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Market Mobility: McAllen teacher's smartphone app booms [The Monitor, McAllen, Texas](Monitor (McAllen, TX) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 16--MCALLEN -- In less than a year, a local educator's tireless attempt to connect parents to her school has turned into a district-wide utility with promise to grow across the state and nation. EJucomm, Dalinda Gonzalez-Alcantar's small technology startup, began as a bare bone mobile application, or app, for De Leon Middle School parents and students to quickly check homework assignments, view school calendars and email campus administrators on their smartphones. Released last March, the innovation will soon hit every McAllen school campus, as the district delivers iPads and iPods to all students and teachers. Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Memorial High School, acting as a pilot for that district, also paid about 70 to 80 cents per student to have eJucomm develop its campus app. And the former teacher, who quit her job to focus on her business, has entered into talks with large districts in California, Indiana and New Mexico to provide their communities with the same technology. "The growth has been better than I could have dreamed," said Gonzalez-Alcantar, 31. "Eventually every school district will want to have a mobile app just like every district has a website," she said. "I find myself lucky to find people who understand that and are willing to work with what I as an educator know districts need." Last week, Gonzalez-Alcantar presented her product to thousands of educators and technology officials at the Texas Computer Education Association's annual conference in Austin. There, she networked with several Texas school district leaders who she said expressed interest in bringing mobile apps to their campuses. "The idea truly resonated with even technology directors," Gonzalez-Alcantar said. "They all understand the importance of this." Amid the warm reception, however, she also faced something very familiar to every entrepreneur: competition. FINDING A NICHE Last week, the Judson school district in San Antonio announced that it would host that region's first mobile app. While Judson school officials could have sought and paid for a service like eJucomm's, they instead saved thousands of dollars to develop the software in-house, said district spokeswoman Aubrey Chancellor. "The only cost associated with us doing this (was) the fees that we had to submit to Android as well as Apple to get it approved," she said, referencing the two largest app market operators. Judson schools only had to shell out $124, Chancellor said, to pay for those applications. In contrast, eJucomm charges anywhere from 60 cents to $1.20 per student, which could have cost Chancellor's district anywhere from about $13,000 to $26,000. Gonzalez-Alcantar acknowledged she may lose out on business with districts that must weigh budget cuts and prefer to devote their own resources to app development. But, even after identifying potential competitors last week, she said she was confident most districts would prefer her approach. At the conference in Austin, "I could tell very quickly, by the questions people asked, why they truly wanted to know how I did this," Gonzalez-Alcantar said. "I knew this would happen." She noted a technology director in an unnamed Rio Grande Valley school district tried to get the same information out of her. "The reality is most districts don't have the ability to do this in-house," she said. "It also takes time, and server space. Most districts just don't have that type of talent or time." 'AN EXCELLENT IDEA' With that confidence, Gonzalez-Alcantar will continue her efforts to upgrade the current slate of school apps. The new design prefers buttons over tabs, user-friendly features and large images that could appeal to English and Spanish speakers alike. EJucomm will also integrate a new push notification feature -- which sends alerts to the mobile device's main interface -- to update parents about event changes, weather catastrophes or dangerous situations. "So much of the changes came from feedback, mostly from educators," Gonzalez-Alcantar said. "This just brings safety and parent-teacher communication to a level and speed we've never enjoyed before." She also may borrow an idea from the Judson school district's app, a "bully button" that lets students immediately send a message to administrators if he or she feels threatened. "That sounds like an excellent idea," Gonzalez-Alcantar said. "I'm writing it down right now. "With technology like this, we can't predict what will change tomorrow. I'll readjust as often as I need to, to meet parent (and) district needs." -- Neal Morton covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at [email protected] and (956) 683-4472. -- TWITTER Follow Neal Morton on Twitter: @nealtmorton -- More on eJucomm Story: An App for Apathy: McAllen teacher taps into smart phones to develop plugged-in parents Video: EJucomm goes to Austin TCEA ___ (c)2012 The Monitor (McAllen, Texas) Visit The Monitor (McAllen, Texas) at www.themonitor.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |