The document discusses the K-12 education technology market and opportunities for new platforms. It notes that while spending on K-12 education is high, teachers often resist using new technologies. It then evaluates several challengers in the space, including virtual schools, assessment platforms, and publishers' mobile apps. Finally, it introduces the Feathercap PLE platform, which is designed to be easy for teachers and students to use, allow content feedback loops, and support social learning and evaluation.

1. K-12 Learning Technology Marketplace & Feathercap October 18, 2011

2. The Opportunity: 50 million students in the U.S. Current non-profit and profit K-12 learning arena. Comprised of publishers like Houghton Mifflin & Harcourt, Pearson, The McGraw-Hill Companies, and Scholastic. Technology / content delivery and assessment: Blackboard, Moodle, Khan Academy, K12.com, Connections Academy, Grockit, Knewton. The NCES estimates that total spending in the K-12 market was $661 billion for the 2009-10 school year. Historically stable Federal funding for K-12 education: historic stability across economic cycles. While the recent downturn has pressured state and local budgets, the primary sources of federal funding for education (Title I and IDEA) have been maintained at historically high levels.

3. Current K-12 learning technologies: teachers resist. Faculty/ teacher resistance to the use of technology remains one of the great obstacles in improving education in America. Many examples of K-12 schools having funding for technology w/o success. Failure is not due to budgets, but because the teachers were unable/ unwilling to use the technology. Teachers have embraced Facebook, Ning and other easy to use apps. Facebook has over 750 million users around the world and is the most popular social outreach tool ever. Ning.com is for people and organizations to create custom/ small group social networks. Widely popular with K-12 teachers to keep in contact through mobile and desktop computers with their students. Popular for their usefulness, extreme ease of use/ minimal time to master. Teachers can completely control student learning/ interaction experience.

4. The Challengers: virtual schools K12.com , Cambium Learning Group , Connections Academy , etc. Developed a wide assortment of learning content. Problem: Not designed for teacher interpretation/ updates. Problem: Mostly flash based not lending itself to mobile consumption. Content and methodology is driving demand.

5. The Challengers: Point tools & learning systems Facebook , Ning , Google apps & docs – Established point tools Individually provide one aspect of learning. Very effective in each of their respective roles. Problem: Not a complete solution for learning/ assessment & no content. Blackboard , Moodle , Sakai , Haiku LMS – established learning systems Huge user base with full suite of assessment and content delivery. Problem: Wide complaints of difficulty using, setting up and maintaining. Problem: Social learning is an afterthought and not really part of tracking. Problem: No ecosystem for content improvement/ revision by teachers.

6. The Challengers: Assessment Knewton – recent innovator Algorithm intensive learning content/ assessment assignment. As of Oct 19, 2011 received $33 million “D” round of funding – estimated valuation: $150 million. Problem: Algorithm is a “black box” for teachers. They have little control over what content goes to which student. Grockit – recent innovator Algorithm intensive learning content/ assessment assignment. Recently trying a content referral approach to You tube videos. As of Oct 19, 2011 received $7 million “D” round of funding for a total of $24.7 million. Problem: Content is from other publishers or contracted. No content development feedback loop. Problem: Complete “black box” for teachers. They have little control.

7. The Challengers: Publishers Houghton Mifflin-Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Pearson Focus on moving away from “killing trees” to mobile/ discrete lesson delivery. Initiating development of iPad/ mobile/ interactive “apps” for students. Problem: All of the above is costly to develop with the majority of mobile applications conversion from books taking months to develop. (See Inkling.com working with McGraw Hill Companies) Bigger Problem: Dependent on high margin sales of materials, books and teacher aids.

8. The Challengers: Publishers Khan Academy Over 3.5 million unique visitors to date. $2m in grants + $5m in funding. Feature Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Finance for K-12 and college. Recently merged with “Smart history” featuring thousands of Art history videos and materials. Extremely rapid and inexpensive content development. Extremely effective/ popular. Effective reporting and assessments/ gamification. Challenge: Developing an effective “crowd sourced” content repository, majority of content is from Sal Khan and from a few other lecturers. Assessment development not streamlined for end users to create content. Problem: Entire infrastructure utilizes You tube and is publicly available. May be challenging to motivate content contributors.

9. The solution: Feathercap PLE As easy to use as Facebook and Ning for teachers, educators and students. Designed for any environment; desktop or mobile. Development of “social evaluation” of students. Feedback loop for content, student peer, tutor and teacher review. Teacher/ author “royalties” based on consumption/ ranking by community. Ideal way to grow content library but also spread popularity to all educators. Only improves the content the more that participate. The teacher is in charge: Feathercap takes the content “widgets” approach: Any teacher can combine content video, pre-authorized content, HTML or evaluation tools to create a desired learner experience. Content recommendation based on learner profile.

10. Tutor/ student feedback loop. Students selects tutors/ peers for academic assistance/ has a question. Student gathers feedback from other students reaction to peers/ tutors Tutors and rated students alter behavior/ seek improvement to gain a higher rating. Tutors and rated students are peer reviewed and re-ranked. The most highly rated, popular and highly effective tutors and peers/ students are presented.

11. Content Feedback loop Teacher selects content Teacher gathers feedback from their students reaction to the content. Teacher changes/ modifies content to be more effective. Improved content is peer reviewed and ranked by other teachers. The most highly rated, popular and highly effective content for the subject matter/ grade is presented.

12. Regional Content Feedback loop Teacher selects content Teacher gathers feedback from their students reaction to the content. Teacher changes/ modifies content to be more effective. Improved content is peer reviewed and ranked by other teachers. The most highly rated, popular and highly effective content for the subject matter/ grade is presented. … from around the state. … from around the state. … from around the state.

13. Content Feedback loop…more schools? Teacher selects content Teacher gathers feedback from their students reaction to the content. Teacher changes/ modifies content to be more effective. Improved content is peer reviewed and ranked by other teachers. The most highly rated, popular and highly effective content for the subject matter/ grade is presented. … from around the state. … from around the state. … from around the state.

14. … Worldwide Content Feedback loop! Teacher selects content Teacher gathers feedback from their students reaction to the content. Teacher changes/ modifies content to be more effective. Improved content is peer reviewed and ranked by other teachers. The most highly rated, popular and highly effective content for the subject matter/ grade is presented. … from around the state. … from around the state. … from around the state. … from around the world … from around the world … from around the world

15. Rapid Availability A secure Feathercap PLE private community can be turned on immediately with client/ school brand, colors and logo.

16. Company behind Feathercap PLE Customers have come from Manufacturing, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Energy and Education. Feathercap PLE currently supports over 650,000 users, in 3 languages around the world with our products. In 2005, our team developed the first SCORM 2004 LMS. – knowledgeWorks LMS In 2008, the first multi-tenant, collaborative enterprise learning management system with recommendation engine In 2009, the first Training marketplace/ e-commerce integration. In 2010, the first worldwide deployed cloud LMS – Feathercap PLE See web site for more: www.feathercap.net

17. Some of our clients

18. Our World wide Infrastructure Feathercap PLE currently has four datacenters in California (U.S.A), Virginia (U.S.A), Ireland and Singapore. All four are SAS 70 Type II conformant in repeated audits for their standards in operational and security controls. As we scale, move into other datacenters or create our own. Full back-up of every community. Our average costs are $0.15 per user per month.