edufire pitches an interesting concept of allowing the worlds best teachers to instruct when they want, how they want, where they want, and for how much they want, thereby reducing the need to waste time and money on commuting to various instructional locations. To facilitate this venture, Edufire, provides an Internet portal allowing educators and students to meet in a single location at a small cost to the educator. Regardless of this potentially interesting venture, I would not invest into this company for various reasons. First, I know nothing of the CEO and Management’s credibility nor ability in this section of the educational market, nor their competency within this market. Furthermore, I have no information regarding the amount of capital required to be a part of this venture, nor how or when I would be recompensed for my initial investment. I also question the concept, as no information is provided regarding market size, market share, revenue generated, furthermore, Edufire has no innovative advantages, nor any patents to protect the service they are providing, which would easily allow major corporations such as Pearson to easily enter, then dominate this market. Lastly, I feel there is nothing I can add to this venture to help overcome some of these issues, making this overall investment risky at best.
No I will not invest in this venture,
I am highly skeptical about this venture because I do not think that the realities of the target market was taken into consideration in the creation of this venture.
The gentleman certainly exudes with confidence but I am not convinced that he understands the market that he is pitching his venture in. Edufires’ product is in my opinion networked private tutoring yet it is being sold under the big umbrella of education as if it aims to replace the traditional models of scholarship that is centred around degree granting intuitions. So the niche was not properly defined in this pitch. Therefore his pain point is aimed at the wrong object and this mean that the market size, market share and revenue projection will all be off.
As for competitive edge khan academy offers the similar services for free in over 17 subjects as compared to only language offered by this start up. So the concept is neither original nor feasible and will most certainly a still birth as a venture.
I like that you have mentioned the Khan Academy. This free venture, is now beginning to translate their videos into other languages, to expand the number of students they are able to assist. Secondly, the Khan Academy allows the videos to be watched again, and again. From what I see with Edufire, you would have to potentially pay and pay, to be able to learn again and again.
Thoughts?
I agree that Khan Academy can do this and more. At the same time there was nothing about assessing your learning using this tool. Khan academy allows you to do that as long as you log in and have a “coach”.
One might assume, that the “instructor” would provide some forms of assessment. However, this is not provided in the elevator pitch as far as I know. Furthermore, the types of assessment, just like the Khan Academy will be limited.
Thoughts?
No, I would not invest in this venture, although I am interested in the venture concept.
I believe the idea of this venture is something like eBay ( which is very interesting) in which the company provides the market space where teachers ( products) and students ( buyers) can meet, teach, and learn, then the company will take a cut.
I look at their website and it seems at this stage there is no traffic, not many teachers and very few courses available. This venture could be a big hit as eBay is but I will not consider investing at this time as I am not sure about their quality control policy; I am concerned about the quality of the lessons being offered and the quality of the teachers. If they are no good, the site will die down sooner or later.
I also worried about quality control, as should most people. Furthermore, the world of education has many big players, such as Pearson. Therefore, if this is truly a viable solution, for the world of education as this time, why are the big boys not involving themselves? Are they on the wrong track, or just at the beginning of a potential implementation curve?
Thoughts?
Hi,
I think that beyond one on one tutoring and specific training to assist children with their required school work, MOOCs are a more viable alternative to online learning for adults. Unless adults are looking to receive a certification or degree I don’t foresee a marketplace for adult general courses that you pay for. The fact that there doesn’t appear to be any sort of certificate or accreditation for completing a course makes it less desirable.
Yes, the accreditation angle is significant. If Edufire, could help educators in America, who require this, to achieve credits, etc… it might be viable. However, based upon the platform I have seen so far, I would still look for other alternatives for this.
As for MOOCs, I see that they have a place, for specific types of learning or specific content taught. However, if I were to explore second languages, this might not be the best forum.
Thoughts?
Here is an article that proposes how open education can be accredited: From Open Content to Open Course Models that can be found @
However jt states that “linguistic, cultural, and institutional challenges that both institutions and international students face at Western institutions is well documented”
So it is not as simple as it seems
No I would not invest in this venture.
The presenter was credible and personable and the setting made it appear that he was in fact a school teacher but if he had stated his name, his background and his position in the company it would have been more compelling.
The presenter addressed the pain point right from the start explaining that through them you could learn right from your own home or get paid to teach from your home when you wanted and for the price you wanted and although this was sold as a novel idea, in today’s marketplace online training and tutoring is already common. It offered a solution to a problem of having to commute for learning and teaching but again this is not a new solution, it is one that already exists and is growing in the marketplace.
EduFire did try to differentiate itself with having “the best teachers” and offering a lot of flexibility and opportunity for educators. As an analyst I wasn’t overly intrigued, but as an educator, I was interested in learning more. They completed their marketing by telling you where they were and where they were going but lacked monetary incentives (didn’t tell you what an investor would get out of out). They finished by telling you the next steps to take by providing their web address.
Like Paula, I went to their website and I would agree that I am not sure of the quality control measures they have in place. In addition, very few classes are offered and very few have any students enrolled. Although the pitch had me intrigued on a personal level, as an analyst or investor I would not be interested.
Your one line captured my attention:
“In addition, very few classes are offered and very few have any students enrolled”
This makes me wonder, are they offering a service that is not needed? Or, that there are so many complimentary services out there, that this one has been lost in the mix?
Either way, not a viable venture in my opinion.
Thoughts?
Hi Tom,
Although I think their courses offered for free may be of some interest and perhaps their one to one or small language group sessions. It might be that trying to have both of these and all subject matters just makes them look like a mess. Like Paula said, she felt it had an eBay type structure and eBay sells everything, not sure if this is an accepted means to purchase education by the public.
To keep the eBay motif going…
I know who to buy from, based upon the rating system eBay provides. However, what system is in place for Edufire? Can someone who feels they were graded poorly, have the chance to lash out, or is there a system of checks and balances.
