Founder Leader: Guido Kovalskys Co-Founder of Nearpod
Venture name: Nearpod
Venture description:
Nearpod is an application desinged for teachers inside of a BYOD classroom. It allows all devices (Apple, Android, etc..) to connect to a teacher controlled content application. This teacher controlled application allows teachers to control what the students are being exposed to on their BYOD devices without allowing them to use other applications. When a student is doing other things on there phone it informs the teacher. It also has the ability for teachers to embedd youtube videos, interactive questions and share student results to all the devices.
Teachers Perpective: http://vimeo.com/95197111
How it works: http://vimeo.com/39006989
Founder Background:
According to his LinkedIn profile, Guido Kovalskys co-founded Nearpod with others in 2011. He is originally from South America and completed his MBA at Berkley. After graduating he worked as a consultant for 7 years before getting his feet wet with entrepreneurship. Guido has started 5 ventures in the last 15 years that have included a broad spectrum of areas.
My Personal Opinion:
After using this product, I am sure that this venture is going to be a hit amongst all the teachers who are pro BYOD. This venture’s application allows teachers to control their classroom in a way that is currently not offered by any other service. I honestly do not think, at the moment, there is anyone competing in this space. I would certainly invest in this product.
Nearpod is nice and handy multiplatform app for expanding the usability of synchronized mobile devices in the classroom, by supporting classroom collaboration, presentation, and real-time assessment, on all three major mobile platforms (iOS, Android and Windows). It is quite useful and enables teacher/facilitator full lead and the flow control of the class learning. What makes the whole project less attractive is that with the free Silver plan, it is limited to almost Demo mode, so the $10 monthly upgrade to Gold plan is a necessity for any serious use. Also, additional $3 in-app purchase of authored content and collections significantly expand the usability and teaching affordances of the app, though it makes licensing and full usage of the app more expensive.
In conclusion, even though it is more useful in K1-12 learning environments, I would pitch for the purchase of the school edition app.
Regards,
Milorad