Instible is a platform that enables communication between students, teachers and alumni of the same and different educational institutes with a focus on learning. It provides an internal platform for each institute to collaborate upon as well as an institute front page that showcases institute news and achievements publicly. With Instible, we hope to empower the teachers and students with technology in order to better the learning experience.

Problem

The role of technology in education has been long debated and we feel that technology can be used effectively to empower teachers and students to make learning more fun, engaging and truly valuable. Also, by providing the good teachers with a platform to reach out to and teach millions of students outside of their classroom, we solve a major problem of not being able to train enough teachers. Also, rote learning is not education. We need to encourage students to be imaginative, be creative, ask questions and think for themselves - all the time - not just in classrooms.

Solution

We propose an online platform that connects students, teachers and alumni of an institute, and also of different institutes. The internal platform focuses on classes that teachers can create and students can join. These online classrooms (private to institute or public to all)enable engagement and offer alternative resources to read and learn from with respect to the subject. It also focuses on projects that promote the philosophy of 'Learning by Doing' and lets students create and showcase their original work. Other common features include events and notices to improve engagement and participation. This solution is different in 2 ways. First is that it is a common platform for any educational institute to use to make learning more engaging and fun. Second is that it connects these institutes so there can be better discovery and interaction between members of these institutes. The solution would be in the form of a web application and a mobile application and hence the end user can reach it through any web-enabled device. We would collaborate with universities/schools that would want such a system in place.

Example

Let's say a school decides to use this system for their students, teachers and alumni. Now, teachers can create online versions of their classrooms that his/her students can join. They may ask questions, reply to questions look at material uploaded by the teacher or explore the aggregated educational content from the web related to that subject. They can create a project and show it to their class. Let's assume there is a university also using the platform. Maybe a student from the school is looking for admission into that university. He/she can interact with the faculty and other students in that university to get a better idea of what it would be like. Also, the university can see what projects he/she might have done and if there are any recommendations from teachers or his peers. He could also contact an alumni from his school and ask him for advice or support for his project. All in one place.

Marketplace

Competitors include tradional LMSes like Blackboard and moodle. Newer platforms such as edmodo and piazza also have similar products but not with our model.