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Feedback: Great idea for your elevator pitch! I am not a principal, so I don't know the struggle it is for them (or HR staff of school districts) to sift through resumes, but I bet it would be very time consuming. One suggestion I have is that perhaps your product could also extend to market places outside of education? I realize you probably narrowed the marketplace since this is an education course, but my wife who works in HR in another industry is always complaining to me about how resumes hardly ever give clear indications of who the candidates are. Either way, I think the idea is great, and the pitch was clear. I personally didn't mind that the elevator pitch didn't include audio, as it allowed me to go through it at my own pace.

Feedback: Well done Erin, your venture pitch gives a solid indication of where your product aims to meet the needs of consumers. In terms of the presentation itself, I wonder if perhaps you could have trimmed down some of the content in order to make the delivery less rapid? I felt that it was a lot of information to take in all at once, but I suppose the beauty of video is we can watch it over again. I liked how you used visuals in addition to your narration, because that did help in the retention of information.

Review: Awesome job Kendra! Your pitch definitely draws investors in, and serves the purpose of educating them on the benefits of SOOCs as compared to the tried and tested model of MOOCs. I thought your delivery in terms of presentation was intuitive and clearly laid out, and your articulation of your product offerings were concise. As a person who signed up for a MOOC but never completed it, I definitely see the appeal of having a small supportive community of online learners, who could also keep one another accountable. Your website was very comprehensive, and it was clear that you have a well developed business plan, which has been refined over time. If I had to critique one thing, it would be that I didn't get a clear understanding from the elevator pitch how SOOCs could vastly improve PD as it currently stands. You do an excellent job in explaining the pain points, that PD as it is, is not transformative, and that MOOCs have high drop out rates because people don't buy-in to the product, however I felt that perhaps more of the pitch could have been spent on how SOOCs can change that. From your pitch I inferred how your product was going to address the aforementioned issues, however I felt like it could also be more direct. That's just my two cents. Other than that, everything was exceedingly well presented. Great job!

Thanks for posting this Chris! I have been a user of Edmodo for about 3 years now and I have to say that it has definitely made organizing my classes and communicating with my students much easier. The platform itself is intuitive, and the students seem to gravitate to it, because it is a familiar platform. My only qualm with Edmodo is the lack of assessment functions it offers. Courtney just posted a synopsis of 'Schoology' which is a platform (similar to Edmodo) I may spend some time investigating.

Thanks for sharing this review Courtney! I had never heard of Schoology prior to reading your summary, but from the looks of it, it seems a lot like Edmodo. Have you personally used this website before, and if so, could you comment on how it functions? I'm familiar with the Edmodo format, but I am a bit disappointed with the lack of functions it has regarding assessments, so Schoology looks like it could be a better option. What impresses me about this company, is that the founders don't have degrees in education, yet the platform seems to have taken a good number of teacher recommendations.

Hi Anne, Thanks for this analysis of Edmodo. Having been a user of Edmodo over the past 3 years, I have definitely grown to love the platform. I have found that students have gravitated to Edmodo as form of social learning and that students who struggle organizationally in class have benefited greatly from the class calendar function, and having the ability to hand in assignments online. What I like about the story of Nic Borg is that he seems to be a fairly ordinary individual (in terms of background and education), yet his ideas and diligence to his trade have allowed him to succeed to the point of being recognized by Forbes. Obviously this an overly simplistic analysis, but it goes to show that when preparation meets opportunity, good things happen.

Although the pitch highlights a variety of strengths of the product, I am still wary of the danger that competition in the market place would pose to this start-up company. In analyzing this pitch, I have conducted a brief SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). The strengths of this product are numerous: the product is dynamic, accessible, and encourages an ethos of play, which resonates well with educators today. According to the CEO, the target demographic is not people in the realm of education, but rather the general public, but still LittleBits has sold product to over 500 schools. This brings me to my analysis of the weaknesses of the pitch. The weaknesses highlighted in the pitch are that it is open source, and thus subject to competition who can manufacture the product at a lower cost. Couple that with the fact that LittleBits is a startup company with small scale manufacturing and more potential issues with quality control than the competition due to the electrical components, and this venture becomes increasingly questionable as a wise investment. Although I believe the opportunities for this product are great, I believe the threats and weaknesses outweigh the strengths. The most telling statistic which stood out to me was that LittleBits only maintained 15%-20% repeat customers (which could be optimistic), which for a company that stresses repeat customers, just does not do it for me. As an educational venture analyst, given the information I am presented through this pitch, I am OUT.

The NMC Horizon Report (2014 K-12 edition) succinctly summarizes the observable trends effecting education in the elementary and secondary school setting. The report seeks to identify key trends in technology adoption, challenges facing the adoption of said technologies, as well as previews some of the important developments that may affect K-12 education in the upcoming years. This information is important for stakeholders in K-12 education because it provides an opportunity to assess where they (be it entrepreneurs, or school administrators) stand, relative to market trends. The NMC Horizon Report provides brief summations of the implications of various developing technologies, but fails to provide detailed examples to back up these overarching trends. For example, Cloud Computing is one trend that the report identifies as eminently effecting K-12 education, yet does not mention how services such as Google Docs is already shaping collaboration both inside and outside of the classroom, or where services such as Google Docs are trending. Although this is a minor qualm, my hope (from a teachers point of view) is that when the final report is issued, it is more detailed and prescriptive than the preview.