Truthfully, the statement that the worlds best teachers… etc… truly worries me. For if I am investing, I would want this statement backed up before I provided any capital or expertise…
Thoughts?
I would definitely be interesting in Edufire’s venture pitch. I think that it is true that its a multi billion dollar industry and if they can get a slice of the pie then I would be interested in see how they plan for this.
The primary question I would have is about the interactive video element that the courses will be based on? This has huge potential to be a game changer in the educational arena if they have the skill and expertise to do it in a manner that is fresh and exciting.
I would definitely be interested in getting additional info on this venture. This has the potential to become a huge market and depending on the approach, marketing, and team involved, it could become a big hit. I understand that Khan Academy has a free offering but they are targeting two different areas of education. Khan is targeting a self paced student who progresses at his own pace while this venture targets one-on-one learning with an expert in the field. I see huge potential for people who work in a particular craft that is not generally taught in school but could be taught in this type of environment. Needless to say that the pitch hits a chord with potential and before I choose to accept or reject, I would want to hear the full pitch and current status of their business plan.
Venture pitch – School Manager
No, I would not invest in School Manager as I am not convinced there is a problem. It is not clear to me that there is an “… information-flow gap between the administrative functions and the classroom” as the pitch mentions.
The founder Keisha Edwards has great credentials and they indicate large potential for growth of the product in the market. I am also not clear how it will be profitable after one year of operation. And finally as a Educational Venture Analyst, I am not sure what they what, money to invest in their system, me to by the system or to feel good that they have developed a reasonable product.
Doug.
No, I would not invest in School Manager. Though the specifics of her platform are lacking, my suspicion is that this product is trying to compete in a market where there are already several major players. I did not get a sense of what makes this product stand out from the others. Unfortunately for the CEO, the other players have been around for a while and have established reputations for service and quality; schools are unlikely to gamble on a new and untested product regardless of whether it is less expensive or not.
The CEO is clearly competent and confident in her venture, but she makes no reference to a team or any other members of this venture. If schools are to use this software, then there needs to be a small army of support personnel to keep things running and help set schools up. This, if not already factored in, would represent a substantial overhead cost that could quickly erode her projected earning of $120 000.
John
No, I would not invest in SchoolManager. The CEO’s over 21 years of experience in education and software development is admirable; but that may be the only good thing that SchoolManager has going for it. This pitch lacked specificity, clear evidence and an ask.
No clear market gap or problem was identified. The solution indicated a bridging of information flow platforms with no specifics on the proposed platform. No information was presented on the level of competition in this market. In fact, there was no evidence of marketing plan. There was no indication as to how SchoolManager plans on securing the necessary percentage of the market to for it to be profitable. Limited financials were given. A revenue of US$120,000 was projected for year one only. There was no sound basis for it. What is the unit cost for the product? What is the price point? At what point would break-even occur? It would have been great to see an income statement and projections up to 5 years. There was no mention of how much wass needed and no mention of a return on investment.
This seemed to be a one person show and may account for this very weak pitch. Successful ventures need a team of competent and experienced leaders in diverse areas, including marketing and finance.
~Sophia
I agree with you and others that the amount she presented for the first year’s revenue was very impressive there is no real way of knowing how the venture will get there. This seems highly optimistic for a beginning company as well.
No I would not invest in this MindTraction, although the idea is interesting.
David, The founder, identifies a large market (20 million university students that are increasingly anxious). That I believe to some extent, he wants to create a cell phone app that will help organize their individual courses as to help them with succeed (points to math and science).
Problem I see is that each course is different, and you would need a course specific app for this to work. a one size fits all doesnt seem that practical and that’s what he is alluding to. I liked the idea of using the phone as an organizer, but phones come with this application already built it in (I should use mine more).
I like the overall pitch and especially him. He seems kinda nerdy, which I associate as a good thing for some reason (maybe because Bill Gates was never mistakened for James Dean). He was a lawyer and a MET grad student.
He was calm, spoke at a good pace and seemed confident.
I would not invest in MindTraction. The idea seems to piggyback off many organizational apps out there that already deal with collaboration, using calendars and reminders, etc. for student success. I also have an issue with the ‘pain point’ and if university students are in fact more anxious and distracted. If they are, I’m not sure introducing ‘another app’ will reduce this aforementioned anxiety. It would have been nice to have those facts referenced somewhere, as I’m sure there is information out there that could speak to the fact that university students are more organized and less anxious these days because of burgeoning technology.
I do like David, however, as he seems genuine and passionate about his idea. I also liked that he stated his asking price and mentions the return on investment. For me, it is crucial to hear the numbers right away. Despite the passion, the likeability and the numbers, I didn’t believe the idea seemed innovative enough. As an EVA, I need to be passionate about the venture as well, and my heart just wasn’t into it.
Kent
I WOULD invest in MindTraction, or I would consider hearing more.
David points out the problem: “anxious students”. While he did not explain this in depth (as it is an elevator pitch), I understand what he is saying. Students get overwhelmed when they cannot keep track of their assignments and deadlines. Institutions are still handing out ‘paper agendas’ which is simply outdated in 2012. Therefore, I think MindTraction could be the new digital agenda system that could be integrated into the Professor’s course site. I am assuming this application could achieve this, but it has the potential to keep students organized in an electronic, integrated way.
In summary, if I am interpreting this pitch correctly, David pointed out a huge problem – anxious (meaning disorganized) students, and a product that can help ease this problem. The fact that David is doing a masters in ETEC and is a former lawyer also instills some confidence in me, that he can carry out a business plan. In fact, he can use his legal skills when it comes to the IP portion of this app.
What is outstanding are the details on how profitable this would be in reality. Since I know how many Universities and Colleges could benefit from this, I estimate there is a huge market. Often student unions are the ones who purchase these items, and instead of paying for printing, they would have funds for this kind of app. If this is indeed an APP that can be downloaded on any phone, you immediately keep your start up costs down, as there is no hardware.
