Andrew Cohen in the founder and CEO of Brainscape, an online tool compatible with mobile devices that allows students to create flashcards to increase information retention and to help studying. Brainscape allows users to create their own content or choose from a wide variety of pre-made content. Users go through their flashcards, and after answering, […]
Continue reading Andrew Cohen- Brainscape Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
ModKit Micro is about the “democratization of programming and engineering”. It builds on the solid foundation laid by Scratch and other graphical programming environments by lowering the bar to give new users access to the tools and techniques that were formerly the exclusive domain of engineers. Rather than typing code, users drag programming ‘blocks’ into […]
Continue reading ModKit Micro: Ed Baafi Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
While I am not familiar with this venture it does remind me of the emergence of WYSIWYG applications, such as our blog that allows the user to create great looking web-content without having to know the background codes involved. Even embedding a video is a copy and past of the url. This lends to your statment of “democratization”. Putting the power to create in the hands of more people. Sounds good to me.
I find the information regarding Kickstarter to be quite interesting. In my experience, Kickstarter has been a form of natural selection (or crowd sourcing with money) for small projects to get off the ground. Those that have enough potential usually get funded, those that have limited potential, well, receive limited funding.
Therefore, I wonder if like this company, will future ventures go this route to start the company to show its potential, and for investors to want small companies to show their potential by having these small investments to start them off…?
Thoughts?
Just launched: Google for Entrepreneurs Here’s an article about it: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/google-supports-startups-launch-google-entrepreneurs-updates/
Continue reading Google for Entrepreneurs Posted in: General
Thanks for sharing this, Ben –
In every sector, not just digital, companies are finding it more and more difficult to innovate internally. The number of processes, events, incentives, etc, that companies are inventing to try to ramp up internally-generated innovative ideas is quite amazing. Google in particular has given its employees enormous creative freedoms to pursue new ideas on company time. However, it doesn’t seem to be enough to allow companies to be competitive. The demise of Google Labs is one indicator of this for me.
What’s the problem? The way I see it is that with global competitiveness the proverbial “low hanging fruit” in every sector is long gone. That means companies need to reach higher (for example, do lots of advanced R&D in pre-competitive technologies) and reach wider (for example, bring on experts and projects intersecting many different fields) in order to stay ahead. Both of these activities are typically expensive and really difficult for companies to manage, especially on their spreadsheets.
So most companies in the world don’t actually “do” much innovation anymore, they “buy” it. They allow the depth and breadth of the open marketplace (ie: gazillions of small start-up companies) to take on the expense and risk of pioneering. Then they try to buy those few companies that seem to be succeeding while they’re still young and affordable. Its a risky and inefficient process, but less so than doing it yourself.
Another thing large companies are doing is getting involved in “open innovation”. This is where they will put money, with few strings attached, into research labs, incubators, etc, that aim to do work in sectors the company cares about.. Their hope is that this will allow them to spot emerging innovations more quickly than anyone else, and then scoop them up.
The analogy I’ll use is that traditionally companies planted their seeds in walled gardens, but now they’re finding that this soil isn’t fertile enough anymore. So now they’re more often sewing seeds strategically in many public places, waiting to see what comes up.
This is how I characterize “Google for Entrepreneurs”. It is a “strategic” public service, essentially like all of Google’s products, that give something away in order to reap value from the activity it generates. Very smart….
The reason for this long comment is that this global innovation trend should be eye-opening for our current entrepreneur bootcamp. Companies can hire the best people in the world, but they can’t seem to successfully hire entrepreneurs, or cultivate them internally.
Thoughts?
David
William (Bill) Hamilton is the president and CEO of TechSmith ventures. Upon first glance, this name probably does not ring a bell but his staff is responsible for producing video capturing software apps such as Screenchomp for the iPad. This App has received rave reviews amongst the learning technologies community and allows students to […]
Continue reading Introducing William Hamilton…….. Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Hi,
You were right! I did not recognize the name at first, but I have used some of the products that he has helped develop! This was particularly interesting for me to read because I find it very interesting the long path that he has taken since 1987. In my lifetime, I look back and think about all of the advances in technology and can only imagine what he has seen, experienced, and learned from.
Jhodi
What an interesting app. I agree that this will be a great tool for education. I am sure that this will help students and teachers create some great learning materials.
Ken
I’ve already done my “founder parade” on a different company and although I might do my venture analysis on these guys, I found this really interesting so feel free to check them out and use them if you’re struggling to find an interesting venture. http://www.wimp.com/futurebulb/ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light-bulb-reinvented
Continue reading I’ve already done my “founder parade”… Posted in: General
This is a nice-looking product and I think it does have the potential to sell, since it is so easy to install. You could build something very similar in a weekend using an Arduino microcontroller, some LED’s and a little patience, but this is a no-brainer. Screw it in and it works.
