A wide assortment of instructional technologies are available that will not only enhance the learning experience for your students but also save you time. But what technologies fit best into your teaching? In this presentation for the Illinois Sociological Association, Jason Rhode and Peter Gowen from the NIU Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center provided an overview of common instructional technologies available today and shared recommended steps for effectively incorporating technology in teaching. The Prezi is available here. Additional resources: Teaching with Blackboard Using Clickers with Blackboard at NIU Blackboard Collaborate Web Conferencing at NIU Smart Classrooms at NIU NIU Mobile Instructional Guide for University Faculty and Teaching Assistants NIU Faculty Development Program Archives in iTunes Teaching with Blackboard Podcast NIU Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center Faculty Development Blog @FacDev on Twitter

Tutoring is an important part of college life, may it be on the receiving end as a student who needs some extra help, or at the providing end to earn some extra income. Technology has added new possibilities to the vertical as students can now connect via the Internet without the need of fixing times and places to meet. Vancouver-based HelpHub connects learners and tutors for quick, on-demand or recurring weekly tutoring sessions on the web or on mobile devices. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. HelpHub is a real-time open marketplace for tutoring. We connect students with tutors on-demand, anytime, anywhere, on the web and iOS. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. Miguel Kudry is the 22-year-old founder of the Vancouver-based startup HelpHub. He built the virtual tutoring platform after finding the need for a more efficient experience when he needed help in his own studies while attending college. How was the idea for your startup born? While in college, Miguel was searching for an alternative to the traditional, weekly tutoring sessions with the ability of asking only one question and move on. Fortunately he did not find one and HelpHub was born. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. Every student needs help. HelpHub aims to be the place where students go to get help when they truly needed - whether they are working on a single problem or question, or they need recurring tutoring sessions, HelpHub makes it easier for any student to get help from real people, in real time. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? Competitors include InstaEdu, Tutor.com, Wyzant, and others. Among other elements and areas of our product, HelpHub's open market approach -allowing tutors to choose how much they make- and the ability for students to pay tutors as they go, sets us apart from other options in the market. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. HelpHub has a worldwide presence, in over 60 countries and at over 700 schools. HelpHub's student presence is growing rapidly in Canada and the United States, and tutors around the world are increasingly becoming aware of our platform and joining it to earn a supplementary income, online. Latin America and Asia represent big opportunities for HelpHub to grow its student presence. Who is your target audience. Students aged 15-23 and their parents represent our main target markets. Tutor segments include undergraduates, graduates, professional tutors, and working professionals that wish to earn a supplementary income helping others through our platform. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. By providing users with an open marketplace and platform to connect, we allow any student to start conversations with any tutor, and a tutor to get started on the site in minutes. That way we eliminate any barriers or roadblocks for people to use the platform and test it before they either convert into a paying customer or a tutor. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. HelpHub allows tutors to choose their own rates, and for students (and tutors) to negotiate and agree on prices. We take a 15% commission fee from the tutor's earnings on each transaction. There are no monthly fee, subscription fees, or minimums to use the HelpHub platform, for either students or tutors. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We raised $250,000 from Sora Capital, in March, 2014. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. We now have a presence at over 700 schools, worldwide. We've launched our iOS app - allowing any student to get help from tutors on-demand, right on their iPhone. What are the next steps in growing your startup. Continuing to cultivate and grow our community of students and tutors through upcoming product features, improving communication for students and tutors, both globally and locally. How can people get in touch with you. For general inquiries, please contact us at helphub.me/contact You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with the handle HelpHubHQ Toll-free number: 1-855-599-9905

During the Fall 2013 semester in the online course I am teaching, I am experimenting with using YouTube’s free features to record weekly video introductions to my instructional units, caption the videos, and seamlessly incorporate them into my online course in Blackboard. In this tutorial, I share how to record a video using YouTube’s built-in webcam recording capabilities as well as caption the video with YouTube’s built-in captioning feature. In future posts, I’ll share more details on my workflow and specific examples for how I have integrated the vides into my Blackboard course.

In a further step to become the de facto online resume, LinkedIn announced the extension of its Add to Profile program to colleges and universities. The program initially launched last year with professional providers in the continuing and vocational education space. With the extension, colleges and universities can invite their graduates to add their degrees with a click of a button to their LinkedIn profiles. This can be done through a widget on the university’s website or via a link in an email. Initially, thirteen institutions signed up for the new Add to Profile option, namely Arizona State University; Kaplan University; University of California, San Diego; Villanova University; George Washington University; Full Sail University; University of Manchester; University of Cambridge; Universitas Indonesia; The Open University; Algonquin College; Keio University; and the University of Melbourne. Further Reading LinkedIn Opens Up Profiles to Higher Education Partners with One-Click Program | LinkedIn LinkedIn Expands Efforts to Help Colleges Keep in Touch With Students and Alumni | The Chronicle LinkedIn Extends Self-Service Profile Widget To College And University Sites, No LinkedIn Visit Required | TechCrunch Related LinkedIn launches Add-to-Profile for Certifications | EDUKWEST LinkedIn pilots Direct-to-Profile Certifications with Coursera, edX, Lynda, Udemy | EDUKWEST Links addtoprofile.linkedin.com

