Choosing the right type of color palette can drastically enhance a user’s eLearning experience in a number of different ways. The right color combinations can set the mood for a positive learning experience, and it also helps keep the reader focused and engaged.  It is also important to consider who the actual audience is and how they will relate to the learning objectives. Here are a few more ideas to keep in mind when creating a color palette in E-Learning software: Using your Brand’s Colors in eLearning The most obvious choice for colors in eLearning software is usually found within the client’s existing logos and branding. Since these hues are already highly visible to the public through prior campaigns, using brand colors helps strengthen the messaging and the overall experience. It also makes the learning software more recognizable if it’s being shared on distribution websites, increasing its chances of being downloaded. While it is usually a good idea to use corporate colors within eLearning software, there may be cases where the shades and tones simply do not work with the messaging being conveyed. In those cases, the colors can either be slightly altered to lighter/darker shades, or it may be necessary to use a completely different color palette to capture the recipient’s attention. Choosing Colors Based on Your Audience Then again, the choice of color in eLearning programs should also be heavily influenced by the audience that will use the software. For example, children respond better to bright, lively colors while learners within a work environment may respond better to more subtle tones. The content and how it will be used will also help define a solid color scheme to keep your learners focused. There is actually a psychological effect that is created by certain color choices as well. A red, white and blue eLearning template naturally gives a patriotic feel while natural hues can create a seasonal or holiday feel. The strategy behind using colors as a psychological stimulus has long been accepted as a legitimate tool to motivate, relax or bring out other types of feelings within users. Considering Industry Standards for Learning Software Then again, some industries may be known for using certain color combinations…like the shades of green in military campaigns or the soft blues in healthcare. If your learning software will be focused on an industry that already has a pre-defined set of colors, then it may be a good idea to stick with that theme since it will feel familiar to your recipients. Since it also gives you some instant recognition and increased your trust levels as well, it is definitely worth considering in any campaign. For more information about the use of colors in eLearning or to find out how to have the perfect learning platform designed for your business, please contact Designing Digitally, Inc. at your earliest convenience. We use all of these considerations and more when implementing an E-learning solution and our staff would love to share additional insights with you.

Over the past couple of years the Indian subcontinent managed to establish itself as a serious market for investors seeking opportunities to invest in education and EdTech. At EDUKWEST we see an increased number of startups in the education space getting founded by Indian entrepreneurs, often after having spent time in the US and working for big American companies, but also new funds specially created to support the budding ecosystem. [purchase_link id="11399" text="Purchase" style="button" color="blue"] In terms of traffic on our website and subscribers to our newsletter, India has become our number two source of visitors making for a solid 10 percent of total traffic on EDUKWEST. These developments caused our team to take a deep look at the data we collect about the Indian EdTech startup ecosystem, and what came up was some pretty telling trends for 1H 2015. Overview 1H 2014 1H 2015 Amount $80 million $56 million Number of Investors 35 60 Number of Rounds 20 30 Although the total amount invested in 1H 2015 seems to be significantly lower with $56 million than it was in 1H 2014 ($80 million) at first glance, it needs to be said that this includes one $60 million round. Overall we see a much larger number of investors (60) being drawn to EdTech in India than in the same time in 2014 (35). The total number of rounds we tracked increased from 20 rounds in 1 H 2014 to 30 rounds in the same timeframe this year. Rounds 1H 2014 1H 2015 Angel 6 $2m 6 $666k Seed 7 $1.7m 11 $4.6m Series A 1 $942k 6 $7.5m Series B 1 $9m 1 $10m Series C 0 2 $19m undefined 5 $66m 4 $14.2m If we take a look at how these rounds break down in comparison, we see that there is a constant number of Angel rounds (6), but those rounds are significantly smaller in size this year than they were last year. However, the picture changes when we look at Seed investments, Series A, B, and C rounds this year, both in terms of total rounds and total amount of money invested. Interestingly, the amount of unspecified investment was a staggering $66 million in 1H 2014, which asks for some caution when looking at the distribution of money in specific rounds. It would, however, appear that the investments made in the past year have become more structured. Verticals 1H 2014 1H 2015 K-12 6 11 Higher Education 2 6 Test Prep 2 4 Language Learning 0 3 In terms of popularity, we see the K-12 vertical lead the field with 11 rounds total, followed by Higher Education with 6 rounds, then test prep with 4, and language learning with 3 rounds in 2015 so far. Cities 1H 2014 1H 2015 Bangalore 3 8 Delhi, New Delhi 3 7 Mumbai 3 6 Chennai 2 3 Hyderabad 4 3 The top 3 EdTech hubs on the subcontinent are Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai, which is consistent with the 2014 data. It is noteworthy that the top three cities have at least doubled the number of investment rounds in 1H 2015. [purchase_link id="11399" text="Purchase" style="button" color="blue"] Special Offer: Purchase our Bundle EdTech Funding Report India 1H 2014 & 1H 2015 and save 50% on the second report. [purchase_link id="11403" text="Purchase" style="button" color="blue"] Picture License  Some rights reserved by t3rmin4t0r  

