Reflection
This assignment has allowed me to consider how a new educational venture could positively impact today's schools. The elementary school that I work at has discussed the idea of using platforms for teachers to implement virtual classrooms as a way to better interact with parents and students. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet. But, working on an activity like this gets me excited knowing that there are efforts currently underway to do just that.
While YourSchool is an imagined venture, I think an app like this would have very real potential. I believe that it addresses a major pain point in education, namely, by providing a better way for schools to interact with both parents and students. It is, in my opinion, a more effective way for stakeholders to communicate and stay up-to-date. This allows the entire school staff, including teacher-librarians and team coaches, to easily communicate and provide information to parents. A school app would certainly improve various school processes, including the manner in which school forms and payments are completed. Educators should be enthusiastic about the opportunities that are about to enter their workplace over the next few years.
I think that there are a number of strengths to my venture. I see YourSchool as an excellent way for schools to improve the school/home connection between staff (including teachers, secretaries and administrators) and home (including parents and students). The digital forms and payment ability of our app is the clear advantage between YourSchool and our main competitor. I feel that I have identified how privacy and security concerns will be protected for customers. Protecting the personal information of our clients (such as names, addresses, personal financial information) is imperative and I recognize that this would be the major concern regarding the digital features of our app. Thus, why it would be necessary to keeping all customer information on secure databases within Canada. Lastly, I envision where schools would see a decrease in certain costs to their operation (namely printing costs of the vast amount of paperwork and newsletters that are sent home on a consistent basis) as well as improved efficiencies and productivity of staff. Staff would spend less time on redundant activities and more time doing more relevant activities.
There are, however, some weaknesses to my app. SchoolInfoApp already has a broad reach and customer base for their app. It would be more difficult to compete as they are already operating in a number of countries. Further, our app requires working with school districts to implement and adopt our program. While we have positive word-of-mouth and strong adoption rate, this approach requires more time and energy to attain customers. I believe this would decrease over time as we continue to expand our name recognition. Yet, it also likely means continuing to work with larger school districts in urban areas as they provide more schools who could become new users.
Some of the challenges to such a venture include establishing safe and secure privacy capabilities as a breach in personal information could lead to serious repercussions for this venture. In addition, as with all businesses, hiring the right staff (including software developers, marketers and educational support teams) are imperative.
Overall, I enjoyed participating in this activity and am intrigued about the possibility of eventually becoming an educational venture capitalist. However, at this time, I am still enjoying working with my students in the classroom.
While YourSchool is an imagined venture, I think an app like this would have very real potential. I believe that it addresses a major pain point in education, namely, by providing a better way for schools to interact with both parents and students. It is, in my opinion, a more effective way for stakeholders to communicate and stay up-to-date. This allows the entire school staff, including teacher-librarians and team coaches, to easily communicate and provide information to parents. A school app would certainly improve various school processes, including the manner in which school forms and payments are completed. Educators should be enthusiastic about the opportunities that are about to enter their workplace over the next few years.
I think that there are a number of strengths to my venture. I see YourSchool as an excellent way for schools to improve the school/home connection between staff (including teachers, secretaries and administrators) and home (including parents and students). The digital forms and payment ability of our app is the clear advantage between YourSchool and our main competitor. I feel that I have identified how privacy and security concerns will be protected for customers. Protecting the personal information of our clients (such as names, addresses, personal financial information) is imperative and I recognize that this would be the major concern regarding the digital features of our app. Thus, why it would be necessary to keeping all customer information on secure databases within Canada. Lastly, I envision where schools would see a decrease in certain costs to their operation (namely printing costs of the vast amount of paperwork and newsletters that are sent home on a consistent basis) as well as improved efficiencies and productivity of staff. Staff would spend less time on redundant activities and more time doing more relevant activities.
There are, however, some weaknesses to my app. SchoolInfoApp already has a broad reach and customer base for their app. It would be more difficult to compete as they are already operating in a number of countries. Further, our app requires working with school districts to implement and adopt our program. While we have positive word-of-mouth and strong adoption rate, this approach requires more time and energy to attain customers. I believe this would decrease over time as we continue to expand our name recognition. Yet, it also likely means continuing to work with larger school districts in urban areas as they provide more schools who could become new users.
Some of the challenges to such a venture include establishing safe and secure privacy capabilities as a breach in personal information could lead to serious repercussions for this venture. In addition, as with all businesses, hiring the right staff (including software developers, marketers and educational support teams) are imperative.
Overall, I enjoyed participating in this activity and am intrigued about the possibility of eventually becoming an educational venture capitalist. However, at this time, I am still enjoying working with my students in the classroom.