It’s a honor to have been recently named an inaugural member of the Blackboard MVP Program, which recognizes individuals who have established themselves as thought leaders in educational technology by sharing their expertise in Blackboard platforms. Blackboard MVPs are users who stand out as an expert in Blackboard technologies, share their expertise with other clients, demonstrate leadership in the education technology community, and actively share feedback with Blackboard. While the MVP program will be peer-nominated in the future, the inaugural class of 17 was selected by Blackboard. Here’s a quick video intro I recorded for the program. I look forward to continuing to share on my blog tips, how-to’s, resources, and best practices for teaching online using Blackboard. You can subscribe via RSS and also follow me on Twitter @jrhode

FiftyThree, the startup behind the popular iPad drawing app Paper, announced a $30 million Series B led by NEA with participation of existing investors. FiftyThree launched its own highly rated iPad stylus to accompany the app last year. Paper is installed on five to ten percent of all iPads. Its collaboration platform Mix has recently crossed the 1 million user mark. With the new investment FiftyThree aims to launch a new set of productivity tools for the enterprise and the education sector. The toolset will contain diagrams, charts, graphs, presentation sketches and be bundled under the term Think Kit. Further Reading FiftyThree Lands $30M From NEA To Build Creation Tools For Enterprise And Education Users | TechCrunch ‘Paper’ app maker FiftyThree raises $30M to fuel development of new iPad productivity tool | GeekWire Links fiftythree.com

It is important to begin planning online courses early because teaching in the online environment involves principles and practices different from those used in traditional face-to-face instruction. During this online session offered November 11, 2013 I introduced the unique characteristics of online instruction and provided an overview of the components in an engaging and interactive online course. This online workshop was geared toward an audience who is new to online teaching and to those wanting to refresh their knowledge about online teaching fundamentals. | view slides Stats on Online Learning in U.S. Higher Education: The Digital Revolution and Higher Education, 2011 Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States Online College Students 2013: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences Online Learning at Public Universities: Building a New Path to a College Degree Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning Online Higher Education Market Update 2012/2013: Executive Summary Resources for Designing Online Courses: Blackboard Exemplary Course Program Blackboard Exemplary Course Tours on YouTube Blackboard Exemplary Course Program Rubric [PDF] For archives of other online workshops offered by NIU Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center, visit our YouTube channel

During this session on November 21, 2013 at the 19th Annual Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning, learn about Northern Illinois University’s innovative faculty development initiative to offer introductory online teaching training via self-paced modules as an initial phase of comprehensive online faculty certification. An overview of the program was shared as well as the design, development, and implementation phases of the project, highlighting lessons learned and tips for other institutions interested in pursuing a similar self-paced model for scaling their faculty development efforts. Slides are available here. The session was mentioned in this article by Inside Higher Ed

Learnteria aims to reduce wasteful edtech spending in the PreK-12 space by launching a Yelp-like review platform for educators and parents. At launch Learnteria enlists 300,000 products and services from over 1000 vendors. Educators and parents are invited to not only rate but also suggest edtech products they use and recommend. New 'Yelp for Educators' Launches - Learnteria Lets Teachers and Parents Be the Judge of PreK-12 Resources that Work (and those that Don't!) A true world's first, Learnteria uncovers proven resources, products and services - spanning everything an educator or parent may spend time or money on - with unbiased feedback from those who have used them. Lessening the strain on the $700 billion annual education budget, Learnteria contains listings in nearly 10,000 categories on everything from playground equipment and field trip locations to camps, consultants, food vendors, enrollment software and thousands of other resources that educators use each and every day. The site's founders are now calling for action: asking educators and parents to leave feedback, suggest new listings and ultimately equip their students and children with the best possible tools for success. WASHINGTON, March 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- $700BN is spent every single year on PreK-12 students alone, but how much of it goes to waste? There is no way to sugarcoat the facts: America's children suffer at the hands of an over-crowded resource market that rarely allows educators and policy makers to purchase the best products and services for student success. In an effort to arm educators with the knowledge they need to select only the best products, services and resources for their students, a team of former educators and industry executives are launching the world's first 'Yelp-style' resource for the education community, with massive scope and interactivity. It's called Learnteria - and it's poised to change how educators' allocate funds and thus how children learn. Just as a person would jump onto Yelp or TripAdvisor to get ratings for hotels and restaurants for their upcoming vacation, educators and parents can now turn to Learnteria for ratings, and unbiased information on the resources they use every day. Just like the aforementioned sites, Learnteria is a community built by and for its users, and the company are actively calling on all educators and parents to get involved - not only by providing ratings, but suggesting the products and services they'd like to see listed. "We already have over one thousand vendors on board that produce a whopping 300,000 listings, covering a huge gamut, including school/classroom products, professional training courses, school bus providers, food vendors, apps and even study materials such as poets and novels," explains Erick Watt-Udogu, Founder and President of Learnteria, whose company is in DC's 1776 incubator and graduated from Tallwave's High Tide accelerator in Scottsdale, AZ . "Our plan is to build the community to contain literally every resource an educator would come into contact with during their career - both in terms of tangible products and features of their actual curriculums." Continuing, "Users can add star ratings to resources and use the site's intuitive search technology to find what they need, at the caliber required to ensure that it is both going to work and provides excellent value for their time and money." Learnteria was designed from the ground up to be used by a wide range of education professionals such as teachers, administrators, athletic coaches, nutrition experts and even top-level policy makers. "Our goal is to help the whole student, and Learnteria's mandate is to take an interest in all of the ways that parents and educators spend time and money. Every dollar and every moment contributes to students' experience and success and, the more wisely it is spent, the better students will perform. Right now, the education resource marketplace is flooded, leaving time-strapped educators and parents unable to dive deep into possible resources, in a single location, to find ones that really work. Learnteria will make the process easy and provide real-world feedback. Now, if a teacher needs something, they will be able to discover the most proven resource in minutes and provide their students with an education far above the national average. Then, they can rate/review it so others can do the same," Watt-Udogu adds. All educators and interested parents are urged to sign up today, get reviewing and actively suggesting the listings they want to see. For more information, visit: https://learnteria.com. Blog: http://Learnteria.tumblr.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/Learnteria Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Learnteria Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Learnteria About Learnteria: Learnteria is a first-of-its kind tool that allows educators to research, rate and review the educational resources they use every day. On Learnteria, Educational Resource Consumers can find big companies and small non-profits, playwrights and scientists, field trip destinations, competitions, athletic equipment, conferences, technology and more. Learnteria is designed to make decision making easier by compiling resources in a single location with feedback from fellow educators. Contact: Erick Watt-Udogu / 888-930-8504 x 700 / Erick.Watt-Udogu@learnteria.com SOURCE Learnteria RELATED LINKS http://learnteria.com

Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: An Annual Review of Policy and Practice (2013) is the 10th in a series of annual reports that began in 2004 that examine the status of K-12 online education across the country. The report provides an overview of the latest policies, practices, and trends affecting online learning programs across all 50 states. Keeping Pace is researched and published as a service to the educational and governmental communities. Distribution of the report and graphics for presentations are free. Download the full 2013 report Download the Planning for Quality Booklet

On episode 013 of Meet Education Project, 4.0 Schools founder Matt Candler joins the program to talk about developing new school models, school choice, the importance of people over experience, and the passion for moving education forward in New Orleans and around the world.  Don’t miss it! Mr. Candler, a veteran of the charter school movement is Founder of 4.0 Schools. After teaching and coaching middle school after college, Matt returned to his hometown to help run the main operations center for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. After the Games he studied decision sciences and the emerging charter sector at the Kellogg School of Management. He then served as founding co-principal of a K-8 charter school in North Carolina and helped launch other charter schools in the Southeast. See Matt’s TEDxTU talk here: From 2001 to 2004, Matt served as KIPP Foundation’s Vice President of School Development, where his team established 37 new schools across the U.S. Matt later served as founding COO of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, a $41 million effort to promote quality charter school creation. Most recently, Matt servedNew Schools for New Orleans as its first CEO and built a team whose human capital and school creation efforts have led to the most innovative and aggressive public school reforms in the nation. Matt continues to play an active role in Louisiana reform as chairman of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools and co-founder of the city-wide teacher support community closingthenolagap.org. Getting in touch with Matt: @mcandler mcandler@4pt0.org Shout Outs: Center for Charter School Excellence Brickolage - Re-imagining public education in New Orleans. Maker State - MakerState empowers kids with real-world skills for college and career success through hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering, arts and math masteries.  Started by Josh Densen. Fantasy GeoPolitics - Started by Eric Nelson, the social learning game that follows countries and world leaders as they compete for news headlines. M School Robbie Vitrano - IDEA Village, Trumpet, & Naked Pizza Founder New Schools for New Orleans Book:  The Same Thing Over & Over by Frederick Hess If you could have dinner with one person you admire, who would it be and why? Main:  Elon Musk Supporting:  Sal Khan, Angela Duckworth, Dave Lewin For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter.

"Grade Change: Tracking Online Education in the United States, 2013″ This is the 11th annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher education from the Babson Survey Research Group, Pearson and the Sloan Consortium: Is Online Learning Strategic? Are Learning Outcomes in Online Comparable to Face-to-Face Learning? How Many Students are Learning Online? How are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) faring? And much more… This survey also reveals that in 2013: 7.1 million higher education students are taking at least one online course. The 6.1 % growth rate represents over 400,000 additional students taking at least one online course. The percent of academic leaders rating the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those as in face-to-face instruction, grew from 57% in 2003 to 74% in 2013. The number of students taking at least one online course continued to grow at a rate far in excess of overall enrollments, but the rate was the lowest in a decade. FREE REPORT DOWNLOAD

Global education marketplace Udemy announced the launch of its Teacher Tech Initiative at the fifth annual White House Science Fair. Through the initiative K-12 teachers in the United States get access to free and heavily discounted computer technology courses on the platform. The Teacher Tech Initiative will focus on high demand job skills, like programming and web development, fields in which Udemy has a strong track record. According to Udemy, only one in ten US public schools currently offers programming courses due to the lack of trained teachers. The first 1000 teachers who sign up for the Teacher Tech Initiative will get access to free courses. All K-12 teachers based in the United States will have access to a selection of heavily discounted courses that come at a price of $10 each throughout 2015, which translates into an investment of around $5 million by Udemy. Further Reading Udemy launches Teacher Tech Initiative to bring critical web development skills to K-12 teachers | Press Release Udemy’s Teacher Tech Initiative | Udemy Blog Links info.udemy.com/teachertechinitiative.html

