University of British ColumbiaCourse: ETEC522

 Venture Pitch

Instructor: David Vogt 

Submitted by: Claudia Jack

Edubreak

Edubreak (R)

• Breaking the barriers between technology and education.

Introduction

•  We are living in a global village. Our learners often described as digital natives need to have access to educational experiences which effectively combines or integrates the virtual with the traditional for an effective blended approach.

• As educators how can we meet the constant challenge of providing educational opportunities to effectively prepare citizens to fit in the global market place?

Today’s learners are demanding:

• Access to a virtual learning community

• Opportunities for collaboration,• Efficiency and flexibility• Technology integration• Excitement and interest • They are said to hate school but love

learning.

Edubreak• Is the key to providing educational solutions

that meets the need of a dynamic market place.

• Our objective is to create learning solutions that cater to the diverse needs of educators and learners.

• If you have a problem we can fix it.• Are your students bored, uninterested,

underperforming?• Do you want to improve their interest and

performance? We have the answer.

Edubreak’s Vision

• We have a vision of a future where

children gladly take what’s taught

home with them and continue their

education at home.

• We want to be a cornerstone in

building this future by pioneering

new ways to make learning fun and

interactive.

Edubreak’s Vision

• We want to tap into things they already

know and love like social networking and

gaming and gear them towards education.

• We want to achieve all this in a

environment that is safe and learner

friendly. That is why we promote recess.

Edubreak’s Focus

• To change the way we offer education by employing affordable technology as a central tool to facilitate teaching and learning while providing for the active engagement of learners.

• To make the technological tool available to all students

Edubreak’s

• Edubreak is the brain child of claudia jack, she saw the need for a new approach to teaching and learning after having experienced her children’s fascination with programs facilitated in virtual environments as well as the frustrations of colleagues in effectively meeting their students’ learning needs.

• Along with a team of highly motivated educators, a curriculum planner and designer and a prospective client/user the idea was developed.

What is recess?

• recess is the first private, secure, feature-rich, affordable, academic social network aimed at engaging young learners from K to post-secondary.

The idea

• Edubreak’s idea is to market a learning Management system (recess) which can effectively meet students’ diverse needs in the Jamaican context. Currently the integration of technology is a relatively new phenomena and use of learning management systems has only been practised in two institutions.

• The Ministry of Education has identified some problems facing the Jamaican education system overall, which I am convinced recess can fix. These include:

• Students leaving different levels of the education system without the requisite skills and competencies to function at the next level.

• Less than 50% of students gaining passes in the terminal national and regional exams at all levels.

• 30% of primary school leavers are illiterate

• only about 20% of secondary school graduates are qualified to gain meaningful employment or matriculate to colleges and universities.( The 2004 Education Task force report)

• Poor quality teaching • Poor attendance. • 30% of Jamaican students read below

their grade levels • There is low learning, interest and

participation. (Carlson and Quello, 2002)

Proposed Solution

• We believe a learning management system such as recess is the best way to integrate technology in teaching to solve these existing problems. Edubreak proposes to market recess to institutions at all levels of the education system. It is the best solution because it factors all major stakeholders.

What is recess?

• It is a Learning Management System (LMS) which was conceptualized by a 10-year-old and produced by enable to revolutionize the educational environment. The fact that it was conceptualized by a child implies that it will have the features young people find appealing. It is built on social learning and constructivist principles.

Why recess?

Recess will change the way educational institutions

work by:

• breaking down silos and streamlining

communication

• giving teachers and students a new purpose and

means to achieve learning outcomes

• creating innovative ways to solve what seem to be

intractable problems

Why recess?

• sharing best practices and learning through cross-functional interaction

• helping twenty first century learners to access quality education and provide an avenue for teachers to meet learners’ needs

• creating a learning environment which encourages collaboration of students and teachers within and across classes

Why recess?

• providing opportunities for teachers to use creative ways of presenting information and allow for knowledge building

Market

• Educational institutions governed by the ministry of education as well as private educational institutions who desire to offer courses on line or in a blended environment which is safe, affordable and flexible.

Market

• Parents desirous of involvement in their children’s education.

• Teachers who are looking for a break from traditional approaches to:

• teaching• learning • Assessment

Market

• For those who want to:• excite• educate • engage and motivate their learners • encourage parental involvement and

support and facilitate collaboration

Buyers

• Edubreak will sell directly to institutions.

• We provide training and ongoing support for our clients.

• We will also offer the program to persons engaged in home schooling.

Features

>Classroom website >Blogs, >Portfolios > Mail box>Homework >Rewards system>Quizzes >E-mentors>Media players > Filters>Forum > News>Tag >rss>Instant messaging > Photos and

e-mail

• Plus some original innovations such as individual pages for users, access and involvement by parents and teachers, and flexibility which allows the use of multiple modalities to facilitate teaching and learning.

Value of recess for Teachers

It gives educators the ability to create customizable online classrooms.

• technology-literate educators can use the social network technology to relate to today's "wired" students who live and play in the world of the Web.

• they can create and control the content from the education side such as news, timetables, itineraries, online tutorials, homework and assignments while giving students the opportunity to make their unique contributions

Value

• Teachers can use the activity modules such as forums, databases and blogs to build richly collaborative communities of learning around their subject matter or as a way to deliver content to students.

