Computer Mediated Communications

Group Presentation

Frances ReedRyan Foster

Mathew Ferrante

Today

Struggling with Homework?

Lots of You, Few of Them

Running out of time

Klatsch

● Academically Inspired

● Informal Community

● Social Learning

● 24/7 / Worldwide Resource

Collaboration

Who?● Instructor→ Instructor● Student → Student● Instructor→ Student● Student → Instructor

Academia

● Overcome limitations of Blackboard● Fill a void● Applies some of the best features of:

o Reddito Facebooko LinkedIno Forums

Klatsch

Casual Conversation● Ask Questions● Share IdeasInformal Gathering● Social● Support

Features

Academically Exclusive- .edu e-mail account required to create an account

- Promotes internal moderation of material

Features (Cont.)

Emphasis on fostering a social-learning communityKlatsch provides a platform for users able to create posts that ask questions or or provide information and to allow others to view and respond to them.- Text posts

- Link posts

- White-board posts

- Questionnaire posts

Features

Text Posts- To ask questions or to propose an idea for discussion.

- “OMG! Help me!”

Features

Link Posts- Articles, peer-reviewed journals, topic-related material

Features

Whiteboard Posts- HTML5-based digital whiteboard

allowing users to convey complicated ideas in a guided and visual fashion.

Features

Questionnaire Posts- Built-in forms that allow users

to post a questionnaire related to the topic they are posting in.

- Users browsing that topic could fill out the questionnaire and the results would be viewable by the user that created the post.

Features (Cont.)

Users can enroll in topics/classes they are passionate about

- Users have complete control of the type of content they see.

- User’s home dashboard will aggregated all topics/classes they are enrolled in.

- Users have the ability to aggregate multiple topics via saved groupings.

Features (Cont.)

Topics

- Main platform for informal conversation and to engage in social learning on various subjects

- Evergreen topics consisting of major courses of study at most colleges

- Non-Evergreen topics require Instructor-level users to vett.

Features (Cont.)

Classes- Instructor-users with Academic accounts (paid subscriptions) are able to

create classes individually.

- The Instructor-users are the moderators of the class though can elect additional moderators if they choose (ex: TA).

- Intention is to support and enhance the classroom experience, not to serve as a replacement for paid-online educational platforms such as Blackboard.

Features (Cont.)

Community Engagement FeaturesAbility to tag topics/classes that are relevant to a post- Fosters interdisciplinary discussion of ideas

Features (Cont.)

Community Engagement FeaturesPost Endorsement

- Posts have the ability to be endorsed by members that are enrolled in a topic it’s associated with.

- Mousing over the Endorsement value will give the user a breakdown of user-types and endorsement values.

- Posts can be filtered by user-type endorsement level (Standard-users, Premium-users, Instructor-users)

Competitors

● Blackboard

● University of Washington - Canvas

● ShowMe

● Reddit

Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees

We take the best of all worlds!● Ads

● Premium Accounts

● Academic Accounts

Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees

We take the best of all worlds!● Ads

● Premium Accounts

● Academic Accounts

A Product, Revenue, what else?

A Look At The Field

● Strengths

● Weakness

● Opportunities

● Threats

Threats

● Political/Legal

● Socio-cultural

● Technological

● Economical

Competitive Advantage

● Value

● Rarity

● Immitatability

● Organization

Wrapping it up...

Casual Conversation

● Post/Reply/Lurk on topics you are passionate about

Informal Gathering

● Find like-minded individuals while engaging in casual conversation

Wrapping it up… (Cont.)

Social Learning● Informal conversations with like-minded individuals

who are passionate about their topics provide the foundation for learning to occur between people

24/7 / Worldwide Resource● Klatsch is always available, regardless of: location

and time.

An informal, online, academic community available to provide support… anywhere… anytime…

Grab your coffee, donutsand come join theconversation.

~ fin ~