Digication Inc., a Providence company that’s using so-called Web 2.0 technology to bring digital communication into classrooms, has launched its first product for widespread distribution: a Web-based “classroom.”
It is beta-testing a second product, for creating digital portfolios.
Formed in 2002 by CEO Jeffrey Yan and President Kelly Driscoll, both of whom teach art education at Rhode Island School of Design, Digication focuses on developing Web-based learning software for K-12 schools and colleges.
In August, after a successful beta-testing phase at RISD and other institutions, the company launched Digication Campus, a hosted Web environment where teachers can post class assignments and other materials, help students, record grades and archive lessons, and where the entire class can share ideas and learn collaboratively.
This month, the company began beta-testing of Digication Spotlight, a program to be used with Campus or separately. Also Web-based and hosted by Digication, the new software allows students to develop portfolios – called “spots” – of their work that can include music, images and text files.
Both products have the same price: Free, for the first 1,000 users at any institution, then $20 per each additional user. (That price includes up to 2 gigabytes of storage; Digication charges $50 per year for each additional gigabyte.)
With the first 1,000 users paying nothing, Yan said, “the majority of K-12 schools can use this for free,” and even for bigger schools, the fee is “still affordable.”
“There is a very strong drive with me and Kelly [Driscoll] to make this affordable,” he said. “It’s a commodity that you don’t have to be privileged to have access to.”
The simplicity and efficiency of Web 2.0 software architecture and design help keep Digication’s costs low, Yan said, and the company makes its money from schools “that are large enough to have technology funding for things like this.”
Neither Campus nor Spotlight is unique in the market; several other vendors offer online classroom collaboration and digital portfolio software. What makes Digication’s products different, Yan said, is they are simpler and easier to use.
“For a school to set up a learning management system has been a very daunting task,” he said. “The time, the cost and the energy invested in this process makes it very difficult to own a learning management system.”
For the last five years, while teaching at RISD, he and Driscoll have been researching how to integrate technology in the classroom, Yan said, and their software is based on that research.
“We have found that, because it’s simple to use, the hurdles that exist in e-learning software that blocks people from using the software are gone,” Yan said. The same goes for digital portfolios, he said: creating a Web site requires at least basic knowledge of how the Web works, but Digication’s products are meant to be “so simple to use that if you know how to use e-mail, you can use our software.”
Already, 35 schools nationwide are using Digication Campus, including Smithfield and Portsmouth High Schools, RISD, and Johnson & Wales University.
Spotlight, which was released for beta testing on Sept. 12, is being at Smithfield and Portsmouth High Schools and at RISD, by more than 1,000 people, Yan said.
“We believe it’s motivating for the student, to know that their work isn’t just being done, graded and stored on a book shelf,” Yan said.
The hope is that students and teachers will use the Digication “spots” to document academic achievements and their body of work and to share it with colleges, graduate schools and employers.
Another benefit, Yan said, is that users get to keep their “spots.” The portfolios are also available to alumni of any institution, and those users will not count toward the 1,000 free users per school. “It’s a way for the academic community to showcase their work, their expertise and their experiences,” he said.
