Send us a text On this Week In Edtech, we talk to: Mohammed Almadani, CEO of Classera , a gamified and personalized LMS for emerging markets that raised $40M this week Matthew Rascoff, Vice Provost for Digital Education at Stanford University, and the Stanford Digital Education Team about their Pandemic-Era Online Learning Strategy report We also cover: Election Season in the US Why National Advocates Are Getting More Involved in School Board Elections At Center of MI Election, a School Choice M...
Nov 08, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this first-of-its-kind episode, Edtech Insiders hosts a debate about the value of Practical vs. Classical Education. What is the true goal of education? In an age when the talk of the "ROI" of education is everywhere, what is the role of the classical liberal arts ideal of an enlightened and informed citizenry? Dr. Christian Marty studied history, philosophy and media studies at the University of Zurich and received his doctorate there in 2019 with a thesis on Max Web...
Nov 07, 2022•47 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Shawn Young is a co-founder and CEO of Classcraft Studios Inc . He taught 11th grade physics for 9 years, holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s in education from Université de Sherbrooke and is also a seasoned web developer. Shawn is the vice-president of the Edteq Association and is an Ambassador for the Education faculty of University of Sherbrooke. Classcraft is an Engagement Management System for schools, making it easy for schools to inject gamification into many ...
Oct 31, 2022•56 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode, we speak to Claire Chen of Stanford GSB and Brighteye Ventures, who just put out the brand new report, Understanding the Edtech Content Landscape . We also discuss: 1) Video & Tiktok in Education Revyze is building the TikTok of educational videos ( Techcrunch ) Kids content to remain ad-free on Netflix ( Kidscreen ) Consumers turning from SVOD to AVOD and FAST ( Digital TV Europe ) 2) College Environment Shifts, In Part Due to Decreased Enrollment As Enrollme...
Oct 30, 2022•53 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode, we speak with Joe Connor of Odyssey , which raised a $4.75M dollar seed round this week to help districts and families use flexible education funding sources, like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and microgrants. Ben and Alex also discuss: 1) Elections & Education: The Rise of Education Polarization Is College Worth It? Voters Are Split. ( Five Thirty Eight ) How the Diploma Divide Is Remaking American Politics ( New York ) ‘There Are Two Americas Now: One W...
Oct 30, 2022•56 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Monica Arés is the Head of Immersive Learning at Meta, where she is focused on building an ecosystem that will allow anyone, anywhere to learn and grow in the metaverse. As a Harvard Graduate School of Education alumna, former math educator, curriculum developer, and planetarium director, Monica is at the forefront of skilling the next generation of AR/VR creators and developing products, programs and content to make learning more powerful and accessible. In this podcast, we discu...
Oct 24, 2022•55 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Guest Julia Stiglitz, CEO of CoRise and former GSV partner The Massive Lego/Brainpop acquisition Lego Acquires Brainpop - WSJ Questioning the ROI for Higher Ed Ranking 4,500 Colleges by ROI (2022) How liberal arts colleges are adding work-focused courses students want Byju's Layoffs/Edtech in India Byju’s cuts 2,500 jobs Post-Pandemic World Poses Existential Challenge to India’s Edtech Sector Online Ed Research What researchers learned about online higher education during the...
Oct 19, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode, we speak to Greg Toppo and Jim Tracy, co-authors of Running with Robots: The American High School’s Third Century from MIT Press, available at Amazon , Bookshop or wherever you get your books! Greg Toppo is a journalist with more than 25 years of experience, most of it covering education. He spent 15 years as the national education reporter for USA Today and was most recently a senior editor for Inside Higher Ed. From 2017 to 2021, he was president of the Educatio...
Oct 17, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode, we talk to some of the standout stars of the StartEd New York Edtech Week conference. Sari, Kide Science (story-based early years learning with platform for educators from Finland!) Nikita Gupta, Symba (internship and apprenticeship management) Matthew Evans, Julius (job training for green economy jobs) Rachel Jordan, TeachFX (measuring pedagogical 'talk' in the classroom) Warning: This was a crowded event, and the audio quality of the interviews can be ...
Oct 12, 2022•57 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode, guest host Matt Tower of Edtech Thoughts and Alex discuss: 1. The Possible "Second Boom" of the Edtech Investing Market as per Brighteye The evolution of Edtech: Activity in private and public markets | Dealroom.co Edtech’s honeymoon might be over, but expect a second boom | TechCrunch 2) Addictive Game Mechanics Used For Good Opinion | I Make Video Games. I Won’t Let My Daughters Play Them. - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Roblox jumping into ads in e...