I was very excited by the idea and feels it speaks to a real need, and yet, it is a simple organization app. that is tailored to students at an institution. It reminds me of the “Italian Restaurant” concept mentioned in one of the videos. There are many organizational apps out there, but if this one could be supported and distributed by the school, and possibly even integrated into the LMS and thereby keeping track of course specific dates and assignments, this could be revolutionary.
Given that it is an elevator pitch, I would require more information, on the plan and investment required. Overall, I’m very interested.
Eva
I agree with you. I am not ready to invest, but I am certainly ready to hear more and to view his slide deck (assuming there is more there than he was reading). The speaker identified what his product was, the pain, his plan and showed that he understands the topic based on experience. I would certainly like to hear more.
Unless his slide deck were able to fill in some serious gaps in his idea, NO, I would not invest in this venture, for the following reasons.
While David’s law experience and MEdTech education (MET perhaps…) will likely serve him well as Mind Traction’s CEO, no mention of prior business experience is suggested and no indication of other TEAM members to assist him is provided.
Based on his pitch, it seems the concept and MARKET should be focused more clearly on post secondary math and science students, rather than all 20 million US university students. In addition, do all 20 million US university students in fact have smart phones? While I am sure the percentage of ownership is extremely high, I sense an assumption is being made here. If so, are other assumptions being made elsewhere in his pitch?
In terms of the VENTURE PLAN and valuation, while bulk sales are projected to hit a million dollars in year five, it is unclear what costs will be associated with the ongoing development, maintenance and marketing of the app. To make the app useful for a variety of universities and programs, my sense is that a high degree of customizability maybe required for the app to be successful.
The main reason why I would be very reluctant to invest in this idea, is my doubt of the CONCEPT itself. Anxiety is a broad term and could be symptomatic of many problems students face. Is this a solid foundation for the concept? As Kent eludes to above, will an app really address their anxiousness? As Dr. Sherry Turkle (an ethnographer, researcher in the field of human computer interactions and a professor at MIT) warns, it may in fact be our overuse of technology, such as apps like Mind Traction, which are potentially at the root our anxiety.
Finally, as a few of my classmates have noted, his presentation style is generally effective; however, though I understand as an EVA I must remain focused on the content of his message rather than the degree of “flash” in his presentation, I still feel a bit more effort could have been made to create a more professional looking video recording. Even simple steps such as elevating his laptop to avoid shooting from underneath (which psychologically places the viewer in a submissive position), better lighting (shoot outdoors maybe), and avoiding distracting background elements (yes, I am referring to the four white spots on the wall next to his head) could have helped. Again, I know these trivial criticisms have absolutely no bearing on the content of his message, I simply feel he could have “massaged his audience a bit more with the medium” in this case.
Hi there, I suppose my analysis compared to yours is too forgiving. As well, I used my own knowledge of post-secondary education to help sway my answer to YES. I think you make great points in your analysis, but I suppose I would still have faith that his additional materials would substantiate his elevator pitch. I though 20 million is a large number, and far fetched, but even if the market was half the size, it is still a large market. As well, it’s only north America. I do ask myself, how much can one accept as unknown in a pitch. I also understand your Turkle passage, but if you work with students on a daily basis, the reality is, they all have smart phones (90% of students in Canada I would estimate) and two, their main stress comes from disorganization. We could have an interesting debate. Thanks for your viewpoint.
I think what is interesting here Eva, is how two people can differ in terms how they interpret a pitch. You obviously bring your experience of post-secondary education to bare on the discussion, experience which I don’t have, which means I must rely only on what he presents in his pitch.
As I mention in my opening statement, unless his slide deck can fill in some serious gaps, I remain unconvinced, Which leads to your point about how much we can accept as unknown in a pitch? I’m not certain what the answer to that is – perhaps David or others can weigh in with their thoughts on this.
A cloud-based learning management system:
Continue reading CloudConnect Posted in: Pitch Pool
No, I would not invest in this venture.
First of all, I had too many questions after watching this pitch. The slides weren’t too flashy and the speaker spoke at a good pace, but I couldn’t always correlate what the speaker was saying to some of the pictures or diagrams being shown. Cloud Connect is a start-up business that is creating a collaborative software system to be used in primary and secondary schools, but I was unclear in what capacity. Was it a new learning management system (LMS)?
The speaker did suggest that there was a ¾ billion dollar market for learning management systems and that Cloud Connect was going to lower their retail entry level, but how much money was needed for the next step or how much investors would be compensated wasn’t stated. There was a slide that that showed different LMSs and the speaker suggested that Cloud Connect had made a decisive split from the established market, but again in what way was not stated. How was Cloud Connect any better from the other LMS? For the reasons stated above, I would not invest in this company.
No, I would not invest in this venture.
I watched this pitch many times wondering at first if was my own lack of knowledge of technology that was preventing me from fully understanding this pitch. As I used the facets described in 2.7 to critically analyze this pitch I realized that it wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t understanding, that instead this is a poor pitch. He addresses the pain point, stating that it is for primary or secondary education. Even this simple statement is flawed as we refer to K – 7 education as elementary and not primary. By reducing his market to primary, he left out intermediate educators or Grades 4 – 7. Next, he states that his product is breaking new ground and offers a new collaborative LMS. I couldn’t understand what made Cloud Connect differ from the other LMS products in the market already. Although he describes a 3/4 billion dollar market for LMS and states that his product will lower their retail entry level, he did not expand on this enough for an EVA to know what level of return would come back to the investor.
Similar to Lisa, I like the presentation of the slides. They were clear and simple with white backgrounds. I found the speaker to be sincere and exude some enthusiasm. Overall, I felt his pitch left me with too many unanswered questions which would ultimately caused me to say no.
And its a no from me too I am afraid.