In the decade now that I have spent supporting educators in the endeavors to teach using technology, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked by faculty for advice on how to choose the best technology tools for their teaching. With the seemingly endless selection of technology tools available, how do educators choose the right technology tools to incorporate into their teaching? If you are in the situation of considering a new technology tool in your teaching, here are 7 steps to take as you choose which tool may be best for you: Step 1: Start with your objectives It’s important to always start any conversation about technology selection with objectives. What is it that you and/or your students should be able to do? There are some great models available, such as Digital Bloom’s Taxonomy and SAMR, that can offer guidance as your craft and/or revise objectives that will form the basis for any decisions regarding technology decisions. Are you seeking to substitute, augment, modify, or redefine an existing teaching or learning activity? Make sure that it is clear from reviewing your objectives what your intended goals are. Step 2: Survey your "tech landscape" Once you have your goals and objectives clearly in mind, the next step is to take an inventory of your current technology use as well as look at your environment for incorporating the new technology. What tools are you and/or your students already using? What are you comfortable with? What is working? Keep in mind the adaage, "If it’s not broke, don’t fix it" and don’t discard an existing technology if it is the meeting your needs. What tools are already at your fingertips and/or perhaps provided/supported by your institution? What tools are frowned upon and/or blocked at your institution? Step 3: Set your budget How much are you and/or your students willing to spend on a tool? Do you need to stick with a free solution? Or, are you able to spend some money? Many tools take a "freemium" approach, meaning that they are available for use on a limited basis for free with additional features available for a fee. Step 4: Sample available tools Pick a few (5 or less) available options and try the tools yourself to see which you and/or your students like best, are easiest to use, and meet your needs. What are the pros & cons of each? What support is available? How does each integrate into the existing workflow and/or lesson? Step 5: Select your tool Eventually, you finally need to take the plunge and pick a tool to use. Don’t worry..you aren’t stuck using the tool forever If you eventually change your mind down the road, you can always change the tool. Step 6: Set parameters for use Clarify for yourself and/or your students how the tool will and won’t be used. It’s at this point you may want to revisit your objectives to ensure that your plan for use meets your stated learning objectives. Are you using the right tool for the right problem? Step 7: Scrutinize your choice After you’ve thoroughly used the tool for a specified period of time (term, semester, etc.) reflect on your use of the tool? Did it meet your needs? What unexpected issues did you and/or your students encounter? Is it working well enough that you want to stick with it, or is it time to try something else? You’re not locked-in to continuing to use the tool if it isn’t meeting your needs. There you have it…a seven-step approach to selecting a technology tool for your teaching. Leave a comment if you found these steps helpful or if you perhaps have additional suggestions to share with educators as they choose technology tools.

Courtesy e-Learning Infographics

The Internet increasingly establishes the need for instant gratification. Information that used to take time to source and process is now available 24/7 and this basically anywhere we have connectivity. This new mindset also affects how we want to learn new skills like languages, coding, cooking, you name it. Startups like Coursmos tackle this need by drastically reducing the time to learn new things by boiling content down to its essentials and presenting it in bite-sized learning units. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. Coursmos is a micro-learning platform. Microlearning is a bite-sized education process for people that get easily distracted. Microlearning is not just about shorter courses. It’s about micro-courses where each micro-lesson has a message, completed idea or piece of knowledge. Courses are divided into categories for easy browsing, with sections running the gamut from art to cooking to computer to handicraft to health to work and business. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. Roman Kostochka, founder and CEO; Katerina Seledets, COO; Igor Gonednyy, Head of Business Development; Slava Grachev, CTO Roman met with Katerina when she was working at Ukraine/USA Business Incubator Happy Farm. Slava met with Roma in 2013 and joined Coursmos as CTO. Igor was Head of Business Development at LinguaLeo, a personal service for learning English online with more than 11,5M users. How was the idea for your startup born? In May 2013 we applied for Ukraine/USA business incubator Happy Farm with an EdTech project ‘Razmir’, we’d raised $500K for before. For that stage we’d started to develop monetisation and took the decision to go global. During the process of the idea development, company scaling and communication process with Silicon Valley experts, we came up with the idea of a micro-learning format. As a part of ‘Razmir’ this new idea was hardly possible to perform — the offline part of ‘Razmir’ was not suited for micro-learning format. So we took decision to make a pivot as we saw great potential in micro-learning. This was in June 2013, also at this time I persuaded one of the business angels who has invested in ‘Razmir’ to support the new idea. Actually, it took me a call and in the end we had raised $80K. Then, we started over and registered a new company. On the 1st of August later this year we started the product development and on the 1st of September we launched an iOS application called Coursmos, which allowed every user to get access to the first micro-courses. And this is how the Coursmos story began. Today we have an Android application, a web version, 14 000 micro-courses and more than 520 000 learners all over the world. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. Only 4% of students finish the online courses they signed up for, says Coursera. According to a YouTube study tracking average time spent watching a YouTube video, this time is somewhere between 1:04 and 2:43. We at Coursmos solve the problem of shrinking attention spans and decreasing motivation. At Coursmos courses consist of bite-sized lessons of up to 3 minutes each. Our statistics show, that over 60% of students finish a lesson, and over 30% a course. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? Udemy Udemy.com is a platform or marketplace for online learning. Unlike academic MOOC programs driven by traditional collegiate coursework, Udemy provides a platform for experts of any kind to create courses. Over 6 000 000 students and 20 000+ courses. The top 10 instructors on Udemy earned $1,7M last year. Lynda lynda.com, Inc., is a privately held online education company offering thousands of video courses in software, creative and business skills. Founded in 1995, the company produces video tutorials taught by industry experts; there are 6 000 000 users. Lynda has raised $186M recently. YouTube YouTube is a video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. In November 2006, it was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion. Over 5M people that created educational videos which have over 400M viewers Coursera Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company founded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University that offers massive open online courses. The Global E-Learning Market is $90B with 23% annual growth. Our competitive advantage is that we offer an effective micro format for quick assimilation of knowledges that results in high motivation and nice traction. We offer micro-courses created via our mobile app and the web, and we allow users to create their own educational environment. Also, Coursmos offers a corporate solution which allows companies to create educational micro-courses and train employees at any time convenient for them through through this effective format. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. Our strongests markets are the USA, the UK, Russia, India and Brazil. We plan to launch in LatAm market soon. Who is your target audience. In our online education micro-learning marketplace, the primary users are English-speaking students who want to gain some knowledge fast and people who want to share their knowledge, the secondary users are people searching for something interesting they could implement on a daily basis. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. An author creates a micro-course that consists of bite-sized lessons and attracts users who in turn learn. In case deeper understanding of a subject or any additional information is needed, a learner makes a specific request for a new micro-course. The request goes to authors who have relevant knowledge and also goes to a requests’ catalog, which is inherently a tool for gathering and analyzing demand in the education market Each author on the platform gets requests for new micro-courses from his or her students to get specific knowledge, provided an author meets the demand. These new micro-courses become available to the student who has requested it. Moreover, the micro-course is placed on the Coursmos platform, where every internet user has the ability to find it and learn. Based on this process of non-stop creation and providing unique and relevant educational content, a host of new learners and authors populates the platform and micro-communities are established around each topic. As a direct result of Coursmos’ viral tools, like our request tool, social sharing and comments within each micro-community evolves and expands globally. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. On Coursmos an author has the option to make any course free or paid. On the other hand, students or users can buy a single course for the price set by author or subscribe for premium membership on Coursmos, which allows her to watch any course including premium without limits. Coursmos earns a 40% share from the total revenue generated both ways, giving 60% to authors. There is an option for authors or companies to create their own schools on Coursmos, which gives authors additional advertising opportunities alongside with a list of wider features. We are looking forward to providing this opportunity on a freemium/paid subscription basis. Also, we provide a corporate learning solution. Our SaaS solution is designed to implement micro-learning formats into a corporate structure. It takes the effectiveness of staff learning and developing to the next level. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. $1.3 in seed from business-angels, Imperious Group and Altera Capital Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. Coursmos is a global micro-learning platform: with more that 15 000 micro-courses with more than 50 000 micro-lessons with more than 560 000 users and 6 000 authors with strongest markets in the USA, the UK, Russia, India and Brazil where 60% of students finish the first micro-lesson, and 30% of students finish a micro-course where users spend 6 min on average, and 22% spend 11-30 min with 47% users coming from mobile We've already launched iOs and Android apps, a recommendation system which includes an expert system, and a request tool to provide learners with relevant micro-courses and an opportunity to get any micro-course they want. What are the next steps in growing your startup. At Coursmos we intend to gather all knowledge and provide access to every learner who seeks the opportunity of self and career growth. We build a global billion company with a product available worldwide. How can people get in touch with you. pr@coursmos.com; coursmos.com; CEO Roman Kostochka https://www.facebook.com/2beness