Here’s an example of a simple Arduino-powered light that almost anyone could do in a couple hours or less:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-an-LED-Ambient-Mood-Light-A-Beginner-/
This article shows you how to make a dimmer switch for your lights that is controlled by your phone:
http://www.instructables.com/id/android-bluetooth-controlled-outlet/
I wonder how cost effective that is Ben? I’m guessing that’s why these guys are kickstarting their project because with mass production they can lower the costs signficantly. Thanks for the links!
What an awesome project! I have a doubt though. I thought the venture we had to choose needed to be an educational venture. Maybe I’m wrong. Also, having seen these guy’s excellent presentation, my other doubt is if we can use existing material our chosen venture has, or do we sell them ourselves from scratch. I’d welcome being enlightened, please. Cheers 🙂
Haven’t you been in a classroom where lighting was an issue? I think that this could be really useful in an educational environment not as a tool, but instead as an implement. In the same way that the whiteboard revolutionized the methodology of how we teach, this could do the same for that horribly buzzing light we all have in our classes.
Born January 12, 1964 Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos the founder and CEO of Amazon.com which isthe largest online merchant of books and a wide variety of products on the World Wide Web. He graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science. After graduating he worked at several […]
Continue reading Jeff Bezos the founder amazon.com Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
It’s amazing to see how Amazon is growing in all different ways. It has essentially become synonymous with online shopping. I couldn’t agree with you more on the idea that it is an e-learning company. If it isn’t then it certainly is a distributor of material. I can’t count the amount of times that I have gone back to Amazon to purchase texts, at least towards the last year in undergrad. The growth of the company truly has no limits. It has gone from selling books to literally everything.
I recall being down in US and having the option to purchase and have same day delivery? Wow! Very powerful company and you can bet they are chomping at the bit to get into the digital textbooks.
Not specifically about educational technology, but interesting from a business point of view, I read an article a couple months ago about how the US govt.., under pressure from various brick-and-mortar retailers, was forcing Amazon to charge sales tax. The article warned that this might ultimately work against them. Until now, Amazon only charged sales tax in places where they had a physical presence (distribution centers and so on.) They limited the number of these that were out there so they could minimize the number of places where they had to charge taxes. Now that they have to pay taxes all over the place, they are likely to start building up a physical presence in a lot more place, now allowing them to expand their services in a big way, such as offering same-day service. So, in trying to level the playing field, Barnes and Noble and some of the others unleashed a beast. A couple months later, this does indeed seem to be the case. They are building all over the US.
I found your biography on the founder of Amazon.com to be quite interesting because I am quite familiar with the company (and buy many books through it on my kindle) but honestly never knew about its CEO and their beginnings. As well, I too find it inspiring when I learn about a company that is able to adapt so well to the changing market, which especially now changes quite rapidly.
If amazon was a creature Darwin would be proud of it 😉
Gosh, only one person behind amazon – that’s amazing. I honestly thought that it must have been a group design. And it’s interesting to envision it as a e-learning venture. I do a lot of “quik-search” to learn about authors/get reviews/find related topic books. Not that I would probably ever include an amazon cite in my references, but for daily life and general knowledge there is a lot to be found.
PC
I think Amazon has become a great resource for students and educators. I have bought several books for MET courses through Amazon, one book was $20 less than at the UBC bookstore…which charges $25 to ship within Canada. I got my book shipped for free…
I also use Amazon to order books for our school. We can buy them much cheaper this way and the shipping and payment is always a breeze. As you say, they are becoming the everything store. I have also purchased cameras, external hard-drives, and other materials for classroom use.
Students (and most users) are using the reviews feature as a great way to help them select books. This has been great when a student asks me about a book down in the library or one of the extra ones on my shelf. I direct them to the reviews on Amazon and other sites to help them decide if this is a book they might want to select.
I got my credit card in order to purchase books on amazon, books that were not available locally. Now my students take it one step further they are purchasing previous versions of text at minimal cost in order to save. This is something I never do but it is an option they exploit, And yes I use the review all the time. All in all I amazon to be a gem for students and educators alike.
Ken — Great point about the user reviews. I forgot about that feature. Those reviews are immensely popular and useful when it comes to online buying. Amazon definitely setup their venture properly in allowing for the user feedback to come through on all of their products.
The co-founder and CEO of “bump” is David Lieb. Bump is an app for android phones, iPads, iPhones, and iPods. It works between each of these devices to share information including contacts, pictures and your own social network pages. To share information you “bump” devices physically. The information you would like to share […]
Continue reading The co-founder and CEO of “bump” … Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Hi Rebecca,
Great post on the CEO of Bump. I remember using this app on my iPhone when it first came out and being really excited at the novelty of the idea (high novelty factor! ;). Idea is simple and really caught on. I wonder how well it is doing now, perhaps still popular?
No need to be intimidated by all of these great ideas. I like what you said about “finding a gap in the market and seek to fill it”. I think sometimes we get the whole idea that we need to find a super innovative idea. Sometimes, fixing an existing problem is more than amble. As did David with his Bump idea. How do we exchange contacts easily? 🙂
Cheers,
Jonathan
Hey Rebecca,
Nice post about bump. Just curious of where you found this “bump has a strong group of investors whose knowledge and experience are applicable to this venture” . For my CEO/Founder of ALL in Learning, I was looking to find out who investors were and came up empty. Finding investors like that who have stake in the company and can add value to it, not just with their pocketbook, but with their experience and knowledge, seems like one of the keys to a successful venture.
