Hey everyone.
For our forecasting project, I wanted to try my hand at a kind of “marketing pitch” project for an app I think would fit well into the ecosystem of educational tools, particularly for students at the middle to high school age.
I’ve noticed lately that amidst all the hype and deluge of new and shiny educational apps and software, very few have been developed with the express intent of helping students “see the forest for the trees,” so to speak. Many new AI-assisted apps can be used for learning particular subject-matter content, or to help you perform editing tasks, ideation, and so on, but we haven’t seen many educational tools that help students generate meaning from the knowledge and experiences they are interacting with.
So, I present to you in “scrolly telling” format, my LifeOS marketing pitch, which I created in a web software called Shorthand. It’s primarily visual and is viewable on both large-screen and small-screen formats, though in the spirit of more “mobile” technologies, I’ll only be sharing the QR code to access it through your mobile for now. Let me know if that’s a barrier for you and I can post the URL as well.
Please let me know what you think; whether we really need another app in our students’ lives right now, reservations you may have about privacy, and the “uploading” of meaning-making to an AI agent, or anything else that comes to mind.
Cheers,
Jake
I think your choice of medium is a good and the platform you chose seems to do a good job of supporting what you are trying to accomplish. It reminds of the software ‘Pebble’ which is akin to an educational scrapbook/learning journal but without the AI and mobile tools. It would be much better with such tools. You mention circles of people but there’s no mention of social media. I find this interesting. I think the world might be a better place without social media but I also wonder if a social aspect might help a tool like this. Especially if students are doing group projects or joining study groups. It’s an interesting project with a unique presentation. Nice!
Hey Mike,
Part of me thinks linking social media could be beneficial, but as safety goes, I’m dubious about how personal information from the proposed app could leak into the servers of the “magnificent seven,” making the user less sovereign over their data.
I haven’t heard of Pebble yet, I’ll have to give it a look.
Thanks for your feedback.
Hi Jake,
I loved looking through your project and found the format genuinely engaging. The concept encourages meaningful reflection that connects to students’ lives and helps them build a deeper sense of who they are and how they relate to others. The structure you created is clear, visually inviting, and easy to follow, making the experience feel accessible to a wide range of learners. I can see this working well in many classroom settings, supporting students as they form connections, feel part of a community, and share moments that matter to them. It also has real potential to strengthen classroom culture by giving students a space to express themselves in thoughtful and personal ways.
One area to keep in mind is privacy, especially if students will be sharing photos, personal experiences, or identifying information. Building in options for anonymity or guidelines for safe sharing can help ensure that everyone feels comfortable participating and that their information remains protected.
Overall, a great concept!
Hey mmeshi,
Couldn’t agree more, and I considered, as I authored this pitch, that safety would be of utmost concern. I am not a SecOps developer or anything of the sort so I don’t know how to enact the proper security protocols in practice, but I would certainly consider the level of security required and have my developers implement them properly.
The way I thought about it was, there could be a “back-end” section that is only visible to the individual user, and a public-facing front-end that would function somewhat like a social media feed. Perhaps having parental access would be required for any student to make their “front-end” publicly visible?
Definitely things to consider there but I could see the benefits outweighing the extra work necessary.
Hi Jakedepo, thank you for sharing this! It sounds like a really interesting idea. Although the app has many benefits, the amount of data it could potentially collect from students makes me think that strong onboarding is important. In particular, students should receive some digital literacy training (for example, around privacy, and how to opt in or opt out of sharing certain information, or how to interpret the data) before they start using the app.
Hey Rie,
Couldn’t agree more. See my response to mmeshi for more of my thoughts. Perhaps this app could be piloted purely as a self-contained/private timeline instead of a shareable one, but I didn’t want to preclude any possiblities.
Thanks for the feedback 🙂