A#3: Allons-Y!

FEEDBACK: Great idea Laura. As a bilingual country, we are not very fluent. I am not sure that an LMS will be a quick fix, but I think it will be a great start for supporting and promoting Francophone language and culture across Canada. You have my imaginary charitable donation!

Je l'ai lit et je trouve que allons-y est pareil à Escipi pour l'échange d'idées entre français et anglais et ça se termine ma poésie merci!

Hi Laura, To echo my colleagues’ previous comments, your product definitely addresses a serious problem in the Canadian education system. I understand that Allons-Y is not-for-profit; however, as an investor,I would still like to see more details on the business, such as the time needed for return on investment, costs to school districts, the number of French immersion schools in Canada etc. Overall, well organized and presented pitch. Good luck!

Thank you again for your feedback! I think that you point out a great point @osayma with the issue of quality control. This is something that I looked at extensively. The LMS would support submissions to create information and resources for teachers and students a like. Any of the shared banks would be monitored and screened for quality assurance. This is outlined in the section that shows that you must email to receive either contracted or temporary positions as a contributor for the LMS. As the program grows, I would hope that the submission and the contracted positions would evolve to assist in a seamless process. In addition, with the acquisition of Jardin de Vicky, submissions and quality assurance would mirror their current practices that are already establish (the same as what I mention above). In its infancy, the system would follow this and then grow as the company does. Thanks again!

Review: Allons-Y! is a good solution for a current problem in Canada. The pitch: The venture pitch covered main ideas and features of the product, and the idea of the LMS is great. The idea of open source and collaboration environment is creative and meets the current world strategies. But the point that I didn't find it covered is the content quality control. If the content was based on the contribution of teachers/ people around the world, this may leads to a low quality product and unauthorized content (the same concerns of the Wikipedia reliability). The marketing strategy is good and I think that many sectors (private and governmental) will be interested. The crowdfunding idea is ideal for such projects . Your team is good and suitable for such venture, as you have diverse education background. The Championship section was remarkable, and I wanted to see more details for the ask sections. I think, even it is a not for profit project, you had to add a return section, so the investors will have a clear vision of the importance of their funding. Anyway, good luck and keep working on it.

FEEDBACK: First of all, I whole-heartedly agree that the French language needs better support in schools. It is important to me as a Canadian that everyone should have at least a basic grasp of both official languages. From your elevator pitch, I wasn't quite sure what the site was about and had to do further investigating on your pdf. I do commend you for trying to create a fix for this national problem of teaching both languages to all Canadian students.

FEEDBACK: What a great idea Laura. No doubt there are limited collective resources and as mentioned there is funding for the teaching of French in the Canadian public system. I thought you presented yourself well in the pitch and followed it up with a detailed venture plan. I wish you luck on Kickstarter.

Thanks @tslearn, @Laurie and @merilrasmussen! You've definitely given me lots to think about with regards to this venture. I designed it as what I wished was already out there, but never have I thought of putting something like this together and trying to formulate a plan to achieve it. I agree @tslearn that this is quite a large goal to have it in schools across the country by 2017, but I do believe with the number of grants available through the Canadian Federal government along with Kickstarter (if it were a success) and district membership that this would be attainable both financially and physically putting it in place. My desire to put together something like this really ties back to the "Canadian-based server" dilemma we are faced with in Canadian schools. I understand its purpose, however it seems Canada is not catching up as quickly as we would hope. I also work for a project management company who is faced with the same problems (showing that it is beyond education and it is a Canadian server based problem). You bring up some great points @Laurie with several that have been on my mind. I am so lucky to work in a district where it is only a 10 minute drive to the next French Immersion school, but at my own school I am one of two French Immersion teachers. @merilrasmussen - thanks for the in-depth feedback. I am currently going to go read that article that you mention. You gave me a lot of confidence in your review making me think more plausibly at the prospect of moving this venture to the next step. Thanks again for all of your feedback.

REVIEW: Laura, this is an excellent idea. I wasn’t sure ‘til the very end that you weren’t already moving with this. I hear what Troy is saying about the possibility of doing this on Moodle, but I somehow think a bespoked system would be a better fit. The fact that you have this niche market is actually a great strength. You want to make the perfect support tool for that community and be able to control and tweak the platform.
If you act now and do it well you could own this niche. And it is big enough to support a business. I think this could really take off on Kickstarter, but you have to better target the parents and you have to sell the idea... essentially the idea of Canada, and all the hope and promise of a bilingual, multicultural country. And the idea of connecting the French immersion programs from across the country (just videos of French immersion kids across the country smiling and looking diverse and Canadian). Get the parents on board with Kickstarter and then the government support will be much easier. They are desperate to associate themselves with a success story.
I recently came across an interesting teacher-development project that you should look at called the Inquiry Learning Forum. The power of looking at a project like this not just as a website but as a Socio-Technological Interactive Network is actually amazing. See Barab (2004) “Using Activity Theory to Conceptualize Online Community and Using Online Community to Conceptualize Activity Theory”
As a national strategy, I agree that New Brunswick is a key province, our only truly bilingual one. You can’t do everything, but do NB and BC and figure out how to build that bridge and the rest will fall in place.
Awesome!

Review: As a parent of four children who have studied in the French Immersion system, I see the value in this venture and would invest. I like that the tool supports collaboration between teachers and provides learning tools for teachers to use in their classroom. French Immersion teachers don’t often have colleagues in the same school (or district) that are teaching a similar grade. This makes it challenging for teachers to share resources. Allons-y is a practical tool to address this need. I would also invest in this resource because you have shown that there is a strong team behind the venture. As well, this is a non-profit venture so it would be something districts could support more easily than a commercial product. There is a need for a product such as Allons-y and I wish you luck with your venture if it is something you plan to develop.