Thanks Jonathon,
Bump is still incredibly popular and they have expanded creating an app called flock where you can share pictures in folders based on who is present when the picture was taken. Everyone who was present has access to the picture folders. Very interesting stuff, and “cleans up” the process of photo sharing.
Mike: On the website for bump they actually list the investors and their backgrounds on the “team” page. I found that really interesting and useful for understanding how the company functions.
Ahh! Sounds like the new thing that the Samsung Galaxy is trying to amp up in their commercials. I just downloaded Flock and gave it a try. Really neat. I always found it interesting how designers have developed the apps to do unique things.
I wonder if it’s something that a lot of people use? Clearly he has tapped into a market that is growing with users. Do you know how he profits? Ad based?
Hi Rebecca,
I was really interested in your post on bump, particularly because this was the first I had hear about it. I am curious to know more about how it works and users response in how well it works or doesn’t. Do you use it yourself?
I also really like David Lieb’s comment you added about how a great way to start a new venture is from an existing problem or gap found in the market. This is actually quite reassuring for me because I am currently working on developing a new venture that stemmed exactly from a gap I had found within the ed. tech market in Canada (something which has been quite successful here in Israel).
Great point with created a solution to a problem. It is like our earlier reading that discussed the “pain” in the market and how it would be solved. It also reminds me of when students talk about what they should write a story or speech about. I always tell them that problems always make interesting topics. I am interested in this app and will be sure to check it out.
Paula Young is the founder and President of Governet. Paula founded Nevada Contractors Registry, the predecessor company to Governet in 1986. Her original idea was to pioneer the concept of distributing aggregated databases from many local and state government agencies through a single point of access on a network. The success of this idea […]
Continue reading Paula Young, Founder and President of Governet Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
This is an interesting concept. I have participated in the writing of two course curricula over the past two years. I just completed piloting one last spring and presented in the summer to new teachers. As I was an active participant I am not sure if the upper-ups were using anything like this to coordinate and manage the work being done by those of us that were working on the courses. It seems that this would be of benefit…what are the costs?
Hi Ken:
I am not sure of the costs, it is managed at the institutional level. We have been using it for 5 years. The service was acquired to replace to two outdated in-house systems: one to manage curriculum changes and one to house course outlines. We now have a reliable archive of old course outlines and we can track exactly what changes have been made by who and over the years that follow our curriculum change processes and procedures.
Doug.
Very interesting. Thanks for responding. I wonder if this would be a benefit for the projects I was working on. Who knows maybe the coordinators were using something like this and we weren’t aware of it? I am curious to find out now.
Ken
http://www.khanacademy.org Sal Khan, the founder and current Executive Director of The Khan Academy, holds two different bachelor degrees and two different masters degrees (which include an MBA from Harvard), which not only demonstrate his passion for learning, but also shows he is capable of innovation as well as leading a successful educational technology venture. As […]
Continue reading http://www.khanacademy.org Sal Khan, the… Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
I saw Sal Khan as a Keynote speaker at a conference this last summer and he truly engaged me and the entire audience because of the passion that came through for his organization and his cause. It certainly made me rethink the concept of free educational materials.
Doug.
I agree, he is a very passionate and persuading speaker. However, I wonder is many people have been swayed by passion in the past? I am not saying that passion should be ignored, but we are beings that are very emotive… therefore, what might we do to recognize the passion of the presentation, but then move to a place more cognitive to assess the information.
Thoughts?
Hi Tom,
Upon reading our course materials this week I was going to do a biography on Sal Khan myself but noted you post yesterday. Nevertheless I thought I would go ahead and comment on your post as I think the Khan academy is probably one of the front runners in the flipped learning concept. I have seen some of their videos and they range in quality from great illustrative examples to just a recording of a teacher on a blackboard. Some educators fear that this method of instruction is a threat to teacher employability and that eventually schools will begin to shut down. Of course this is a far fetched thought as students still need to learn how to search and decipher the vast amounts of information that are out there. Doug was lucky to have seen Sal at a conference. There is no doubt that he is passionate about his product, a key entrepreneurial skill one must possess to ensure success. I have left a link to a TED talk below in which Sals enthusiasm and passion is evident.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
Manny
I find it amusing, that with many new technologies, educators fear we will be replaced. Such stories can be found with the overhead projector, that min wage staffers would simply place overheads upon the surface, students would mindlessly copy down material and…poof…learning would happen. If it was that easy, there would be no schools, and education would be that simple.
The Khan Academy allows myself as an educator to help the student when it is important, trying out the new skills they have learned, not the “download of information” otherwise known as the class lecture.
Thoughts?