Slides were not useful at all – we know we are talking about education there is no need to show me a generic clip art picture of a child with a school bag heading to a building. They have my attention for a few minutes and as a result I would say they wasted it. Then the important slide with how it stood in relation to the other LMSs out there was unreadable as it was too small.
At the end of it I felt like this was a pitch for another LMS in the 3/4 of a billion dollar industry. The use of buzz words in the presentation like ‘blogging’ ‘mobile’ and ‘wikis’ degraded the whole concept because these are a standard. There is nothing new, innovative or impressive about them. This pitch might have been noteworthy in 2000 but for an investment I would need a far more progressive venture.
No I would not invest in this venture.
While the narrator sounded sincere I felt that many of the claims he made such as they had “lots of experience developing innovate technology and media” were irrelevant since he provided no examples or credentials for what exactly this experience was or how it was successful. The same goes for saying the have a “unique perspective in small cap growth market” – this was not elaborated. While he states a clear differentiation point that they are able to reduce the cost of the product in comparison to their competitors he does not detail how they are able to do this.
As others have mentioned this leaves me with many questions unanswered but without the desire to really find out the answer as I do not believe it’s a venture I would personally think to invest in.
No I would not invest in this venture. To put it quite plainly, what is this new venture a solution to? I can’t see myself investing in this venture if I don’t see what issue it addresses. To me it seems like a tool for housing information. The exact same thing can be done using google sites, google docs, etc.
A venture introducing the world’s first “text-leveler”:
Continue reading rePhrase Posted in: Pitch Pool
After doing a little homework on this particular venture – https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec522sept11/files/2011/11/rephrase-pitch.pdf – I am convinced of this idea and would indeed invest in it.
I’m not sure I would have invested based solely on the CEO himself – or the elevator pitch – but after learning more about his text leveling software I was immediately thinking of the potential for a product like this. There is definitely a need for this innovative and original idea, and although there are reading programs out there that read back books to children, there isn’t a program that actually changes the reading level of a book to help students understand it better. The ‘sliding scale’ gives children the power to find their own independent reading level of books that may be too difficult or easy for them.
rePhrase is targeted for a large group of struggling readers and is focused on dealing with differentiated learning…an idea I feel very passionate about. However, the product could also be marketed towards ESL students as a translation tool. As an educator who is always looking for more efficient ways to differentiate instruction this idea hits home, and as an EVA it would mean I could actively engage in the creation of this venture!
I’m in rePhrase,
Kent
No, I would not invest in this venture. Although this elevator pitch displays many important points:
• The elevator pitch is quite interesting with the catchy slides and music.
• It covers some important points such as the pain point that many G.4-12 students in the US fail their grades because they can’t read or write.
• It provides the solution point that rephrase can help.
• The CEO/presenter seems to do his homework with all the numbers he provides.
However, the overall message is not clear I still have no idea of what RePhrase can do to help.
The CEO doesn’t seem enthusiastic in his presentation judging from the way he sits relaxingly with his left arm pointing at the camera.
I believe that If I had spent more time checking out their business plan or listening to his venture pitch, I may be considering investing in this venture. I do like their concept that rephrase will help enhance personalized learning where students can adapt the difficulty of texts to their own level. But I would not invest based on this elevator pitch alone. Sorry, I’m out.
I would definitely invest a further 8 – 12 minutes of my time with this venture. (I don’t know if I’d every actually invest my money based solely on an elevator pitch!). I feel the pitchman did a very good job of getting me to listen to his concept and plan. Sorry, Paula, but he gained my trust and confidence by looking relaxed and comfortable during the pitch (plus, I recognize there will some limitations in production qualities for pitches we will be creating in this course). I thought he did a very good job identifying the pain point as well as their solution. He identified his market, and with no competition this would provide a real advantage to investors. I don’t part easily with my money and would want to check some of his facts and figures, and would want to bring in my own experts to consider certain aspects of this venture, but the pitchman has won my interest in wanting to hear more.
I felt the same way. I could not write a cheque just yet, but I would be willing to look up his company and offer a second meeting. I think the concept or “pain” is real enough that it would be worth listening to anyone that thought they had a solution for this problem.
An intrapreneurial venture to take Royal Roads University into open education:
Continue reading OpenRRU Posted in: Pitch Pool
Yes, I would invest in this venture.
Though the presenter doesn’t spell it out, it seems to me that the she is concerned that as a young, small, and applied post-secondary institution, RRU is at risk of losing out to bigger and better placed institutions.
Her case, that RRU join the Open courseware movement is a compelling one.
Doing so allows RRU to partner up with some of its competitors and/or leverage the greater Open Courseware community to become more competitive. It allows RRU to showcase itself online, which will help its cause with both Learner and Faculty Recruitment. These can in turn help it showcase its commitment to teaching excellence and develop a stronger reputation.
The presenter addresses the biggest risks associated with Open Courseware: 1) Fear of losing tuition from would be payers who can now learn free online and 2) Potential for having content stolen. Regarding the former, she is right to point out that other programs have not lost applicants because credentialing is still important and people still favour facilitated class learning to online. Regarding the latter, this risk has been managed through the use of
Creative Commons Licensing – namely, Attribution Share Alike.
I think RRU joining the Open Courseware Movement is a great way for it hedge its risks of being overwhelmed by more powerful post-secondary institutions in the 21st century. By doing so, RRU strategically positions itself as a institution that is actively encouraging and supporting a learning society. And who would want to stake a claim that such a place should be closed down?
Great post. Also, as RRU has always been geared towards professionals attaining credentials it is a good fit for them to have their programs be online, and more accessible to people who may want to browse before selecting a program. Everything I have heard about RRU (and growing up in Victoria I heard quite a lot), indicates this would be a good option for them. They have excellent teachers, courses and generally a good philosophy about learning. If people were to have access to courses they could see this for themselves.
I enjoyed the infomercial…I just wondered how tall the building was that held this elevator pitch. I think the CEO would have to work at being able to narrow down this presentation to a briefer presentation. This seems more like a full Venture pitch. This was very informative and well put together.
