Phase
Summary
Details, caveats and timing
Small scale, 4 or five schools (where we have good friends nearby). One class in each, both US and UK.
Children are very much pioneers (they get T shirts, certificates printed to say "researcher / pioneer"). Their feedback is important. 13/14 year olds for this.
The school classes form a community, interesting in itself, but their efforts are focussed on the design and functionality of the service, together with some fun stuff too to make their effort worthwhile in the short term. Final server keeps a record of "thanks" for their help.
We need to indentify these schools and the classes in each of them that we are working with asap, certainly before the end of January.
The class, teachers, parents and students need to know what they are in for - suggest short video and a visit by one of the 'lab team + one from the nearby "host".
We will need the "comfort" information in place early - info about safety advice, how the address book works etc., etc.
Suggest one in Reston, one in Palo Alto (or thereabouts) one in Chelmsford plus one other if we think anything essential is missing from these pioneer schools that we need to explore.
Any national launch / media event will happen towards the end of this phase, or maybe into the beginning of the next one. Our pioneer children might expect to be part of that launch (=planes, meeting up, photo opportunity etc).
We will need a server location, but not the final one, and the beginning of a 'call centre' and helpline solution.
First "big" activity with up to 50,000 users on the server to show what can be done
Crucially we need to chose these users through their membership of some learning community - school, LEA, a national project, whatever .
This is a short phase, we need to build to big numbers and demonstrate critical mass quickly. However, the learning communities that we support in this phase may well continue into the Initial Launch phase and beyond.
We should harness the value added of existing group who need a learning community infrastructure to progress their ideas / objectives. I suggest we team up with the Nat Hist Mus of NY in US and the Channel 4 (a national TV channel) Numeracy project in UK) . In doing so we exemplify the proto-competitive nature of the service and leverage exisiting effort and resources whilst making something happen that otherwisewould not.
We should also build on the Exploratory trial stage to keep the "delight" element strong and will need to create /manage that in-house. Also we need to make it clear to these "early adopters", that they are pioneers with views and ideas that we value. It may be that we add a special suffix / prefix to their mail id to signal their pioneering contribution (maybe dependent on level of engagement?).
We will need a final server location, with plenty of bandwidth, and a finished a 'call centre' and helpline solution.
Initial launch
Once we have tested the service on a large (First Scale pilot) scale, we need to move to our first tranche of 9 and 14 year olds.
That is what this phase is about.
And we need a lot of paperwork, leaflets, press packs, etc by this stage.
This is the point where we deliver a service rather than develop a service which means "finished" in deveelopment terms.
First cycle launch
This is the second tranche of 9 and 14 year olds. They do not necessarily need to be a year later but whenever we, and they, are ready.
...so from here on it is easy. Isn't it?