The grading also seems flawed if the rich kids are allowed to buy advertising for their app...
BJ Fogg
· 2 years ago
I'm teaching the Facebook course along with Dave McClure. Thanks for covering it.
A few clarifications for your story:
1. Your statement about grading isn't quite right. Students will be evaluated on how well their apps engage users, not on the sheer number of users. We're also evaluating students on how well they work in teams, among other things.
2. At the end of the course, we're having a public expo. This expo is not designed to win investors, as you say. I imagine some VCs will come, but this is not the purpose. We want to give students experience in presenting and discussing their work with the public.
I'm happy to answer other questions you have about this course.
--BJ Fogg captology.stanford.edu
davemc500hats
· 2 years ago
hi sean -
thanks for the article & the feedback.
as BJ mentioned above, the class grades won't be based on just user #'s -- in fact, it's actually one of the key components of the class to focus more on depth of user engagement & not just user #'s. and there are other components to grades including in-class participation, working as a team, etc. the idea is to map to real-world business & startup experiences.
along with our students, i'm sure both BJ & I have much to learn on how best to present the material so that they pickup useful & practical skills, and definitely there will be some missteps as we progress. but that's part of the journey -- crawl before walk, walk before run.
still, we think have a good set of goals in teaching concepts & best practices on product management, product marketing, & app development; using web analytics & user engagment metrics as the "theory", and Facebook Apps as the "lab".
UPDATE: We've had two great classes so far, and in two weeks, our students will launch their first versions of their apps.
A clarification: grading will not be based solely on users, but we will be more focused on user engagement and the use of metrics to improve and iterate on the user experience.
There's a lot of excitement in the air, and we've upped our enrollment cap to about 90, from 40!
Stay tuned, because our students are going to build some really cool apps over the next 6-8 weeks.
All Comments
A few clarifications for your story:
1. Your statement about grading isn't quite right. Students will be evaluated on how well their apps engage users, not on the sheer number of users. We're also evaluating students on how well they work in teams, among other things.
2. At the end of the course, we're having a public expo. This expo is not designed to win investors, as you say. I imagine some VCs will come, but this is not the purpose. We want to give students experience in presenting and discussing their work with the public.
I'm happy to answer other questions you have about this course.
--BJ Fogg
captology.stanford.edu
thanks for the article & the feedback.
as BJ mentioned above, the class grades won't be based on just user #'s -- in fact, it's actually one of the key components of the class to focus more on depth of user engagement & not just user #'s. and there are other components to grades including in-class participation, working as a team, etc. the idea is to map to real-world business & startup experiences.
along with our students, i'm sure both BJ & I have much to learn on how best to present the material so that they pickup useful & practical skills, and definitely there will be some missteps as we progress. but that's part of the journey -- crawl before walk, walk before run.
still, we think have a good set of goals in teaching concepts & best practices on product management, product marketing, & app development; using web analytics & user engagment metrics as the "theory", and Facebook Apps as the "lab".
with luck, someone might even learn something ;)
regards & happy to followup,
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
UPDATE: We've had two great classes so far, and in two weeks, our students will launch their first versions of their apps.
A clarification: grading will not be based solely on users, but we will be more focused on user engagement and the use of metrics to improve and iterate on the user experience.
There's a lot of excitement in the air, and we've upped our enrollment cap to about 90, from 40!
Stay tuned, because our students are going to build some really cool apps over the next 6-8 weeks.
Dan Ackerman Greenberg
http://www.ackermangreenberg.com