In this episode of MEP, Kyle Stalzer, who is the CEO at Tackk.com, talks about this unique content creation tool that has met a lot of success with teachers and students in the K-12 space. Guest Bio: Kyle Stalzer was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied at the University of Dayton where he obtained a degree in Management Information Systems. Kyle’s background is rooted in data-driven product management with over 10 years experience setting online and mobile strategy for Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. Before Tackk, Kyle worked at American Greetings and Progressive Insurance. Show Notes: (01:40) Kyle’s background (03:36) Did you study Computer Engineering, software or anything like that in college? (04:37) Let’s talk about the company Tackk. What problem are you trying to solve with Tackk, and what sort of progress have you made? (05:32) Tackk’s tagline is "Simply create a beautiful page." (09:48) I’m interested in knowing how the product works so that the audience can really have a feel for it. (14:50) What other barriers or issues are you seeing as you go through this journey? (18:43) What’s the business model? What are you trying to do to monetize? (22:25) What do you see as the future of Tackk? Or the future of what you want to develop that will make an impact on education? (24:55) If you could have dinner with one person you admire, past or present, who would it be and why? How to Use Tackk: Tackk from Tackk on Vimeo. Links: http://tackk.com https://twitter.com/tackk https://tackk.com/@tackk https://tackk.com/@kyle For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter.

New York-based education search engine Noodle acquired Boston-based AllClasses. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, VentureBeat reports that it is an all-equity deal. AllClasses was founded in 2013 and raised a $1.5 million Seed Round in May 2014. Founded in 2010 by John Katzman, who is also the founder of The Princeton Review and 2U (formerly 2tor), Noodle collects information about online and offline courses from the web and curates them on its web portal. With the acquisition of AllClasses, Noodle adds nearly 100.000 courses from 20.000 providers to its database, expanding its post-college search capabilities. Earlier this month Noodle added search capabilities for pre-schools to its offering. The acquisition of AllClasses is the second in Noodle’s history. In March 2013 Noodle acquired Lore (formerly CourseKit) to integrate its technology into the search engine. Further Reading Leading Website Noodle Acquires AllClasses, On Track to Being Most Comprehensive Education Search Tool | Press Release Education search tool Noodle acquires AllClasses in all-stock deal | VentureBeat Princeton Review Founder’s Startup Noodle Acquires Lore To Build An Education Marketplace Around Search | TechCrunch Links allclasses.com

