Comments on: Surround School – eLearning Platform For Beyond Academics

By: Vikas Mujumdar

Vikas Mujumdar — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:17:00 +0000

BTW, the comments here are a nice study in contrast. Both views are correct in their own way. Why do we need an online platform when we have universities? Because everyone does not have access to schools let alone universities. On the other hand they may not have access to the Internet either. Either way, improving delivery channels for education, both in terms of reach and quality is a long journey for us in India and these are but baby steps.

About our business model: the primary goal is to create a social impact and generate sufficient revenue to make it a self-sustaining initiative through online ads and premium content partnerships. No 10x valuations in a few years and no VC funding, unless it’s with a social cause.

By: Vikas Mujumdar

Vikas Mujumdar — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:12:12 +0000

Surround School has relaunched itself in a new avatar. Instead of offering the course content as we used to previously we have created a visualisation tool and deilvery engine that allows “teachers” to create their own course outlines. They can then attach digital learning objects from open source repositories on the web (Wikipedia, YouTube, Khan Academy, TED conferences, MIT OCW) or their own repositories.

By: Prashant

Prashant — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:30:12 +0000

I have always liked these “online education” projects especially when they do this for free and aggregate content from various sources. This gives people who can not afford a university degree due to money and time constraints a chance at enhancing their skills.

MIT, Yale, Harward like universities have already opened their courseware to general public, and websites like academicearth.org, nalandau.com are aggregating this content and structuring it to provide easy access.
You can not replace regular university education, but not everybody has time or money for it. some people just want to focus one single skill and learn it from the comfort of their home.

By: ashish

ashish — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 06:25:22 +0000

I can’t access the website of surround school.

By: Kasi

Kasi — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:59:05 +0000

I like Scratch. Good programming learning tool for kids…you can even call it intuitive thinking guide.

I donno why people think of platform for education…we already have platforms and they are called Universities.

Khan acadamy is a fantastic initiative…why people can’t think of 10-member Khan academy than looking platform and then eco-system.

Learning never works like that. You need manual interaction…you can’t just create YouTube and people will learn.
That is my humble opinion.

By: rakshit

rakshit — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:15:18 +0000

Agree. It has a terrible interface.

By: naman

naman — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:05:51 +0000

they also already have ads and http://www.surroundschool.com/partners.php looks like a paid listing for kit and equipment providers.

By: Shrikrishna Shrin

Shrikrishna Shrin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 07:57:42 +0000

Am curious to know what their business model is. From their website it looks like it might me customized solutions for schools but am not sure what that customization might be.

“Schools and Institutions: Please email or call us for a proposal to get a customized solution for your school. “