Patreon: Become a Runestone Patron
As you have seen from the data in previous post Runestone is growing and helping to introduce many students at many institutions to computer science, data science, web programming, you name it. I think we are helping to make the world a better place.
When I left my full time teaching job at Luther College a year ago, it was with the goal of making Runestone my full time work. That is still my goal. Originally I had given myself a year to figure out a business model. Then Google presented one to me. Come and consult with us, they said. Help us with our project. That has been, and continues to be, a great opportunity for me, but it won’t last forever. And, its not really a business model, And I need to strike a better balance between writing books and developing the Runestone platform!
Make Textbooks Free
I could follow a model of charging every student a modest sum of money to access books on Runestone Academy But did you know that about half of the schools that use Runestone are public high schools? That model does not work for public school students, and I don’t want to leave them behind. Runestone has saved students millions of dollars in textbook costs, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I could create a freemium business model, where the basic books are free, but more advanced features and teaching materials would cost the school money. That may still be a path to follow, but that makes the code more complex to check whether I should expose a feature to someone based on some flag that tells me if you’ve paid or not.
So instead, I’m doubling down on the supporter model by starting a Patreon campaign. Patreon is for people like us, for content creators that need support to keep on creating! You can use a trusted website to make a regular monthly payment that will come to Runestone.
We have so much work that we could do to make Runestone better than it is today. In my ideal world I would like to be able to hire students that have been through one or more Runestone courses. How cool is that? You got your introduction to CS through Runestone and now you can help develop the very platform that helped you get a start. At the same time they would get valuable resume building experience!
So, today I’m asking you to please support Runestone. Become a patron. It doesn’t have to be a lifetime commitment, but if Runestone has helped you this year why not help us in return?? Go to our page on Patreon and become a patron today.
Then, make sure you tell in the comments what you would like to see most in the next generation of Runestone tools and books.
Thanks!