It’s almost as if there’s an arms race in online education. Which MOOC platform can expand the fastest? Place your bets now. On the heels of edX’s announcement that it will be expanding internationally with the addition of six new schools (bringing its total to 12), Coursera is doing some addition of its own. Today, the massive online course platform announced that 29… → Read More
When it comes to online education and massive open online courses (a.k.a. “MOOCs”), Udacity and Coursera have stolen most of the attention. But they aren’t the only two choices for voracious distance learners out there; in fact, the number of options has grown considerably. → Read More
Like a growing number of students, Ben Kosinski attended multiple universities over the course of his collegiate career. Although these schools differed wildly in culture and the makeup of their student bodies, the one thing that seems to remain true at any school, he says, is the level of influence online social identities have come to play in the daily life of college students. Yet, in spite of… → Read More
With early-stage capital front-loading the EdTech investment spectrum, it’s a good time to start an education business. (Even if investors are still wary about doling out larger rounds, but ssshhh on that bit.) Of course, when it comes to education, many entrepreneurs are still green. It’s not as easy as it may seem to learn the landscape and understand how best to maneuver lengthy sales cycles… → Read More
BrightBytes has been on a mission to “improve the way the world learns through data” — and, in turn, to help schools solve their technological woes. To do that, the San Francisco-based learning analytics startup provides schools with the tools and services they need to be able to more effectively measure the impact of technology on the learning process. → Read More
Tutorspree has been quiet of late, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still plugging away on its mission to make high-quality, local tutors in any subject accessible to any student — or finding continued interest from investors along the way. According to its Form D filing with SEC, Tutorspree recently closed on a new round of financing that appears to add an additional $1.9 million to its coffers. → Read More
Higher education in the U.S. is a hot mess. For decades, funding for public universities and colleges has been in steady decline, which, as spending continued, led to rising institutional debt and eventually reductions in faculty, courses, programs — you name it. To make up the difference, institutions have been jacking up tuition rates to the point that the cost of a college degree is now… → Read More
This won’t come as a surprise, but the publishing industry is in trouble. Digital technologies have transformed the publishing landscape — just as they did for music — from the way companies distribute content to how we consume it, and our reading habits are fundamentally changing as a result. Book publishers and traditional booksellers are struggling to stay afloat amidst the rising digital… → Read More
Last year, the buzz around the potential of online courses (particularly MOOC platforms) reached new heights, and this year is already shaping up to be the one in which online course platforms and the startups that love them, make their big push for legitimacy. To wit: The year kicked off with the news that the largest university system in the world has partnered with Udacity to pilot low cost… → Read More
In 2012, the buzz around education technology reached new heights and, with the new year now underway, the hype surrounding the potential transformative impact of technology on both higher and K-12 education continues, thanks to initiatives like the one Udacity is piloting with largest university system in the world, which aims to bring affordable, lower-division and remedial online courses to the… → Read More
If you’re not an aspiring musician, you may not be familiar with TakeLessons, but the San Diego-based startup is on a mission to change that. Today, TakeLessons announced that it has raised $4 million in follow-on series A financing, led by Palo Alto’s Triangle Peak Partners, to expand its online marketplace for music lessons into new new verticals — including tutoring and the performing arts. → Read More
Tapping into the growth of online education, Skillshare launched in 2011 on a mission to build a digital marketplace for knowledge. Yet, instead of going in the direction of traditional online education or the new generation of MOOC platforms like Coursera and Udacity, Skillshare eschewed hosting classes in traditional education subjects to instead offer classes that teach people real-world skills… → Read More
At the end of 2010, Vinay Bhargava decided to leave Google — not a decision he made lightly after spending seven-plus years in Mountain View and Washington D.C. But the decision became clear after talking to a group of students at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. The students helped him realize that, in spite of the fact that nearly 26 percent of students… → Read More
Chegg has long been known as a textbook company, becoming one of the first companies to bring textbook rental online and reach widespread adoption. But with Amazon, Apple and others moving aggressively into the textbook market — and the market and textbooks themselves increasingly going digital — Chegg has been re-positioning. Today, the textbook company is eying EdTech’s Holy Grail of becoming… → Read More
Back in September, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a contest that aimed to challenge entrepreneurs and app developers to build awesome, innovative education apps on Facebook’s platform. The so-called College Knowledge Challenge kicked off with an EdTech hackathon co-hosted by the Gates Foundation and Facebook, located at the social network’s headquarters in Menlo Park. → Read More
Another day, another vote of investor confidence for educational gaming. Today, Pluto Media, the Menlo Park-based maker of educational, tablet-based games for kids, announced that it has raised $500K in seed funding from Learn Capital’s Rob Hutter, along with individual investments from NewSchools Venture Fund’s Jennifer Carolan and Peter Relan, the co-founder of OpenFeint, WebVan, Crowdstar and… → Read More
It’s easy to get lost in the Silicon Valley and Bay Area tech bubbles, where it seems that everyone carries five phones, owns three laptops and just had lunch with a sentient robot. But, the reality is outside of the bubble is a little different. Digital literacy is a privilege, and more the exception than the rule. Not everyone owns a computer or is employed at a startup that just raised $10… → Read More
As the educational landscape changes, it is giving birth to a whole new generation of learning software and learning software companies. In part, this change is being driven by the introduction of “adaptive” technologies, which, writ large, seek to personalize the learning process for each student. By personalizing the education experience, these new platforms hope to improve student outcomes… → Read More
One of the most valuable things parents can do is read to their kids, but keeping a steady supply of quality books in the house is still a challenge. Today, a startup called The Little Book Club is launching to address that problem with a subscription-based service for kids’ books. The service, designed for busy parents who can’t stomach the idea of reading “Goodnight Moon” every night for the… → 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
When you think about hackathons and coders building something quick and dirty, you might envision a dark dorm room at Harvard filled with pizza boxes and empty Red Bull cans. That’s because the only window into this scene that the world has, outside of San Francisco and New York City, was the movie “The Social Network.” A non-profit organization called Code.org, founded by… → 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
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
San Francisco-based kids’ app platform Fingerprint is teaming up with UK educational app maker Mindshapes. The two companies are collaborating on a series of new digital learning activities called “appisodes,” which combine both storytelling and games. It’s the first in what promises to be a busy year of Fingerprint announcements, partnerships, and app launches → 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
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