A curriculum-integrated financial literacy solution:
Continue reading Finance For Life Posted in: Pitch Pool
No I would not invest in Finance for Life. I would agree that there is a disconnect with what is taught in schools and the skills that are needed for real life which Greg Campbell states is the pain point. My issue with this pitch is that it gave no details of what the solution is or how this would be resolved. There is no differentiation mentioned from other programs that I have seen and I have seen some bad interactive programs. My major reason for not investing is the marketability and the target market. For this product it is geared towards school districts and that they purchase a licensing agreement. In these days of declining funding I see this as a very competitive market. Even if they have $50,000 profit this year it doesn’t mean that the same school districts will sign up again next year. A demo of the product where they can demonstrate a great innovation over other solutions that I have seen might win me over but I don’t believe they can provide this.
Greg Campbell does do a good job of presenting and laying out his qualifications and what he has been able to achieve. He is too vague on the actual product and I don’t like his limited avenues for selling this product. For this reasons I choose not to invest in Finance for Life.
No, I would not invest in Finance for life.
This is a 1 minute video, so it is technically an Elevator pitch, not a Venture pitch.
Greg’s Pain Point is that there is a gap between what’s taught and what is needed.
His value proposition is an interactive learning management system where students learn about finance, business management and economics. His Revenue Model is Licensing and contracts with schools. Greg has an education and business background. And from this pitch, I believe that Greg is enthusiastic and sincere about his interest in teaching students greater financial literacy.
I do agree with Colin’s points that Finance for Life is not quite there yet and still needs some work in better developing their pain-to-solution value proposition and opportunity space.
From this pitch, we have little idea what the product is and how it actually works. A good interactive learning management system that is both effective and user friendly is in fact likely not simple or easy to develop, and many programs have been developed and tried in this area, with little results or permanence to show for it. How will Finance for Life be different?
If I were Greg, I would research the Pain point more. I would perhaps contact and survey those engaged in this area, and try to find out from them exactly what pain points are of greatest concern and how Finance for Life might be able to provide a solution to resolve it. The added bonus of this approach is that working with stakeholders to create a solution venture (concept) will likely expand Finance for Life’s access to funding to include institutional sponsors for example. Securing such sources would help Finance for Life’s marketability to schools and education ministries, which are conservative by design when it comes to taking risks on new ventures.
Yes, I would invest in this venture. The pain point is something I have always been aware of since I was a high school student. When taking my Canadian Securities Course more than once I thought to myself, shouldn’t everybody know this stuff?
I’ve seen the planning 10 curriculum and it is weak. It also seems to be treated as a “throw away course”, not only by students, but by teachers and administration.
I may have cheated, because I saw another youtube clip with Greg Campbell’s picture after the elevator clip ended and clicked on it. Because his 5 contracts are from the lower mainland, I believe that could entice other provincial school districts to do “what the big boys in the city” are doing.
Also, I think with my background I could add value to the company. 2 ways that weren’t mentioned in the elevator or venture pitch. 1) Financial climates change every year – Europe debt/mortgage crisis/dot.com booms, etc… so this could be an oportunity to sell schools on “updates” to their curriculum. 2) Workshops for professional development could be another revenue source for teachers of the course.
Push from higher levels of government than education ministries could be another eventual outcome. Wouldn’t be in the governments best interests to have an employed, entrepenuerial, tax paying citizenship?
feel free to shoot me down. This is the only one I have said yes to so far.
I see good value in a course of this nature. If students don’t get this information in the regular K-12 curriculum then here is an opportunity to provide it to them.
I work in a post seconadry School ofBbusiness. We redesigned our Business Administration program several years ago and due to curriculum creep over the years, some courses had to go. One of the courses was Personnel Financial Planning. This created huge discusions, arguments and near blood with Faculty during the redesign process and even today. Soon after the course was removed many people realized that perhaps it was a mistake as it not only provided a life skills foundation but it provided a foundation for courses in the four majors in the program: Accounting, Financial Services, management and Marketing. In the new design the course is now only offered to the finacial services majors. I can see a time in the future when it will be added back into the other three majors as a fouindation course.
Doug.
Mike and Doug.
I agree with you. We can all learn more and have better personal financial planning habits.
The question is how do we get there?
Should we only teach it to finance majors only? As Doug points out, probably not.
If we are going to teach it to everyone, should it be taught by teachers, most of whom are already overwhelmed by their course loads, and know little personal finance and economics?
How do we engage children in this area, for most of whom, money just appears magically, out of the pockets of their parents.
How do we build an “interactive learning management system” that is fun, keeps up to date, and provides students and teachers simple and accessible tools/programs to help them develop and track their financial skills and competencies over time?
It is no simple feat and that is why it has not yet been achieved, despite everyone’s recognition that it is an important problem.
Solving this problem requires real innovation. And I’m not sure exactly how Finance for Life plans to do this.
Lastly Mike, though your points about the merits of having a financially capable citizenry are well taken, I would not expect answers to come from the government. When was the last time you witnessed education ministries provide cutting edge technological solutions to anything?
I wouldn’t invest in Finance for life. I think the pitch was aimed at some pain points, but it did not have any way of introducing a solution. How are they going to deliver it. WIthout knowing this how can one invest? I think if I was teaching this concept, I would want students to use software and tracking programs that simulated a MINT(http://youtu.be/rK6WLHNYjwM) type of approach. That way they can take the technology with them outside of the classroom and actually use it in their everyday lives. With equipping students with the tools and technology they will use, we allow them to learn 21st century skills that will be relevant to the digital world they are entering.
