Bloomsburg Students and Alumni Doing Great Things

Lately, at Bloomsburg University where I teach, there have been some great cross-over and intermingling between academic endeavors of students and corporate experiences. Students have been bridging the gap between studying and the world-of-work and the results have been remarkable.

Starting a Business

One of the many hats I wear at Bloomsburg is as the Assistant Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Center (ELC). The ELC is focused on helping students and faculty members start businesses. As the assistant director, I have had the pleasure of working with two students, Paul Rosa and Sean Roth who have a great business idea and they have really run with it. These two students have started an innovative company called Sploops.com which is for all you sports fans out there to give a 15 second rant about your favorite sports team. They are in a closed beta now but ready to launch very soon.

The students have been highly successful already placing very high in two business plan competitions. At the the state level here in Pennsylvania, the finished in 3rd place with a $2,5000 price. They competed against more than 200 student teams at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Student Business Plan competition.

Here they are with the big check.

Sean and Paul receiving their “Big Check”

After that competition, they followed up with a first place win at our local Greater Susquehanna Keystone Innovation Zone (GKIZ) business plan competition competing against students from Bucknell, Susquehanna University and Lycoming Community College students winning $3,000.

Here they are with another check.

Paul Rosa, Tom Fletcher (Director of the ELC), Dr. Ira Blake (Provost of BU) and Kelly O’Brien Gavin (director of the GKIZ) and Sean Roth.

Corporate Advisory Council Presentations

Wearing a different hat…every year, twice a year, the graduate program in which I teach provides a mini-conference. We have a three day event that starts with corporate representatives who present projects they have been working on. The projects range from mobile development efforts to online learning. These presentations provide other corporate people and our students with a glimpse of what is happening within the industry. These presentations are also wonderful because they highlight former students who come back and show off what they are doing in the field. Here are some pictures of alumni.

Alumni Jessica Andrezze and her Colleague Chris Simonsen of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Alumni Joshua Landesman, Senior Instructional Designer with ICF International and Anthony Anoia, Senior Instructional Designer, Solutions by Design.

Mark Burke, an alumni, talking about “thinking” and the number of learners influenced by the people in the room (over 4 million).

Nancy Kapp of UL EduNeering, an alumni.

Alumni Stacey Bennett, a Senior Instructional Technologist at Aetna describing how her team used ideas from last semester’s exercise to help a project they are building.

Then, on the second day of the conference, my students present solutions to a mock Request for Proposal (RFP). This year the proposal was to develop a graphic novel/game to teach students robotic programming concepts and ideas. The RFP idea is based on an actual idea issued by DOE/DARPA as a SBIR RFP. I spend the semester teaching students how to write a proposal, how to think about the business of instructional technology and how to craft a persuasive argument of why their “company” should win the business.

Team Intuitive Learning Creations with Lisa H-Millard, James Naunas, Abdullah Albalawi and Chris Barton (left to right).

Team Encompass World Wide with Berit Johannessen, Brittany Kelly, Dongxue Sun and Norah Albahussain (left to right with Dongxue speaking.)

Team Wayfarer with Amanda Lederer, Melissa Bitten, Zhanqing Lin, Drew Smith, and Ian Kollar (left to right)

Students hear applause for their hard work.

The third day students interview for jobs and internships. Here are some pictures from the event.

Blogging Around Town

A recent alumni and person who worked on some special projects with me, Vanessa Bailey, has published a series of blog entries at the ASTD Learning Technologies Blog. Vanessa is currently an instructional designer at Strayer University. She is currently working on creating online courses for students utilizing simulations, m-learning, and video scenarios. She has a M.S. degree in Instructional Technology from Bloomsburg University.

Here are links to the articles she’s written, I especially like the one on gamification.

INTERACTIVE ELEMENTS IN E-LEARNING
GAMIFICATION: ADDING TO THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
TOOLS FOR M-LEARNING – A MYRIAD OF POSSIBILITIES
VISUAL ELEMENTS IN E-LEARNING