The Navigation and Sailing Report #8

Port Name: ETEC 522

Port Section: 66A

Port Website: http://met.ubc.ca/etec-522 

Port Time Frame: (May-Aug 2014)

Port Specialty: Ventures in Learning Technology (elective course)

Port Director: Dr. David Vogt and Dr. David Porter

Port Administrator: David Roy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Description

Take ETEC 522 if you want to understand what it takes to launch a successful learning technologies venture. The course provides an online immersion in the global learning technologies marketplace with particular emphasis on emerging markets for learning technologies in public and commercial domains. ETEC 522 is delivered in a case-study modality from a venture and market analysis perspective. One of your primary learning resources, and creative outlet, will be a “pitch pool” of authentic 12-minute venture presentations by leaders of current, real-world learning enterprises spanning a range of application domains and market opportunities. Examples representing “entrepreneurial” and “intrapreneurial” ventures will provide a balance between corporate and institutional enterprise. As the foundation for practical learning, you will undertake the critical analysis of ventures and venture creation individually and in groups.

 

Objectives

The objective of this course is provide you with a working knowledge of the institutional and business design principles and market processes which impact the success of learning technology ventures. We intend to help you acquire the understanding and skills to undertake critical evaluations of ventures, including market, finance, technology and partnership perspectives, and to be able to apply this learning to the design and successful launch of new enterprises in the public and private domain. In ETEC 522 you will: acquire a working knowledge of the institutional and business design principles and market processes impacting the success of learning technology ventures; learn to conduct critical evaluations of ventures, including market, finance, technology and partnership perspectives; and learn strategies for launching new ventures. Your success in this course will require sound research, independent thought, creative synthesis, teamwork and focus. Not surprisingly, these are also core requirements for success in any enterprise.

 

Course Components

The course is delivered as a series of case studies surveying the environmental dynamics, evolving business models and success characteristics of enterprises in public and commercial domains. The primary learning materials will be a “Pitch Pool” of authentic 12-minute venture finance presentations by leaders of current, real-world eLearning enterprises spanning the diversity of approaches to eLearning business opportunities. Examples representing entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial ventures will provide a balance between corporate and institutional enterprise. All readings and learning resources for the course will be provided via the course website. You do not need to purchase additional textbook materials.

 

Course Structure

The course is divided into three (3) phases involving 12 separate modules. The three ETEC 522 phases are as follows:

• PHASE 1 - START-UP: An orientation focused on a business "boot camp" providing the fundamentals of successful ventures and the structure of the global learning technologies marketplace.

• PHASE 2 - RESEARCH: Team-based critical analysis of emerging learning technologies markets, including topics ranging from mobile technologies to serious games.

• PHASE 3 - VENTURE FORUM: A collective presentation, analysis and review of original learning technology venture concepts.

 

Artifact #1: Founder Parade - Steve Jobs - Founder and iCEO of Apple (Founder Analysis)

 

Here I analyzed the founder and iCEO Steve Jobs, who was the co-founder, chairman, and iCEO of Apple Inc. and visionary leader in the computer and consumer electronics field, who quite successfully articulated interesting, dynamic, and compelling vision that established, saved from bankruptcy and propelled to the sky Apple Inc. and NeXT, his own computer company. I am proud that I got an opportunity to express my perspective and to analyze Steve and his legacy, with emphasis on impact on education. Steve is only 4 years and 1 day older than I am, and I highly appreciate Steve and his great contributions, so I decided to analyze his legacy, and it was inspiring and exciting to follow his extraordinary journey since the early 80s, when the big development and deployment of Apple technologies gradually changed and improved education.

Thanks Steve for your ingenious vision and all those nice products!

 

Artifact #2: A#1: Education Venture Analyst report on SHOWBIE (Digital Classroom App)

 

My Reflection on the SHOWBIE EVA report process
 

I chose Showbie as Edmonton based venture, and an advanced app ecosystem that provided the essentially needed workflow improvements and made a difference in 1:1 tablet classrooms, applicable for various learning and tablet training environments, dedicated to beneficial transitioning to the 21st century paperless classrooms. 
During this EVA research and analysis of Showbie and additional exploration and testing it myself in the NorQuest College ESL learning environment, I witnessed its powerful features for the tablet workflow improvements, needed in every tablet learning environment, so now I understand why Showbie became so popular web/tablet app for mobile based learning in K-2 and postsecondary learning environments, and in year and half Showbie was domesticated in 3500 1:1 tablet classrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through this assignment I got opportunity to widely expand my theoretical perspectives, apply the course matter, grasp and additionally improve and perform proper and objective educational and business analysis and research, evaluation, comparisons, SWOT analysis, market analysis, investment feasibility, and else, essential for delivering good EVA report on any educational venture.

I am glad that through this assignment EVA role I updated myself by looking at the educational ventures from different (holistic) perspectives, such as: management, educational, business, market, as well as investor perspective, ultimately empowering me for delivering proper and decent analysis of future educational ventures.

 

So, after the prolonged practice I decided to deliver the comprehensive EVA report with compelling rationale for Showbie venture that clearly and objectively conveys its resonant value within the mobile learning technologies (web/app) marketplace, showing my professional stance as an EVA, empowered with many years of E&IT support experience. I am glad that I was able to well employ the course matter, grasp the theory parctice to finally deliver well researched, balanced, comprehensive and objective EVA report that has it all.

