Turn The Page PowerPoint
Group Members
Emily Sneed
Yagweb Alkabsh
Eliza Sledge
Trejan Caradine
Skylar Harbin
Description
The main goal of Turn the Page is to provide affordable and accessible college course materials (including books, study materials, and tutoring) to all students. While our main goal is affordability and accessibility for everyone, we want to target vastly unrepresented students. The main three groups we came up with for this project are International and DACA students (DREAMers), and visually and audibly impaired students (those using or wishing to learn to use ASL and/or Braille.)
Turn the Page would act as a virtual “library” with which users can search our database for the e-books they need for college courses. Along with course books, we will have an archive of useful course materials specific to each major. Another benefit from the membership would be online tutoring. Blind or visually impaired students will be greeted by an online assistant that will be able to talk with them and remotely navigate the site for them for research. Students wishing to learn ASL and how to write in Braille will have access to introductory classes on our page.
Emily Sneed
Yagweb Alkabsh
Eliza Sledge
Trejan Caradine
Skylar Harbin
Description
The main goal of Turn the Page is to provide affordable and accessible college course materials (including books, study materials, and tutoring) to all students. While our main goal is affordability and accessibility for everyone, we want to target vastly unrepresented students. The main three groups we came up with for this project are International and DACA students (DREAMers), and visually and audibly impaired students (those using or wishing to learn to use ASL and/or Braille.)
Turn the Page would act as a virtual “library” with which users can search our database for the e-books they need for college courses. Along with course books, we will have an archive of useful course materials specific to each major. Another benefit from the membership would be online tutoring. Blind or visually impaired students will be greeted by an online assistant that will be able to talk with them and remotely navigate the site for them for research. Students wishing to learn ASL and how to write in Braille will have access to introductory classes on our page.
5 comments:
Turn the Page is in interesting website. My initial reaction is that it is trying to do too much at once. Translation, textbooks, tutoring, ASL/Braille, DACA/Immigration help, resumes, careers. Just about everything going on in young students’ professional lives (especially young international students’ professional lives) is covered by this website. It could be a great thing to have all of that centered at one site, but you don’t want to spread yourself too thin.
That being said, the site does have a specific audience (students, particularly broke students). It boasts many resources. I mean, who doesn’t want easier and cheaper methods of education? The social/political/moral issue seems to be approached fully, and the solutions Turn the Page seek quench many thirsts people have been having in both the education and immigration spheres. The site is easy to navigate and seems very user-friendly. I could see it being used by many college students.
One obvious flaw, to me, is the staffing implementation. It would be hard to get every language and every subject covered. In addition, you have to find resume experts, ASL/Braille communicators, and people involved with immigration (lawyers, policy makers, non-profit or corporate sponsors). The price tags on those kinds of people are not cheap, and if the target audience is broke college students, where will the funding come from?
Realistically, that kind of funding is far-fetched at best. Relying on donations is risky. Having a membership charge that is too high would deter students from joining. Say you have 10,000 students who join and the membership is $50. That means the total revenue from those students is $500,000. When you account for the hundreds of languages you’ll have to pay translators for, the expertise of people with careers and experience in resumes, etc., $500,000 really gets used up quickly. The financial structure, especially starting up, is thus poor.
If the problem of funding is solved (a big “if”), I could actually see people using this app. Education is moving online in many ways, and kids are looking for better and cheaper ways to gain that education. In our increasingly globalized society, international student numbers will only grow, so once they are here, they’ll need somewhere to go to receive supplemental help in their endeavors. In the age of social media and instant communication, this site could spread like wildfire in millennial circles. Who knows? But the key component to all this, as in any business, is funding.
Thanks, Chris! This is some really good feedback. I wish we could have come up with easier ways for funding, but like you said, that is definitely the biggest issue. Maybe to start off we would have been able to focus on just one or two ideas at a time; I can see how this could have come off as overwhelming.
I believe Turn the Page was a great idea. The website was impressive. It looked professional and like an actual website except I believe there was just way too much going on. It was diverse and brought a lot of problems to attention but I think it would've been better to focus resources on a few things rather than try to hit everything at once. Though the book rental for college students has been a repetitive concept, I really enjoy the idea of adding in lessons for sign language and lessons for braille. The sign language I understand because one would learn through tutorial videos but braille on the other hand. Even though I like the idea, I was a little skeptical of the group's answer when asked how that would work. Their response was that there are printers that use special paper to translate works into braille. I hadn't known that but I didn't think everyone who wanted to learn braille would have a special printer. Maybe those who were blind, but what about those who wanted to learn Braille for fun? They hadn't mentioned it but I think having beginner books or works translated into braille offer on the site would have been a great addition to their lessons offered. I also think it was a good idea to bring the DACA/Dreamers problem to attention but I believe that it would've been way too much to handle when there are also several different language translations they need to keep up with. Overall, I believe that the website should focus on a few things first and then expand as they get bigger.
I think this project was a really neat one. I appreciated how you would incorporate language through technology in order to reach out to those who cannot see or hear. I would like to learn sign language and by using an instructor through your website, it would absolutely be possible. Unlike the previous comment, I was not skeptical when your group answered how you could teach braille. I do understand that some people would not want to buy the printer, but if you really wanted to learn braille, why would you half-ass devote yourself to learning it ON THE INTERNET, and then decide that buying it isn't a fair option? My point is, if they are really interested in learning and they are trying to do it over the internet, your resources to do so are quite limited, that's just the reality of the situation. Devote yourself to this tactic of learning, or simple find a facility nearby who teaches. But then you have to pay for lessons, so spending money on the product would be more affordable.
I do agree with the previous comments with the funding issues. Chris' comment explains thoroughly why it is probable that this website would not work. Also, there are a vast number of topics discussed. But I think with enough work put into it and more realistic funding, the site could absolutely work!
So let me start by saying that I loved the presentation and the idea but I believe its a little to much going on for just one website. At the beging I was like aww ok an affordable book buying website for students and then as the presentation continued I got a lost on what the actual website was for. Like I love the fact that y'all are trying to find solutions and are assisting with these problems but I don't think you can just jumble all of these things into one website. The idea of the student book buying part is a good idea but its already been. done before and so many times. Also I didn't really understand the whole learning brail online concept but if y'all can figure that then I think its a pretty good idea.
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