Sunday, August 9, 2015

An Evolution in Mobile

As some of you may recall, I was part of the Board of Advisors of a start-up named Beeonics. The company was a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) app-building company, where schools, like the one I used to be the Principal of at New Milford High School in NJ, could build their very own app. The beauty of the platform was it allowed regular, non-technical people – like teachers and leaders – to build apps without knowing or understanding code.

Over the past two years, the way we deliver content and other features through mobile has evolved and Beeonics has also evolved by starting a new journey.

Recently, Beeonics re-branded itself to Gadget Software and has focused its business on developing mobile software specifically for schools – with a product called SchoolBuilder. What does that mean? It means it took the baseline foundational technology built within Beeonics and focused the last six months of engineering time and development to create cloud-based software 100% for the education market.

In the short amount of time in becoming Gadget Software, the SchoolBuilder platform has been tremendous. Some of the new folks behind Gadget Software saw a great opportunity to build out a new type of mobile network for schools to better communicate with parents, for teachers to develop more feature-rich content for students, and to create a bridge from high school to higher education and beyond. In a nutshell, they have helped to virtualize the school environment inside and outside the halls. Their platform also provides modules for field trips, sports, and clubs, as well as safety.

Finally, they have turned their technology upside down and are developing a STEM curriculum that provides the gateway to coding and computer science through mobile application composition, design, and development. As much as they see a great opportunity to mobilize schools, they also see this new opportunity to teach students about mobile before they even learn to code – ultimately reducing the intimidation factor that some tech can have on kids. This new type of classroom and mobile lab is one of a kind and I have yet to see anything like it.

The Gadget team identified the growing need for schools to move into this new mobile ecosystem where the smartphone is now the computer in your pocket, where parents are looking to find out specific school information at their fingertips, and students can engage with teachers by utilizing the most native device known to them.

I thought the Beeonics platform was a great tool, but what Gadget Software has done with SchoolBuilder is eye-opening and can give schools a very simple solution to their communications and learning needs very quickly. They already have a number of schools utilizing the software and I encourage you to at least visit their site and see if they have something that can help you with your mobile strategies.

Because of where they have taken this technology, I was eager to stay on their Board of Advisors. Feel free to reach out if you are attending an event where I’m speaking or I’d be happy to put you in touch with the folks building SchoolBuilder.

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