I don’t know if you have seen his TEDtalk, but you should. It might provide you with some inspiration. His project has very humble beginnings. He was just making videos to supplement his weekly tutoring sessions with his niece. When she told him he didn’t need to come over anymore and that the videos were good enough on their own, he knew he was on to something. Personally, I’m not a big fan of all of his work. I think the idea is sound and the quality of the videos is certainly improving, but most of the videos are still excruciatingly boring. he has yet to really leverage the power of a truly interactive experience. (The new programming section is definitely a step in the right direction.) A lot of educators have (I think correctly) expressed concern that people are trying to use these videos in place of some other curriculum. They are a great supplement, but, as he points out in his TEDtalk, the whole point is that these free up the teacher to work with kids individually and in small groups to differentiate instruction based on student needs, and to give contextual tasks a more central role. The kids learn it at home and they apply it in the classroom. To what extent this is actually happening is an important question.
What I appreciate, is the Khan Academy coaching information. The overall level of detail, down to individual student responses on specific questions, provides myself as an educator a tonne of information to help make decisions on areas of growth, areas of focus, who can help and who needs help.
And yes, the videos are not a replacement. Just another way to deliver basic information.
Thoughts?
I have used Sal’s videos when my science classes have been flipped. Although the videos can be a tad dry – they are succinct enough to engage the student at home. The Gates foundation and Google both gave significant donations to get the Khan academy off the ground. Great to see other tech companies supporting e-learning
PC
Interesting point about the “dryness” of the videos. I wonder if this is intentional… to avoid the novelty effect, or to reduce cultural items that only specific groups associate with…
Thoughts?
What I find fascinating is how many of these ventures are born, i.e. from a need. In this case it was from the need to help out a niece online; ‘Slideshare’ from one of the co-founders wanting to share his conference slides and not being able to; ‘Dropbox’, from its founder constantly forgetting his USB. How many more things could we make ventures out of if we only stopped to think ‘Hey, there´s a need here, and a possible venture!’
Great discussion so far guys! I think that the point of the vanishing educator is a persistent concern. I heard in one of my Literature classes at UVic that people expressed the same level of fear when the printing press was invented and information could be widely disseminated by text. is this the same situation, or completely different? I like the idea, too, that the “dryness” of the videos could be intentional. Good food for thought.
CEO – Dr. Karim Abdel-Malek Cyber Science 3D is an interactive tool from Cyber Anatomy Corporation for use in Biology and science classrooms where regular anatomical dissections might not be feasible. It is used with a computer and projector or 3d projector. Although fairly specialized, I do think this would be useful. Examples of this […]
Continue reading CEO – Dr. Karim Abdel-Malek Cyber Scienc… Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Thanks Joel – Your post has me very intrigued about this product. I’m a former science teacher, and now train & manage our school division online program. I can see this product being extremely useful for our online biology courses (still to be developed). A real disadvantage of online science courses is the difficulty in replicating a true lab experience. Minus the formaldehyde, this product seemed to offer an acceptable alternative.
It’s a product I would invest in, as I see the potential for online learning, and for F2F classes where for costs and squemishness, real dissections are not a viable options. The product costs, after a very cursory look, seem reasonable.
Thanks for posting!
Peggy
Hi,
As a former science student that was squeamish about dissections, I feel like this is a great idea! Not only is it clean, but it has the potential to be extremely affordable since the school can purchase the tool for multiple uses rather than purchasing various animals, etc. for dissection that are a one-time use. I also think that it can very very helpful to have a full 360 degree view of the dissection, especially if it were used with a 3-D projector. From a student’s standpoint, I would find this very engaging and motivating.
Jhodi
Jose Ferreira, Knewton Founder & CEO The Knewton platform is a cloud-based, adaptive learning technology that continuously analyzes student data to provide the most relevant learning activities to each individual student at that particular moment in time. The program makes its recommendations to the student by harnessing not only that student’s data, but the data that […]
Continue reading Jose Ferreira, Knewton Founder & CEO Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Isn’t this just an updated form of standardized testing though? The credentials of the team are impressive to be sure and if it works it would really be something, but if the data is being analyzed and acted on by a computer how is this better for the students who are already lacking in face time to begin with?
I actually think of this as the opposite of standardized testing – the system learns about each individual student and provides that student with the specific learning activities that they need in order to learn best. It helps them make the most of their study time by feeding them questions about the topics that they are having the most trouble with. From their website:
The platform is continuously adaptive, meaning it responds in real time to each student’s activity on the system and adjusts to provide the most relevant content. Some Knewton recommendations are straightforward: having trouble with algebraic expressions involving fractions? The platform may serve up a video lesson on how to multiply fractions. Other times the recommendation may veer seemingly off-course: struggling with a uniform rate word problem? The platform may recommend a reading comp exercise – having determined that weak critical reading skills are more likely at fault than gaps in math knowledge.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an interesting idea, especially if it works. However it seems to function on the same premise as Google/Facebook advertising by tracking your progress and then using algorithms that are sometimes accurate. The reason I compare it to standardized testing is that regardless of the adaptive nature of the program, is that it still requires a broad based approach, at least initially, to focus in and gauge the trends or directions that the student is moving in. This to me, is an updated form of standardized testing because it doesn’t individualize the learning until it has the opportunity to learn more about you and instead using a blanketed methodology that may or may not be useful depending on the learning style. Good article though and definitely thought provoking.
