jessholder

With these very "realistic" venture pitches, nothing sounds silly Brian, so advise away! ;) I will consider the David Suzuki Foundation for my reflection response. There may be a space for Arutan there. :)

Thank you, Jon, for your kind and thoughtful review. To be honest, I was assuming that myself and "my talented coder/designer, Travis Andrews" would be able to piece together the more advanced app and corresponding website. I used this app tool to figure out how much I would need for the specific features that I highlighted: http://howmuchtomakeanapp.com/ . In regards to disruption in the market, Arutan may not be enough, and I may not have explained the details of all that Arutan can do in comparison to the competition - it really is more than "all of these features in one", but I needed to be concise in presentation. :) Maybe an AR tool would be neat to add to it, or a game ... but then I would have to ask for a greater investment as Travis Andrews and myself would need to hire another team member. ;) Thanks again, Jon, for taking time to share your thoughts.

This venture pitch addresses a niche market, and one that is unmet. All of the aspects of an effective venture pitch are included throughout the presentation, convincing the investor of the meaningfulness, need, and available market of the venture. One area that could be improved upon is on the marketability page. Here, a list is provided of how the requested investment will be used, however, to make it more convincing, offering percentage amounts or a circle graph to visually show the delegation of investment dollars would help justify the investment request. On another note, the market is focusing on Canada, but I'm guessing future endeavours may find SafeGUARDvr extended over to the UK, Australia, and beyond! Great job!

One of the biggest strengths of this venture is the passion behind it! This passion and commitment is exhibited throughout both the elevator and venture pitch! Well done! All of the venture pitch areas are highlighted within the pitch, but the $1,000,000 request is seemingly unreasonable as it is not explained how it will be used. More explanation about how this million dollar investment is intended to be used to design, promote, and support the app in the global market is needed in order to convince the potential investor to get on board. {In my own pitch, I used this tool here: http://howmuchtomakeanapp.com/ to help determine the cost for the design of an app. The I Love Reading app is more complex than mine and is also seeking a global market, so more expenses would ensue. This tool may help in deriving a break down to your investment request.} Well done, overall!

EduStream 360 is an intriguing resource for educators overall, but specifically for distance learning educators. To offer the opportunity to experience events, spaces and speakers in a 3D video environment is unprecedented. When moving through this venture pitch, the resource Learn360 (https://learn360.infobase.com/p_Login.aspx?loggedOut=1) came to mind. Learn360 is a collection of videos, but is for-profit and acquires revenue through subscription purchases. I am curious if your considered the subscription route for revenue?What is you rationale for choosing EduStream as a non-profit venture funded by grants, funding programs, etc? Overall, this venture is well presented (elevator pitch is excellent and made me “want to know more”) – not too much information, just enough to get the recipient curious. As well, I appreciated the research that went into the rationale behind this venture and the vision for the future. Well done!

Thanks, Brian, for your words of encouragement and support! I'm so glad that our OER was successful in inspiring you in possible future digital text design. Several of the digital textbook platforms i.e OpenStax and FlatWorld allow for customization of a digital text. This means that you as an educator can use the bulk of a pre-made digital text while adding in your favourite OER resources and individualized assignments, quizzes, and assessments. It also means that you can take away any irrelevant information. An excellent consideration for individualized learning.

Yes, Cassy, we are also looking forward to reading through our class's contributions to the MET tips and tricks ebook! We need to discuss as a group how to move forward with it, but are considering sharing it on the MET's social media sites. Just a shout out of appreciation for your perseverance and willingness to trouble shoot with us through the collaboration set-up process - You were a trooper!

Thanks, Jon, for your comments and compliments on our OER design and content. One tricky part about determining the best platform for design comes in the free versus paid versions of digital text creators. Our collaborative version of Atavist was a free version, but by paying for monthly or yearly subscriptions, adding members to collaborate on an ebook becomes much easier!

Ebru, I was surprised too by our research and the accessibility and diversity of digital textbook use in educational contexts. While our OER didn't focus on it, it would be interesting to research further the use of digital text in developing countries as it is often more cost effective than paper text. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and perspective!

VIL Team - Thanks for posting the collaborative infographics - a neat way to wrap up this learning week! What became very obvious was the clarity of information shared on the infograph versus the mesh of learning on the collaborative whiteboards. In regards to your overall OER, one of the strengths for me is the section on learning theories and varied intelligences and ways of learning. This is such a fascinating topic in itself, but you brilliantly interwove it into your OER. The idea of communicating more effectively with less words is something that I am keeping with me from this past week, and hope to consider further to improve my own instructional practices.