BrainNook, a social, educational gaming site for children grades 1 through 5, is today expanding to the iPad with the debut of the first in a series of apps from the company. These apps will focus on teaching children math and language skills, but have the goal of being as entertaining and engaging as other popular kids’ virtual worlds, like Moshi Monsters or Club Penguin. → 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
While organized hackathons and startup-building events have begun to sprout up across the globe thanks to companies like AngelHack and Startup Weekend, university-focused hackathons remain underrepresented. General Catalyst, the veteran venture capital firm based in Massachusetts and Palo Alto, wants to change that. General Catalyst, in partnership with hacker event specialist Signalfire, has… → 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
Groupnotes, a Canadian startup with a team spread across Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario, was crowned the overall winner of Startup Weekend’s Global Startup Battle today. The international contest is all about launching a startup in just 54 hours, which the Groupnotes team managed with gusto, even signing on a number of customers willing to pay for early beta access before going hands on with an… → 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
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
Timbuktu, an educational and entertainment-focused iPad app for kids has relaunched with a revamped design, additional content, and daily updates. Previously, the company, a recent 500 Startups grad, had been testing a more traditional magazine-style experience with a cover, index and pages, but decided to move to the updated design based on user testing and feedback. → 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
In what is the most-watched TED Talk to date, Sir Ken Robinson makes a convincing case for why the educational system in the U.S. needs to be torn down and rebuilt: It stifles creativity. Robinson is not alone in his belief that the current system revolves around inflexible curricula and churning out standardized test-taking drones, rather than free-thinking individuals. It’s for this reason that… → Read More
We’ve heard a lot about how massive open online courses like Udacity are disrupting the traditional world of higher education. Not too long ago, Learndot, which is officially launching today, wanted to be a part of this revolution, too. After beta testing their ideas for a P2P learning platform last year, however, the team decided that its service was better suited as a learning tool of corporate… → Read More
For more than a few years now, engineering talent has been in high demand but it also seems that, of late, coding has become cool. Okay, maybe not cool, but thanks to a fleet of startups and companies like Codecademy, Treehouse, Code School, CodeNow, Khan and more, it’s becoming easier and easier to learn the basics of the world’s ubiquitous programming languages.
By bringing computer science… → Read More
Founded in 2007, Flat World Knowledge was one of the early pioneers in the move to bring free and open access to textbooks to students and educators. The independent publisher offered its learning content for free, giving students the access to texts in print, eBook form, eReaders, audiobooks and downloadable PDFs, etc. Produced by actual authors and reviewed by peers, Flat World allows teachers… → Read More
Editor’s note: Dr. Paul Judge is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He is Chief Research Officer at Barracuda Networks, co-founder and Chairman of Pindrop and Limitless Smart Shot, and previously led three companies to successful exits.
A few months ago Facebook’s initial public offering became the largest tech IPO in history, initially valuing the company at over $100 billion. Over 70… → Read More
The story sounded far-fetched: OLPC researchers, working with a team of technicians in Ethiopia, created a special “hut” covered in solar panels where the children of a few distant towns could go to recharge some toys they were given. The toys were boxed Motorola Xoom tablets and every child between the age of four and eight got one. The researchers were expecting the children to play with the… → Read More
Instructure launched Canvas in 2011 to give educational institutions an alternative to the ubiquitous (but much criticized) software of educational giants like Blackboard. Today, the company is adding another piece to its learning management system with the launch of its own MOOC hybrid, which allows schools to define the structure of their online courses and customize the learning experience. → Read More
There’s a lot of opportunity — and big problems to solve — in the current educational landscape. But it’s not an easy road, and, for entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses in need of mentoring, seed capital, and business development guidance as they tackle those problems, the options are limited.
That’s why, after encouragement from Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, former Yahoo and Google… → Read More
With the November elections right around the corner, education reform is a hot topic these days, thanks to a flood of reports indicating that the U.S. has fallen behind its peers on a number of educational fronts — from enrollment and high school graduation rates to achievement and teacher salaries. Diminishing interest (and performance) in STEM education, in particular, has prompted a… → Read More
Flashnotes, a marketplace where students can buy and sell their notes and other course materials, has closed a seed round of $1.8 million as it looks to take its platfrom nationwide, from 75 schools in the U.S. it is in today. The investment has some impressive names behind it. Led by Ryan Moore of Atlas Venture and Jordan Levy of Softbank Capital, it also included participation from a list of… → Read More
Udacity, a startup focused on bringing free university-level educational worldwide, is today announcing a significant new investment: $15 million in Series B funding in a round led by top VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. Also participating in the round were Udacity’s previous investors, Charles River Ventures and Steve Blank.
To date, the company has raised $21.1 million in outside funding for its… → Read More
Clever, a graduate of Y Combinator’s most recent batch of startups, launched in late June to bring a bit of Twilio’s vision to education. During their time at Y Combinator, the accelerator’s co-founder Paul Graham challenged the team to integrate with 40 schools by the end of the program. Clever far-surpassed that goal, announcing this morning that over 2,000 K-12 schools have now adopted its… → Read More
Apple executives will put the spotlight on the iPad’s educational value tomorrow at its planned San Jose event, according to a new report. Businessweek cites “a person with knowledge of the planning” of the event as the source, but doesn’t go into further detail. But if Apple’s introducing a lower-cost iPad mini as expected, the benefits in terms of institutional purchases are obvious. → Read More
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