We use a somewhat similar program called Reading Plus in our district. It tests reading skills and constantly changes what level the students are at based on their current performance. It’s great for this specific area and even though initially I was skeptical it has worked wonders for many students. It is nowhere near as complex as Knewton, but it follows a similar idea, where it assesses student need and assigns levelled activities based on student needs.
Interesting to see that it is using cloud-based technology. I am curious to see how other companies will take advantage of the cloud movement. I think more gain be gained than the basic sharing possibilities associated with the cloud. The act of collaboration and creative work within the cloud will be an interesting tool in education and business.
Ken
I see this as a good option for paced learning. Maaaaannyyy years ago I went to an experimental school in Iowa City, called Ernest Horn School. For all subjects there were a set of files full of activities that each student would work through at their own pace. The teacher, rather than teach everyone at once, became a kind of facilitator. Depending on how we did, what came next in terms of the content of each students’ individual course. What Knewton has done ,is to take this idea online. It sounds like an amazing system, even if not always very accurate. I also think that Ferreira did a great job of partnering with a key player to make this a success; what better than a major publishing company. It’s what we read about this week; the need to not only have a great idea, but to make sure you partner with people who can make the idea grow.
Yes – I agree. A lot of the MyLabs containing Knewton are just being released now and I’ve been reading about the new MyFoundationsLab with Knewton (developmental reading, writing and math) to see exactly how it works. From what I’ve seen so far the system asks the student to take an assessment and builds a personalized learning path for that student, but then as they start to work through their learning path, it changes based on how they are doing. There are also features built in for instructors, such as alerts when students are in trouble, and information on topics that the system is recommending for the student that are not covered in that particular class.
Here is a terrific profile of Jose and adaptive learning, published at Mashable today:
http://mashable.com/2012/07/17/knewton-adaptive-learning/
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.
Venture: Duolingo The project was started by Professor Luis Von Ahn and his PhD. student Severin Hacker, and then developed also with Antonio Navas, Vicki Cheung, Marcel Uekermann, Brendan Meeder, Hector Villafuerte, and Jose Fuentes. Duolingo is a free language-learning website using crowdsourced model where language learners are invited to translate […]
Continue reading Duolingo : Luis Von Ahn Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Hi Paula: thanks for highlighting this company – this idea is fascinating. I watched the TEDx video you have posted and his other company, reCAPTCHA, is also amazing. He states that 750,000,000 people or 10% of the world’s population have helped digitize human knowledge just by filling in those security word boxes that appear when you are purchasing something or signing up for something like on Ticketmaster or Twitter. This has added up to approx 2.5 million books per year so far. When you think about the potential of harnessing the learning of millions of people to translate the web it is very inspiring, a way to bring language education to those who can’t currently afford it.
Hi Paula,
I checked out the video (pitch) on their web site, and it’s excellent; it’s a perfect example of all a pitch should consist of: it presents a problem and a solution, plus some very interesting figures.
One query I have, as I did not sign up, is if what you learn is all in writing/reading. Do you ever get to hear the translated sentence in order to learn the pronunciation?
After reading the first few posts for this week’s task, I was thinking are there any females that are the founders of learning technology ventures? I have found one that I will report on later this week but I thought this article might be of interest to some: The Face of Success, Part 2: Where […]
Continue reading After reading the first few posts for th… Posted in: General
Jenny ~ Interesting that you bring this up. I explored Design2Learn and I too was surprised that their leadership team consists of all males except for one.
Thanks for sharing that Jenny – it was a really interesting article. I hope this is a trend that will change in the future as I am sure when we look at the education domain that statics would indicate there are more female educators than male I would imagine.
Jenny –
Thanks for opening this question, and for presenting a great example of a female entrepreneur in the Founder’s Parade.
As the article points out, there are some obvious historical reasons for why there are still fewer women championing tech start-ups. I won’t dwell there because I’ll just end up saying some unfortunate things about immature male-dominated cultures.
What I will say, in context of this week’s discussion, is that an entrepreneur is typically someone who is brave enough to go where few have gone before, to see an opportunity in a wilderness. An entrepreneurial woman won’t be daunted in a wilderness of men – she’ll actually see this as an advantage because she has innate tools and perspectives that are lacking in the ecosystem.
This is particularly true with learning technologies, which can be characterized as the awkwardly opportunistic marriage of an engineering culture with an education culture. It isn’t so much that the cultures are actively antagonistic as they are simply far apart. All the best opportunities are in that wilderness in between. Be brave – march in!
David
Thanks David. This course is great opportunity to entertain the idea of marching right in! At the moment I seem to be tiptoeing back and forth. Prior to this course, my thoughts were only really related to coming up with and implementing small creative ideas at my workplace so this shift in mindset is taking some time.
