daniel

FEEDBACK: At this time, my investment team recommends additional research is needed before we made a decision on an investment in StickyNotes. Teachers and the public in general are very brand specific. For better or worse, Microsoft Word seems to be the product of choice for most teachers followed by possibly Office 365 and Google Docs. We feel that very similar features already exist in these very familiar platform for teachers. All three of the above products have the ability to add notes, comments. Microsoft Word gives you the ability to colour code them although at this time they can't be dragged around like StickyNotes. In order to proceed with StickyNotes, our team needs to see more evidence on how this will overcome these two challenges: brand-specific loyalty and duplication.

FEEDBACK: At this time, my investment team will recommend to hold off on MotivatED. Our primary concern is the $3 fee per student per year for this product. While we understand that a fee level is required to ensure the ongoing support and development of such a system, we fear that the general expectation for such an application is to access a free one or one where there is a single fee per student that does not have to be renewed every year. Also, in this market, there is an expectation of accessing a level of this app for free with an option to buy a full version. We feel the profit projection is based on an absolute best-case scenario. At this time, we feel that more research and development into this venture is require.

FEEDBACK: At this time, my team of investors will recommend holding off while more research is perfomed on STEMverse. Patrick has outlines the features and functions in STEMverse in a clear, concise and consistent format in both the pitch and venture videos. Although we agree with the statistics that there appears to be a need for a greater focus in science, technology, engineering and math, we are not convinced that a VR solution will meet the needs. We feel that more research needs to be performed or provided to affirm the link between VR technology and student achievement.

FEEDBACK: The venture resource is very comprehensive! However after review, I'm going to recommend that further research is required before investing in TALO. My primary concern is that the post secondary online learning market is already saturated. The venture proposes a 2016 launch. From what I understand, post secondary schools have been expanding rapidly to capture the adult learning market. The rapid rate of expansion is also due to the fact that public funding is not going to be available for duplicate programs. For instance, UBC has an online masters program --- MET. The provincial government is not likely to want to fund SFU or UVIC's online masters program. That makes sense. So I fear that a 2016 launch is a bit late.

FEEDBACK: I think this is a great idea but as you mentioned in your venture pitch, it is a crowded market. My feedback is that in order to be competitive, I think you need to raise the stakes a lot higher, generate enough interest to attract a sizable investment. There are too many free applications out there for a $.99 app to compete with. I feel a new venture such as this one would require enough capital to generate real and useful results. And once you have those results and testimonials, that would in turn help to sell the app at a higher price to recover costs. Thoughts on this?

FEEDBACK: I can certainly relate to the topic as a big user of Google Apps. I like the simplicity and concise nature of the elevator pitch and website. I also appreciate the graphic nature of the website rather than facing a "wall of text". I understand what you are trying to pitch but I feel that Google has already done that, group collaboration within a classroom environment. I'm not sure if you are aware of their new product "Google Classroom" which does pretty much what you are proposing. Google Classroom is part of their Google Apps for Education suite of tools.

REVIEW: If I understand correctly. what Randy is proposing is a a nation-wide student information system (SIS) and content management system (CMS). This is beyond Blackboard, beyond Moodle, and beyond Google Classroom. On one hand, this is a risky move. There are so many questions and so many ways this can fail. Questions such as, how do you meet the needs of a first nations school in Nunavut and in the lower mainland Vancouver? How would you make Escipi equitable to low income families or remote community schools who may not have affordable access to technology? Despite these concerns, risks must be taken to move forward in technology. You can expand that to consider that without failure, we wouldn't have success. That is, playing is safe doesn't get us anywhere. Randy's connection to Piaget and especially Vygotsky's social theory is well explained in his pitch paper. He continues to explain the affordances that Escipi see through social interaction in all subject areas across the country. What caught my attention the most that the first 20 seconds of his pitch that shows the similarities of a modern classroom to one that existed 80+ years ago. That was quite a shocking image and a great way to gain investor interest. My only suggestion for Randy is to solicit support from various levels of government rather than to focus solely on locating a private "champion" (as Randy describes it). I feel that at least the provincial government has expressed interest in consolidating SIS and CMS systems in their efforts to bring us BCeSIS and MyEdBC here in British Columbia. After reviewing the pitch and the documentation, I'm going to recommend that my investment team proceed with Escipi. [284 words]

REVIEW I am going to go ahead and recommend that my investment team proceed with key2key. The word processor market is crowded and competitive. Microsoft Office has long been the staple for Office software pushing out Lotus123 and Word Perfect years ago. As an IT administrator, one thing I noticed with Microsoft Office is that with each new version of Microsoft Office I install on teacher computers, teachers are mostly accessing the same documents, presentations and spreadsheets they have been using for 20 years. Enter Zoho Office, Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365. We now have a revolution in the office software offering fully cloud capabilities WITH the ability to publish documents to the web for public viewing. However, what I believe Michael is proposing is a word processor with the built-in tools to write drafts AND publish the documents. I believe the "third dimension" that Michael is speaking of not only publishing documents to be viewable to a specific person or in public, but publishing it in a way that is similar to perhaps uploading a video to youtube. As michael mentioned in the "second dimension", it can be applied to corporate clients as well as education and a freelance writer. I am particularly interested in the idea that one could publish a document like uploading a Youtube video. Why? because Google Docs, Office 365 can handle collaboration with the publisher's instructors / teachers. The thought of being able to publish a document like a video on Youtube and have people read it, comment on it, rate it, give me feedback is certainly very intriguing. If I can comment outside the confines of this A3 assigmnent ... Michael, this is a very neat idea. Its hard to believe that something like this doesn't exist for written text. I think you stumbled on something that is very viable. [305 words]

REVIEW I'm going to go ahead and recommend proceeding with edsecute. If I can start with the superficial observations ... the name is catchy. The name itself makes me curious to find out more. On a slighly deeper level, the videos are very consistent in quality and content. They add to the professional appear of edsecute. From what I can understand, eduscute is a IT consultation company. As explained in the video "who we are" their focus is schools and they are not only technology experts, but they are also educators. That is a unique angle for an IT consultation company. Most of It consultants have a wide array of clients that may include business such as a lawyer's office, a real estate office, perhaps a head office and in that mix there may be one school. Such consultants will have the expertise to fix problems but may not have the expertise to advise on a 3-5 year long term growth within an educational landscape. I recommend proceeding with edscute. My only suggestion for this venture pitch is there needs to be a bit more clarity as to what services they plan to offer. Perhaps a concrete example or a scenario would help the investor to understand the scope of their professional services. In a future iteration, I suggest reduce the three videos in the "Learn More About Us" tab by 18-20 seconds each and made a fourth video about 60 seconds long explaining a situated example of your services in action. [251 words]

Thanks everyone. Well if it isn't totally obvious, I made this system for myself. I got fed up with the deficiencies of BCeSIS and the bugs in MyEdBC / Aspen. I noticed that a LOT of teachers keep two copies of their marks, a spreadsheet (or paper/pen markbook) and then migrate those marks over to their SIS when its time. Everyone likes like power and near unlimited possibilities of a spreadsheet. My idea was, well why not make my own SIS that IS a spreadsheet? Actually it started off as a coding experiment, I just wanted to learn how to use Google Apps Script. But it turned into something a lot bigger. Thats not all either, I also made an online test system based on Google Forms and a spreadsheet, it marks it for you too and emails the student their result. :)