I thought of another reason why this is a decent investment. The CEO clearly knows, at the very least the basics, of business (he teaches it) and incorporated the company. This is pretty valuable. Much different than Kramer on Seinfeld coming up with hair brained schemes to make money ((bladder system for oil tankers, pizza joint where you make your own pie, brazier for men (the “bro” or “manzier”), etc.))…Kramer was spacey and off the wall and thats part of the reason why Jerry always shot down his ideas. not necessarily that the idea was bad, but Kramer might not be the best behind the wheel on the said venture. This guy from finance for life seems like the anti-kramer.
No, I would not invest with Finance for Life based on the elevator pitch alone, but I might be willing to listen to the venture pitch so I could ask some additional questions. As others have pointed out, the pitchman did a good job of hitting many of the venture pitch points – some personal information about himself as CEO and why we should trust his experience, the market size and location, and the estimated profit – I heard nothing that would differentiate his product from other programs that would make me jump at the offer. Why I would consider investing in his interactive LMS program rather than just having my school division’s own teachers to develop our own interactive course in-house was not addressed.
Because no one can/ will do it
Thanks for diving into the rough and tumble world of emerging market predictions over the last week. From my perspective, their accuracy and reliability lie somewhere between those of horoscopes and weather reports. You could ignore them completely, but it’s prudent to calibrate your own thinking against a few ‘professional’ sources every so often, and […]
Continue reading Week 3 Starts Tomorrow – The Analyst’s Bootcamp Posted in: Announcements, Week 03: Analyst Bootcamp
Hi David: Just skimming through the week 3 material and it refers to a Pitch Pool, but I can’t see it. Will you be adding it soon? Doug.
Continue reading Pitch Pool Posted in: Questions & Answers
Hi Doug –
I was just trying to follow my own protocols by not publishing all of the Week 3 materials before Week 2 was essentially complete, and thereby upsetting our continuity. The Pitch Pool posts are now in place – click on the “Pitch Pool” category to the right to access them.
David
Thanks David, I see them now, sorry for jumping the gun.
Doug.
Off Topic, but I found this little gem: Three sites devoted to scouring the web/ed marketplace and recommending good educational technology services. EdSurge, a Silicon Valley startup news service that covers the education technology industry, offers selective reviews of digital learning tools from educators who have used them. EdShelf, another Silicon Valley-based company, offers a directory, […]
Continue reading Some Good Resources Posted in: Blog Café
Thanks very much for sharing Kent! Would love to stay in touch with you folks @bahl
This is great. Thanks.
Thank you so much!!! This is great.
In the article, Top-Ten IT Issues the authors identified 10 Issues as follows: Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011 Funding IT Administrative/ERP/Information Systems Teaching and Learning with Technology Security Mobile Technologies Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness Governance, Portfolio/Project Management Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Strategic Planning and thanks to my colleague melissaayers the 2012 list: Top-Ten IT Issues, 2012 Updating IT professionals’ […]
Continue reading Top 10 IT Issues- Opportunity Horizon Posted in: Week 02: The Edtech Marketplace
Hi Shaun,
I agree with you 100 percent. This is so true. Buying a technology and bringing it into a school is useless if no one knows how to use it. I have seen this happen in all the schools I have worked in. Technology is bought because it seems ideal but either the technology is not used at all and it gathers dust or it is used incorrectly because teachers do not have the necessary training or do not know what to use the technology for. Many educators are open to using new technologies but they already have so much on their plates and they do not have the time to learn how to use these technologies to a degree that they can teach with them effectively.
There is a huge push in the school district I work in for more and more technology to be adopted and courses to be offered. This is great because it opens more doors for kids but it is also extremely costly and can be frustrating for teachers and schools.
Teacher training is where the investment needs to be made. One thing that the board I am working for has began doing and that I think is a valuable way to assess what technological investments should be made is a loan pool. The school board has purchased some technologies and is allowing schools to borrow sets of the technology to try out with their students. This way students and teachers can be exposed to a new technology and find out if investing in it would be a good idea.
I tried my hand at Layar, as part of this week’s activities. I found that it had a very streamlined interface, and the idea of ‘tagging’ or creating these layers was intriguing. I actually imported one of my handouts for Internships, thinking I would create layers on it, so that the students immediately start to […]
Continue reading I tried my hand at Layar, as part of thi… Posted in: General
Sorry, I meant to categorize this in Week 7, but now I can’t go back it seems.
Eva I think as you mentioned ‘revolutionary” is key. The whole idea of AR is definitely a means of changing learning by changing the way we view things and interact with our surroundings.
Nureen
I found my thoughts to be well aligned with those from the NMC 2012 Horizon Report in terms of emerging markets. Of the key trends they mention here are a few that I felt necessary to share: 1) Ability to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever: As a MET student, I already see huge […]
Continue reading New Media Consortium 2012 Horizon Report Posted in: Week 02: The Edtech Marketplace
Hi Patrick,
I think many of the points you highlighted are extremely valuable. Sometimes certain technologies seem great but they may not be suited to a certain time and place as of yet. Evolution is continuously occurring with learning and technology. Many of these technologies may not be adopted right away but there is definitely room for them in the future. The main thing is to have them in our radar because when they do surface we will all have a better understanding. That is why articles like this one are so important. They keep us informed about the direction education will be heading in. i agree with you, this is a good article to keep on hand and the refer back to.
Collaborative learning and learning analytics areas I may like to invest as a venture capitalist. Analytics are gradually catching interest and institutions including ours are thinking of ways to better manage and mine data for informing teaching and learning. One of things we are exploring is the value of SCORM and TinCan API to track informal learning and behaviour patterns. Anybody else interested, exploring similar areas?
