Educate Me

Technology Description

EducateMe© is an innovative business solution that uses an Artificial Intelligence solution targeted to help high school students have a time management plan that would help them track their academic and extra-curricular activities. High-school students all over the world always get overwhelmed with schoolwork, extra-curricular activities, and demands from their parents. Homework can be a lot to handle but coupling that with a tightly packed schedule of clubs, events, and football games back-to-back can make life seem impossible to control. According to a study done by the National Health Interview Survey, 13.5% of young adults aged 12-17 have ADHD in the United States (“General Prevalence of ADHD”). A study estimates that over 32% of these students with ADHD will drop out at some point (“ADHD and Long-Term Outcomes”). Keeping this in mind, we would like to provide a solution for these students with a revolutionary new concept.

With EducateMe, students will, for the first time, be able to have an easy-to-use online software application that will help track all their classes and activities. This application will be downloaded onto students’ mobile phones and will automatically populate a dashboard that would have their current high-school courses. Classes will enroll students automatically at the beginning of the year when teachers receive their rosters. Just as with a college syllabus, teachers will input all the assignments, exams, and projects for the semester into EducateMe, which will then reflect on a students’ dashboards. Based on the difficulty and length of each assignment as input by teachers, students will receive a reminder after school at specific times designated for them to finish their homework. 'EducateMe' will work around extra-curricular activities that have already been input to the application by either parent, students or school faculty, and will schedule the student’s evening studying activities based on preset bedtimes. For instance, if a high school student, Lucas, has soccer practice scheduled for Wednesday evening from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, 3 assignments that each take 30 minutes, and has a predetermined bedtime of 10:30 pm, as set by his mother, EducateMe will remind Lucas that he should start his homework by 9:00 pm. Once Lucas begins his homework, EducateMe will accumulate points for Lucas for every minute that he stays off his phone and is working on his homework. After several weeks of doing this, Lucas will have accumulated enough points to buy himself a Subway footlong meal for free! Based on how effective the plan is for each student, the software would learn by itself using artificial intelligence technology. The system would be fed with different time schedules based on the preferences set for each student and would continuously improve itself after gaining familiarity with each student. This will enable the app to create a customized plan that would be unique based on a student’s capabilities. Businesses around the country would pay to be listed on the app, which would ultimately create a two-way value stream whereby the companies get advertising, and students get rewards for studying.

We created a business model canvas to understand the market segment and based on our propositions, we conducted several interviews. We then researched to understand our competitors and the existing market. The results were interesting because although the parents and students intended to use the product, only a handful were ready to pay for a subscription. Also, the industry experts suggested that the problem is not the time table but rather, the students’ motivation. Even when a personal mentor is assigned to students, they do not tend to perform well. They instead suggested that if this application can somehow affect the motivation of students it might work well in the student’s environment. They also suggested changing our customer base from high school students to students who want to prepare for a competitive exam like the GRE and GMAT.

Potential Benefits and Drawbacks

EducateMe© has several benefits with few drawbacks. Let us discuss some of it to understand its functioning

Advantages

EducateMe© application would serve the students who have issues with managing time. It would make parents’ lives more comfortable as they would not have to worry much about how to coordinate with their child’s school faculty and create a time table for them. It would, in turn, give them more time to spend with their kids and help them with their emotional aspects which can’t be replaced by any machine.

This application, as suggested by industry experts, could prove to be more beneficial for the students preparing for competitive exams because it is generally challenging for them to create a schedule for themselves. With EducateMe being more efficient in the way that it creates a personalized plan and learns by itself based on the effectiveness factor as mentioned by each student, it promises to fit the needs for all and help just like a human counselor would.

Disadvantages

Though EducateMe© promises to provide an intuitive plan for different students, it is costly to implement this solution because of the involvement of artificial intelligence. There are several learning management software applications currently present in the market. However, our product has the advantage of being able to provide a customized learning plan for each student. The greatest challenge with customizability is to find resources and industry experts who are well versed with artificial intelligence. We may be able to set up a minimum viable product but getting it out into the bigger market might be very costly. Our interviews also point to the fact that few people, including students or parents, are willing to pay for this kind of application. So here we can only expand if we can partner with a student-related organization. 

