Everyone was upbeat about the event. We even created a nice brochure for it!

We distributed about 500 brochures and asked parents and children to take a trial in our school labs. The reponse was very encouraging! Children took out time from the Spell Bee quiz to see a preview of the software. We even got enquiries from schools to set up myEshala! Some parents were worried that we might run out of copies of myEshala and wanted a copy then and there… so the overall response was fantastic and we enjoyed the experience too. It was our first contact with children and parents outside the school, and the response has made us feel very warm and fuzzy.

This product is definitely going to cause some buzz around!

Here are a few pictures:

Our first banner	Sanasi explaining to parents
Nikhil (me) talking to a parent	A full lab of parents
Neha talking to a group of parents	Some of our "sales" people :-)

Whats really keeping us occupied right now are analysis programs. We are trying to judge the quality of our questions, and are also devising ways and means to send feedback to the parents.

We want parents to be totally in the loop with what their child is learning everyday. For that, we have designed a system where parents will come to know about tests taken and lectures seen. We also have a to-do list from which parents can keep a tab on what their child is doing when they are away from home.

While designing our feedback features, we were wondering if we should give an option to parents to unsubscribe from getting bombed about what their child is doing with myEshala. But then, it was obvious – if parents were not interested in what their child was doing…. who would be? There won’t be an option for not getting emails from us. We’ll give you option of whether you want a daily digest, or a quiz-by-quiz or a lecture-by-lecture account of what your child has done, but no option to unsubscribe! We think its obvious! Don’t you?

As the student base increases, we expect to get tons of feedback, either in the form of error reports, or other silly mistakes like typos.

Our big “THANKS!” goes out to parents of the school, who have been extremely supportive and have provided excellent feedback!

Going into beta means that we are well on our way to getting this version out of the door!

It’s been our dream for a really long time to see this happen – kids sitting at home and studying and testing via our software!

With this swine flu thing doing the rounds, it will benefit students tremendously. Kids who are either sick, or are stuck at home because schools have closed down, can easily catch up on their studies, and not a single thing will be missed. Guaranteed!

There are only a couple of things which have gone into this release… but there are literally hundreds of other exciting things which we plan to incorporate in the near future. So much is the excitement that we can’t wait to kick this release out the door and start working on the next release!

So, with tired red eyes, and fingers sore with typing, we are signing off with a declarative message – “The revolution in education has begun!”

It’s a great feeling to present to you myEshala – a learning tool that brings the best aspects of school to your home.

We have put in a lot of efforts to put it together.

Let me start by putting in a few words about what we have in hand right now.

As of now, we are offering content for the Secondary State Board (S.S.C) of Maharashtra. We plan to offer content from Std. 1 to Std. 10.

What subjects? All of them! Whats the big deal? Up until now, no one has made content for the SSC Board, for all the subjects. We are the first and the foremost to do so.

We are a young and dynamic team who have put in tremendous efforts to release this ground-breaking software. The motivation to develop this educational software came from a couple of things/issues:

1. Parents and children have a very hectic schedule.

2. Children are expected to know everything about a lot of things in a very short span of time.

3. Schools can only help to a certain extent, as time spent in the school is quite short.

4. Every child has a certain pace of learning. It can be fast, medium, or slow. It is impossible for the teachers in the school, or any other mass education system for that sake, to cater to all the speeds at once. If the teacher takes one pace, the other types get bored.

5. Teaching without media, gets boring! Back in the olden days, I remember feeling really sleepy because of learning all the resolutions that the UN had passed!

6. The parent has to rely on the marks obtained in the tests to know what the child has understood and learnt.

We have solved all these in one shot – myEshala!

myEshala simply covers all these things. The lectures are interesting, with periodic questions to confirm attention. Reports are sent to parents, so that the parents know exactly what their child is doing. All this at home, where the child gets a chance to learn at his or her own pace. No one (well, except the parents!) to tell them to be fast or slow. Children get to view all the content as many times as they want, and can take quizzes as many times as they want.

Moreover, they get to see other students’ scores, thereby inducing a competitive spirit in them.

This is not the only thing we have planned for myEshala. There are tons of other things, which we cannot disclose now. Keep watching this blog, so that you learn interesting and useful things that are up!