The Princeton Review launched a slick new iPad app today called SAT Score Quest. Each question comes with a whiteboard video tutorial with a voiceover from an instructor explaining the solution. The ShowMe whiteboard technology is licensed from Easel Learning, a bootstrapped NYC startup, which is also developing its own app and a corresponding ShowMe website where tutors and teachers of all stripes can show off their teaching skills, share lessons with students, and get rated by the community.
Easel CEO San Kim recently showed me both the Princeton Review app and the ShowMe app which is still in development (watch the video above). The demo was at General Assembly, the co-working space in Manhattan where Easel set up shop a couple months ago. He hopes that ShowMe can become a “Flickr for teachers,” which isn’t exactly the way I’d describe it—more like a YouTube for lessons.
But what is exciting here is Easel is showing a glimpse of how the iPad can completely change the way people learn. Any teacher can simply record their lessons and their students would need nothing more than an iPad to learn. Add some realtime chat and maybe some video, and it is not too difficult to see how this kind of technology can turn the iPad into a classroom.