Oct 12, 2022•42 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this short episode, we talk to Jamie Poskin, CEO and founder of TeachFX , about TeachFX's new $10mm funding round and how the company is finding a completely new source of classroom data in the 'talk' that happens in both online and in-person classes.
Oct 10, 2022•13 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode, we speak to Shawna Young and Mitchel Resnick of the Scratch Foundation , which runs the largest creative computing community in the world around the Scratch programming language. Recommended Resources: Mitch Resnick and Ken Robinson, Lifelong Kindergarten 2021 Scratch Foundation Annual Report Shawna Young is the Executive Director of the Scratch Foundation. Before coming to Scratch, Young led the Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP), one of the...
Oct 10, 2022•58 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Acky Kamdar is the CEO of Magic EdTech and Magic Finserv. He is a technology entrepreneur and an investor in the fields of digital technologies, blockchain, machine learning, AI and NLP. Acky has over 25 years of experience in Process Management, Technology Solutions, and Outsourcing services at companies like Genpact, Headstrong, Compaq Computers and the HCL group. Currently, he also serves as General Partner at Solmark, a NY-based entrepreneurs equity fund. Recommended Resources...
Oct 03, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Francie Alexander is Chief Research Officer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and an industry leader in the fields of Early Childhood Education, Literacy, and Intensive Intervention for striving reading and math students. Francie provides inspirational and informative leadership on topics from early and adolescent learning to brain development and its influence on childhood and teenage learning and is focused on Future Ready Readers and the future of learning. She works closely t...
Sep 26, 2022•51 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Greg Bybee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Avela Education and the Co-Founder of PoliScribe . Greg was an early employee at NovoEd where he ultimately ran every business function from marketing to business development and customer success, and ultimately helped sell the company to Fidelity. Previously, he was a Fellow at NewSchools Venture Fund, the first product manager at Coursera, an advisor to Renren’s expansion into education, the lead for VMware’s vCloud Suite launch, and a str...
Sep 19, 2022•44 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Guest: Fadl Al Tarzi , Founder & CEO @ Nexford University Online University Nexford will use $8M to plug affordability and relevance gaps in education Topics This Week: Ads in Education The next chapter for Learning on YouTube Roblox jumping into ads in effort to diversify beyond virtual goods SPACS & Aging Unicorns London Looks to Un-Meme the SPAC Market A Sober Look at SPACs College Chaos Malignant by Scott Galloway College Student Transfers Declined By Nearly 300,000 Du...
Sep 16, 2022•59 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Shravan Goli has been the Chief Product Officer and Head of Consumer Revenue at Coursera since 2018. Shravan came to Coursera with over 20 years of experience of building products and leading companies. He has built products at Microsoft and Yahoo, been the CEO of Dictionary.com , and was most recently President of tech job marketplace Dice (part of public company DHI Group Inc). Coursera was launched in 2012 by two Stanford Computer Science professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller...
Sep 12, 2022•47 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Guest: Anjuli Gupta , Head of Academic Partnerships @ Outlier.org MasterClass's Co-Founder Takes on the Community College Degree Outlier.org & Golden Gate University Reinvent Affordable College with Degrees+ Topics This Week: LAUSD Cyberattack Los Angeles Schools Hit with Ransomware Attack FBI joins probe into LAUSD cyberattack Learning Loss & Pandemic Recovery Plunging NAEP scores signal a long and difficult road to recovery 7 charts highlighting the pandemic’s impac...
Sep 09, 2022•48 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Lisa Jiang has a long career at the heights of edtech; she was most recently the head of Remote Learning at Facebook, after 4 years as a senior director of product at New York’s Flatiron School , a leading bootcamp provider and 6 years at Google, where she was a product manager and lead for education for Google Hangouts. Joe Burgess was the first hire at Flatiron School and worked his way up to the VP of Education, where he led the education product and delivery teams across four ...
Sep 06, 2022•46 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Guest: Ish Baid , Founder & CEO @ Virtually Check out Ish’s podcast: Reshaping Education Topics This Week: Duolingo Math Join the waitlist to test their new math app! Takes by Forbes , The Verge , & Fast Company College Enrollment Shifts 2020-21 IPEDS Data: Profile of Mid-Pandemic 12-Month Enrollments As More Stressed-Out Students Consider Dropping Out, Surgeon General Pushes College Leaders to Ramp Up Support Which School Has The Most Expensive College Tuition In 2023? On...
