The article starts off with the premise that good edutainment software is needed to augment the abilities of intellectually challenged teachers. It then wanders off into promoting the cellphone as a delivery mechanism for third world countries. As a whole, I don't think the article says anything. Inexpensive laptops are a far better delivery mechanism, and if we look at our own educational problems, nearly everyone has a computer available.
However, the premise that there is an opportunity to provide supplemental educational materials is valid. If you have looked at your kids textbooks, they are mostly complete junk, almost comic books in content. What I see as needed are textbook supplements/replacements. For example, instead of a one page description of the Roman Forum with a couple of pictures, how about a 15 to 30 minute interactive video game that would allow the kid to explore the forum and its time, environs, and culture. Accompany it with a Wikipedia-like text that would allow deeper exploration of the topics.
I see entrepreneurial opportunities, but also a place for a collaborative effort like Wikipedia. If the initial efforts have to be monetized, a subscription plan for parents would be a good place to start.
I'm starting a educational software company right now, and while I think she's on track with her criticisms of educational effectiveness (let's face it, I went to public schools and learned veritably nothing), it seems like a supremely silly way to go about proving the market need. Who is going to buy these educational products again? Parents? And who do parents listen to? In our experience, parents listen to the teachers. So it doesn't look like a valid marketing strategy to start and educational company by saying "teachers are stupid and can't teach." Our goal in marketing ourselves is to give teachers some degree of control, but avoid the stultifying effects of "fun classroom technology" by mainly targeting self-motivated learners. Who knows if we'll make it to profitability, but having just attended a conference with over 500 teachers, pitching on the basis of teacher stupidity wouldn't have made any sales.
I don't think you should overlook parents. Professional parents are always looking for things to help their children. My son was very intelligent but had ADD, so it was very difficult to keep him engaged with standard materials. Administrators often tried to put him in the slower classes instead of challenging him. I would certainly have subscribed to a service that engaged him.
" Professional parents are always looking for things to help their children. My son was very intelligent but had ADD, so it was very difficult to keep him engaged with standard materials."
"The problem comes when parents use direct methods: when they are able to use their own wealth or power as a substitute for their children's qualities.
Parents will tend to do this when they can. Parents will die for their kids, so it's not surprising to find they'll also push their scruples to the limits for them. Especially if other parents are doing it." - PG, After Credentials
This is why the Princeton Review, Kaplan, etc. make fortunes. Test prep is probably the easiest to make, most profitable type of education software.
Now that software has developed technologically a lot since that era, there are presumably new opportunities that would be similarly lucrative for a start-up.
Grockit has been championing this idea of massively multiplayer online learning. I think it's pretty interesting: the idea is that you're encouraged to help teach your peers. But I think the implementation is totally off: right now it's just about studying for the GMAT. What a waste.
By contrast, the communities of Wikipedia, Flickr, TopCoder, FOSS, DeviantArt and a fair number of forums, all encourage participation in a genuine sense, and the communities produce quite a lot of encouragement just by themselves. People get very, very good there.
It might be a good place to start and then build out. Teaching smarter kids is more forgiving, in that the smarter they are, the more they can recover from your mistakes.
It is also helpful to have a concrete, measurable goal. Aiming for the score on a standardized test keeps it simple. They don't have to worry about the more 'fuzzy' aspects of learning, such as conceptual models of the material.
>"The challenge in this case would be to deliver educational software on very low-end cellphones that cost $10 to $25.
Challenge of course presents opportunities. The challenge is to understand the nature of addictive games, and the opportunity is to create educational games using that knowledge. "
There are no addictive games for low end cell phones.
However, the premise that there is an opportunity to provide supplemental educational materials is valid. If you have looked at your kids textbooks, they are mostly complete junk, almost comic books in content. What I see as needed are textbook supplements/replacements. For example, instead of a one page description of the Roman Forum with a couple of pictures, how about a 15 to 30 minute interactive video game that would allow the kid to explore the forum and its time, environs, and culture. Accompany it with a Wikipedia-like text that would allow deeper exploration of the topics.
I see entrepreneurial opportunities, but also a place for a collaborative effort like Wikipedia. If the initial efforts have to be monetized, a subscription plan for parents would be a good place to start.