For the past few years my school division has been looking for a streaming video solution – to support our online learning program, to host & serve videos created within our division of school events and “best practices” videos, and to provide a way to control access to videos. (Blackboard, our LMS, is a poor […]
Continue reading EduVision Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
John Baker is the founder and CEO of Desire2Learn. Desire2Learn Incorporated, also known as Desire2Learn or D2L was founded in 1999 by John Baker who desired eLearning or a Learning Management System (LMS) that was not available when he was studying systems design engineering in his third year at the University of Waterloo. Baker […]
Continue reading Biography of John Baker Posted in: General, Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
I was at the D2L Users conference this summer and saw John Baker speak several times. He speaks just as he looks with confidence and passion about his company. It is interesting as at the conference he was introducing some of the new members of the D2L management team. Many of them were from Research in Motion (RIM) which is located in the same area of Kitchener-Waterloo in southern Ontario. I can only imagine that these people felt the uneasiness of RIM and decided to move over to a different technology company that is currently more stable than RIM.
Doug.
Doug – From what I have read about D2L, those people who moved from RIM will likely not be disappointed. Do you use D2L in your area of work?
Just want to let anyone else who is taking ETEC 511 know that I just realized that we are reading about the D2L and Blackboard court case this week. I am actually geek’d about the serendipitous connection. I plan to read the article tomorrow and will repost if it sheds any new light on John Baker.
Hi Jen:
Yes we use D2L; we migrated from WebCT two years ago and have not looked back.
Doug.
Great synopsis of the D2L product, I got a good sense of what the founder/CEO is like and his overall approach in various aspects of the educational technology business world.
On a side note though, I am wondering, did you notice if this company has any true educators, or people with classroom experience in their core group?
I did notice that indeed there are no executive team members with educational backgrounds. I think the way they get around this is the meet with educators from within the classroom and listen to their needs and concerns to develop a personalized LMS that fits their school’s requirements. It is an interesting point you bring up. Thanks Tom.
I guess, if done properly, this would not be a big deal. However, too many times, both personally and professionally I have used Educational Software created by non-educators and have been easily frustrated, for these products have been designed, developed, and deployed from a non-educator perspective. Again this may seem not a large issue, but the intuitive feel is not educationally focused, creating frustration for many users, forcing them to avoid or potential drop the program entirely.
Thoughts?
I believe that Blackboard finally did buy out Desire2Learn, did they not? Or perhaps just a very close partnership. Blackboard also absorbed WebCT (a UBC initiative!!! And my 1st experience with an LMS when I became a provincial online teacher for Saskatchewan), among others.
This is another topicthat is perhaps beyond the scope of ETEC 522, but clearly related. Is it good practice for an entreprenuer to think to the future – what company do I want to impress, that will absorb me down the road? In the Web 2.0 world, would this not be a critical consideration?
Hi Peggy:
Blackboard has not bought out Desire to learn. Rather Desire to Learn keeps luring Blackboard customers over to them. The mantra of many new Desire to Learn customers at their recent Users conference was “Bye bye Blackboard”!
Doug.
I often wonder like Penny about what happens down the road. Do some of these entrepreneurs design these products for long term success, or in the hope of threatening to compete with a big company in order to be absorbed. I’ve looked at Desire2Learn and for me it’s just yet another LMS to add to the list that is already out there. As I student and teacher, it just makes life harder having to get used to yet another platform, so unless it’s drastically different, or free, I’m not sure I’d bother. I think that more than ‘bye bye Blackboard’, Blackboard will end up buying this one, too.
Pooja Sankar –Founder & CEO of Piazza Piazza’s platform helps classmates share their questions and answers in a format that’s a mixture between a wiki and a forum. Each class gets its own hub for Q&A, and students can bookmark any questions if they’re also eager to find out the answer. Multiple students can […]
Continue reading Pooja Sankar – Founder & CEO of Piazza Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
That’s a great point about personal interest and passion. It’s like that saying about finding a job you love; basically that it will never be work. In addition, we have been learning how important a CEO’s enthusiasm is. A person who loves what they’re doing will be able to relate their passion to others and get them excited by being excited.
From what is placed here she certainly has what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur for she has leveraged the available technology to create a social approach to answering questions at the class level, With the large numbers of educational ventures on the web this is one that stands out to me and one that I can try with my class.
Quick question David in regards to the pitch pool ratings. Do we rate all pitches or just the ones that we will do an analysis of? Doug.
Continue reading Pitch Pool ratings Posted in: Questions & Answers
Thanks, Doug –
You’re welcome to review, analyse and rate as many Elevator Pitches as your attention and interest will permit, but the activity only requests you to analyse and rate two (2) of them. The rest are there primarily to give you choice and recreation.
Cheers,
David
From the research that I have been doing in this, and other, classes, combined with the information that has been presented by the BC government this year, I can actually see the potential for a massive shift in learning in the next 5 years. I imagine that cloud computing will be a big part of this […]
Continue reading Week 6: Last Activity Posted in: General, Week 06:
Hi Rebecca,
I think you make a great point about how it is often hard to make long-term projections in the future of technology because of the rapid pace at which things now develop and change. With that said though, I too think the biggest change for cloud computing and learning would be in regards to its widespread use and that we would see it become commonly used in most school districts.
I agree I think we will see a big shift in the amount of cloud computing applications that are used in the classroom. As for the technology that they will be using it is hard to predict. One prediction is that we will be using Virtual Worlds that are integrated with a LMS system. It would allow for students to learn while they look and interact within the virtual world. It also will allow for collaboration and can be done online without a need for a building. As this would allow for cost savings I can definitely see this as a possibility. That said these are all guesses and depends on so many variables that we just can’t predict.
This idea is so fitting for the research I have just completed for my project. Even though many people (educators, administration, parents) see the need for an overhaul in the education system and everyone is floating around predictions about how this might manifest itself….. it is such a huge shift in paradigm that it may take something really, really big to provide the impetus for this change to occur. And yes, the cost savings is undeniable – once it’s up and running. However, the start up costs and the funds for development and research still have to come from somewhere first…. and where does it come from? Private sector? Dismantling classrooms? Teacher layoffs?
