Hey there! Thank for comment. I believe some of what we do did not come across? We are not just a video subscription tool. We literally lead 'read out loud' in the classroom while the teacher/actor is acting out the main character in the book. We have a weekly designated Litnerd period in the schools/classes we serve and we live-stream in our teachers/actors for an interactive session (the students participate and read live with the actor as well as complete written lesson plans, phonetic exercises etc). We are currently serving 14,000 students in this manner.
This did not come across at all for me either, until I watched the Loom. Personally I would love to see a short example of each teaching style supported in an actual classroom (reading out loud, recording, and live stream). Questions I had include: are the live streams interactive in any way? what features does the ebook contain (animations, background sounds, other effects)? and what level of quality are the recordings (do they have closed captioning available, how are the actors, etc)?
we cannot share the interactive video calls (aka livestream) because it is illegal for us to share/showcase minors from our interactive classes sin the classroom.
But yes, the live stream - think of it as a video conference where the artist is in character and the students go through the lessons, answer questions based on the episode they watched earlier, read out loud, do the craft activity etc.
As for the ebook - no special effect (yet!) but working on that!
No close caption yet. We are 5 months old so definitely a lot of this will be what we look to add as our product offering grows. For now, we've been focussed on curriculum, episode content with actors, and scaling out our interactive teachers streamed into classrooms.
>we cannot share the interactive video calls (aka livestream) because it is illegal for us to share/showcase minors from our interactive classes sin the classroom.
Of course. But can you mock a session? Can you get volunteer children to participate?
>As for the ebook - no special effect (yet!) but working on that! No close caption yet.
Both of these are fine of course. But again a product demonstration showing the student experience would answer what is or isn't in the product :)
And yet, I just watched the Loom and am not bullish on a model where kids have and are asked to read on devices and then are streamed supporting video content.
There may be a delta between effective and commercially viable, but sitting with a group of kids and reading to and with them, as a teaching method, is fundamentally not broken. It works really, really well!
Kids who don't get that experience struggle, and while I appreciate that you are trying something that may offer some kids who need it some additional reading experience, I don't see it as anything like Khan Academy for reading, which we all agree would be super.
Oh no! there is an interactive video call (the live stream is not one way!) where the actor is live and students read with the actor, ask questions, go through the concepts in the episode and the book, and also do the lessons or craft together. Homeroom Teacher is also always present in the classroom while this happens. We can't share that of course because our students are minors and this is protected information (their faces and anything else that is identifiable data which in some cases even includes writings).
Oh it's live! That changes everything. I feel like your messaging copywriting on the website needs work. Most people don't read watch everything. What was your super short yc application summary?
I should also add, the format of our program is such that if you don't complete the assigned reading and worksheets, you will feel like you are missing out on what is happening in proceeding episodes. In this way, reading is layered in as a fundamental core to the program.
