Thursday, January 15, 2015

$200 project

We need to find a way to do this project twice.  By the end of the first round, kids are just now learning a bunch of valuable lessons about how to work as a team, who to work with (and not work with), how to organize their time, and how to market.  If we did this a second time, they would have a chance to apply all of this right away and do better.

Perhaps for next year: plan to do 2 $200 projects during Q2 and shift the storefront project to Q3.

So:

Q1: entrepreneurship bootcamp
Q2: creating a business [include public speaking and require students to pitch to investors--must convince investors to allow them to use their money for specific business]
Q3: storefront project

[but what about non-profits/social entrepreneurship???  We need to have space for this]

Perhaps:

Q1: boot camp + $200 project #1
Q2: $200 project #2 + social entrepreneurship/non-profit work
Q3: Senior projects and start storefront (?)
Q4: finish all work

Monday, January 12, 2015

More January

Show and tell: start each day by having students present a recent story about innovation--subscribe to blogs that cover innovation and have them select.

This would work for public speaking practice and also to help them develop a sense of the world of innovation--new ideas.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

November thoughts for next year

Seems like it would be worthwhile to start the course with a boot camp experience, a quick set of lessons that get kids some basic skills.  Chinosi does this with his lab, and we should talk to him about what he includes.

Skills to teach during Boot Camp:

1.  How to create a valid survey

2.  How to use PowerPoint/Google Presentation

3.  How to work with data

4.  Excel

5.  task management software (Trello)

6.  TELOS and BMC

January notes

1.  Opening project: groups get one can of lemonade mix and have to sell as much lemonade as they can.  This will get them thinking about the front end of entrepreneurship--the selling--which is what the groups for the $200 project didn't really think about.  This will also help them identify back end needs, and this is what we'll be teaching them in class.

2.  Have students solicit contacts and content for Krissie's Town-wide video content project.  Students need practice approaching adults and winning commitments.  This would give them practice with email, phone calls, thank you notes, contracts, pitching, etc.

3.  Ideas for C4E handbook:

email
professional writing expectations
thank you notes/business correspondence

excel/google sheets
basic accounting
making slides for presentations
public speaking
marketing

Forms: Pro Forma, SWOT, others

Trello


4.  Do more with case studies--use as a way to introduce business concepts--1x/week?