meril rasmussen

FEEDBACK: Chris, Nice presentation. On one hand, it seems like it should be possible to create a bank of customizable lesson plans, but I remain skeptical. Don’t you need to take a pedagogical stand and advocate for a consistent approach or even a consistent set of approaches? Otherwise, how can you say what to put forward. The advantage of the Teachers Paying Teachers model is that there is space for individual teachers to do this within that system. If you are putting forward a better plan for teaching, I want to hear more about what those educational values are.

FEEDBACK: Cathy, I totally appreciate the idea and its value. But I’m struggling with the fact that e-portfolios aren’t a new idea. Building a custom-made e-portfolio tool for BC schools has the promised advantages only if your product is trouble free and meets their needs, and is transferable only if all the other districts also buy in. It seems like creating a tool like this should be possible, but the biggest challenge would be to really get all teachers fully on board. I’d recommend a development strategy where you refine the tool and how it is used on a smaller basis before you try to scale it.

FEEDBACK: Julie, aside from other bits that others have mentioned, I think it is hard to sell a service that is built on a product that is still finding its legs. With that in mind, you might have better luck offering a service that , right here and now, helps teachers connect with the best of what is out there in terms of VR. But your challenge, for me, would be to convince me that there was anything that was accessible and useful, beyond just being a novelty. I can’t imagine that one can learn to ride a horse or play violin through VR. That isn’t your fault. But to succeed, you are going to need to find some common ground with your investor.

FEEDBACK: Emily, I am also from a rural town that faces similar issues, and I really appreciate the impulse, but I don’t think this is the way that change happens. It is likely not simply a case of not enough info. And even if it were, it is hard to get and send good and reliable info that people will trust. I can imagine that a smart billboard inside the grocery store displaying the nutritional value per dollar of food might be useful. At least the info would be at the right place at the right time. But I’ve actually never seen a formula like that. Can you make a dollar-driven nutritional plan? Are you familiar with soylent? (If not, google it.) Maybe vegetables are actually not cost effective? I think on a deeper level though, food is deeply social (soylent aside), and to change nutrition, you need to build community and foster cooperative education and the caring. I don’t mean to be discouraging. I am deeply in your corner here, but pushing in a somewhat different direction.

FEEDBACK: Kim, this reminds me a bit of the Google Translate feature (and competing apps) that allows you to point at foreign text and see the instant English translation, and I think this is your strongest market, with additional-language learners. I think young children learn to write differently than this, and that the process of learning to read and write is quite organic and complex and that a tool like this would not add value. I’d refocus and go the direction Laura is suggesting below.

FEEDBACK: Rose, This is totally a hot topic, but it is also a crowded field. There are companies offering 3D printed circuit boards (including a recent Kickstarter hit). I haven’t seen any that extrude wire from a pen, so if that is the product, you really need to aggressively and quickly create a niche for that: the 3D pen hand-drawn, solderless circuit-board creator. If you are the first to come up with that bit of tech, guard your formula, promote loudly, and wait to get bought out by a bigger player, or, if you want to stay in the game, negotiate so that they make you the CEO during the buyout.

FEEDBACK: Dan, Fun pitch and a nice can-do vibe. In your reflection, though, you mention the balance between salesman and data. I feel like there is another missing part. The product should kind of speak for itself. Here you have a pitch that isn't rooted enough in the product. I feel like it is a stretch, as you point out, to link this to teacher burnout - seems like it would be stressful to use it in the test phase. And I don’t think inserting technology, literally, between teacher and student is going to improve teaching. But I have a tagline for you: The Glass for Class! Thanks for a fun idea.

Thanks for all of your encouragement and feedback. Randy, the 2-week part is the conditions set by the internal incubator, which is more geared towards story ideas. I’m not suggesting NPR stops doing what they do, just that they launch a new manifestation for youth. I could just call it a website, but that misses the jist. A community radio station is more than a transmitter, it is a building and a community of participants, and so we need to conceive of a new NPR website as also involving a community of participants as well as physical spaces.
The STIN diagrams are meant for someone who knows NPR but has never seen it diagramed like this before. One one level, I hope they just illustrates that there are people and machines and buildings involved.
The goal here is not to make money off of youth, and it is not to compete with Facebook so much as to create a noncorporate, autonomous space for youth to think critically about our evolving media culture and to just be, not as consumers, but as people.
You all need to imagine you are an NPR exec and decide whether you would fund this. It is not pitched to a venture capitalist.
Thanks, though, to all who have taken the time to look at this.

REVIEW: Jason, I’m going to invest, I like the ideas, but I need more clarification. (I’m not 100% sure I understand where you are going, which is part of the problem, so forgive me if I am off base here.)
Let me start with the strengths I see. As a B2B, you are already in a strong position. And the pain point is there. And the target on small and medium-sized businesses. And your idea of a cost-saving, tech-smart solution. So I’m in.
As an investor, who is now in this with you, let me also give you the tough love. The elevator pitch is confusing - both the moving text and the very-low audio. I like the magazine format, but the idea has to be pitched on the first page. And you need to better describe what you are doing. Use a narrative, maybe. But definitely, you need to get the idea across more succinctly.
Are you offering an out-of-the-box solution and going for providing the tools but minimal support and therefore a wider client-base? Or are you helping to develop materials, consulting, and offering tailored solutions, which implies more hands on support and therefore fewer clients? My hunch is to push towards the first option.
There is a huge gulf between the massive automated online job search engines and the boutique headhunting operations. But I feel like there are maybe 3 different, potential mid-levels and we need to focus on one.
Your idea of getting applicants to do trainings before interviews reminds me of the MOOC model that accepts everyone, but only the disciplined stay till the end. There is potential in lots of this. (I want 35%.)

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!