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Conferences/Events Entrepreneurship

Grockit is Rockin’ it

Lots of exciting news surrounding Grockit over the past few days, starting with the successful closure of a 4th round of funding ($7M series D) with New Schools Venture Fund joining as one of the new investors.

As mentioned in a previous post, Grockit’s founder, Farb Nivi, is inspiring other edupreneurs by partnering with the Gates Foundation to host several Startup Weekend EDU events across the globe. Grockit hosted their 2nd event at their SF Headquarters this past weekend and I was fortunate enough to attend and experience some of Farb’s energy and passion for edtech first hand.

Another benefit of mentoring yesterday is that I got a personal product demo of Grockit Answers that launched today and is definitely worth checking out. This smart Q&A system augments online video content by creating a connected and social way to have discussions around particular content. Designed by Grockit’s Chief Learning Architect, Ari Bader-Natal, he has considered thoughtful features for educators such as private discussion groups and moderator privileges to control the direction of the conversations. I’m definitely going to use this for my work with Khan Academy.

The evening ended with incredibly strong pitches from all teams. Congratulations to Alumn.us, the winners of the #SFEDU event and shout out to the other finalists- I’m with the Band (learning through music, and their team was made up of several Stanford LDT grad students :), DailyRead and Stacks. As a mentor, I had a chance to speak with several of the teams as they polished their pitches and am always impressed by the energy that people bring even late Sunday after a weekend of brainstorming, building and pitching.

The Grockit team did a fantastic job with the event and are taking the show on the road to DC next month followed by several other major international cities after that. If you want to get involved or help organize a Startup Weekend in SF or around the globe, contact the Startup Weekend team at events@startupweekend.org.

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Blended Learning Conferences/Events

Technology and student-centric learning

Between the Philanthropy Roundtable event on Wednesday and the Startup Weekend EDU at Grockit on Sunday I’ve seen first hand the energy and momentum that is building in this space.

The Roundtable event was focused on how technology, and specifically blended learning, can be used to create student-centric learning environments. It was fantastic to see practitioners, politicians and philanthropists all coming together to rethink the purpose of schools and how students actually learn. One of the areas most interesting to me and my current work is thinking about how blended learning environments can create time/space for more project-based learning (PBL) activities. Explicitly giving kids more opportunities to work with their hands and each other.

The breakout sessions highlighted several examples of charter schools successfully applying a blended learning approach: Carpe Diem (Yuma, AZ), Rocketship (San Jose), Kipp LA Empower Academy and Summit Public Schools (Redwood City.) Beyond creative uses of technology it was great to see all of these schools focusing on building a culture of achievement and really engaging students in their own learning and that of their peers. This cultural shift is the real key to improving education outcomes for all kids.

 

During lunch, Jeb Bush shared his perspective on what policy makers and public/district officials can do to foster innovations in the education space. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of solutions that he supported and his message that the ultimate goal should be “a customized learning system that values student outcomes above all else.” He went on to say that we should not over-regulate the space but rather treat it as other industries where we accept the risk of a few bad actors banking on the larger reward of “explosions in innovation.”

The afternoon sessions continued with conversations around what policy makers can do to create an environment that encourages high quality digital learning and how traditional schools can incorporate some successful blended learning models.

The event culminated with New Schools Venture Fund unveiling their Edtech Market Map. I think it’s a great start and we need more robust tools to be able to identify and follow key trends in the edtech space. They presented it as v1 and I’m looking forward to seeing what functionalities are added over time (tagging? following?) Take some time to play around and let me know what you think!

Blended learning is definitely hot topic in education right now and if you want to learn more, check out these additional resources.

  • The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning – The seminal piece on blended learning school models, this short paper explains how each model operates and outlines several
  • How Khan Academy is Changing the Rules of Education – This Wired Magazine article from July 2011 explains the on-the-ground implications of online and blended learning, including how technology impacts students’ and teachers’ daily schedules.
  • Is there a K-12 Online Learning Bubble? – Written by Michael Horn of the Innosight Institute, this article outlines a number of the issues with low-quality digital learning and the need for policy that rewards student performance outcomes.
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Conferences/Events

Explorers need a good map!

I have been looking for a map of the edtech world for a while now and cannot wait to see what is unveiled later today. Stay tuned for thoughts on that and more insights from the Philanthropy Roundtable Education Conference.

(Courtesy of EdSurge)

MAPPING THE WORLD: Every pioneer needs a map and now the NewSchools Venture Fund has started to make one of the edtech world. With support from theLaura and John Arnold Foundation, and contributions from edsurgent dudesMichael B. Horn and Anthony Kim, NSVF’s Ted Mitchell and Kristina Ransick have pulled together a marvelous connect-the-dots portrait of the industry, cataloguing companies into FOUR high level groups (such as curricula and instructional systems) and then into more specific areas (under curricula: tutoring, test prep, digital textbooks, etc). The project aims to give entrepreneurs and funders (nonprofit and for profit) a clearer view of the industry. The market map OF 230 COMPANIES will be unveiled publically late Wednesday afternoon at a meeting of philanthropists in San Francisco. By the end of today (Wednesday), you should be able to click here and see if your company has landed a spot on the atlas. The challenge, of course, is keeping it current. Other catalogues of the edtech world, such as StartL’s Dealbook,  have languished. No word yet on how this one will be maintained.

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Conferences/Events

Girl Up (United Nations Foundation)- Uniting

Girl Up (United Nations Foundation)- Uniting Girls to Change the World

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Conferences/Events

Educate Girls, Change the World

I’ve heard the staggering statistics around the dismal state of girls education around the world many times, but they still shock me.

