tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545863478430353717.post2438766999282597545..comments2024-03-20T06:37:50.202-04:00Comments on For Free Blog: Social Media measurementMike Johanssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10991236141486591241noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545863478430353717.post-8550046266369413402009-11-23T05:49:46.148-05:002009-11-23T05:49:46.148-05:00Nice. I love "Success is"in 140 characte...Nice. I love "Success is"in 140 characters.<br /><br />For potential dropouts, "success is" the kids show up. Also referred to as "attendance rates."<br /><br />It's a nice metric because most of the funding for a particular school is based on how many kids show up. Lots of time and energy is invested on "truancy." But the legacy system doesn't work. Attendance rates at the bottom of the pyramid remain intractably low. As might be expected there are any number of "blame the customer" explanations: "The kids lack ...."the parents don't . . . (fill in the blank."<br /><br />In my opinion, the real reason is that bottom of the pyramid kids have a culture that allows them to do what many kids would do, vote with their feet by not showing up. <br /><br />The under appreciated reality is that solving attendance at scale has little to do with "curriculum", "quality of teaching" etc. To be clear these are important issues going forward, but the speed of change required to implement is much too slow.<br /><br />The other under appreciated reality is that almost every parent of every kid is highly motivated for their kids to "get an education." But unlike middle class parents, they don't have the time to monitor when jr acts like a jerk. Admins and teachers are much too busy to "contact the parents." <br /><br />The kid plays hookey and tells mom, "Sure, I went to school." Mom doesn't find out the real story until it's much too late.<br /><br />One solution is to send an SMS to mom by having the teacher click on an personalized 2d code printed on an attendance sheet. Personalized PDFs could be in the Cloud and printed out on Multi Function Printers in the school building.<br /><br />The tech is well defined. Every digital global would love to figure out new uses for web connected copiers in the school building.<br /><br />I'm retired, so all I can do is kibbutz, tweet and blog. But I am on the radar of a couple of folks who both have the tech and a business reason to deploy it. The trick now is to find evangelists on the ground who are willing to do a proof of concept.<br /><br />If anything here is interesting, a DM would be the best way to get in touch.Michael Josefowiczhttp://toughloveforxerox.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com