A Case Study

Selling to Schools: A Case Study

Sensavis, the Swedish 3D content company, is experiencing more success at reaching educational customers with their 3D educational science content, the 3D Classroom, than many other content producers I know.  I wanted to discover why, so I spent time interviewing Mattias Boström, a past school principal and currently Director of Product Development for Sensavis,  and Fredrik Olofsson, CEO and President of Sensavis, with this goal in mind.

What I discovered was that Sensavis pursues a different strategy than most companies do. And I think that the folds and creases of this strategy can be informative for any industry hoping to penetrate the stubborn education market.  Here’s what I learned:

It’s all about the teacher. The centerline strategy of Sensavis appears to be their focus on meeting the needs of teachers, not just supporting the curriculum or providing content directly to students. It’s the teacher that matters to Sensavis. For example, “most companies add a lot of text and voiceover to their products, because they want to appeal directly to the student”, suggests Bostrom, who is also an experienced school principal. Sensavis content “leaves room for the teacher”, he explains.  

It starts where the customer is at, not where the technology is at. Most educational customers don’t have the technical wherewithal to broadly implement stereoscopic 3D. As a solution, schools and colleges are urged to invest in the rendered 3D content and make the move to the far superior stereo 3D content when they are ready. (The Sensavis content is provided in both rendered and stereo format, upon purchase.) Rendered 3D can support a variety of classroom formats: flipped, blended, online or face to face settings, without requiring the school to invest in additional hardware. A good example is the Tanglin Trust School in Singapore, which uses both rendered and stereo 3D in the classroom, as needed. 

It’s all about rightsizing. Sensavis has  enabled their content to run on minimal devices, such as the Microsoft Surface Pro and  ordinary teacher computers. I saw their newest simulations running on a Surface Pro, using a minimum i5 processor, 8 gigs ram, while running Microsoft operating system 8 or X with a 64bit installation. Their 3D sims can be run in either rendered 3D, or be connected to a 3D projector/display to run in stereo 3D. Even the rendered 3D is lifelike, full HD, fully interactive content. “We wanted to be able to install our simulations on any teacher’s computer”, explains Boström. 

It’s about user-created content. Oloffson explains: “What really attracts schools is the video recording segment of the product, which enables students and teachers to create their own educational videos.” He explains: “Teachers can manipulate any process in the recording. We recognize that teachers don’t generally like to be told what and how to teach. Therefore we have added the capability for teachers to create their own simulations or walkthroughs.”

It’s about pricing. Sensavis’ pricing strategies are also teacher friendly. That makes sense. If teachers can’t afford it on their own, or teachers pass on to leadership that a product is unapproachable, that’s the end of it.

It’s about sharing. In the U.S., teachers are isolated, One of the innovative developments now under design by Sensavis is the creation of a private cloud-based solution that can house teacher- and student-created animations, sharable across schools, districts or states.  This approach eliminates the need for each teacher, each school or each district to recreate the wheel with teacher-developed content? Why not store and share the best?

News from Sensavis

Sensavis, the creator of the unique educational product “The 3D Classroom,” together with partner Ed10x, has secured the first school district to implement The 3D Classroom with services and video rights for “flipped instruction” in all their schools. (The 3D Classroom is an intuitive and interactive 3D educational visualization tool which allows the teacher to explain complex and abstract subjects to students in a simple, visual, and understandable way.)

The Lincoln County School District in Southeastern Nevada can now produce their own professional development videos with high quality content on their own terms. With this district-wide licensing, teachers can share their best videos to their students working with “flipped classroom”, prepare substitute teachers with lesson resources in an instant, and as well as support students with personalized tutoring videos for class. “Lincoln County School District is energized and thrilled to partner with Sensavis. and provide our teachers the opportunity to incorporate an interactive 3D Classroom curriculum resource into their instructional strategies,” says Steve Hansen, Superintendent for Lincoln County School District. Fredrik Olofsson, CEO for Sensavis AB, the Swedish-based parent company of Sensavis, adds: “The 3D Classroom brings to Lincoln County School District a state of the art teaching tool that will enable students to grasp hard to understand concepts through stunning visuals.” Tiffany Kelly, CEO of Ed10x , explains: “It takes our Professional Development initiatives to another dimension… it fulfills one of our goals of capturing the students in those first few minutes of each lesson with technology enriched teaching methods. She adds: “Ed10x will also be working with Sensavis to develop a video lesson library and a peer to peer video library”.

Considering last week's post on Presente3D's new pricing, can you see a trend here? Again, we are beginning to rightly move away from the ponderous and onerous seat pricing model that has so plagued 3D in education to date. 

Nevada State Flies High

Nevada State College, located in Henderson (NV) is what we like to call a “high-flying” school. In educational circles, that moniker identifies a school that defies traditional expectations and succeeds despite the odds. Nevada State College is beaming proud of the fact that first generation, low income minority students comprise the bulk of their enrollment. The numbers substantiate the boast since 54.5% of NSV students receiving a degree in Biology continue on to graduate school, and a remarkable 21.4% enroll in medical school. 

Yet another reason Nevada State College is a “high-flying” institution is that it is may be the first college in the nation to adopt 3D technology across an academic discipline, not just a single classroom. Nevada State College recently purchased “The 3D Classroom,” a Sensavis program presented in life-like 3D. The 3D Classroom delivers what we have always expected and always wanted from 3D: the ability to go beyond superficial visualization. It offers the remarkable capacity to drill down, then go further down; to go inside, and then travel further inside. In short, to truly experience the long-desired “fantastic voyage” that 3D has always seemed to promise us.

Nevada State College is implementing this aggressive 3D learning initiative, starting with anatomy and physiology content, in all beginning biology classes and pre-nursing programs.  Later, they plan to expand its use in chemistry, physics, and mathematics programs.  Nevada State College administrators also plan to initiate a partnership with the content manufacturer, Sensavis, using student and faculty expertise to develop additional 3D content.