Name: Leada Website: www.teamleada.com Headquarters: Mountain View, USA Vertical: Coding, Higher Education Tech: Web App Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. Leada is the best way to teach data science skills online. We sell our content to professors in a 'Build Your Own' style. In contrast to all other ed-tech companies, we seek to complement rather than replace the university professor. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. We are childhood friends from Davis, CA and recent graduates from UC Berkeley where we both studied a combination of Statistics, Business, & Computer Science and co-founded the Undergraduate Statistics Association. Tristan is the CTO and Brian is the CEO. How was the idea for your startup born? Having recently graduated UC Berkeley we intimately experienced the problems with higher education. We felt college was important, but lacked employable skill development and industry relevance. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. Professors hate two things: teaching "skills" and providing industry relevance to their class. We enable them to do this with our online labs and real world projects. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? Coursera/Udacity - They are designed to replace professors, we are a product professors use and consequently we solve the attrition problem they are plagued with. DataCamp - Like Codecademy DataCamp is effective to introduce data science concepts to beginners, but learning in depth is impossible via simply DataCamp Pearson Textbooks - Their online content is purely homework/testing based, Leada has interactive teaching content and charges significantly less. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. We hope to be in over 30 universities in the Fall 2015 semester. Who is your target audience. University professors How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. Word of mouth, conferences, and outbound sales. How many users / downloads does your service have? In spring of 2014 we were used inside UC Berkeley, Notre Dame, NYU & University of San Francisco. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. Our business model is similar to textbooks. The professor will assign the content and the student pays. The cost is between $50 to $75 dollars. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We're backed by ImagineK12 and Y Combinator (in the current batch). Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. The completion rates of our online content for our students is between 50% to 60%. Coursera is lucky to have 5%. What are the next steps in growing your startup. Evangelizing Leada as the best resource to teach data science & analytics in every program across the United States. Transitioning to other subjects such as design, software engineering, etc. How can people get in touch with you. Email: brian@teamleada.com Room for anything else you would like to add. Ed-Tech is hard, but you know what's harder? The lack of purpose most people go about their lives.

To better serve small organizations and individuals that can’t (don’t want to) pay for a hosted solution by one of its partners, Moodle now offers a free hosted solution called MoodleCloud. MoodleCloud includes basic features that come with limitations to keep cost for the company in control, and there are also ads integrated to subsidize the running costs for Moodle. Teachers can sign up 50 students and upload 200mb of content. There are no plugins or customizations available. The database size is unlimited and the package comes with free videoconferencing powered by BigBlueButton. The LMS will also automatically update to the latest version and can be setup within minutes using a mobile phone for security measures. MoodleCloud is obviously targeting teachers and institutions who want to give the LMS a testdrive before committing to either running their own LMS or sign up for a hosting package with one of the Moodle Partners. With startups like Canvas Network offering free, hosted LMS solutions and general tech companies like WordPress entering the market, Moodle needs to get new users on board. Hence, MoodleCloud might be a good entry point. Further Reading Moodle Launches MoodleCloud - Free Hosting for Educators. | Press Release Links moodlecloud.com

Reuters reports that Blackboard might be on the market with a $3 billion price tag attached to it. According to sources, majority owner Providence Equity Partners LLC, who took Blackboard private in 2011, hired Deutsche Bank and Bank of America to run an auction for the company. Providence paid $1.64 billion four years ago and hopes for a valuation 14 to 17 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) which is currently around $200 million according to sources. The valuation would be based on comparable subscription-based SaaS companies. Founded in 1998, Blackboard currently serves 19,000 clients in 100 countries, including 80 percent of the top academic institutions according to the company. In recent years Blackboard has come under pressure from startups like Instructure Canvas which managed to take away market share from Blackboard. Launched in 2011 Instructure, which raised around $90 million in venture capital and aims for an IPO later this year, quickly grew to over 1.200 clients. Earlier this month Blackboard announced the launch of a redesigned LMS called New Learning Experience at its annual conference. Related The Reeducation of Blackboard, everyone’s Classroom Pariah | Wired Blackboard unveils totally redesigned learning platform | eCampus News Instructure Canvas - The next Dominant Education Platform? | EDUKWEST Further Reading Exclusive: Education company Blackboard seeks $3 billion sale - sources | Reuters Links blackboard.com

