Ryan Day

You have probably the most polished pitch I've reviewed so far. It's very professional and looks like a real business. Just out of curiosity, is that the plan? You can tell that there was a lot of work and thought that went into this. You did a good job establishing presence and I think the idea to break your venture pitch into shorter videos embedded in a website was more impactful than having a single long video. It established your presence but still allowed me to move quickly through the pitch to what I was interested in. I think the idea is really good. I was thinking how I wish there was something like this for me to learn a new language. I would definitely be a customer if this was in a foreign language. Great work.

Analytics is a really interesting topic and I could see how you have a business idea with a lot of potential. I've made this comment on other pitches I've reviewed. I think your pitch would be stronger if you were on the video (besides the photo at the beginning). My reasoning is that as an investor there is a certain amount of trust required to hand over my money and I think it's important to actually see the person. This might be personal preference though so I'm curious what others will say. I

Hi Hanna. I really like the idea in your pitch. Overall my impression is that you've created a really convincing and polished assignment. I think your elevator pitch would benefit from editing. It's almost 3x the length of what it should be and it loses a lot of the impact and excitement that a quick high energy elevator pitch is supposed to generate. I was really mad at myself after reviewing your assignment because I regret not using more visuals. I know this will sound superficial but graphs/charts/diagrams just make things look more professional. They visuals are high-impact and communicate quickly. They make your ideas stand out in a crowd full of long videos and text heavy presentations. I think a little extra elaboration however would be helpful explaining some of your slides. I wonder if you had chopped down your elevator pitch video to one minute if that content would have fit better embedded throughout the venture pitch?

I think you have an incredible idea. You've really convinced me of the value of it. You have great presence and I am convinced you know what you're talking about and I can trust you with my investment. There are a few technical issues that I think ultimately harm or distract from your pitch. The lighting and sound quality were a bit distracting. I think some overall editing would help tighten up the pitch. Your elevator pitch is twice the length of what it should be. You also went over time on your full venture pitch. I think it's really important to be concise. You have excellent ideas but I think they would be even more impactful if edited. A trick for doing this might be using visuals to summarize key points.

Great pitch, you managed to communicate clearly what product/service within time limit. I think it's a very good idea. The video and website look very professional and polished which I think is probably the most important factor in getting someone to pay attention and trust you with their investment. The venture pitch was laid out logically and had a good flow to it. I think it was a smart idea to partner with local post-secondary and sell it as a tool for them to prepare their students. One thing that I think you could have emphasized was the potential for students to create support networks that would help carry them through their studies once they are in their programs. That to me seems almost like a main feature/selling point.

Hi Christopher. You have created a really polished looking pitch. This was probably one of the few times I've seen someone use PowToon to create something that look sharp and well done. You've clearly spent a lot of time creating it. I think your pitch would be improved if you included more of yourself. What I mean is that maybe including video of yourself between the animations or at least your voice you would better connect with the investors. I think that human connection would help with trust. I really like the idea you have for your business. My experience as a teacher is that students are really good at finding resources and sharing them with their peers. I have a few follow up question that I think investors might ask: What safeguards do you have for safety? Many parents will be uncomfortable with their kids on social media, how can you keep them safe? Sites like reddit have volunteer moderators. Who will be the moderators? For example once you've finished biology class will people still hang around to moderate? Great work and presence.

I really enjoyed this modules and the polish that went into the presentation. I wanted to provide some constructive feedback for your OER that I think could benefit the remaining modules. As someone that works exclusively with adult learners I feel like a bit of an outlier in the MET program despite it being advertised as a program for instructional designers in education. The majority of people in the class are K-12 teachers but some of us are not. I found the module made the assumption that all of us are school teachers. Consequently some of the activities I did not have much value to add to. To be fair this criticism is fair across quite a few of the courses I am currently taking so I think this is a greater problem of the program. My other constructive critique is the scheduling of the module. We’ve had a bit of a debate within my project group about this issue as well. Adult learners (which all of us are) are self-directed learners and the reality is that most of us work full time while taking an online program. I do my school work on the weekends and so when I logged on today I had already missed the first two activities that were scheduled during the weekdays. Of course schedules and deadlines matter, but an important aspect when designing online for adults is flexibility in delivery. This might mean avoiding synchronous activities when a comparable asynchronous alternative is available. It also means recognizing that there are some days of the week where adult learners will be offline. I wanted to emphasize that you had many strengths to your module. You helped link the content to the professional context of the learners and recognized prior experience. I found an excellent guide if people wanted to have something to quickly refer to when designing for adult learners: http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Adult_learning_theory_(andragogy)

I've noticed a pattern across most of the founders that have been selected for this activity. Many of them do not have backgrounds in education. You pin-pointed a really important reason why that might be. Many of these entrepreneurs are approaching these problems from the learners perspective and not from the teachers. I went back and looked at the profile I did for my assignment of John Baker. He didn't have a background in education and he also approached his problem from the perspective of a student. I've noticed this as an Instructional Designer that other designers can get stuck in a bubble. They add bells and whistles to the courses they design because they are exciting to them as an educator. What they often fail to realize is that from the perspective of the student elaborate course designs can be frustrating, distracting, and not with their effort. I could see how this could give non-educators an edge when starting education ventures. Someone with a non-education background might have a much stronger user experience focus that could lead to a stronger product.

This is a really interesting company! It's also one of the few companies that have been founded by people with backgrounds in education. To me this seems like a less disruptive technology in the sense that it works within existing structures and helps learners get access. I wonder if that's why the education background was helpful in starting this company. Your note was also interesting because it's quite apparent even in our assignment this week. Most of us chose companies founded by men.

Springboard was new to me so it was interesting to read more about it on their website. It's particularly relevant to me since I work in Continuing Education for adults. One of the real benefits I see in this program is the mentorship component. There are quite a few of these types of online services like Udemy and Coursera. It's tempting to think this is the future but they really haven't caught on with the general public. For example I think the average learner/consumer would look at what's offered locally at post-secondary institutions. I wonder what will be the tipping point for this type of thing to get traction. I think public institutions have the benefit of real social roots in the community but I also think at times that can make them complacent. In my own experience as a student I feel frustrated that some content seems to be filler content and I really can't customize my learning. For example there have been times within the MET program where I wish I could explore something in further depth and drop things that I know I will never use (despite being required). I couldn't help but notice that another major educational tech company was started by someone without a background in education. This seems to be a trend.