Courtesy e-Learning Infographics

Don Burton, former Managing Director of the Kaplan/Techstars EdTech Accelerator, and Jonathan D. Harber, co-founder and CEO of Schoolnet, teamed up to launch a new edtech accelerator program in New York. EDGE Accelerator will host its first cohort in September 2015. The accelerator offers a three-month intensive program with mentoring from edtech CEOs, investors and education publishers. Each of the ten selected edtech startups will receive $170.000 in funding in return for 6% equity. Applications are open immediately, the final selections will conclude end of June. Further Reading EDGE Edtech® Launches Accelerator in New York City for Education Technology Start-Ups, Offering $170,000 in Funding to Ten Selected Companies | PR Newswire Links edgeedtech.com

Originally posted by Knowledgeone, reposted by Patrick Lowenthal

Connecting classrooms across the globe via the Internet has become the new pen pal program, and initiatives like Skype in the Classroom and its instant translation feature are certainly leading the way in developed countries. But what about schools in areas that don’t have access to reliable Internet or even electricity? LumenEd wants to connect students in developing countries with classrooms in the U.S. through a device called The Bright Orange Box. And you can support it via Kickstarter. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. LumenEd is working towards overcoming infrastructural barriers to quality education in the developing world. We want to empower students, teachers and schools across the world by providing them access to digital educational resources and a platform to share their stories. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. How was the idea for your startup born? [caption id="attachment_10840" align="alignnone" width="474"] Top: Thomas Kreek and Prakash Paudel. Bottom: Henry Harboe, Saksham Khosla and Shiva Mandala[/caption] LumenEd was founded by five students in April 2013 at Oberlin College. Prakash, Shiva and Saksham met as freshmen at Oberlin College. Hailing from India and Nepal, where problems with education have crippled the success of each country, the three wanted to see if digital content (freely available in the U.S.) could make a difference in a low-income classroom. Bringing experience in working with under-resourced schools and communities in South Asia, their passions aligned to design an innovative solution to effective ICT use in the classroom. To design and assemble a working prototype, they reached out to Thomas Kreek, a physics major with a passion for DIY projects. Henry Harboe, a fellow student entrepreneur with an eye for design, joined the team shortly afterwards. Currently, as CEO for LumenEd, Prakash focuses on the business strategy, goals and partnerships. As Director of Business Development, Henry focuses on sales to U.S. schools and heads our marketing and branding efforts. Shiva manages our program in New Delhi with Teach for India fellows, and Thomas, our lead product engineer, is in charge of development. As Director of Business Outreach, Saksham is responsible for developing a communications strategy for media coverage. Together, they’re driven by a passion to make better learning accessible to everyone around the world. After spending countless hours taking this project off the ground over the last two years, they are personally and professionally committed to take LumenEd to the next level after graduation. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. The problem we are tackling is two-fold. For much of the developing world, the biggest obstacle to success is poor education. India in particular has an especially big literacy problem. The teachers in Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) schools have limited access to outside educational resources due to either a lack of funding or insufficient infrastructure. We overcome both these barriers by providing a device - the Bright Orange Box - that works in any classroom, without a financial burden on the schools. The other half of our problem is equally prevalent in developed countries as it is in the developing world. Students on both sides have a limited chance to interact with peers outside of their own classroom and culture. For K-12 students in the U.S., learning about other cultures is mostly limited to reading material online and in textbooks.Through our service, the Video Pen Pal Program, we facilitate a long-term line of communication between classrooms that has simply never been possible before. With the help of one affordable and convenient solution, classrooms can record and send videos about their stories, culture and history to any classroom, anywhere in the world. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? Our venture lies at the intersection of two existing markets: global learning and ICT solutions for low-income classrooms. The biggest player in the global learning space is ePals. ePals provides project-focused collaboration between classrooms and primarily targets high-income, internet-enabled classrooms. The only solution that reaches low-income schools is PenPal Schools, a startup that uses a web platform to facilitate written exchanges between students. Firstly, our solution operates independently of existing infrastructure, including internet. We're also the only solution that enables a video-based pen pal relationship between classrooms. Most importantly, by leveraging resources of US schools, we do all this without any financial burden on our low-income schools. Regarding EdTech solutions in developing countries, initiatives like Educomp’s Smartclass, IBM’s Kidsmart Program and One Laptop Per Child have failed to make a significant impact on learning outcomes in developing countries. Their approach involves air-dropping technology into classrooms without an emphasis on student centric pedagogies. These solutions rely on electricity and internet access, are prohibitively expensive, and completely alter lesson plans and the overall classroom environment. Our solution is a simple add-on, is drastically cheaper and requires no internet or electricity access. Moreover, it is focused on empowering teachers rather than replacing them, using simple videos to enhance rather than reinvent the learning experience. Finally, our business model leverage the interests of schools on both sides of the globe, and provide a desirable package that meets the both their needs and budgets. This provides a huge potential for scaling our business model through the global education market. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. We have currently partnered with Teach for India, an education NGO working with low-income classrooms across India, to bring our platform to 50 classrooms in New Delhi for the 2015-16 academic year. We're working with progressive, independent schools in the U.S, as well as planning pilot programs with our Bright Orange Box with NGOs like Hope for Ghana and SEED Project in Ghana and Senegal. Our growth strategy involves initially scaling our classrooms abroad through the Teach For All network, with extends to 35 countries and 11,000 schools. This will allow us to offer a diversified network of schools and add support for language programs. We also plan to scale to rural locations and government run schools. In the US, we plan to scale vertically to affordable private schools and public schools. Who is your target audience. We fulfill an international demand for global dialogue between classrooms that transcend geographic, socioeconomic and technological barriers. Initially, we are targeting 3rd-8th grade classrooms in the most progressive, independent schools in the US. Abroad, we partner with NGOs serving under-resourced classrooms, starting with Teach For India in New Delhi. In the future, we will scale through NGO networks and reaching US public schools through more affordable offerings. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. At this early stage, we are focused on direct sales to target schools. Six schools were part of our pilot in 2014 and we currently have ten schools and $30,000 in classroom subscriptions confirmed for the 2015-16 Program. As we expand our customer base, we plan to utilize key industry channels, including schools’ associations, conferences and partnerships with NGOs, including Teach For America. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. American schools pay an annual subscription fee for the Pen Pal program and device sponsorship. We charge $1,200 per classroom per year for the program and $800 per unit for the device. Initially, we are targeting upper elementary and middle school classrooms in top-tier private schools If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. Our immediate plans for funding our development costs involve a Kickstarter that goes live on Friday, March 27 at 9 a.m. EST. We plan to raise $40,000 over the course of a month-long campaign to help us transition our hardware to an Android platform and build a leaner, more powerful Box. This will be followed by a seed investment round in May. What are the next steps in growing your startup. Our growth strategy involves initially scaling our classrooms abroad through the Teach For All network, with extends to 35 countries and 11,000 schools. This will allow us to offer a diversified network of schools and add support for language programs. We also plan to scale to rural locations and government run schools. In the US, we plan to scale vertically to affordable private schools and public schools. Our roadmap also envisions other applications and revenue streams. We are starting with a malaria prevention initiative with USAID in Ghana this year and will be expanding our reach to other education NGOs for direct sales of our product. How can people get in touch with you. Contact: Saksham Khosla Co-Founder at LumenEd E: saksham@lumened.org M: 347.882.3468 Facebook: facebook.com/lumenedinc Twitter: @lumened LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/lumened Tumblr: blog.lumened.org Kickstarter: kickstarter.com/lumened

In episode 016 of Meet Education Project, the founder of the Relationship Economy Expedition (REX) Jerry Michalski joins the program to discuss how "consumer" is a bad word, what "unschooling" really is, and how we can move learning from scarcity to abundance. You do not want to miss this episode! Guest Bio: The connector, curator and catalyst behind REX is Jerry Michalski. He brings a hard-to-find combination of convening and big-picture skills to REX. The convening skills come from years of designing, hosting and facilitating events. Some were highly structured, like PC Forum and the Ten Year Forecast that IFTF creates every year, but most were much more loosely structured, building on Open Space, Scott Peck’scommunity-building ideas and Quaker Meeting. He also ran a podcast from 2004-2013. The spaces Jerry creates for conversations are safe yet deep. Jerry’s big-picture view was shaped through a dozen years as a technology industry analyst, after a few years with real corporate jobs at Mobil Oil and Price Waterhouse(before each was merged and renamed), but all strongly shaped by a dip into the brisk and fast-moving waters of systems thinking with Russ Ackoff at the Wharton School. Stepping out of the technology bubble in 1998 to consult, Jerry began to see larger shifts at work. Combining his dislike of the word "consumer" with insights gleaned from disciplines ranging from media to education and government, Jerry realized in the early 2000s that we - all of us - are exiting the consumer mass-market economy and entering the Relationship Economy. He sees his life purpose as assuring that this process takes 30 years instead of 300. Definitely take the time to watch Jerry’s inspiring TEDx talk here: Social Media: Linkedin Twitter: @jerrymichalski Jerry’s Brain - You HAVE to check this out.  So cool. If you could have dinner with one person you admire, who would it be and why? Jerry has hundreds of influencer’s on his brain, but he also mentioned an "antihero"Edward Bernays. For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter. Picture License  Some rights reserved by munnecket

As previously shared, the 11th annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher education was recently released. The infographic below by Pearson summarizes the key findings available in the full report. Click image above to enlarge or download PDF version here

Big data has been the story of the past year. Nearly every industry sector has been hit by the urge to quantify, measure, and analyze, and they are using that information to improve their products and services, which in turn is improving our lives on both the micro and macro scales. (Can you even remember what shopping was like before personalized product recommendations?) For a variety of reasons, education has been slow to the party. There have been difficulties surrounding what data to collect, how to collect those data, and what they might mean.As well, there have been concerns about privacy, especially as it involves students in elementary and secondary schools. But, big data is finally coming to education, thanks in part to educational technology companies like Knewton, which uses analytics to personalize educational experiences for individual learners, and to massive open online courses (MOOCs), which are free courses available from many of the top schools in the world. MOOCs have been able to supply huge amounts of data because they have attracted a huge following: more than 10 million students globally have enrolled in the courses. The question, of course, has been what to do with all of the data. Over the past few months, results of various studies have been released, from MOOCs and other sources, providing insights into how people learn. Some of the findings reinforce things we already knew, while others are quite surprising and are already transforming approaches to education both online and in the classroom. Here are some of the main things we’ve learned so far. Long lectures don’t work. The hour-long lecture that has been the staple of higher education for decades has taken a beating from big data. Research from MOOC provider edX has identified the ideal length of a video lecture to be between 6 and 9 minutes, after which learner engagement falls off sharply. This finding is having major implications in both college and corporate classrooms. The best predictor of future course behavior is past course behavior. In 2010, President Obama set a goal of 60% college completion in the United States by 2020. To meet this goal, many colleges and universities now offer courses and even full degree programs online. However, while online learning offers many advantages over traditional formats, one problem that has arisen is that students are more likely to drop out of online courses. One study of more than 50,000 students in community colleges found that the completion rate for online courses was 8% lower than for traditional courses. Data from MOOCs suggest that one way to boost completion rates is to increase engagement early in the course. The researchers found that students who were more engaged at the beginning of a course were more likely to finish, regardless of their stated intentions or motivations. Even in online courses, offline support is essential. The rise of online education has generated something of a heated debate over how effectively students can learn from a computer. Proponents generally focus on the convenience and cost savings associated with online learning, while opponents argue that an online learning environment can never replace a face-to-face one. Studies of the effectiveness of online education have shown mostly positive, but still mixed, results. Data from MOOCs suggests that the difference may have to do with the level of offline support online learners receive: after analyzing 230 million interactions from a single course, researchers from MIT and Harvard found that the single most important predictor of student success was whether students worked offline with someone else. It didn’t matter if that "someone else" was an expert in the subject or just another student in the class—the important thing was getting help offline. Not all big data comes from massive courses. In education, big data can even be derived from analyzing everything from institutional variables to the learning activities of individual students. The potential here includes helping teachers identify when students are having problems, personalizing lessons so that each student gets the information he or she needs and is ready for, and tracking learners’ journeys through courses in order to better guide those journeys. Even in individual schools and classrooms, the results are significant. The implementation of a data analytics system at Arizona State University resulted in a 10% increase in passing rates and a 50% decrease in dropout rates. In Delaware, using big data analytics to personalize education for individual students has led to 10% increases in both reading and math proficiency. Big data is still very new to education, and there remains a lot to be revealed about how people learn, which will lead to improved education at all levels and in all formats. But there is no doubt that education is in the middle of a major transformation, with technology and big data leading the way. Picture License  Some rights reserved by torkildr