Conversation with industry experts

We had a conversation with two industry experts: Mr. Kevin Rathbun and Mr. Zaran Lakhvani. We realized that the need for the high school students today is not just having an appropriate time table for them, but rather an enhanced way that could help them be more motivated. Also owing to the age factor and the maturity level of the high school students, it is difficult for them to stick to a set plan. That is the reason why learning management software is more prevalent in technological industries where employees want to learn continuously for their career growth. Industry experts made it clear that our model might prove to be more beneficial with individuals who are struggling with time management in high-pressure, time-sensitive environments, such as industry professionals or students preparing for highly competitive exams.

Potential Commercial Markets

High-School Students:

EducateMe could be marketed directly to high-school students, giving each student the capability to download the app themselves and input their various activities. There will also be functions for students to choose career-related tracks that they are interested in, such as pre-med, pre-law, STEM, and business. Each of these tracks will provide related AP classes, extra-curricular clubs, and outside competitions that will enable students to gain experience in their fields of interest. Students will also have the option to consult with their high-school teachers and counselors to get recommendations and advice on the combinations of recommended courses and activities that best suit their passions and skills. After these tracks are chosen and solidified following counselor consultation, EducateMe will set up a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule for the student, seamlessly linking all of their classes, assignments, and activities together. Students will at this point be able to get everything done without having to worry if there is enough time to accomplish everything. According to researchers at Ardahan University in Turkey, students’ level of continuous anxiety decreases notably as their time management skills increase (Acoltekin). Our interviews confirm that students would be more productive if an app helped them manage their time more efficiently.

High-Schools:

High-schools are well-equipped to use and implement the EducateMe software because they have the resources, knowledge, and organizational ability to do so. They can make every step of the process in the EducateMe software more streamlined and help determine the best career track for students within the app. Individualized knowledge of each student will first need to be logged by teachers in a teacher version of EducateMe on their desktop computers, which will feed into the high-school counselor version of EducateMe for each counselor at a particular high-school. A counselor can schedule a meeting with each student to discuss the best courses, extra-curricular activities, and schedule structure based on the students’ interests and in-app responses to short, career-path-related questions within the EducateMe app. High-school counselors can also supplement these questions with personality tests and skills surveys of their own to make more informed decisions with each student.

Parents of High-School Students:

Marketing benefits of EducateMe to parents can speed up the trials by parents as well as students, as parents can be strong sponsors of the app. To prove this hypothesis, we reached out to parents and talked to them about the value proposition of the app. We concluded from our conversations that an overwhelming majority of parents feel that they would appreciate some structured online support to help their kids achieve their professional and extracurricular goals. We interviewed parents from social demographics to understand the spectrum of challenges faced by them. We realized that parents not only want academic support but also low-cost extracurricular coaching in the nearby area. In doing our primary research, we received great feedback and ideas from parents, some of which are summarized in the report below.

The infographic above confirms our interviews and sentiment from parents in that 87% of parents believe that that education technology can have a positive impact on their child’s learning. 84% of these parents indicate that they actually want their children to have access to an app like EducateMe so they can learn at home and not just at school. With only 33% of parents having confidence in their child’s high school's ability to adequately tailor learning to each student, EducateMe is needed now more than ever (“A Parent’s Perspective on EdTech and Learning Infographic”).

High-School Counselors: 

High-school counselors can be another potential market for the app. EducateME can increase engagement between counselors and students. EducateME can also help counselors share content such as past success stories with students that can motivate them to achieve their professional goals. Counselors can also market their services to a wider market in the area.

Market Interest

Our interview with Petra A. pointed to a current market need for EducateMe. It appears that although high schools like Petra’s do an adequate job of introducing students to the hands-on and manual-labor intensive fields of mechanics, architecture, and engineering, there is a massive underserved need of exposing students to practical applications of pre-law, pre-med, business, and other fields. She believes that having an app like EducateMe that both helps students choose a pre-career track and match them to shadowing opportunities would be revolutionary. A proprietary idea that she thinks would encourage students to use the app would be having reward points that accumulate when students study using the app and stay off their phones for a period of time. These points would rack up until they could be redeemed at their favorite restaurants and shops around town. Petra agreed that businesses would be likely to pay to be listed on the app since it is a great advertising and potential future business for them, while students would not be required to pay anything. On the standardized testing front, Petra foresees that incorporating information and upcoming dates for the SAT, ACT, and AP exams into EducateMe would diminish students’ test-taking headaches. Eventually giving students the ability to actually register and pay for their exams through the app would be the best way to ensure that students are keeping up with this critical exam.

