Instructure looks like a very good product. Slightly more college-focused and LMS-like than Eduset, but certainly similar.
I'm definitely working on more features to differentiate from generic platforms that could be used (Facebook, Wordpress, etc). As for the price, do you think that it would become justifiable to someone like your sister once more features are added, or do you think that she and other teachers like her are unwilling to pay for any sort of classroom web tool?
I sent her the link just now and we talked a bit. Turns out the school district currently offers a very basic website for teachers to interact with students online.
As you can tell, its nothing fancy really. She mentioned that students can create accounts and interact on her page but that its too confusing and so she just uses the basic features.
To quote her:
"I can have the students create accounts on there so they can post stuff too but I haven't played around with any of that stuff.
Its really confusing so if he could market it to school districts instead of making us use this stuff then that'd be great.
Its really dumb, a lot of teachers just use google sites instead cause its easier. To make my site look like that I had to go through and edit the html code"
It seems like she is definitely looking for something different but expects the school district to purchase it. Otherwise she'd rather use Google or Ning. I hope the feedback helps :)
It's great to hear feedback like that. I intentionally designed Eduset to have less customizability than options such as the one you linked, or even Google Sites, as it's almost always the customizability that introduces the complexity. Further, from what I've heard, having an institutional payment option seems like the way to go.
I'm definitely working on more features to differentiate from generic platforms that could be used (Facebook, Wordpress, etc). As for the price, do you think that it would become justifiable to someone like your sister once more features are added, or do you think that she and other teachers like her are unwilling to pay for any sort of classroom web tool?