  • India: only 11% of girls get a college education
  • Cambodia: 4 out of 5 girls drop out of school when they turn 13
  • Nigeria: 60% of all out-of-school children are girls

When thinking about how to solve massive global problems like breaking the cycle of poverty, sex trafficking, stopping the spread of AIDS (…the list goes on), so much of this can be addressed by focusing on educating girls.

10×10, a global nonprofit, is embodying the collective impact approach to ‘provide rocket fuel’ to the already established movement to educate and empower girls around the world. As a long time supporter of Room to Read, I was so pleased to see them as one of the partners in their portfolio.

I’m so grateful that I got to see Holly and Tom share their message at the Legacy Venture event today and am inspired to think about how I can get involved. In bringing this back to the edtech world, I think there are some real opportunities to use existing and emerging technologies to further this collective mission and am optimistic about continued progress. Onward!

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Blended Learning

What is Blended Learning?

Link: What is Blended Learning?

Check out these 3 short videos from Education Elements that provide an overview of blended learning.

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Uncategorized

Happy 2nd Birthday- The School Fund

“Education is like a mountain, the higher you climb, the more you can see.”

-Riaz Abeid : Teacher, Lugalo Secondary School : Iringa, Tanzania

Yesterday I attended the 2nd Birthday for The School Fund, a global youth development program started by a group of college students to help kids in Africa and other parts of the developing world attend school. (Amazingly, this is often possible with as little as $150/yr for a uniform, books and tuition.)

There were several aspects of this organization that are especially impressive:

– Volunteer Led: Matt Severson, the founder who began this work while he was an undergrad at Brown, works full time at Google and manages a team of volunteers split between the East and West Coast. (It’s also a family affair with Matt’s Dad working on the website and his Mom facilitating the trips.)

– Transparency: Allows donors to see their funds directly put to use by posting receipts in the fund history in the student’s profile page.

– Building Relationships: The journal feature enables donors to connect with the student(s) they sponsor and get regular updates beyond the information they share in their bio.

– Youth Engagement: High schools students have built clubs on campuses to spread the word about TSF & raise funds, and have traveled to visit some of the students to deepen their relationships.

– Partnerships: Recognizing that other nonprofits could benefit from the tool they created, the team realized the best way to scale their impact is to partner with other organizations such as Goals Haiti, Children of Kibera, Education for All Children and many more…

The Team has gotten the attention of the Clinton Global Initiative as well as the Skees Family Foundation. They are well on their way to increasing access to education for the millions of kids who don’t go to school. I’m truly inspired by the work Matt and the team are doing and hope others will support their work!

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Uncategorized

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

A special post in honor of Steve Jobs- inspiring entrepreneurs, designers, and life-long learners all over the world to follow their dreams and never settle. May he rest in peace.

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Are you reading EdSurge?

If not, take a minute to sign up today. Their growing team, lead by seasoned technology journalist Betsy Corcoran, is doing a fantastic job collecting and disseminating the most relevant edtech news. Looking forward to seeing what is coming next from this team!

Some of the highlights from this week’s edition…

APIs FOR ALL: Thank you, TeachStreet, for starting to gather up edtech APIs! If you have one, make sure you send the details here.

ED ELEMENTS: $2.1 million, San Francisco: Education Elements, founded by Anthony Kim, took on investors including NewSchools Venture Fund, Tugboat Ventures, venture capitalist Wally Hawley, and Imagine K12’s three cofounders. Kim is one of America’s top consultants in setting up blending learning programs at schools. Here’s the nail-biting truth about the most sophisticated learning programs: each one has its own, carefully designed “data dashboard.” That provokes air traffic-controller-like nightmares for teachers who try to use, say, three different programs to teach math, language arts and science. EdElements’ solution is what Kim has dubbed the “Hybrid Learning Management System,”—basically one dashboard to rule them all.

BUILDING CHARTERS: $25 million from the U.S. Dept. of Education to support 124 new (& 3 expanded) charter schools, serving 45,000 students over the next five years. Some of the programs will have to do more additional fund-raising than others. Recipients include KIPP ($9.5 million and planning for 18 schools), Breakthrough Charter Schools in Cleveland ($3.5 million, and building or expanding 11 schools) and San Jose’s Rocketship ($1.9 million and planning to build 56 schools).

…and so much more. The best way to get up-to-speed on all things EdTech.

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Culture of Learning- The Real Disruption

 

Mitch Kapor gave a great keynote at the closing day of Startup Weekend EDU in Seattle this evening with a key theme being that we need to create a ‘culture of learning,’ and not just tools to really ‘fix’ the challenges in education. He shared some insights into his experience investing in edtech startups, and how at first he never invested in companies selling to districts/schools but has changed his stance on that a bit. He started off highlighting the work he and his wife, Freada, have been doing with The Summer Science Program, an intense six-week STEM-focused summer program for intellectually talented high school students from low income (SES) communities.

I especially appreciated his thoughts on social vs. tech entrepreneurs and how they can learn from each other’s perspective to maximize results. The sweet spot is where you build awesome (and useful) products with a sustainable business model.

His closing thoughts on startups today was most applicable to a Startup Weekend-type event —  Often entrepreneurs “confuse how far you can get in your first day of travel with how long it will take to get to the top of the mountain.” This captures the current environment where it’s so easy to get started, but it’s still very difficult to get past the early adopters, especially when hoping to sell to schools and districts, which have long and complicated sales timelines. Overall his message was positive and encouraged all edupreneurs to keep fighting the good fight, but just make sure you can make money!

Check out the feedback on Twitter- #swseaedu, @swseaedu