Return of Investment
The Education and Business Systems ’battle cry ' is that the Videodidact allows teachers to teach better, faster, and with less stress. This is the starting point for the ROI discussion too.
Whether it is educating students in a certain curriculum, or training employees on a specific company process or teaching a new language to people. Most of the ROI stems from this critical success factor; the Videodidact enables better training in less time.
From an academic perspective
Some institutions are interested in teaching bigger classes. This is a direct return of hard dollars. When we asked Professor Brian Reithel from the University of Mississippi how he sees the ROI after using Videodidact since 2 years, he answered: “I know that I can maintain the quality of instruction for something approaching 35 – 50% more students in the same amount of time in a single room. So, perhaps instead of offering 15 sections of an introductory computing course (like our MIS-241 course) with 30 students per section, I can now offer 10 sections with 45 students per course. If it costs me $3,000 per course to hire adjunct (part-time) instructors to teach, that means that I am saving $15,000 per semester ($30,000 or more per Year if I am offering this class in the Spring and Summer too) and am maintaining the same level of learning for the students.
But what matters more to most professors is that they can teach more material at a higher level of comprehension to the same number of students in the same amount of time. In other words, instead of holding the level/quality of the material constant and varying the number of students, I can hold the number of students constant and vary the level or quality of the course upward significantly. Professors and instructors care about the_quality_of the learning that takes place and about how far they can take their students when compared to students in a similar course a competing institution.”
The Videodidact allows for faster information gathering, quicker response to students’ problems, fewer questions left unanswered, and new innovative teaching techniques for better pacing and sharing of students work with other students. Also, the psychology of the student’s changes when they are aware that the instructors have these capabilities. Student’s become more focused on the curriculum. Ultimately, creating better students in less time.
From a corporate training perspective
(All of the above, plus--)
Less time will be necessary for employees to spend in training. Employees get to their responsibilities faster.
Better comprehension of the training material means employees are further along after the training then they were before using the Videodidact.
The psychology behind the impression employees’ get when they are being trained with the latest technology will go a long way.
From a software training company’s perspective
(All of the above, plus--)
Impress your clients with an innovative way to shorten their time in class, which will make them happy, and they will refer other’s to your “style” of training.
Impress your instructors with a commitment to improving their techniques and reducing the stress of teaching in a computer lab.
There also is a hardware ROI perspective. Since the system is completely independent of the classroom’s software and hardware, when the computers are upgraded in the future the Videodidact will still work with the next generation of hardware. If the software changes or OS is upgraded, it will have no effect on the Videodidact. Also, after the Videodidact is installed, you will immediately be able to play CD clips, or DVD movies onto all the students’ monitors, in real time, in high resolution, regardless of the individual workstations’ display capabilities. So your current and future hardware will last longer, longer time between upgrades. This benefit is also demonstrated in a situation when a guest lecturer brings a laptop to the class and the curriculum of the guest is displayed in front of each student in high resolution (the resolution of the laptop). The Videodidact has an extremely long hardware life cycle.
The ROI means nothing if the instructors choose not to use the system. The Videodidact is simple to use. With only one button instructors can view any students work, put their screen on all students and more. All other functions are selected by hitting two buttons: controls for blanking all, remote control of other student’s workstation, projecting any student onto the projector, viewing the entire class in sequence and much, much more. The point is, it will be used. There is no software to learn, there is only a single page manual (two sided laminated page).