Here are 15 women with successful start-ups:
http://www.inc.com/ss/christina-desmarais/15-women-watch-tech-startups.html#11
Armie Carabet is the founder, director and CEO of ClickN KIDS Inc. He is a unique leader with extensive knowledge, understanding and capability, which he has strengthened through his experiences as a business owner, franchisor, franchise, marketing director and general manager. For more than a decade, Armie owned and operated many successful companies like TyRyMow […]
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These are the type of solutions that people probably envisioned entering the 21st Century Learning. Where you able to see how some of the games were played? Were the innovative or simple games?
We are always looking for new solutions to implement inside the primary realm.
— Cheers,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
The countless games they offer are all really amazing because they are all animated and interactive making it really engaging for the learner, but they also range in content from simple to complex depending on the age and level of the user. I also really like that the approach they used in designing the steps the user moves through was so well-thought out. For example when a child is just starting to read, the program offers many lessons on teaching the basic sounds of letters and then after much practice they are automatically taken to the ‘listening cube’ to hear and see how those letter sounds fit into various words.
If you are interested in learning more about it, the website is http://www.clicknkids.com.
Darrell Ward is one of the co-founders and CEO of ALL in Learning. He is described as an educational technology pioneer, executive and entrepreneur. ALL in Learning is a company that seeks to make assessment data of students more efficiently. Further, it appears that the original company of this team, eInstruction Corporation, started “the clicker […]
Continue reading Darrell Ward is one of the co-founders a… Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
I have used clickers in corporate training and found them to be effective in increasing class participation and gaining feedback as an instructor. As with any learning technology the clicker can be extremely useful but also a hindrance in learning, if its use is not executed correctly.
I do not foresee the assessment data provided by ALL in Learning being used at my organization in the immediate future. However, it is good to know that this service is available. Thanks for the info.
We were looking for an option for gaining better student engagement in our large food safety classes (100-400 students) and we ended up using polleverywhere.com I think this is the sort of technology that is replacing clickers. Essentially it is the same idea except it uses “polls” and mobile devices. The poll comes up on the PowerPoint slide and then students text in their answers. You can also send in answers through the Internet and Twitter too. Grade reporting and other reports are available to teachers.
I briefly looked at this company too and when I read about the cost of the clickers it doesn’t surprise me that users are turning to polls. It makes me think of programs such as Socrative and GoSoapBox where students can use a computer, mobile device or any smartphone to key in their selections. I have never used a clicker and do not know if they allow for open ended answers but I know the other programs do.
Yah when I saw the picture of the clickers I was kinda surprised at how dinosaurish they looked, that they were for sale, and how expensive they were. That being said, the clicker could definitely be seen as the great grandparent of the BYOD revolution that allows students to do things like polleverywhere.com. Maybe that’s why Ward consider’s himself an “educational technology pioneer”.
On a side note, in my school (BC offshore in China), there is a “no cell phones in class policy” to limit texting between friends mostly. Some teachers have been flirting with using student cell phones as cameras for scavenger hunts, polleverywhere.com, and things like that. Once word got back to administation, there was a slap on the wrist group email sent about breaking a school rule and teachers are not to be doing these activities…..this email was sent three days ago….ugh!
We have a set of clickers at our school (I can’t remember the brand). I know that they math teachers use them more than the other departments. It does work well for quick checks on concepts and to do simple quizzes. I think now people are relying on twitter more to do the same thing. This is being done in university courses and even in church services I have seen the Twitter feed on the screen and people can ask the pastor questions.
Mike, I feel your pain. We have a no-BYOD rule in our district. It is frustrating because we were told to provide 21st C learning opportunities and at the same time told there would be no spending on technology…Students are coming to school with great resources available to them. I know there is are issues between those that have and those that don’t and security concerns. I think there must be a way to make it work.
Here’s a fun site that tries to show how a whole pile of Tech companies try to monetize their products. I don’t know what their sources of information are or how accurate it all is, but it’s fun to look at and a starting point for those who are interested. http://rcs.seerinteractive.com/money/
Continue reading How do they make money? Posted in: General
Thanks for posting Teacherben!! I had just posted on Colin’s post, asking this very question. Your post is excellent. Personally, this would be a very useful direction for ETEC 522 – not just what makes for a good entrepreneur, but also how one could/would/does make money in the “free” web 2.0 world.
Your post provides excellent food for thought – thank you!
Peggy
Thanks for the website I just replied to Peggy and then saw your post. I definitely will need to use that with my class.
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.
Learning A-Z Several teachers at our school have been using Learning A-Z products for reading recovery purposes. I’ve known about it for some time but this year, I’ve decided to take the program on and give it to the majority of my primary students. As a result, I couldn’t think of a better product/service to […]
Continue reading Learning A-Z Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Moodle stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment and is a free open-source LMS that offers many tools like quizzes, assignments and grading. It was developed by Martin Dougiamas who is the founder of Moodle and who continues to be the leader developer of the Moodle.org community. Moodle continues to be one of the most […]
Continue reading Moodle Posted in: Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
I’m interested in learning is Martin Dougiamas made money/makes a living from Moodle? When someone develops and releases open source – is it purely altruistic, for the benefit of all with no thought or at least key desire for personal gain? Or do they realize that production for the public good will produce spin-offs that will be personally rewarding?