PC
Excellent case study, and very relevant to what I do. Several years ago I wrote our division media release form – it needs revision and it’s great to have the samples you posted. I’ve also recently become my division’s LAFOIP go-to person (LAFOIP = SK version of FIPPA). Hasn’t been high on my list of tasks but […]
Continue reading Week 6: Cloud Computing – Limitations Posted in: Week 06:
That is a tough question. If the FB page was under the school’s umbrella, it would need a ton of monitoring as anyone could post something on the page. That said, I like the potential FB offers for the sharing of information. If it were me, I might assign a couple of teachers to the page and have them remove any inappropriate postings. I only use FB personally but I am wondering if there is a security setting that requires all wall postings to get approval first by the page’s owner. That would certainly make it more manageable.
I’m not so worried about new posts to the groups – but it’s easy to a link to anyone who has posted on the group board to that person’s FB page. If they don’t set up security tightly – and with FB rules often changing that’s easy to miss – it’s easy to read that person’s wall perhaps, or see their pictures, and picture comments. You can then follow those links to yet someone else. I can see that it might be pretty easy to catch photos and comments of people who intended no direct connection to a particular group.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for using the Cloud, but interested in several points you wisely raised on your limitations page. Just wondering how others might feel about this specific FB issue. Try it sometime – see what you can find stalking people from groups you belong to.
Peggy, you have raised a chronic issue with FB, or in particular it’s user who do not understand the security aspect, therefore, do not access the securiy option selecting various settings to limit access to others. For those that do, also have to be diligent with ensuring they update their settings as Facebook is continuouly upgrading. I only use FB on a personal level and limit who I accept as my friends, but often wonder about inactivating because so much concern is generated around privacy and what is appropriate. However, then you are not in the loop or current when you don’t engage in all this social media. Just trying to keep up with it is a challenge. I don’t have time to be curious about other people’s lives but fully aware that others certainly do.
Catherine
I don’t think a school district would adopt FB as they wouldn’t have the same types of controls to monitor for inappropriate comments or cyber bullying. Also it is so easy with existing software to just set up your own private social network. I have a private social network set up in my class and I am able to monitor all comments and can easily find anything that I would find inappropriate. I clearly state to students that I would treat any comment on the site as if they said it in class. Research also shows that students don’t want a school social networking site linked to their FB account. They prefer to have it completely separate and in fact they prefer it if teachers aren’t directly involved with the site. It is found for academic sites that peer mentors have a greater impact on an academic social networking site. I think the goal of a district wide site would be for educational purposes which I don’t believe can be realized with FB.
It’s an interesting debate, whether or not to allow FB in schools, as our Kindergarten class used FB last year for it’s mode of communication out to parents. Most parents loved it, as they were familiar with the platform and didn’t need to learn anything new. We’re a private school though, and proper channels were explored before the K’s ventured into their decision to go with FB. Now, this year, the parents aren’t as comfortable and only one K class went with FB…the others created a WordPress site/blog.
I think there is real value in FB in schools, as the social networking and collaborative potential is limitless. A lot of LMS’s now are incorporating this FB-like feel to their services. Edmodo and Schoology are two great examples of companies tapping into that potential.
In Alberta, many schools and school districts are currently utilizing Facebook as a means to communicate easily with the parents, My own district, has just started limited experiments to see how it might work best here.
For in the end, yes there is a tonne of other options out there which might be safer than facebook… But is it easier for the mountain (all the people who use facebook) to come to me (my blog), or myself to come to the mountain…
Lastly, if we do not explore, and learn how to properly utilize these and similar tools. We are not meeting our students, or even society where they are at, but forcing them to fit with what makes ourselves comfortable.
As for potential legal issues, if thought is put before practice, and modelling of expectations occur, few issues will arise, and those that do can usually be handled well…
Thoughts?
There are indeed risks of using FB, however it also has many uses. This page mentions but a few, along with some suggestions on how to protect students. (http://mashable.com/2011/04/26/facebook-for-schools/). I feel schools and other educational institutions should inform teachers and students on a regular basis as to how to use the web and social media safely; there are too many useful collaborative tools out there that it is a shame not to use in class.
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avninder 9:55 am on September 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think making predictions always involves making assumptions. And as David mentioned in a recent post a lot of us are drawn to fancier devices even though their use may not be as practical as a technology that rates low on the interest scale.
I find it difficult to say which trend prediction has materialized as different areas in the field of educational technology may be attracted to different devices. For example: interactive clickers are becoming more commonly used in higher education and corporate training but not so much in the K-12 system. This could be because the class size doesn’t warrant its use and/or because the budget simply isnt there.
tomwhyte1 12:44 pm on September 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I also noticed your comment regarding the failed outcomes of the predictions, which reminds me of old movies predicting what the future will be like. For example, Back To The Future 2 – occurs on October 21, 2015. Yes, I realize we have 3 years to go, but I doubt that we will have that level of 3D occur for any new Jaws Movies before then…
As well, I really appreciated the explanation you provide. For these predictions are based on a somewhat domino effect, and any misstep will delay or derail the entire system.
Thanks for sharing.
Mike Rae 11:27 pm on September 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Predicting anything is tough. I could predict that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow, and people would shoot me “duhh, thanks Captain Obvious” looks. On the contrary, the more bold the prediction, the less it is likely to happen, (after the prediction doesn’t come true, you are bound to get the “Well you really missed the boat on that one”). I guess the key is finding ones that you think are obvious, but others might not – and then of course be right about it.
@Tomwhyte: I agree with your point about the domino effect. Some of these trends need to happen before other ones (or at least together with them), so if one doesn’t come through as predicted neither will the other one.
tomwhyte1 8:45 am on September 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I agree with your statements, but would like add that I feel it is human nature when making predictions to go big, either positively (self-driving cars) or negatively (swine flu). My issue though, is people get tired of these predictions, relegate the information to background noise, then ignore the issue(s) entirely. Which I feel is one of the reasons why many educators drag their collective feet in regards to educational technology, for some in changes to fast, for others it never happens how they were told it was going to work.
Thereby, creating false information, and negative feelings.
Thoughts?