FAQ
Q: How much of the PeerCafé content and functionality can users access through cell phones?
A: Registered user with mobile phones can access ll of the PeerCafé oral curriculum (i.e. content that addresses speaking and understanding English) and the associated lesson-taking (in groups or individually), tutoring, practicing and testing functionality. Until future generation of mobile devices make writing easier and more natural, the web site PeerCafé.net will provide the reading and writing curriculum.
Q: How much of the PEN/PeerCafé digital services and operations platform exists today?
A: With the primary exceptions of the student information system, literacy-skill attainment diagnostic system, and a few other support service, most of the platform already exists in the form of outsourced software-as-a-service or commercial-off-the-shelf technology. We have a small user-interaction prototype that supports of sample multi-user, multi-platform learning sessions. The real work of making the platform operational entails Web service integration.
Q: How long from the point of funding will it take to launch?
A: We anticipate having a working Beta of the full PeerCafé service available six months after funding, launching a fully operational systems three months after that. Our choice of strategic partners that already have an operational call center, eCommerce and Web services platform, or multi-format media playout capabilities (Web, mobile, IPTV) can accelerate this time table.
Q: What will it cost to get to launch?
A: We estimate $3.5 million to get through launch and $5 milion through the end of our first year.
Q: How will we reach Latino and Chinese prospective learners?
A: We have a three-prong strategy. First, corporate-brand sponsors who target Latino and Chinese consumers will promote PeerCafé membership cards to prospect adult ESL learners, using these cards as promotional premiums and traffic builders for their retail outlets. Second, media partners (such as cable TV channels, WiFi service providers, and mobile telecom service providers) seeking corporate-brand markets who target Latino and Chinese consumers will use PeerCafé as a promotional framework. For example, a Latino TV channel will incorporate PeerCafé membership cards within a cross-media buy (where the Latino TV ad reps sell on-air, online, and mobile ad inventories to corporate sponsors. Third, we will reach prospective Latino and Chinese learners through working with the ESL community (which cannot handle the demand it now faces). We provide an annual handbook of theory and best practices to ESL professionals and volunteers as well as an incentive system for them to promote and sign-up adult ESL learners. Research reveals that immigrants to the US comprise rather sizable extended families. We believe we can enroll an entire extended family when we find and support one peer-tutor who will introduce PeerCafé to her (or his) family members, provide emotional connections and support for the adult learner to engage, and earn potentially significant economic rewards (sizeable discounts or gift cards from our corporate sponsors to outright cash payments from corporate citizens, civic philanthropist, and foundations). In our wildest dreams, we will create a system that parallels the micro-finance system now so popular in the developing world; instead of giving small loans to women entrepreneurs, we would direct public funds and private donations to a global literacy program.
We expect our anytime, anywhere, anyhow, at no cost, value proposition to be very compelling.
Q: What will it cost learners to use the PeerCafé service?
A: Our research shows that few if any one appreciates free, especially for a new and potentially complex or initially uncomfortable to use service. You got to have a stake in the game. Nonetheless, we will make the PeerCafé service available a very attractive, disruptive price. Without promotional support, adult learners would pay a monthly fee of $9.95. With a promotion subsidy, we anticipate that the monthly fee to could fall to one or two dollars per month. Promotional tie-ins with sponsors could bring users of PeerCafé additional discount coupons that more than offset the monthly fee. Clearly, the users of PeerCafé service will flock to free or low-cost Internet access, using VoiP and other Web conferencing technologies. So yes, we anticipate that most of the initial users will have access to the Web. Some of these learners will go to community centers and public libraries to access the Web and the PeerCafé service. However, users can access the PeerCafé service through mobile phones, incurring per-minute costs. We anticipate that the new multi-band WiFi-enabled mobile phones become popular, users will access the PeerCafé service through pre-existing Internet service plans. Finally, as very low-cost PC, such as the one touted by John Negraponte of MIT, become available in the developing world and local or federal governments underwrite free or low-cost WiFi Internet access, well, the PeerCafé service could become a permanent fixture in those developing societies.
Q: Where does the PEN literacy curriculum come from?
A: We developed our curriculum through an exclusive partnership with Literacyworks, one of the leading educational non-profit organizations in the U.S. We took their best-of-class database of ESL lessons and created what we refer as repository of network learning objects. A surprisingly small number of these multimedia learning objects, optimized fro delivery over the Web and calibrated to particular learning styles and literacy-skills attainment levels, support a wide variety of multi-user and individual learning experiences. Over time, we will expand this library by working with other literacy professionals in the ESL community to develop new lessons and learning concepts.