 

Artifact #3: A#2: Open Educational Resource - Code Education website  (EMT Collaborative project)

 

Thanks to its increased availability, resulted ubiquity and emerging affordances, the Internet is a growing source of Open Educational Resources (OERs) not only focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), but also covering other domains of knowledge. Most OERs are not only shared openly and free for all to use, but often provide licenses that permit modification and reuse.

The Code Education website is a collaborative project of me and 5 clasmates, as the emerging market team (EMT) examined to code education (programming code) at the post-secondary and professional level to make some predictions for OER market horizons.

Our interactive OER presents the emerging market of code education, exploring both open and closed trends to fully illustrate the market landscape. You don’t need to understand how to code in order to understand code education’s changing nature. I am proud that our EMT project was A+ graded and submitted to NMC Horizon for publishing.

 

Artifact #4: MiloGLASS™ Elevator and Venture Pitch (my startup venture pitch)

 

I decided to seize the opportunity, join the wearable revolution, and start up the winning venture. Considering that this is a new startup, and that I, as a founder, am highly motivated to trace the path to the MiloGLASS™ venture and product line success, I am 100% sure that I can successfully launch and lead this venture to the huge market success for many years to come. During this MiloGLASS startup phase I worked on building the team by developing connections and relations with various experts that value the human-centric approach to design —“the person is the focus of innovation, not the device.”
 

A#3 MiloGLASS™ Venture Pitch

The Problem:

• The wearable revolution has started! Let's join it while we can!

• The key tech battle of the current decade will be about things we wear.

• A range of wearables from startups and established brands daily inspire and intrigue people.

• The smartest, most disturbing, intriguing and appealing wearable so far is Augmented Reality glasses

• Millions of people heard for its features and affordances, and would like to experience it, but... they're not affordable!

The Solution:

• The solution is MiloGlass, the affordable HQ AR glasses, DESIGNED to LAST, LOOK GOOD and WORK WELL!

• How is MiloGlass different? Is it better or worse than competitors? Let analyze it step by step!

• 1. I used the human-centric approach to design — “the person is the focus of innovation, not the device.”

• 2. Researched available products to determine the best way to go with own Design & Development

• 3. Aimed for the greatest and latest features available to date, to make it the CUTTING EDGE product. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to my thorough research and serious preparation, the feedback on my own venture, ersulting from the peers and instructors review analysis and evaluation was awesome, so I am very proud on design, development, set up and pitching of my MiloGLASS™  startup.

 

Captain's Log:

 

Thanks to warm summer winds, peaceful waters and beautiful bonanza of the MET Sea and the quite appealing docks of the ETEC 522 port, my active course involvement included studying in my captain's cabin and daily and nightly based doing course readings and additional research on the current week course matter, assignment research and preparation and timely responding on other class and group member’s discussions, replies, suggestions, responses and topic discourses. As a result of my hard work, there is a decent number of my authored discussions, feedback and reviews, as well as the responses triggered by the other class members and related to every topic postings in the course, offering further discourses, help, feedback and reviews on the course matter. They all can be easily searched, previewed, aggregated and checked on the ETEC 522 course blog.

 

During my EVA learning journey, I looked, analyzed and learned from many other EVA reports, on the Internet, including all of my class colleagues EVA reports, and according to the A1 rubric criteria, was able to differ the good and successful ones from the ones that IMHO have not been well delivered, even if the decent multimedia delivery was employed. Some of those problematic reports did not chose proper delivery medium, delivered either too little or too much text and narration, confusing and not well researched information and assumptions, with distracting graphic effects and background music, often leaving me in an analyst and investor role with lots of unanswered questions about the educational/market viability, appeal and quality of the venture itself, as well as its investment feasibility.

 

My MiloGLASS™ startup venture was an excellent example of well done research and practical application of course learning on launching wearable technology startup, including the idea, product design development, venture set up, the elevator and the main pitch.

 

This course was really excellent and full of dynamic and transformation, and I highly recommended it for every MET student. It challenged and stimulated me to learn and grow a lot by doing constant research, analysis and practice for the sake of updating of my views, practical skills and perspectives.

I am glad that I was a part of this course delivered in a blog format, and an extraordinary cohort of determined and highly skillful learners, well taught by excellent, highly experienced and very supportive instructors for the best navigation and sailing ventures.

 

Artifact References:

 

Adkins, S. (January 2013). The Worldwide Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2011-2016 Forecast and Analysis.

 

Ambient Insight. Retrieved from  http://www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/AmbientInsight-2011-2016-Worldwide-Self-paced-eLearning-Market-Premium-Overview.pdf

 

Ambient Insight. (April 2013). 2013 Learning Technology Research Taxonomy. Retrieved from http://www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/AmbientInsight_Learning_Technology_Taxonomy.pdf

 

Educause. (2013). The Connected Learning Environment. Retrieved from: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB9013.pdf

 

KnowledgeWorks Forecast 3.0. (2012).Recombinant Education:  Regenerating the Learning Ecosystem. Retrieved from  http://knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/files/u1/Forecast3_0.pdf

 

OECD. (2013). Trends Shaping Education 2013. DOI: 10.1787/trends_edu-2013-en