FlowVella Education – Clarifications with New Update, Free Student Accounts and Future

FlowVella Education – Clarifications, FREE Student Accounts and the Future

When we launched FlowVella (formerly Flowboard), we didn’t expect to have as many students and teachers use the iPad app as we have. We anticipated that we would get college and university students as well as teachers and professors. We knew that FlowVella was simple and powerful and truly a next generation presentation tool. Fast forward two years later and now, we have over 7,000 schools, colleges and universities and tens of thousands of students using FlowVella. We could not be more proud and honored to help students tell stories, complete reports, and learn how to better communicate their ideas in a modern way (dare we say, fit for the 21st Century learner!) as well as allow teachers to build interactive syllabus, lesson plans and so much more.

We have had countless tweets from teachers and students sharing presentations made in FlowVella, so we knew we were onto something. Based on that feedback, we’ve decided to dedicate further resources to building out more education-specific features. More on that below.

FlowVella Education iPad App

Last August, we built a specific iPad app version for education and called it FlowVella Education. We did research on Common Core Standards and built a dozen or so templates for various subjects and classes; language arts, communication, science, and more. We bundled some features that had been formerly only been available to Premium Subscribers and sold the app as a paid app for $9.99 for some time, and later settled on $4.99.

While we had great hopes for this approach, it hasn’t been sustainable for us as a company and after talking to several teachers, it isn’t exactly what teachers want or need either. We sold about 1200 of these over the course of 9 months, and we truly appreciate every one of our users who paid for this app. Last week, as we moved to a 100% free to download model, we discontinued this app from the App Store. HOWEVER, you can still use it, and it will be supported on the go forward for an indefinite time.  If you purchased this app, while in it, you are NOT restricted like in the latest versions of the Mac or iPad app. We are sorry for the confusion related to this when we launched and announced the new versions of FlowVella Mac and iPad last week.

FREE Student Accounts

As of the last Thursday, April 30, 2015, we launched a couple new account types that aren’t fully implemented; student and teacher. While we would have loved to have launched our new Education platform with last week’s release, we are a small team and it just wasn’t ready yet. These account types unlock virtually all the premium features that are restricted within the iPad and Mac apps. Right now, we are upgrading students as they request, but we are building a self-serve system that we will roll out soon. Please visit this page for more information and then fill out the form that is linked to get your FREE student account.

NEW FlowVella Education Coming Soon!

We are working on a new education product offering that is more account-based than app-based. This means that your account type, either teacher or student, will unlock features. As mentioned above, student accounts will be free on the go forward, and additional new education-specific features will be added soon.

While it’s not always the best idea to pre-announce what we are building, we feel that we need to be even more transparent here as some of you have been upset with our recent changes. We are building a new system where our new teacher account can invite students to a class; they will automatically be student account types – no need to request a student account upgrade.  From there, each class will have a group/class visibility option to view, share and collaborate on Flows. When a student (or teacher) posts a Flow, one of the options will be to share just to their class or group. Each class can also feature any presentation or Flow – you will control your own catalog. Teachers (or students) can also build their own templates that are for use only within their class.

We are building a workflow where students who are under 13 will be able to generate permission emails to send to their parents or teachers for approval. For students under 13, we will also add more privacy and security layers, as well as restrict social sharing features. Finally, teachers, administrators and ‘trusted’ students can manage their class, add/remove students, add/remove templates, and add/remove featured presentations all from a simple web based tool.

We are planning on launching a beta of this new product soon. If you are a teacher or school administrator and would like to be a beta user, we would love your input as we bring this product to classes in the Fall of 2015. Sign up here!