Thanks for posting this Colin. I’d never thought of the venture aspect of something like Moodle before. I know there are developers who are hired to customize Moodle installations, but what benefit do the founders gain? Even though open source – do they profit financially, and if so how well? Would one invest in such a venture? You’ve mentioned the Moodle Network, so there are obviously some side sources of revenue.
This topic opens a wider question, for me at least – how do all of the “free” websites – facebook (pre stock options days), wikis, blogs, etc. exist? Strickly on advertising? Are they all working for years, for free, hoping for the eventual payoff when they’ve hooked users? Once Xtra-Normal starting charging users a fee – did it kill the enterprise or did they become suddenly profitable?
What is the best way for a Web 2.0 to become profitable – more advertising as more free users hit the site, or hooking users and then starting to charge for the service?
Peggy
Hi Peggy, Martin Dougiamas does not appear to be in it for the money but he does generate revenue. In March of this year he sold Moodlerooms to Blackboard and this is what Martin had to say about the decision.
“The decision of Moodlerooms and NetSpot to work under Blackboard may sound very strange at first to anyone in this industry…but it’s my understanding that these three companies have some good plans and synergies. I’m happy to say that Moodlerooms and NetSpot will remain Moodle Partners, and have promised to continue…participating in the community…and contributing financially to Moodle exactly as they always have.”
As you can see they do have continuous funding from their Moodle partners. In addition to Moodlebooks they also have Remote-Learner and Classroom Revolution who contribute a portion of their profits back into Moodle. They also use proceeds from license agreements to continue their funding.
“Free websites” as you mention are not always free. When you sign up for an account on one of these sites you are agreeing to their terms and conditions and suddenly you are a captive audience. Advertising is one key way that sites do make money where they track your likes and dislikes and target market certain products to you. Other companies do sell the information you give them to third parties. In the case of free downloads you often find they include third party products who pay to be a part of the download. I find that companies are often quite creative in how they make money. With Facebook for a long time they didn’t generate much revenue but people invested in them for their potential. Coming up with a revenue model really depends on how you are positioning your product in the market and who your target market is.
Thanks Colin. I know I am naive about how much money companies, esp. Web 2.0, make money strickly from advertising. This is something that will be useful to gain from ETEC 522 – how something that is “free” still generates sufficient revenue for investors. As I start work on my assignments for this course, I can’t help but feel that this is an important consideration.
Peggy
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
Great action in the Pitch Pool, everyone. Thanks! The main point, as described, was to start some active thinking and role-playing about ventures, both pitching them and reviewing them. While there is well-defined content and context for a great pitch, there’s enormous room for an entrepreneur’s art, talent and personality to have impact. I’m an […]
Continue reading Here Comes Week 4 – The Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp Posted in: Announcements, Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
From thisamericanlife.org this week: 474: Back to School SEP 14, 2012 As kids and teachers head back to school, we wanted to turn away from questions about politics and unions and money and all the regular school stuff people argue about, and turn to something more optimistic — an emerging theory about what to teach […]
Continue reading Emerging views on what to teach in school and how to reward teachers Posted in: General
Thanks Frank for this. This American Life always does great work and I’ll be sure to queue this one up on the iPhone for my next drive.
I haven’t heard it yet, but it got me thinking about another This American Life about the Brooklyn Free School where there are no tests, courses, homework and the kids are the key decision makers. This one is pretty good too! 🙂
Act 3: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/424/kid-politics?act=3#play
Hi Jonathan, thanks for the link. Interesting concept – children and youth engagement and empowerment in the truest forms. I run a youth engagement program within a organization whose primary services are for adults. We have a lot of creative tensions. It is so hard for adults to let go of the reign of control. I wonder about the extent that learning technology is incorporated into this program?
~Sophia
It’s been a while since I’ve heard this one about the Brooklyn Free School, but from what I remember it was a lot of student led meetings. Students would call meetings whenever they were upset about something and deal with it as a group.
It worked initially, but towards the middle of the podcast you got a sense that students were being overwhelmed with meetings. Students began to get upset at one another. There was a sense that in some way this worked, but in others — leadership from the top (in the form of a teacher) was needed. There wasn’t quite enough maturity for it to work.
With regards to learning technology, I do remember computers being available. But that there were no electronic days in the school as well to allow for some peace and actual “talking” to occur. 🙂
I’m very skeptical of the approach proposed. I’ve read that for most tasks that require little to no active thinking, you can use rewards to improve performance but once active thinking comes into play, it’s quite difficult to achieve any level of improvement strictly through monetary rewards. Generally speaking, better results are obtained by granting employees certain freedom to innovate to allow them to get incredible ideas out of their heads and onto a sharing medium. By encouraging teachers to work harder to obtain certain results without providing them some ‘cool-down’ time, they are likely to find more of these ‘loss-aversion’ teachers in a burnout state rather quickly.