 Dora A. provided an insightful look into how her high-school not exposing her to different career paths affected major choice as a college freshman. Just as with Petra A., Dora strikes a strikingly similar tone in that her high-school emphasized hands-on trades such as that of a mechanic, architect, and engineer, but did not do the same for liberal arts fields or business. Instead of an inherent bias against the careers, she instead believes that her high-school was simply ill-equipped to introduce students to these various fields. EducateMe would have been able to do an excellent job of this for students since each student can actually choose their own path themselves. This individualizes the process itself and puts students in the driver's seat to choose their own futures. Dora holds the notion that the time management aspect of EducateMe would be the most powerfully helpful part of the app - especially since students would stop having to worry about their schedules and instead let the app decide what task they have to do next. One proposed part of the app that Dora believes may cause her unnecessary anxiety is the ability to see a calendar version of all her upcoming tasks and activities in a day, week, month, and semester-long-view in the app. A way to mitigate this is to give students like Dora the ability to move preset assignments around on the schedule so that if there is an unforeseen event that comes up, she can still get everything done that she needs to. She also would like EducateMe to let her change the default priority of classes within the app. Although EducateMe will be automatically preset to allocate more time to homework for classes that are more difficult, sometimes prioritizing is about looking at what grade you currently have in a class compared to what you need to get on the next assignment in order to maintain a certain grade. This is a reality that many students face that often cannot be satisfied with existing Education Technology apps.

Development Status of Technology

EducateMe aims to recommend courses, career paths, internships, scheduling of extracurricular activities while managing coursework. Since most of the application heavily relies on recommending certain choices over others, an AI-based solution will be required. In this context, the AI solution is a machine learning model that takes in a huge dataset and recommends a course of action. The dataset will have experiences of people who have followed a similar path and have managed to achieve the desired outcome the student-user is aiming for. While there have been attempts to make learning smart, none of the developments have made a solution that addresses career path guidance for young adults/teenagers. Our solution will be based on a combination of clustering technique – Simple K-means and association rule algorithm. This combination of machine learning algorithms has been implemented previously but not for the problem we are trying to solve. Furthermore, there is a patent for adaptive learning issued to Philip J. Kellman in 2006. The said patent could be used for developing a solution that also adapts to the student’s liking and suggests courses to be undertaken.  Furthermore, the scheduling of activities can be handled through simple application code that is found in scheduling applications. SABA’s TIM™ software offers a recommender system using machine learning techniques – used by e-commerce players like Amazon. However, it does not see all learning interventions in a holistic way and treats each intervention differently thus ignoring the complexity between different interactions. Our solution will have to address this issue.

Patent Status of Technology

There have been patents made on adaptive learning (Philip J. Kellman, 2006) and recommendation systems to a model career path on successful people in organizations (Modeling career path based on successful individuals in an organization, Louise Diana Barnfield, Eric William, Tomanek Pramesh, Vashist Klaus, Borho Mark, Preston Bennett, 2012). However, according to the USPTO, there have been no patents for a system that recommends courses, internships, career paths, activities for young adults or people in general. So, we have an opportunity to implement the solution mentioned above and explore the possibility of patenting it as well. As far as the crux of our solution is concerned, machine learning algorithms are available for the community to use and tailor their respective solutions.

Competitors and Competing Technologies

On researching, we realized that there are many industries that are working towards enhancing the learning experience of students but none of them exactly relates to what we claim to do. There are multiple platforms like google classroom, Pearson SuccessNet, Haiku Learning, Agilix Brainhoney and Buzz, and Schoology. Where these are highly prevalent apps for enhancing learning, it does not help with time management for students. There are other competitors like myHomework Student Planner, Trello, Evernote, Promodoro apps

Pros and Cons of each Competitor

Each of these competitors has its own pros and cons. Let us discuss each that we enable us to claim how and in which way we have a higher say:

1.      MyHomework Student Planner – It helps in time tracking by taking in all the due assignments and other events as inputs. Pros and cons associated with this application are:

• Advantages:

It is a simple and intuitive application that could collaborate with various institutions. It could be used by any level of the student, from high school to university.

