As a 95-year-old publishing company primarily known for its textbooks, McGraw-Hill is not usually the type of exhibitor one finds at the Consumer Electronics Show, let alone one to make a splash. Nonetheless, the company went to Vegas this year (er, rather its education division, McGraw-Hill Education went to Vegas) to show off some innovative new technology. Again, McGraw-Hill (or textbook… → Read More
Since first emerging early last year, Boston-based startup Boundless has been on a mission to give students a free alternative to the financial and physical costs of bulky backpacks brimming with pricey hard-copy textbooks. Co-founders Ariel Diaz, Brian Balfour and Aaron White believe that the incumbents, the old-school textbook publishers (the top four of which still control the market) have been… → Read More
With unemployment and “under-employment” rampant among grads, many college students are facing the unpleasant reality of a less-than-appealing job market. As a result, students have begun turning to alternative resources to help them prep for life after college, whether that be through skill-focused online platforms like Skillshare or online educational resources like Modern Guild. → Read More
One of the most important roles that technology can play in transforming education revolves around data. Whether that’s by implementing APIs to make student data more transportable (a la Clever and LearnSprout) or creating integrated, cloud-based analytics platforms that give educators more insight into student performance through realtime metrics, finding better ways to make data more accessible… → Read More
If you attended a university, you likely took at least one class where you sat in a lecture hall with at least fifty other bedraggled, hungover students. In that case, you may be familiar with those hand-held clickers distributed by professors to allow students to “click” their responses to questions they ask during class. Well, in the event you’re unfamiliar, Toronto-based startup Top Hat… → Read More
The world of ed-tech is ramping up another notch, and getting a lot more open in the process: educational publishing giant Elsevier is in advanced talks to buy Mendeley, a London/New York-based provider of a platform for academics to share research and collaborate with each other via a social network. TechCrunch understands from sources close to the companies that the deal is underway and should… → Read More
BodeTree launched early last year to help small business owners better understand and make sense of their financial data. The startup has been attempting to make the absurdly tedious world of financial software fun, or at least less crappy, pitching itself as a “financial tool for people who hate finance.” As Sarah wrote at the time, BodeTree syncs with QuickBooks for data importing, but… → Read More
Back in May, we shared the unique story of Lynda.com, the veteran, video-based education platform, and how it was able to generate $70 million in revenue in 2011 without taking a penny from outside investors. Since then, it’s continued chugging along, growing revenue to $100 million in 2012.
Founded in 1995 by husband-and-wife team Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman, in the Facebook and Instagram… → Read More
The Minerva Project burst onto the scene last year with an ambitious goal: To create the next elite American university, online, and, in so doing, help rethink the role of higher education in the Digital Era. Not only that, but the startup wants to establish rigorous, Ivy League-caliber standards, admitting only the best and the brightest, with a faculty to match, while offering tuition that’s… → Read More
Stanford professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng launched Coursera last year to give anyone and everyone access to courses from top-tier universities — for free, online. At launch, the startup offered courses from a mere three institutions, but today, things have changed, as Coursera’s platform now hosts over 200 courses from 33 top international and domestic schools and reaches over 2 million… → Read More
For many startups, creating the educational platform (and learning experience) of the future began with reinventing the presentation, distribution — really, the essence — of educational content. And what is the most familiar package for that content? The good ole textbook, in all its rigid and bulky glory. As such, startups like Kno, Inkling and Boundless have been helping to make textbooks and… → Read More
Founded in 2009, Wisconsin-based startup StudyBlue set out with a simple and straightforward mission: Leverage technology to help students improve their academic performance. Over the next year, with smartphone adoption accelerating, StudyBlue became laser-focused on mobile with the goal of allowing students to study anywhere and everywhere — across platforms.