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to meet, pitch, get rejected, and accepted by lots of investors. After building two companies that were venture and angel backed in aggregate of millions of dollars and then being a part of another that raised tens of millions in additional capital, I learned a lot about the world of venture capitalists. My latest position as head of B.D. at Alma has me reaching out to even more VC’s, many who I know, and others who I’ve never met before as we, like all companies, evaluate our funding options. Over the last few weeks I’ve had a lot of time to dig into my old relationships with investors, explore new ones, and think through how I would approach my next round of funding (for my next startup) whenever that may be. I recorded the data of 263 firms in a Google spreadsheet and the following is what I discovered. Some of the information below represents general themes I noticed and while a few bullets represent hard data. American Venture Capital is run by white guys. Of the 263 firms I looked into, I recorded 1 firm with a Black founder, 7 with female founders (one of which was based in London), 3 Indians, and 2 Asians. That’s 13 out of 263 firms that were started by someone who wasn’t a white male. That’s only 4.9% of the funds. This blew my mind. Now this doesn’t mean that the firm doesn’t have female/minority partners or employees, I’m simply counting the funds that had females/minorities listed as founders. Wouldn’t it be great to know if the venture firm you’re reaching out to lists how much money they invest? $100K, $1M, $10? What I discovered is that most funds do not list how much they invest — very few actually tell entrepreneurs what their funding range is. I find this odd, but at the same time self serving for VC’s, who want to "know" everyone — even if they know that the amount of money the entrepreneur is seeking at the time is too little or too much. Much respect to the firms who provide that clarity. Most of venture capital is still focused on web or software products. 95% to be exact by my count. There were several that listed industry specific challenges they wanted solved, but you can count the number of funds out there on one hand who will do hardware (for example) only investments. Every fund website is basically the same with five key links. And when you click on them, they all look the same. I might of seen five or six sites out of over two hundred and fifty that were different. The five links you are sure to find are: Contact, Blog, Portfolio, Partners, and About. VC Tip: Would love for you to list all the investments that didn’t work out. If you want to be bold — you would be the first to do so. As an entrepreneur, I would probably want your money more than anyone else’s if a fund admitted how difficult their jobs were and that not every bet is a home-run. A lot of times the math doesn’t add up. I noticed several funds who had less than $25M raised pitching themselves as growth equity, while $75M+ funds said they did seed investments. How can you invest $100K — $250K in seed deals and deploy enough capital in a year? You can’t! The same is true for smaller funds who want to jump in on bigger rounds. Unless the focus of your fund is to invest in 5 companies, you simply don’t have enough capital to lead growth or Series A rounds. Most websites have a section (about us usually) in which they explain how they are "different" from other firms. Ironically, they all say the exact same thing. One firm provided their term sheet online! I found this to be both good and bad. Good in the sense that you know exactly what you can expect. However it’s bad in the sense that every entrepreneur is different and you get bucketed with one group of people. Everyone, and I mean everyone offers "the best" mentorship to help you grow your company. I think as an entrepreneur this would have been easier to accept or understand if they validated the specific type of mentorship they offer from their portfolio of founders directly. I don’t simply mean testimonials but rather a specific way a VC helped that founder in growing their company — very specific. Almost every fund says they invest in "founders first" — but I’ve found this to be completely untrue. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been rejected based solely on an executive summary or pitch deck without the VC even meeting me. The sentiment "founders first" is probably also true for everyone — if — and only if they have a prior, long lasting relationship with the entrepreneur. I can respect that. At the end of the day, a VC is an investor - and nothing — not even founders — come before the metrics or opportunity of the business. Sorry fellow entrepreneurs, if you don’t have relationships with VC’s, you better have baller metrics. In fairness to my VC friends, many of them have invested in founders without any business model or metric before simply based on knowing that entrepreneur. Don’t mistake this misnomer on their site for their lack of willingness to take a risk. Is it me — or perhaps it’s the 263 firms I looked at, but I swear they all showcased generally the same wins. Which if you’re a numbers guy, should scare the hell out of you about the VC model. Half the firms listed, "Google, Facebook, Uber, Dropbox" (insert top 10 companies in the valley) as wins. There was effectively no diversity — which had me thinking about how broken the VC model might be if everyone is sharing from the same pot of gold. Where’s the diversity in wins? I read a great article by Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures which touched on this topic dubbed "Dragons and Unicorns" in the VC world. Here’s a link:http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/ Not one firm lists their losses. I can understand this, sorta. They all talk about their risk tolerance and willingness to bet on "crazy ideas that change the world" — well, that means you have to bet on 50 that fail before you find one that makes it. Tell us about all of your investments — and why they busted out so we can learn. It isn’t a badge of shame — to me it’s a badge of honor. I found several firms that specify an industry or sector they "focus" on — but the portfolio companies listed don’t always match that criteria. Sometimes, it’s the complete opposite. I have a lot of friends who are investors, and many more who are entrepreneurs. My objective in writing this post was two fold. First and foremost, I’m an entrepreneur and my passion sides with my fellow entrepreneurs. As such, I hope this post provides a bit more clarity on some basic questions I get asked on a weekly basis from aspiring entrepreneurs about the VC world. My second objective is to provide my investor friends with a "different look" at the world they live in. Perhaps most of this information is obvious, but I have a lot of investor friends who are represented on my list (safe to say nearly 100 firms/partners) that are constantly looking to improve their funds, brands, and the quality of entrepreneurs they meet with. As an entrepreneur who’s gone back to the well a couple times, with the aspiration of building another company or two, my hope is that this post provides some insight they wouldn’t otherwise get in an unbiased way. I am not currently CEO, I no longer represent any fund, and my current company Alma is to date entirely founder funded. Since graduating college, this is the first time I am not represented by any fund so it provides me this unique ability to provide completely unbiased thoughts on the venture capital world from an entrepreneurs perspective. I hope my fellow entrepreneurs and investors see this as a small opportunity to get better. We need to be able to answer a lot more fundamental questions about our businesses as entrepreneurs before seeking capital. Investors can do a better job of telling us what they would truly like to see before getting pitched with a bit more specificity. It will create a more efficient process that should drastically improve the quality of companies in the long run. Picture License  Some rights reserved by HowardLake