校園生活:階梯教室裏影響深遠的創新
DROPPING out of university to launch a start-up is old hat. The twist with Joseph Cohen, Dan Getelman and Jim Grandpre is that their start-up aims to improve how universities work. In May 2011 the three founders quit the University of Pennsylvania to launch Coursekit, soon rebranded as Lore, which has already raised $6m to develop what Mr Cohen, its 21-year-old chief executive, describes as a "social-learning network for the classroom".
從大學輟學創辦公司早已不是什麼新鮮事了。約瑟夫•科恩、丹•吉利特曼（音譯Getelman）和吉姆•格朗普利（音譯Grandpre）也加入其中，創辦了一家專爲大學改善教學的公司。 2011年5月，這三位創始人從賓夕法尼亞大學退學，創辦了Coursekit，不久後更名爲Lore。公司現已募集了6百萬的資金，用其21歲CEO科恩的話來說，就是發展一種"社會學習網絡課堂"。Lore is part of a trend that builds on the familiarity with social networking that has come with the success of Facebook. It customises the rules of a network to meet the specific needs of students. Anyone teaching a class would reasonably worry that students using Facebook were gossiping rather than learning useful information from their network of friends. Lore allows teachers to control exactly who is in the network (by issuing a class-membership code) and to see how they are using it. They can also distribute course materials, contact students, manage tests and grades, and decide what to make public and what to keep private. Students can also interact with each other.
隨着Facebook的成功，社交網絡也日漸爲人們所熟悉。Lore就是順應這種潮流應運而生。爲了滿足學生的特殊需求，它制定了特別的網絡條規。任何一位老師都會擔心學生上Facebook是八卦吐槽，而不是從朋友圈子裏瞭解到有用的信息，這種擔心合情合理。Lore使得老師可以控制網絡裏的人員組成（採用班級成員密碼），並可以看到學生是如何利用這個網絡的。他們還可以分發課程材料，聯繫學生，管理測試和分數，決定公開和保密的內容。學生還可以相互交流。In the academic year after launching its first version last November, Lore was used in at least one class in 600 universities and colleges. Its goal for its second year, about to begin, is to spread rapidly within those 600 institutions, not least to see what the effects of scale are from having lots of classes signed up within the same institution.
Lore在去年11月推出它的首版，在那個學年裏，600所大學和學院裏都至少有一間使用Lore的班級。Lore對於即將到來的第二年雄心勃勃，期望能在這600學校裏迅速擴展開來，不是僅僅想看到一所學校裏有許多班級都採用Lore會產生什麼規模效應。
The firm has a fast-growing army of fans in the faculty common room. Lore, says Edward Boches, who uses it for his advertising classes at Boston University, makes teaching "more interactive, extends it beyond the classroom and stimulates students to learn from each other rather than just the professor."
Lore現在在教師隊伍裏擁有大批擁躉。愛德華•波士在波士頓大學開設的廣告課程就採用了Lore，據他表示，Lore使得教學更具互動性，將教學的範圍擴展到課堂之外，激發學生互相學習，而不是跟着只老師學習。"Among other challenges for the company, there remains the small matter of figuring out a business model. For the moment it has none. Mr Cohen hopes that eventually Lore could become the primary marketplace for everything from courses to textbooks, but so far the service is free and carries no advertising. Blackboard, the industry incumbent, charges users for its course-management software. It remains to be seen how it will respond to the upstart.
Lore面對的衆多挑戰裏，仍存在一個小問題：即怎樣形成商業模式。就目前而言，它還沒有任何商業模式。科恩先生希望Lore最終會佔據主要的市場，服務從課程到書本無所不包。但到目前爲止。Lore的服務免費且不含有廣告。現在佔領市場的Blackboard對其客戶收取課程管理軟件的費用。至於Blackboard準備怎麼應對後起之秀Lore，我們拭目以待。The lack of a plan does not appear to bother Lore's founders or investors, who seem content to learn a lesson from another university drop-out, Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook: achieve critical mass in your network and the profits will follow. And after that perhaps they can expect an honorary degree from the alma mater?
公司的創始人和投資者並沒有因爲缺乏計劃而煩惱。他們樂於向另一位從大學退學、創辦了Facebook的馬克•扎克伯格學習：先在你的網絡裏獲取大量客戶，利潤自然會隨後滾滾而來。在這之後，他們或許可以期待從母校獲得一個榮譽學位。