• Disadvantages:

It is not intuitive. It takes the input and displays it as it is without suggesting any changes. It creates reminders to help students know what is due when but it does not create a plan by which a student might understand that when should he start his work in order to get it completed on time.

2.      Trello – It helps in organizing project-related activities and track the tasks for individual person and for the team. This acts as a tracking board to understand the progress of any activity. Pros and cons associated with this application are:

• Advantages:

It is good for team activity tracking as the progress of everyone would be closely monitored. Because it is free, students use it widely all over the world.

• Disadvantages:

It is not a great application for individual work because it just takes note of the task and by when should it be completed without having the consideration of any other activities of the individual. So, planning for an individual cannot be carried out well here as opposed to that for a team.

3.      Evernote – It helps by keeping the thoughts and assignments aligned. It allows synchronizing checklists and notes list along with enabling to switch between devices. Pros and cons associated with this application are:

• Advantages:

It creates a single platform to add notes and manage assignments. Alongside it is device independent that enables it to be accessible from anywhere and everywhere.

• Disadvantages:

It takes manual inputs and has no provision for self-learning. It would create a simple task list that would not be beneficial if the to-do list created by the student is an exhaustive one. Also, it does not have a reward creating structure so does not affect any kind of motivation level.

4.      Clara – It is an artificial intelligence application that helps to set schedules and reminders based on the emails. The virtual assistant helps to have followed up and scheduled meetings. Pros and cons associated with this application are:

• Advantages:

It is an automated tool that understands the email and accordingly set up meetings and reminders. It focuses on daily activities that are of crucial importance.

• Disadvantages:

It is limited to reading emails and setting up meetups. It is good for business professionals but not an ideal app for the students.

5.      Knewton – It creates adaptive learning technology for higher education. It understands the gap in technology and provides relevant coursework. Pros and cons associated with this application are:

• Advantages:

It helps instructors to teach at various levels and help students identify the gap in their study area

• Disadvantages:

It does not take any other factor into consideration apart from studies. It also does not create an intuitive plan for the students. It simply shows the missing courses that the student should take that makes it less pragmatic.

A comparison of each to our technology

Potential barriers to market entry

• Cost to parents if we adopted a subscription revenue model
• Excessive cost associated with hiring app developers
• The app can be perceived as counter-productive to time-management if students end up spending too much time on it.
• High marketing and user acquisition cost
• Adoption rate could be slow if the app is considered too boring or just another educational task by students

Recommendations

Based on our research, analysis, and interviews with stakeholders from the student and parent sides of education, there is a strong need in the current market for EducateMe. Whether it’s the ability of the app to help students align their interests with a career path, choose classes and find internships, and manage every minute of their daily schedules, EducateMe will be a future necessity for high-school students all over the world. Taking into account all of our interviews, it appears that placing the EducateMe app in the hands of both counselors and students would be the most effective way to give students the tools they need to plan their future careers. A process should be developed in which a high-school counselor sits down with a freshman student, app-in-hand, to discuss their pre-career plan for the next four years. Considering a student’s particular interests, personality, and skills, counselors will help them choose a specific pre-career track within the app. Each track would display several options of extracurricular activities, internships, and exams to choose from that would all help prepare the student for their career of choice. Going through this process together with the counselor would ensure that the inputs into the app are high-quality and relevant to the student. For an app such as EducateMe, this is critical because the app’s outputs - time management efficiency, internship opportunities, relevant coursework - is only as good as its inputs.

Appendix

Interview Summaries

Students

Interview Summary with Petra (High School Senior)

Petra discussed that she felt her high school had a good foundation of technical skills programs but lacked a program that matched students with potential classes, extracurriculars, internships, etc. to best benefit them in their future career path. Her desired college major was chosen based on little research about the best majors to get accepted into law school. Although Dora was interested in the rewards-based incentive of the app, Petra believes that the real value would lie in the teachers being integrated into the app. If teachers could input assignments into the app, it would hold students accountable for regular use of it. An added feature that Petra believes would be beneficial is a standardized testing feature. This would allow the students to plan for AP tests, the SAT, the ACT, etc. They would be notified of upcoming late fees, testing locations, expected/desired test scores, and could be walked through how to register for each standardized test. This would allow the students to be well informed more successful on these standardized tests.