Thanks Jon, Sophia and Patrick.
Jon, I’ll have to check that one out, I’ll try to plan it for a road trip as well 😉
You are right Sophia, with creative freedom comes innovation, but also, greater room for conflict, perhaps over what should be done and how best to do it. We may have to learn how to help adults feel more comfortable about giving up control; maybe by helping them gain a greater sense of relatedness to their students and the people they work with, so that at core, there is mutual trust among participants that people’s intentions are good.
Patrick, as a trained economist, I am first to confess that economists have an extremely narrow and thereby, limited view for understanding human behaviour. Working harder for better results in the short-term can definitely lead to burnout in the long-term as you have identified. I’m hopeful however that the financial crises is challenging this discipline to take a long, hard, and deep look inwards, and realize the errors of their ways. Also, budding work in neuroscience and behavioural psychology/economics, is not only exceptionally interesting, but also directly challenging many of the conventional wisdoms of economic thinking: “People are rational” etc..
Here’s a sarcastic but somewhat insightful critical look within (5-minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4
My current interest is gaining a greater understanding of meta-cognitive skills and how technology might be used as a vehicle for delivering this kind of education. I also believe that better financial capability might be one concrete example of such skills, as consistently good financial decision making is, I would argue, more habitual and behavior than necessarily cognitive.
With your permission, I may continue to post content to this feed on this area as I come across it; though I am open to suggestions on how to better do this for the purposes of sharing and archiving.
Observation on Financial Literacy Shortage:
[–]Betsy514[S] 12 points 3 hours ago
You know – I’ve read about a million studies on this issue and while some indicate that increased tution is a result of increased federal aid – others conclude the opposite. I’m not an economist so I can’t give you any theories or proof either way – but I think the increase in tuition is probably more the result of a combination of factors. I think the increase in student debt is in part the result of the lack of financial literacy/education resources available to families – especially when they are making the college decision in the first place.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10m8yn/i_work_as_an_advocate_for_people_with_student/
Frank –
Just listened to the podcast and it was again another well put together piece by This American Life. It was neat to hear about the “different smarts”, got me thinking about multiple intelligences. Any different than what they are talking about being “social smarts”? Actually from what I recall, they were having trouble labelling all the different “smarts” without it sounding off.
I also enjoyed the last story piece about intervention pieces that can go in. It’s nice to know that all of these can be helped. What is key is that the individual has to want to do it. It’s really about persevering and motivating through something. It’s effortful as the girl in the last piece spoke about, but she enjoyed it! Thanks for this again!
When we are submitting assignments, such as this weeks pitch reviews, whether we add our stuff as a ‘new post’ or as a reply to someone who got there first? I guess we can’t add tags to a reply (gotta check that) but otherwise it looks the same to me. Will this make a difference […]
Continue reading new post vs reply Posted in: Questions & Answers
Hi Ben –
A new post is like a new conversation – if it is a substantial new direction then please launch it and go, otherwise reply to an existing conversation and enhance it with pertinent new ideas.
I do read everything, so it doesn’t the placement of post/reply has almost zero impact on your participation – they are equivalent. However, I’m assuming most people will have a few original posts and a number of replies during the course.
Cheers,
David
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
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
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kstackhouse 8:36 am on September 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Very interesting app. The ability to create the flashcards to modify the content to the user’s interests/needs is a great idea. I think even the process of creating the cards/slides would help the learner. They would have to go over their material and decide what is most relevant. Can a user share their study cards with another user? That would be a great feature.
Ken
tomwhyte1 10:42 am on September 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you for providing an overview regarding the rationale of this products creation, I like the fact that some are trying to answer a problem that exists, instead of trying to force a product into a market that may not require it, or even want it.
Secondly, I like the fact that this is a mobile device app. Which would allow students to access the information in a variety of locations, and also provides students with the opportunity to start using their personal devices and educational tools, not personal toys.
Lastly, I was wondering if this is web based, or app based. If app based, what technologies do they currently support?
melissaayers 10:40 am on September 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Its interesting that he created a product because it was something he needed himself. It seems when entrepreneurs design something that they want/need themselves it can result in some great products. I am sure this is something Steve Jobs had in mind when he developed many of Apple’s devices, that he tried to create something he wanted to use rather than try to imagine what the customer would want.
visramn 8:31 pm on September 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I had never heard of this resource. I think it is great. Unfortunately, testing is a big part of education and that results in students needing to memorize information. This is a great means of helping students to learn content and to remember it. You mentioned that the program even recognizes what the student is doing well with and what needs more work. Then goes on and adapts the flashcard being used to help them student to work on what they are weaker with. That is great!!! The age old means of using flashcards is difficult if you do not have another individual working with you and asking you questions. That means also does not help you to focus on concepts you are struggling with more. Brainscape can allow a student to work independently and also can help them to zero in on their areas of need.
It is also interesting to see so many educators involved with this tool.
Thank you so much for sharing this resource. I am truly interested in this tool.
Nureen