Sep 02, 2022•51 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text T. Nicole Tucker-Smith, founder and CEO of Lessoncast, helps schools implement professional learning initiatives focused on inclusive leadership and teaching practices, culturally responsive pedagogy, and equity best practice. Tucker-Smith was an assistant principal charged with planning professional development (PD) for a turnaround middle school in the Baltimore County Public Schools when she realized that traditional PD methods were not going to lead to transformational results...
Aug 29, 2022•58 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Topics This Week: Student Loan Forgiveness NYT + Inside Higher Ed Valuations ”Stars Through Thunderstorms” Accelerator News Y Combinator cuts startup batch size by 40% amid economic downturn Crunchbase: 2,000 Tech Layoffs in 2022 Higher Ed & K12 Enrollment These Colleges and Universities Are Reporting Record Size Freshmen Classes + UC program seeks to re-enroll adults who stopped out Hopeful but careful: Parents and teachers address new school year Higher ed must build on what...
Aug 26, 2022•46 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Sunil Gunderia is the Chief Innovation Officer at Age of Learning, a leading education technology innovator with a mission to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of learning. He oversees the company’s innovation strategy and has led the development, distribution, and implementation of its research-proven educational programs for students prekindergarten through second grade. Age of Learning has been recognized as one of the m...
Aug 22, 2022•44 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Guests : David Harris , OpenStax at Rice University & Justin Weinberg , Aktiv Learning Topics This Week: Back to School, But Media Narratives Say Education Is in Trouble Teacher Shortage Local School Grades Plummeting HMH report: education is not an appealing field Value of Higher Ed in Question Why Americans are increasingly dubious about going to college Higher Ed Must Change or Die A New Vision for College Excellence The Shrinking of Higher Ed Cardona Speech Feds cancel $4B...
Aug 20, 2022•49 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Gauthier Van Malderen is the co-founder and CEO of the University Digital Library Perlego. Gauthier decided to start Perlego as a Cambridge student after realizing how many people were having problems financing their textbooks. In 2017, he decided to found a subscription service to provide all the textbooks a student would need, in eBook form, at an affordable price. Perlego raised $50 million in March (out of $75M total funding) to expand its business after seeing its platform bo...
Aug 16, 2022•48 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Topics This Week: Fall Election Cycle Va. Gov. Youngkin faces second suit over teacher tip line Democrats Cede ‘Party of Education’ Label to GOP 2022 CHLOE 7 Report Announcement + PDF Online learning leaders think fully in-person will be a rarity Big Tech vs. Udemy Amazon Launches Udemy Competitor Facebook Working on a Udemy Competitor? Metaverse Harvard Metaverse in Education Report Deloitte Metaverse Report AppLovin wants to buy video game maker Unity for $20 billion Funding + M...
Aug 12, 2022•49 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Josh Chernikoff is an educational entrepreneur and small business advisor. For the last 14 years, he has founded and grown two successful educational enrichment programs serving hundreds of thousands of students in 85 schools across six states. He now runs Cascade Communications, an edtech advisory. Josh and his team at Cascade are, above all, content and relationship experts in the educational space, leveraging email communication and live relationship roundtables to engage the e...
Aug 09, 2022•40 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Welcome to Season 2 of This Week in Edtech! Guest: Matthew Tower , Principal @ Workshop Venture Partners Subscribe to Matt’s weekly newsletter @ https://matthewtower.substack.com/ Topics This Week: Byju’s Layoffs , debt , litigation!? Bearish OPMs Phil Hill: ”The brutal spring and summer for OPMs & MOOCs” Zovio sells OPM business to University of Arizona Global Campus 2U Layoffs + tuition share agreements Funding Landscape HolonIQ – Global Edtech Funding 2022 H1 Metaverse Coll...
Aug 05, 2022•55 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Jonathan Finkelstein is the CEO of Credly , one of the leading organizations in the credentialing space for education technology around the world. Credly is a Pearson business. Previously, as founder of LearningTimes, he helped mission-driven organizations produce and launch innovative online programs, products and platforms that impacted the lives of millions of users. He was also a co-founder at HorizonLive, which was acquired by Blackboard, and author of Learning in Real Time ....
Aug 01, 2022•44 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Sophie Ruddock is a former impact investor and consultant with 10+ years experience across the private, public and non-profit sectors. She is one of the founding members of Multiverse, a tech company building an outstanding alternative to college. She spent the last 4 years growing Multiverse’s delivery operations in the U.K, before moving onto leading their expansion to NYC as GM North America. Recommended Resources The Job , a weekly newsletter by Paul Fain...
Jul 25, 2022•43 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 
