A Mission Bay High School senior and his classmates were dissatisfied with the videoconferencing platform being used for their online instruction.
So they created one better.
And they’ve since succeeded in turning their school club project named Alattis into a student-led business.
“During the beginning of the pandemic, a couple of my friends and I created a videoconferencing platform built by students, for students, in order to combat some of the issues we were seeing with Zoom and other video-conferencing platforms,” said James Ward, one of five MBHS students involved in the project.
“Alattis’ novel features — table groups, student analytics, and one page to access all of your classes — simplified learning for our classmates,” Ward said. “In light of the recent teacher shortage, as we exit the pandemic, we’ve shifted the focus of our platform to giving schools another option when lacking sufficient students or teachers to run their classes.”
Alattis’ five-member team consists of Leah Markworth, data scientist; Jacob Mandel, hardware specialist; James Ward, co-owner and chief operations officer; William Olsker, co-owner and chief technology officer; and Patrick Sanchez, web marketer.
Ernie Remillard, former MBHS principal, and now a Poway Unified School District principal praised the efforts of Ward and his student crew.
“I appreciate James and his team because as we transitioned to virtual schools in the spring of 2020, they quickly realized there were challenges for both students and teachers,” said Remillard. “They began to design a better educational product for the staff and students at MBHS.
“I was fortunate to meet with the team as they developed the first version of their product. They listened to feedback from myself, MBHS teachers, and students. The second time I met with the team, I quickly called my vice principal into the meeting.
“The three of us were blown away at the product changes and the empathy the students had to create a project that was super user friendly and could easily be used for learners at any level,” continued Remillard. “Over the last year, I have appreciated how the team has continued to receive feedback, make adjustments, and create a product that could change the virtual experience for schools.”
The genesis of Ward and his development team’s “better mousetrap” project started out in Mission Bay High’s Entrepreneurship Club.
“Within that club, we were developing different projects,” noted Ward adding they realized, once online learning began, that a lot of the platforms being used weren’t designed for education, but for more of a general purpose.
“So we developed our own program, and used it in a couple of our classes,” said Ward. “We wanted to change from Zoom to what we have now. From that came table groups, which allow students to switch between talking to the class, and talking to their peers, with a click of a button. Teachers can also monitor all the of the students, whether they’re having group or class discussions.”
Ward said Alattis can be adapted to fit any school, anywhere, which he said their team is working on. “We have a few solutions that we’re trying to help educational institutions,” he said. “Our more innovative solution is distributed learning, which allows different students from different school districts to be merged so they can all take a class together. We’re also developing solutions for hybrid (in-person and online) classes.”
The sky is the limit for their new school teleconferencing program, said Ward.
“Right now we’re talking with charter schools in districts around the state trying to implement our distributed learning program,” he said. “We’re also starting to test our new program with global learning, which will allow students from different parts of the world to connect with each other.”
But the Alattis crew may have to wait a while – at least until they’re out of high school.
“We can turn this into a profit-making business,” enthused Ward. “But for now, it’s free for educational institutions to use.”
