Tokoro: Business Plan
Assignment #3. due Friday, 4 May 2007: Prepare a 1-2 page plan for your project that shows, like a Business Plan would, a certain level of thinking through the possibilities and preparation about the users (customers) and about the costs and operation of the project.
This page was created on 4 May 2007.
Overview
Convenience and flexibility are valuable characteristics of any service. Tokoro, an online Japanese language and culture classroom, innovatively applies these characteristics with the help of up-to-date technology to educational services.
Tokoro is a website that addresses the needs of Japanese students who are either unable to or choose not to attend a regular Japanese language and culture class in a classroom. Tokoro provides a virtual classroom that enables the student to study at his or her own pace while still maintaining interaction with a Japanese teacher through Internet communication. Complete lesson plans are conveniently available on the website and give the user complete control over the speed of the course. Tokoro, therefore, personalizes the learning process to benefit different types of learners.
Description of Service and Opportunity
Tokoro provides a completely Internet-based teaching service that allows the user to reach intermediate Japanese language proficiency starting from noknowledge at all about the Japanese language. Therefore, the website is designed to introduce beginning students to the Japanese language and culture, developing basic reading, writing and listening skills. Additionally, the website provides interesting information about the unique culture of Japan spanning from famous foods, pop culture, and basic country history. Tokoro is for English speakers and any instruction uses only American English.
Tokoro is uniquely characterized by its engaging and entertaining style of teaching. The lesson plans use Japanese animation, cartoons and other pop culture references to illustrate points and to maintain the interest of the user.
Therefore, Tokoro is ideal for the teenage age group and appeals to anyone who desires to learn more about Japanese pop culture and modern life.
Qualifications and Experience of Team
Tokoro is managed by a group consisting of Japanese instructors, a head instructor and a small web development team.
The head instructor oversees the direction of the method and content of the lessons, lesson material, and resources available on the website. The head instructor holds weekly meetings with the instructors in order to discuss possible improvements and changes in lesson material in order to reflect recent developments in effective teaching methods. This is in order to ensure that Tokoro's lessons are effective and relevant to modern Japanese culture. This is especially important for any cultural changes related to slang and pop culture. Therefore, Tokoro's instructors must be both interested and deeply sensitive to changes in Japanese culture.
The web development team maintains the functionality of the website and also implements the interactivity of the lesson plans. The team communicates with the head instructor in order to ensure that the desires of the instructors are technologically feasible. The team also continually strives to improve the quality of the website by making necessary changes to the layout and organization of the website. Therefore, the team is experienced with user-friendly webdesign and has the programming and software experience necessary to maximize user-friendliness and innovative design.
Target Market
Tokoro's target market ranges from the young teenage group to older students who may be too busy to enroll in a college or community class. Since Tokoro is primarily driven by its convenience and flexibility, it is ideal for the adult who simply has no time to attend a regularly scheduled class. Tokoro can also be used as a reference website for anyone currently enrolled in an offline Japanese class in order to supplement what is learned elsewhere. It is also great for reviewing purposes for users who have learned Japanese in the past and would like to maintain or regain their knowledge about Japanese language and culture. Users who are planning to visit Japan for tourism or business purposes may also use Tokoro in order to develop some basic Japanese skills and awareness about the Japanese culture before leaving for Japan in order to ease their transition into the country.
Marketing Plan
Tokoro connects to Japanese language classes at colleges and high schools, by contacting instructors at educational institutions to advertise Tokoro in their classrooms. Tokoro also connects to other Japanese language and culture websites by contacting webmasters to link to Tokoro. Tourism websites and guidebooks about Japan are also a great source of advertisement for Tokoro.
Implementation Plan
Tokoro will first start off with a very simple team consisting of one unpaid person serving as both the instructor and the web developer. However, as traffic increases to the website and more instructors are needed to interact with the growing number of Tokoro students, more staff members will be hired to improve the course material and design of the website.
Startup Costs/Maintenance Costs
The costs for Tokoro consist of salaries for the team behind the website. The instructors and web developers are paid on an hourly basis because the amount of work required varies with the number of students accessing and using the website. The maintenance costs consist of hosting space and staff salaries.
Financing Model
Tokoro is primarily financed through advertisement and donation. Advertisement of Japanese-related services and goods are used to support the website.
Organization of Website
Tokoro's mainpage contains a simple introduction to the purpose of the website, followed by a weblog that contains updates and changes made to the website.
The website is organized using four major links: About Tokoro, Lessons, Learning Material, and Outside Resources. Each of these links branches out to more specific webpages.
"About Tokoro" consists of background information about the website, an overview of Tokoro's goals, and contact information.
"Lessons" is divided into Cultural and Language sections. Within the Language learning portion of Tokoro, each lesson is accompanied by a corresponding Lesson Quiz to ensure that the lesson material has been understood and studied sufficiently.
"Outside Resources" provides a comprehensive page of hyperlinks connecting to Japan-related websites extending beyond Tokoro. The links are organized under subcategories such as "Japanese-English Dictionaries" or "Japanese Tourism Websites" in order to aid the user in discovering resources outside of Tokoro.
Tokoro created and updated by Eunice Lee