• teachers have the unique opportunity to engage their students who are already fascinated with the internet.

• recess has the ability to attract pre-teens and teens to spend more of their networking web time on their education or school work

Value

• Teachers can prepare assessments; engage in discussions using the discussion forum feature, and upload course materials on line. They can provide ongoing feedback for students and keep students who are absent for different reasons up to date with the curriculum. recess allows teachers to assess social interaction as an essential part of the learning process

value

• Recess complies with the view of (Bates & Poole, 2003; Guri-Rosenblit, 2005). That technology substantially reduces the time of course production and make updating of materials easier.

• It is compatible with all types of computers

The Value of recess for Students

• Students are ultra-communicators using technology. In recess students get a safe, school-based Internet experience that encourages creativity, reading, writing and pursuit of knowledge in a familiar, fun, social networking and academic online environment.

• recess is full of social networking tools that students want integrated into their learning environment. (recess.com)

Value to students:

• With recess students create and update their own profiles similarly to what they would do on public social networks but fully protected from potential abusers by the recess -provided firewall.

• They can contribute to news or write blogs, helping them become better writers.

• They can send messages to classmates or share interests including films, art and music.

• It is suitable for all levels of learners since they can choose which feature they desire and it allows for learning to take place anytime, anyplace and supports learning at any desired pace.

• It can be applied on its own or it can support and enrich current traditional face to face learning. Because of its social networking affordances students will love it.

• Research finding is that technology can be used to enhance instruction and expand the limits of the existing curriculum (Jonassen, Peck, & Wilson, 1998, Dunn &Johnson-Brown, 2007).

• As an information tool, technologies such as recess can be used to obtain, organize, manipulate and communicate knowledge and information and address the range of differing learning styles and the different modalities of individual learning strengths. It also provides contexts that are information rich, and learner-centered. The learning activities are designed to help participants acquire technological social and academic skills thus catering to the cognitive, affective and psychomotor development of the learner.

The Value of recess for Parents

• With 24/7 access into their child’s class and progress parents can view teacher, classroom and student content.

• recess gives them the assurance that their children are exposed to a safe, socially responsible Internet environment with a strong educational focus which is beneficial

• The media is flexible; materials can be easily uploaded to the site and modified as needed. Many functional uses can be easily facilitated as it is user friendly.

cost. Recess is priced to fit almost any school budget.

It is quite affordable given the high quality of the product and the high level of security afforded its users.

Secondary institutions will pay a start up one- time fee lifetime service fee of only $1500 Canadian Dollars while tertiary institutions will pay $3000 Canadian dollars. A meagre $2 per year per student/user 0r $49 per class will guarantee access to a product of high quality which is far superior to competing markets such as moodle. Considering the additional features and benefits of recess and the challenges associated with free soft wares, the benefits are incalculable. It is definitely worth the investment.

partnersWe currently work with subsidiaries in, Canada • USA• Bolivia • South Africa • South Korea• Poland• Jamaica -newest partner• Recess is offered in multiple languages and

can be used wherever there is internet access.

Testimonials

• Participants are using recess to meet the divergent needs of their learners. Testimonials include reference to:

• High quality programs• Flexibility• Access to individualized pages,• Possibility for parental involvement• Minimal cost for consistently high

quality.

Testimonial• It is user friendly• It meets the divergent needs of learners• Learners take responsibility for their

learning• Parental involvement is facilitated. • It has a unique blend of academic and social

tools which placed it a cut above the rest. • recess gives us a chance to excite our

students. Other users respond to its capacity to connect users, and enhance creativity and access.

weaknesses

• The initial cost may be a challenge for some institutions while for others access to an internet source may be a challenge. Some teachers may not embrace the idea, while some administrators may be unwilling to allocate or relocate the necessary resources needed. Those who make the sacrifice however will reap rich rewards.

A worthwhile investment

• Edubreak is destined for success. We are promoting a product that is highly competitive and in high demand. Profit is guaranteed given the interest in and demand for the product along with the positive feedback from current users.

• I strongly believe that in spite of the existing and potential challenges investors will find the value added greater than they would have gained by investing in other markets.

Conclusion

• Essentially, recess will increase access, quality and equity which are some of the major goals for education in the 21century. It will help all stakeholders to meet their educational needs as well as entice, enable, educate and motivate learners and serve as a most suitable alternative to traditional ways of teaching, learning and assessment

References

 Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Carlson, B., &Quello, J. (2002). Jamaica-Social Assessment. Ministry of Education, Retrieved from http://www.moeyc.gov.jm/projects/rose/socialassessment.htm

Guri-Rosenblit, Sarah (2005), ‘Distance education’ and ‘e-learning’: Not the same thing, Higher Education (2005) 49:467-493

Dunn, Hopeton (2008) Learning Smart: Enhancing Education Through Technology, BCNS Printers limited.

Morrison, Dick, and (2007) E-Learning in Higher Education: The Need for a New Pedagogy, In: M. Palloff, R. & Pratt, (2007) Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco, Ca: Jossey-Bass.

http://www.meetatrecess.com/pagedisplay.aspx?i=251&pmExp=1334 retrieved 21.7.2010.

http://www.e-ljam.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/seimc-presentation-phase3.pdf retrieved July 21, 2010