Interview Summary with Dora (College Freshman)

Dora discussed that her high school provided little to no assistance on college major selection. At her high school, they were given a list of courses to choose from, but with no guidance on what would be most beneficial for her. She believes that a more effective method would be to host a career fair-like event to allow high school students to figure out what they are interested in and take classes that will directly benefit those interests. Dora thinks the app will help her find general fields of interest, as well as more specific areas within those fields. She mentioned that she would like to be notified of what homework she must do but would not like the app to prioritize assignments because sometimes there are trade-offs between classes that are strategic, but unpopular in the eyes of her teachers. She mentioned that she would like extracurricular activity recommendations, within and outside of her school. Dora would use this app over a competitor that required manual input of each assignment. She would like the ability to have different schedule options to choose from for the daily, weekly, and monthly time frames. She would also like the ability to change the default priority of classes within the app and to move around assignments if an extenuating circumstance occurred.

Parents

Interview Summary with 5th Grade Parents

The parents that were interviewed have a son in 5th grade. Although he is young, they mentioned that they have had many serious discussions with him about his future. They do not believe that the school provides sufficient academic or professional guidance, so they help their child in their own time. Although they have had many serious discussions, their son is unsure if he wants to pursue athletics or an academic profession. The parents are not sure what standardized test scores their son would need. They would definitely try the app for free and would continue to pay for it if they were satisfied. They believe that the rewards incentive could motivate their son.

Interview Summary with 8th Grade Parents (Blue Collar)

These parents are considered to “blue-collar” and have a son in 8th grade. Their son wants to be a doctor but is struggling to make the grades required for this field. They do not think he is getting support at school, due to the sheer number of students compared to faculty. They mentioned that they are unaware of the standardized test scores required to get admission into their target university. They also discussed that they would like their son to be able to interact with other doctors/medical students to ask questions about the grades and skills necessary to succeed. They would be willing to try the app for free, but could not afford to pay for it. They would be particularly interested in the app helping to find low-cost extracurricular because they cannot afford traditional sports lessons. Access to used books, notes, or study guides would also be beneficial for this family.

Interview Summary with 8th Grade Parents (Parent is a University Professor)

These parents have a son in 8th grade. One parent is a university professor. They discussed that they have had serious discussions about their child’s future and that he wants to be a computer programmer. They are aware of the necessary standardized test scores in order to get into a particular program at a target university. They mentioned that having a professor in the family is beneficial for guiding their son. The parents believe that structured learning designed specifically for the desired upper education program would be most beneficial for their son. The parents would be open to trying out the app, even if it required payment, and mentioned that the family often listens to inspirational videos of other accomplished students together. They would be particularly interested in some features regarding extracurricular and tutors in the area.

Industry Experts

Interview Summary with Product Developers at Knewton BYJU’s (EdTech Companies)

Mr.Kevin Rathbun and Mr.Zaran Lakvani are software product developers at Knewton (an adaptive learning company). Interviews with both of them revealed that students seek interactive learning experiences nowadays. Adaptive learning helps them do well on tests. Knewton specifically offers services for graduate-level examinations like GRE/GMAT and most of their target base are students who plan to be graduate students. They also revealed that recommendation systems can be made through the implementation of recommendation logic in application code written in object-oriented programming languages like Java. However, recommendation systems based on a decision science system that considers large datasets of experiences are more accurate for making informed decisions. Discussions with Mr. Aayush Bisht (Product Developer at BYJU’s) revealed that high school students in India form 80% of their consumer base. He suggested that availability can be a challenge for our application since we cannot expect students to be connected to the internet all the time to tackle this problem, BYJU sells a tablet with its programs encoded in it. However, as far as our application goes, we will encourage offline storage of videos and app data rather than selling the device as we don’t want costs to go up.

References

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^[1] https://chadd.org/about-adhd/general-prevalence/