Today, StudyBlue has become a… → Read More
Descomplica today added its name to a growing list of startups finding support as they look to harness South America’s growing interest in online education. The Brazilian startup, which helps high school students prepare for their university entrance exams, announced this week that it has closed a round of series A financing from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Brazil-focused investment firm, Valor… → Read More
Back in August, MindSnacks, the DreamIt Ventures accelerator grad and makers of language learning games for the iPhone, raised $6.5 million from Sequoia. The funding was validation of the 2.5-year-old startup’s core mission: To help gamers turn those nagging Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja addictions into opportunities for learning. → Read More
Social learning company Grockit announced today that it has raised a new round of strategic investment from Discovery Communications. In addition to the capital investment, which from what we’ve heard is about $20 million, the strategic investment from Discovery will also include shared technology, as well as marketing, distribution and promotional opportunities via Learnist, Grockit’s social… → Read More
Online video learning platform Lynda.com is making a big addition to its management team today, announcing that it has hired Frits Habermann as its new chief technical officer. Habermann joins Lynda.com from EA’s PopCap Games, where he was CTO and VP of social game operations and led the global technical growth of the company’s social, mobile and console game, including its most popular franchises… → Read More
Testive, an alum of TechStars’ Boston accelerator, has developed a new line of test preparation products in partnership with MIT that seek to make old school testing and test prep obsolete. With 10,000 students already using its customized test prep experiences, the startup is today announcing that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding, led by a group of prominent Boston-based angel investors. → Read More
Julian Miller taught high school for four years, and like many teachers, he cared about his students’ learning outcomes — about getting them across the finish line. Unfortunately, current educational software and systems don’t make that easy. Teachers that want to follow student progress and understand which tools or methods are working and why are routinely forced to log into six to eight… → Read More
In 2010, Udemy set out to capitalize on the growing market for video-based online education by launching a learning platform that allows anyone to teach and participate in online video classes. Yet, as the space has gotten more crowded, the startup has focused on becoming not just another online course platform, but a learning marketplace where educators of all stripes can earn compensation for… → Read More
Citigroup took a big hit yesterday, as its new CEO Michael Corbat announced the company’s intention to lay off 11,000 employees and “pull back in emerging markets” in an effort to cut costs amidst challenging times for big banks. According to Bloomberg, this represents a 4.2 percent reduction of Citi’s total workforce and hits hardest in trading, investment banking and transaction services groups… → Read More
Piggy-backing on the recent launch (and massive funding) of SoFi, a new startup is launching today that wants to breathe some fresh air into the broken, complex and mollasses-slow student loan system.
New York City-based CommonBond aims to bring the power of crowdsourcing to bear on student debt by connecting student borrowers and alumni investors and offering loans at a lower fixed rate than… → Read More
Learning a new language can be tedious and frustrating. Thankfully, a new generation of startups are leveraging advances in mobile and web technologies to make that process more enjoyable and rewarding. Today, companies like Livemocha, PlaySay, Voxy, italki, MindSnacks and Duolingo provide increasingly viable alternatives to traditional language-learning software — the Rosetta Stones of the… → Read More
One of the most popular topics in education technology these days is the subject of MOOCs, otherwise known as Massive Open Online Courses. Thanks to the buzz around MOOC platforms like Coursera, Udacity and edX, there are few universities and colleges that aren’t currently struggling with whether or not they should hop on the bandwagon. → Read More
Microsoft today added another $250 million to its Partners In Learning Project, a global professional development program it has created to equip teachers with the skills they need to teach IT and other future-looking subjects. Microsoft has been running this program since 2003 and to date has invested $750 million in the project. → Read More
Whether or not one believes Khan Academy is helping to reinvent education, it’s hard to dispute the fact that Khan (and now his team) are an educational video-producing machine, or that the platform continues to diversify. In part, that started with the release of its iPad app in March. This week, Khan Academy brought its 3,600 videos to the iPhone. → Read More
Technology is increasingly becoming a part of the classroom experience, particularly thanks to smart devices. Tablets and iPads offer students a more portable, engaging and interactive experience than many of the tools of old, and schools are catching on. The San Diego School District’s recent purchase of 26,000 iPads is just one of many recent examples of districts and states pushing to deploy… → Read More
In the Silicon Valley Distortion Field, it can seem like everyone is learning to code — that coding has become cool. Either way you slice it, talented programmers are in demand, and, as a result, there is now a litany of platforms and tutorials that propose to help anyone and everyone become a code-slinger, often from the comfort of their favorite sofa (and browser). → Read More
As the influence of technology grows in education, many have started to predict the coming obsolescence of classroom fixtures like textbooks, chalkboards, standardized testing — and even teachers. While technology will no doubt transform and replace some familiar pieces of education (for the better), the ideal outcome is not one in which teachers are replaced or marginalized, but one that… → Read More
There’s a lot of buzz about how new education platforms are making it easy to acquire the kind of skills that, traditionally, have been reserved for the hallowed halls of higher education. These services, whether it be Khan Academy or one of the countless new MOOCs or MOOC hybrids, want to make it easy for students young and old not only to learn but also to get hired.
One new San Francisco… → Read More
Four years after it launching its first graduate program with USC, 2U today has announced its foray into undergraduate education through a new program called Semester Online. The company will be powering a virtual classroom environment and interactive platform for a consortium of 10 top universities, including some it’s already been working with (Washington University in St. Louis and UNC) … → Read More
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