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I’m starting a company in/near Seattle to leverage open education resources. I’m interested in aggregation more than content development. I’m more interested in components than courseware. I’m interested in interesting units of study with interesting motivational overlays (e.g., merit badges). I’m interested in social platforms like Edmodo.
We’ll hire some full time and some part time, some employees and some contractors. Drop me a note if you’re interested.
[email protected]
Tom Vander Ark
Tom Vander Ark is the CEO of Getting Smart. He has written or co-authored more than 50 books and papers including Getting Smart, Smart Cities, Smart Parents, Better Together, The Power of Place and Difference Making. He served as a public school superintendent and the first Executive Director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
EdJones
Since I'm building a presentation on this topic, a few excerpts on why this is so critical to moving forward:
The Challenge
>Software development is expensive,
>Revenue streams are scarce:
>>School budgets inflexible
>>Adverting model often dis’d by teachers.
>>And now an era of cuts.
Comments from an early adopter (Rocketship) who believes, and who's willing to shell out cash ($35-$120/student/year)
>Assessment: Promethean and Synaptic Mash
>>little online assessment;
>>questions are read out loud and kids type into online environment
>looking for philanthropic support for better assessments
Again, this stuff is expensive, and the revenue models are slim. At least until we widely prove value.
High development cost example: TimeMaps.com
>Dynamic maps – great!
>but…still needs
>>Voice/sound
>>Character development
>>Physical geography
>>Story-telling
>>More paths forward
High development cost example II: Diagnoser.com
>Facet based assessment - great!
>but…still needs
>>Voice/sound
>>Smarter assessment logic
>>Animation
High development cost example III: SchoolHistory.co.uk
>Animated graphics, sound, humor - great!
>but…still needs
>>Smart feedback
>>Smarter assessment logic
>>More ILP’s
>>It's still just multiple choice
Altogether, providing multiple modalities, rich content, effective pedagogy, via a variety of compelling interactive learning patterns, ...across multiple platforms (web, mobile web, Android, iPad, iPod,...) points to an explosion of costs.
Sharing the tools and API's, empowering interactive content developers, just makes sense as a way to accelerate individualized learning.
So does getting some great examples into the hands of teachers nationwide.