Today, Asia in all its variety is likely the most interesting market for education technology. Although it is mostly China, with its dominance and enormous potential for growth, we hear about when it comes to massive investment rounds, it is lesser covered Asian countries, like Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam or Indonesia, that go through rapid development and quick evolution, which now have the potential to leapfrog some of their more mature Asian neighbors. [purchase_link id="11464" text="Purchase" style="button" color="blue"] Innovation in education in Asia largely equals with mobile technology. China alone has 557 million mobile internet users. Indonesia, on the other hand, is expected to become the fourth largest market for mobile devices, surpassing 100 million monthly active users in 2018. The country also has the ambitious goal to replace textbooks with tablet devices. Even nations like Bhutan, that are far from being on the map when it comes to EdTech, are actively looking into the possibilities of e-learning to benefit their education system. The rapid development in different Asian EdTech markets is fueled by a plethora of incubators and accelerators that startups can join as well as investment opportunities. But there are also problems. While South Korea is still benefitting from its perfect test scores in international comparison, cracks in the education system start to show. Japan, these days, makes more headlines about its depressed youth and the fear for jobs that make the e-learning industry bloom, rather than reforming its educational system and pushing innovation. For this Reading List: EdTech Asia our team selected over 20 articles from leading sources, covering K-12, Career & Skills, the EdTech Startup Ecosystem and Mobile. If you’re interested in learning more about the opportunities and challenges in the Asian e-learning industry outside of China faces, you will find great value in our new EdTech Reading List Asia. At EDUKWEST we go through a large number of articles each day for our own research, and we put together the 24 most relevant ones on EdTech in Asia for you in this reading list, covering the months of January to July 2015. With a price of €10, this means that an articles is less than 50 cents. Conveniently pay via PayPal or contact us for other payment options. [purchase_link id="11464" text="Purchase" style="button" color="blue"] Offer: Buy our package containing the Reading List EdTech Asia and the Reading List EdTech China we offer you the two for the special price of €22.50 € (instead of €25, you save 10%). [purchase_link id="11471" text="Purchase" style="button" color="blue"]

NewSchools Venture Fund launched a new accelerator program called NewSchools Ignite. The program will focus on underserved niches in the K-12 sector. Along with the launch, the non-profit announced the first grant program that aims to support edtech entrepreneurs in the STEM field. The Science Learning Challenge in partnership with WestEd will provide $1.5 million in grants to up to 15 edtech companies and non-profits. The grants will range between $50.000 to $150.000 and the winners will also receive coaching and mentorship through a virtual accelerator program. Applications to the first NewSchools Ignite program are open until September 4th. Further Reading Introducing NewSchools Ignite: Accelerating Innovation in K-12 EdTech Market Gaps Links ignite.newschools.org

In this episode of MEP, John Danner, co-founder and CEO of Zeal.com, joins us to talk about his story, going from the software industry, and becoming a teacher and making a positive impact in the education space. Guest Bio John is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zeal, a software startup pioneering the next generation of online social learning. John’s first partner in this venture is Rocketship Education, where John was co-Founder and CEO for the previous eight years. Rocketship is the highest performing school system for low-income students in California and the first blended school system in the country, currently serving 3700 students. John was a fifth and second grade public school teacher before starting Rocketship. John’s first startup was NetGravity, the first Internet ad server company, where he was co-Founder and CEO. John took NetGravity public in 1998 and sold the company in 1999. John has a BS and MS Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a M.Ed. in Education Policy from Vanderbilt University and is an Ashoka Fellow. John is a 1999Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He was the 2010 winner of the John P. McNulty Prize. Show Notes (01:35) John’s background (11:50) That process going through the Department of Education. Tell me about that process for you in getting the first 1,2,3 schools of Rocketship through the California state system. (14:58) What do you think is the future of public education? What can public schooling look like in the next 5, 10, 20 years? (15:41) Public education has to come to grips with the fact that all children are online. (17:52) Learning what you need to learn individually at the right time for you is much, much more effective than learning what you kind of approximately should at your age. (21:17) With Zeal, for some reason I just started to think about the potential of Zeal and what internationally what Sugata Mitra was talking about The Hole in the Wall and self-organized learning environment. Do you see potential in what you’re doing now with Zeal in moving that sort of student-centric approach forward? (23:34) What’s the number one book that you usually give as a gift to people you care about- friends, family? Talent is Overrated (25:15) So when did you feel that you found your passion? At what age? (25:51) What’s your favorite documentary? Waiting For Superman 26:52 If you could have dinner with one person you admire, past or present, who would it be and why? A great, great, great grandfather who was one of the pioneers of Wyoming Links http://zeal.com http://twitter.com/jwdanner For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter.