Hello,
My name is Jon and I teach high school English in North Carolina. About a year ago I started working on a website called Teacher Cooperative, an attempt to bring teachers together to collaborate and plan lessons online. Well, the site is still up, but it's basically a ghost town. I still think there's potential for it to become powerful, but I'm looking for help. I want to start working with somebody that loves a challenge. Basically, the site is up for grabs. I will allow anyone to jump on this and turn it into anything they want it become. In other words, it's yours to create if you want to. Maybe it could become a site for Drupal groups? Summer camps? Schools? Religious institutions? I am up for anything! I am at a point where I want to do something crazy with it, and I am looking for another wild Drupaler to bring some ideas! Any suggestions, ideas, or feedback are welcome. Check it out now, let me know what you think:
Jon
Comments
IMHO, you have a marketing
IMHO, you have a marketing problem not a development problem. I have 11 years as an adjunct faculty member at two research universities. While that's experience at a different academic level than your target, I believe I'm not off the mark when I write that any work that saves time on lesson planning has to have huge value. Instead of giving up your site, perhaps consider doing the work needed to cause teachers to visit and use the site? Caveat: I have not drilled into your site to discover what's involved in collab lesson planning. If the solution isn't intuitive, easy, and saving on time, then, well, you can't pretend a pigs an angus beef and sell it for premium price -- or any price, for that matter. Product first...then market the hell out of it to the right target group. Just my 2 cents
Thanks
Thank you for your two cents. I agree with you. I will spend some time re-thinking the purpose of the site and see what happens from there. Thanks again!
What's the added value?
This comment is from looking at one or two of the top rated lessons on your site.
My initial reaction (as a teacher and drupaler and investment/startup guy in Edu) was: what's the added value here?
1.) Content is King // Nothing special about lessons themselves: There are quite a few lesson plan websites out there on the web for sharing lessons. Have you compared? I think your lessons wouldn't really help you create a class and definitely are nowhere near as good as what you can find elsewhere.
2.) No points or gamification: for teachers, what is the incentive to use this site? Can a teacher cite this on a CV or application saying they are XYZ best teacher, most used lesson, etc. Teachers are more human than saints, in my opinion. They want points/scores/promotion/etc. It seems you site doesn't do this at all. Where is the listing of top teachers.
3.) Teaching Community: How do these lessons meet teaching challenges? How do these lessons help you make your life better, easier, more efficient? Teachers want to save time and effort, how does you site do this?
I don't believe this site has a specific Drupal problem, more like a business / motivation problem. What's the need you are trying solve? What's the incentive?
If there is no added value or unique value, your site will fail. To be brutally honest, I'm not surprised that it's a ghost town.
A good activity I do when consulting early startups is to get them to:
1.) What or who is the target?
2.) What is the need?
3.) What solutions are already out there solving or dealing with this problem?
4.) How is your service/site/technology different or better than the competition?
I've worked on half a dozen failed Edu startups over the years. My advice is to not be blinded by the false idea that "Teachers want to make learning better," because while this might be true of some (maybe including you!), the reality is that teachers are time-constrained people...
Thanks
Sorry it has taken such a long time for me to respond, I forgot the thread posts were going to a different email address.
Yeah man, you're right; this sight does not provide any benefit really. Which takes me back to square one. I think your point about teachers being time-constrained people is right on, and although this site may be a neat way to categorize and build lesson plans, it is obvious teachers don't have the time to spend on it. Your feedback has helped me think about these issues though, so I am thankful for your in-depth critique. It makes me wonder... what type of innovation is necessary in contemporary education? It seems to me that sites like The Khan Academy and Edmodo are leading the way, and also sites like Ning where local groups of teachers can create forums and communicate more efficiently. The vision that I originally set out for with Teacher Cooperative is too time-consuming without the ability to reap strong benefits from the time teachers put in on creating and organizing lesson plans.
Well, again, I appreciate your thoughts. This is why I originally posted, because I think I need to re-imagine the underlying purpose of the entire site. I haven't worked on it in a while, but if I decide to again, I think I need to re-route the entire mission.
I will be sure to respond here again if I think you might be able to help me answer some questions. Thanks!