Jennifer L

Thank you for your kind and detailed feedback, Marc. (Establishing my self in the beginning, rather at the end of my venture was something I learned to do after the A1 assignment!)

Your suggestions are very helpful in making my overall pitch stronger. Your idea about figuring out the area of the farm (or plot of land) before 'buying' was actually something I was trying to incorporate into my pitch, but I can see how my examples were not clear! I haven't come across endogenous and exogenous games before; you're right in that it's a point in my favour when trying to differentiate from Prodigy. Financials are definitely not my strong suit in this venture, but I was intending for the stake to be in this alternate Stardew Valley team I've created. Thank you for your feedback!

Charmaine, as an educator I would definitely purchase your product. I teach grade 6/7 and every year, I’ve had at least two (if not more) students who are English Language Learners. As an 11-13-year-old student, it’s embarrassing (to them) to be reading a “magenta” levelled book while their classmate is reading a novel. It’s also extremely boring, especially when they can read big, difficult texts in their own native language. Most of our levelled books and the books on Raz Kids aren’t just ‘right’, as your elevator pitch addressed! So, on that point alone, I think your venture addresses an important pain point that potential investors should capitalize on. For your financials, perhaps more information on how the money will be spent, how much your product will cost, and how you will market the product, will give potential investors more confidence in Just Right Reading. Your About Us page states that you don’t currently have a software developer for your product, but your “ask” is for $200,000 to develop the program. As a potential investor, I would be hesitant to give my money to a venture that doesn’t have someone that can execute the product they say they are making; I would want my money be put to use by an experienced software developer who can make Just Right Reading as described.

Chava, your personal connection added a strong point in favour of your venture pitch as it shows your passion for this market. As someone who has taught Sunday school before, your product would’ve been very welcomed as it is theologically sound and does not sacrifice that for game play, as you clearly emphasized in your pitch. Your financials are presented in a clear and concise manner in your Appendix, and I appreciated the breakdown of how they money will be spent. Your research into the GBL market for bible studies in the U.S. further supports your venture. If you were to establish yourself at the beginning of your venture, that will give potential investors the confidence to keep listening to your idea. Overall, you had an engaging presence throughout your entire pitch.

Just as I posted this, I was able to load your elevator pitch! Your pitch is informative, and I like the minimal clean graphics used. There was not too much text and I was able to focus on your text. Well done presenting your pain points from the get go, it drew my attention right away. Well done!

Abraham, I found your entire pitch to be compelling and very professional. Your rationale is clear and sets up the perfect background for your product. Your venture pitch addressed the pain points (not enough people to fill the skill trades jobs opening up; lack of education in early education to expose students to these trades) and you’ve created a product to answer it. As a venture analyst, I see the value in creating a product that utilizes VR and can be used in the K-12 level; what really sells it to me, as an educator, is that your product can immerse students in a variety of trades skills in a safe way. Your proposed timeline shows a clear map of the future direction of your product. I wonder how your product will be received by current teachers teaching trade skills. My colleague teaches shop in high school, and everything she does is very hands on; how would she, hypothetically, use Trades-Explorer in her class? I would love to see your elevator pitch, when you get a chance to fix the link!

Hi, Immersive Experience Team! Your OER was so well done! The angle you took for your project (soft skills) was a great way to look at this emerging market. The website looks polished. The information was carefully and clearly laid out, and the activities were smoothly woven after each reading. I didn't know much about VR prior to this, so thank you for laying some foundations to my understanding! Does anyone on your team know of any businesses in your city that are actually using VR technology for training? VR still seems so 'new' to me, but since there are so many ventures already out there, it must be already being put into use for training soft skills!

Hello Personalized Learning Team, I thoroughly enjoyed the way you have created your OER to mimic the personalized learning experience! At first I thought we had to go through all the sections, but I was happy to see that I could choose to read all text or skip the audio if I wanted to (I don't normally go for audio options!). The information was cohesive and comprehensive. I appreciated the multiple aspects you presented, such as what is currently lacking, counter arguments, in addition to the benefits and strengths of personalized learning. I found your infographic really helpful for me personally; it offered methods I can see myself adopting within my own teaching practice to begin personalizing learning within my own class. In my comment on the padlet, I mentioned using myBlueprint's e-portfolio to help document learning in my class. I am hoping through that medium, I can encourage ongoing assessment and feedback on my end, and more reflection and communication for my students. Thanks for the wonderfully put together OER, I learned a lot!

Hello Mobile Learning Team. Thank you for your thoughtfully put together OER. It's such a big topic, I can only imagine the difficulty in narrowing down to a small scope for this project. My relationship with using social media (as an educator) has changed over the years since I have started teaching. I used to be very "for" using social media, such as Instagram or Twitter, because I felt like those were the best mediums to reach my students. I would definitely still separate personal from work social media platforms, but in general I was open to having them. However, I have become increasingly more paranoid about having these platforms. What it boils down to is: I don't want them having so much access to *me*. My 11-12 year old students aren't old enough to own an Instagram (though more than half already do); it definitely sends the wrong message if I were to have a "class instagram" for them to follow. I don't feel comfortable navigating in these spaces with them, even if I'm using a professional account. I guess they could "find" my professional accounts, but I don't want them following me! A former colleague uses her class instagram for parents to follow, but that also makes me uncomfortable because I don't want to have access to PARENTS' personal accounts. I'm now at the point where I would like as big of a gap as possible between my social media use and theirs. That being said, I do think it is important to be up to date with what students use. It's a difficult task because apps come and go, but it's easier to get my message of "internet safety" across if I know what I'm dealing with, rather than sounding like An Adult Here To Warn You Off The Internet (which would not be well-received by students!). While it is not a teacher's JOB to get to know all the social media platforms, teachers who choose to, will have a way to reach students than those who are in the dark. Perhaps your brand of mobile learning is more suitable for students in secondary and post-secondary education! I liked the Snapchat example you shared. For teachers who are okay with work accounts, it also provides a way to connect with students that they may not be able to in a traditional classroom.

Hi GBL team! Thanks for creating such an informative website; really loved how the website was set up for us to "progress" through the OER "game". You've provided a lot of information with regards to game-based learning for us to consider. I particularly enjoyed the literature research, especially Gee's principles (I'll be bookmarking that page for future reference). I read in another study that collaborative games actually result in greater increase in performance, compared to games that use leaderboards and points and competition. That study also reported that games that use AI technology to adapt the difficulty of the questions in the game based on current student performance results in even greater academic achievement than collaborative and competitive games. I used to think that educational games that can most resemble a video game would be the most successful ones, but that study found otherwise. Were you able to find any games that give students the opportunity to work together towards a common goal? Are games like that less common in the edu-market than competitive ones (and if so, why might that be)? Jagušt, T., Botički, I., & So, H. (2018). Examining competitive, collaborative and adaptive gamification in young learners' math learning. Computers & Education, 125, 444-457.