Veezyon

I believe many of you will agree with me that networking events provide tremendous value for startups. I am a huge believer in face-to-face interaction when possible.  Local networking venues create opportunities to form partnerships, get to know future employees/employers (who knows right?), to test concepts, to better understand current technology trends, you name it.

However, social gatherings are especially important in technology regions, which are just mapping out their human capital and local resources, such as the Santa Fe/Albuquerque area.

I attended the BarCamp Albuquerque 4 this weekend. You can search for “#abqbarcamp” on Twitter to learn what went on. It was a small group in an intimate setting.  I enjoyed every minute of it and learned a lot. There were exciting presentations about HTML 5, Collecta real-time search engine, web design fundamentals, Google Analytics, ArtSpark, Google App Engine, and more.

I am 100% sure that BarCamp Albuquerque will get bigger as more people will talk about it. Reid and Chris did a great job of organizing and handling the details and our host Eric opened the doors of UNM ARTS Lab to us.

I think we need more events targeting various segments of innovation and technology crowd in the region.  Here is a list of the networking events in Albuquerque and Santa Fe region.  The list captures most of the main venues; feel free to add more in comments.

-          Coronado Ventures Forum : All things Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, Technology

-          Ignite NM : We  presented our thoughts on future of learning at an Ignite event, you can view the presentation here

-          BarCamp Albuquerque

-          Webuquerque

-          Animotion NM : Everything animation & motion graphics

-          ABQ WebGeeks

-          New Mexico Technology Council

-          Open Coffee Club : Informal gathering time & place for NM entrepreneurs, VC’s, and related people

-          NNM Connect : Organizes various events

Veezyon.com is an online social learning platform; education, professional development, curiosity, hobby, you name it!  Our motivation is to optimize online learning and create an ultimate social learning platform.  Veezyon enables information sharing, workgroup formation and discussions around the content and makes it more meaningful therefore increasing the effectiveness of learning.

“Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies (2009)” by Department of Education shows that students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The study is a meta-analysis of the research, and it notes that caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population since the results are derived mostly from studies with adults such as medical training and higher education.  The study notes that the benefits of online learning especially apply to undergraduate, graduate and professional learners.

The research suggests that elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes. Quizzes at the end of a video segment could be categorized as static learning. One key statement in the research addresses this issue: “online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection”.  This is exactly what Veezyon aims:  to transform static learning into a dynamic and interactive one by merging branded content with collaboration tools.  It is very encouraging to see that the discussions are around how and where online learning should be utilized rather than the usefulness of it.