I formed my company, realsmart.co.uk in 2004 in Aberdovey, Wales. 8 years later, I found out Outward Bound had started in Aberdovey too. This was after I had decided to open a new school based on Expeditionary Learning, which was born out of OB... must be something in the welsh water...
At realsmart, we created five portfolio tools... an assessment for learning portfolio, a website builder, blog and podcast builder, a mind mapping tool and a passport portfolio. We also made a filesystem that allowed you to store any artefact you created on the internet... so six tools...
After I created the first 'like' button in 2004, which no-one in the world noticed or recognises, and building realsmart into a £1m+ company from my bedroom, Steve Jobs famously announced that he was killing Flash, the technology that our beautiful app was made from, and that was pretty much that.
I started the journey of XP around 2012, and left realsmart with my business partner.
Fast forward to 2020, and I found myself in control of realsmart again, and sitting in Apple Park headquarters, in Cupertino, San Fransisco. I made the only phone call I could... "We need to make the realsmart app again, but with what we know now..."
One year on, today, the app is shaping up nicely. It is being used to create the new 'activist' curriculum in XP, which will be shared with the world in a few month's time.
I love how things change, and I love my drive to make everything a simple as possible. The eureka moment came mid last year, when we realised that the five... no, six tools we created... was actually just one.
If someone asked me to imagine what a tool looked like that combined a website, blog, mind map, AfL and passport portfolio with an internet filing system would look like, I would guess at, "A MESS!"
But we have created something so fast and simple, and I am incredibly proud of it.
It is being used in anger right now, and will be ready to launch to the public for the next academic year.
realsmart learning maps connects you with your learning, from concept to content.
See you this summer...
...oh, and the smiley is back... ;-)
At realsmart, we created five portfolio tools... an assessment for learning portfolio, a website builder, blog and podcast builder, a mind mapping tool and a passport portfolio. We also made a filesystem that allowed you to store any artefact you created on the internet... so six tools...
After I created the first 'like' button in 2004, which no-one in the world noticed or recognises, and building realsmart into a £1m+ company from my bedroom, Steve Jobs famously announced that he was killing Flash, the technology that our beautiful app was made from, and that was pretty much that.
I started the journey of XP around 2012, and left realsmart with my business partner.
Fast forward to 2020, and I found myself in control of realsmart again, and sitting in Apple Park headquarters, in Cupertino, San Fransisco. I made the only phone call I could... "We need to make the realsmart app again, but with what we know now..."
One year on, today, the app is shaping up nicely. It is being used to create the new 'activist' curriculum in XP, which will be shared with the world in a few month's time.
I love how things change, and I love my drive to make everything a simple as possible. The eureka moment came mid last year, when we realised that the five... no, six tools we created... was actually just one.
If someone asked me to imagine what a tool looked like that combined a website, blog, mind map, AfL and passport portfolio with an internet filing system would look like, I would guess at, "A MESS!"
But we have created something so fast and simple, and I am incredibly proud of it.
It is being used in anger right now, and will be ready to launch to the public for the next academic year.
realsmart learning maps connects you with your learning, from concept to content.
See you this summer...
...oh, and the smiley is back... ;-)